Farahdeen Khan

Ritesh M D'sa - Be back soon!

2011-07-22T16:48:00.002+05:30

For Ritz

Gone - flitted away,

Taken the stars from the night and the sun

From the day!

Gone, and a cloud in my heart.

Love you immeasurably, immensely and infinitely my bro. Have a great time in Napier and after a year please be back. I don't think all of us will be able to survive without you any longer than that.

Akshay Oberoi

2011-01-18T17:53:00.005+05:30

When you observe today’s youth with the, “What’s up?” and “Dude!” culture you wonder whether they would by any chance have remnants of the manners that we were raised with, where to utter a thank you or a sorry was a way of life and not considered anything out of the ordinary, or, to get up from the chair when a woman entered a room and left the room was a custom, which most of the youth of today find rather old-fashioned and amusing. Just when you think there is no scope for transformation in a civilization so occupied with its own self, you, by mere accident, come across someone who is very much part of the, “What’s up, dude?” ethos and yet maintains a distinct thoroughbred approach to life. Most recently, I was admiring what Martin Luther King Jr. had done to mankind and while seeking inspiration and direction from the life of someone older I had failed to realise that I did not have to look that far because inspiration and direction was only at an arms distance from me in form of the kids around me who I had taken for granted but discovered are great beyond words would ever express. That is when I started to look a lot more carefully at Akshay and discovered that his humility was matchless. He was an epitome of polish and his attention to make sure that he conveyed what he had to and yet not ever crossed the thin line of respect regardless of not only being younger but more like friends is something that I truly admired in him. In time, I made out how the heart of people would swell with joy upon the mention of his name and how my mind would be filled with reverence when I saw the love people had for him because I knew he was someone who would give them, who loved him, much more than they could imagine – that was his nature. At the same time too I could not but think that the tenderness and kindness I see in him, as some would perceive them today, are not signs of his weakness and despair but clear manifestations of his strength and resolution and this is something that is so easily a second skin to describe Akshay to those who do not really know him.

To go a little back in time, I would like to throw light on something when Akshay’s motion picture appeared on the silver screens. Despite the fact that it filled me up with delight so see that he had grown up into this admirable young man filled with candour and depth I sent him a text one evening when he was at a popular awards function that read thus –

“Bro, I can’t wait for the day I see you receive your first award. To say the least as such I am proud of who you have made of yourself but I will certainly be even prouder on that particular day since the world would then look up to you as it ought to with great pride. Let us see that day soon, my Kidd. Soon!!!”

And the response I obtained was this -

“My, bro, this is one of the nicest messages I have ever received. Will work my ass off to fulfil what I came here for. I hope I make you proud, in the years to come. Thanks for the encouragement.”

That’s when I figured that what a marvellous blend of both worlds these kids of today have amassed, and it would be very unjust if I didn’t conclude with the feeling that indeed it is so very true that our outward nature is nothing but a reflection of who we are inside and what a better way to see that in none other than Akshay.

I know you will make a great deal of difference to not only the people around you but to the world at large and as ever, I am PROUD OF YOU, Akshay!

Back to school.

2011-01-04T16:18:00.003+05:30

Rahul, Ritesh and I were sitting at a tiny but tasteful café in one of the by-lanes of Cunningham Road. As they were choosing what to order, I rang my mate Akshay whose feature film had recently hit the theatres. After I was done talking with Akshay, I joined the two boys at the table and looked at this white quarter plate on which was sitting a delicious chocolate brownie before Rahul and a petite tart with gooey chocolate before Ritesh. As mouth-watering as it appeared, I ordered for myself a Café au lait. The moment the waiter had left our table; Ritesh pushed his plate in front of me and asked me to get a bite of the tart. I hesitated for a second and in order to avoid getting a lecture, I broke off a wee bit of the tart and declared that it was yummy indeed. The moment those words had escaped my larynx I saw Ritesh break into a bout of laugher.

The following day Ritesh and I were doing endurance training and to irritate him a little I told him that I was feeling a bit weird and expressed the desire to get myself a sachet of an oral rehydration salt to mix in my bottle of water. He stared at me squarely and asked me sternly, “Why do you think you need that, hunh?”

“I-I like its sweet taste,” I said smiling.

“No, you don’t,” he uttered firmly.

I figured that he wasn’t joking and bestowed upon him an enquiring gaze.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said seriously and in a quick movement came forward and seized my ear and twisted it harshly, as he continued, “the next time when I tell you to eat something I want you to eat it. I want you otherwise too to eat properly and eat whatever you want in limited quantity. Trust me it will not affect your body adversely because you workout daily.”

When he let go of my ear, I could still feel the sting and stood rubbing it as he asked, “Am I clear?”

I nodded and went on with my endurance training feeling this nice feeling because I had never had anyone twist my ear and treat me like that before – it was as if I were back at school.

Isi Life Mein

2011-01-01T20:05:00.007+05:30

Jack Palance: “Do you know what the secret of life is? One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.”

Billy Crystal: “Yeah, but what’s that one thing?”

Jack Palance: “That’s what you’ve got to figure out.”

~ From the movie City Slickers

The above so fittingly illustrates the premise of the motion picture Isi Life Mein. To elaborate on it a bit more, I would have to furnish you a quick preview into the present circumstances surrounding the picture. For starters, it is so true that in fiction one discovers the truth that more often than not reality obscures. And to follow that up, I am but appalled at the disinterest of the press to have dealt harshly with a sensitive film that deals with several complex issues and that too at a calm and collected but most definitely effective pace. This is where I feel what a weird lot the media is indeed – they embrace rubbish packaged smartly by those who know how to hoodwink people and willingly aid in filling up their coffers while when something worthy comes along they knock it down throwing the public off course.

I don’t care about what others think of it and I also don’t care about what they think of me, but on the whole I quite enjoyed the movie. Certainly, it’s not earth shattering but it’s not a disappointment either. To begin with I wouldn’t oppose the fact that the first half of the film, despite the usage of certain imperative elements that appealed to me such as mention of Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew) upon which the play in the movie is based. The mention of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand was also welcoming considering that youngsters of that age are rather infatuated by the characters in that book. Yet despite all that there was still something vague, weak and loud about the first half. The bunch of boys and girls as Akshay’s friends were tolerable but their issues were sketchy. It is as if they were put there without any reason, especially the matter concerning the slightly overweight chap. Just because somebody thinks of us in a certain way must not make us alter ourselves unless we want to transform from within. Besides, I was not sure what the French-speaking character was put in for since she made no contribution to the film and was utterly annoying. That said the scenes lacked memorable humour as they moved on. The writer should have put in a little more effort since the highlight was the youth. If not anything it would have given her a wide platform to tap into the humorous side and the given the audience some moments to relish. I seriously felt that Akshay as Vivaan had been made to appear a bit too over-enthusiastic – so very unlike his character, unless it had been done deliberately to show how the lad so full of life could express more without the support of words post intermission. Sandeepa Dhar as Rajnandani aka RJ is boring in the first half though she gets a chance to exhibit her onscreen proficiency more evidently in the second and this is where I felt that the second half of the film was actually far deeper than the former.

It would be unfair if I didn’t admit that the double standards we see so rampant in the society, the oppression the women face in the hands of a patriarchal system at home and the misconception that the urban people are hardly as sensitive as the rural folk depicted is laudable. The paradox of how some of us lay blame on the western culture in spoiling us has been beautifully symbolised by the splendid behaviour of some of the characters. I feel no matter how modern in our approach we might become, we are yet very much Indian at heart and you cannot take away our traditions and manners from us irrespective of our outer garb. It’s a marvellous movie about giving shape to your ideas. About working hard to make them a reality. Of not succumbing to peer pressure but making them seeing your point of view backed by substantial proof. Several pertinent and prevailing subjects have been embarked upon and tackled sensitively without making them appear like ‘in your face messages’. For instance the character of RJ’s mother is short, pivotal and very well-defined. I liked the precise manner in which her dialogues have been penned. Her tone is firm without being imposing and how instrumental she is in bringing around her husband without the assistance of cliché or histrionics is noteworthy. Hailing from an intrinsic traditional background the decision of RJ’s father to put the wedding off is a first step to progress cinematically at least. If it changes even a single person, then I think the work of the film is done, not forgetting that it is a welcome break indeed from the melodrama we are so used to watching on screen. I say this because one can take something simple and make a melodrama out of it and then like life, which is but simple, move us with its simplicity, which is what Isi Life Mein does without a murmur. I cherished the scenes where RJ is probing whether Akshay and his former girlfriend had made love. How Akshay deals with the situation was handled competently. The other adorable scenes are how RJ makes her friend wash her mouth for swearing absurdities at a drop of a hat. The scene where Akshay attempts to show RJ the silver lining about pursuing her career as a choreographer but seeks clarity himself is also something I quite appreciated. We’ve all been there before, haven’t we? Where we are the rock for those who mean the world to us and yet depend on them to guide us.

I am sure that some people would think Akshay’s character is a loser to stand and watch the woman he loves being married away before him and does not even bat an eyelid to express his bleeding heart. While each one is entitled to individual opinions, I think him a true hero. You don’t go about seizing what you think is yours against the displeasure of the family. I found his character respectable, who after knowing that the woman he loved was agreeable for the wedding and stayed with the decisions her family had taken, stuck to himself rather than creating a ruckus which is customarily shown for shock value in movies but is hardly so in real life. He knows that selfishness and defiance only leads to destruction and that love is not about snatching what you want but that its essence lies in seeing the one you love happy. Owing to his age in the film I thought that it was a very smart but subtle reflection of human nature. Cheers to the writer and director for taking that stand rather than trivialising it.

To preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities, is as great a miracle as to create him and that’s exactly what I feel of Akshay Oberoi. He has the aptitude to play this charming chap with immense flair and yet you can see that regardless of his Casanova like manner, he is someone who can stir you with a mature performance as well. What is much needed to survive in the industry is ability and stability and on both those grounds I found Akshay efficient and alluring. He puts his facial vocabulary to correct use and it doesn’t take any rocket science to figure that in time he will be a star that will shine in the streetlights of eternity if he keeps his head on his shoulders. Another reason I most admire him for is that unlike the many influential youth of today with firm film backgrounds he could have chosen something really fancy for his debut film and yet he selected to do Isi Life Mein, a simple and sweet movie and we must give him his due for this decision.

Sandeepa Dhar is not great, but an actor you can watch in the role that has been essayed out for her. I felt she is a bit too conscious and tends to add this element of exaggeration to some of the scenes. Looking at it realistically one knows that she is not going to be a Kareena or Katrina but going forward I thought her conventional looks might land her some befitting roles and also result in slightly limiting in the range of roles offered to her. Then again one cannot simply underestimate the audience today and they might simply lap her up much against my opinion on her.

Music by Meet Bros is average although the song Isi Umar Mein by Mohit Chauhan is ridiculously infectious and stayed with me.

What Isi Life Mein has taught me is that living a life is merely not enough and that one must have freedom, sunshine and a little flower to keep us going. What a pity that the bad reviews have robbed the masses of time well spent in the company of people who while having fun themselves also end up teaching you a valuable thing or two about survival. So much for the pathetic press who knows not how to discern between processed garbage and real substance. And I want to tell the public that when we cannot support those whom we really ought to be supporting then why should we pay money to see bad films when we can stay home and see bad television for nothing instead?

PS: After all that, what actually went wrong with the film some would ask? Honestly, a sloppy first half that appeared as if it had been written in a hurry. And an overall poor packaging as well. A tad bit of care could have added that missing zing to the entire film I suppose. Isi Life Mein is a classic case of when most unfortunately bad things happen to good people. However, there is no limiting true talent and once the moonlight lifts, the sun shall soon shine.

Band Baaja Baaraat

2010-12-27T17:42:00.009+05:30

I was thinking that life is super and yet sometimes stupid, directionless unfolding of events where what we say is forgotten sooner than it is said and yet in the clowning around of the he-said-she-said aspect of it, we often end up creating poetry, and if not given much emphasis and by letting it sink into us long enough, this poetry will soon become a natural way of life. This is a feeling that I would translate rather directly when it comes to films. Stupid or not, poetry or not, life or not, films speak the most unanimously understood language and we breathe, chew and savour them and when ingested and digested well, they infuse in us trends, optimum health and a definite feel-good factor.

I cannot last remember when I had watched a film by Yash Raj Films and I say so not because I had any problem with their banner, but more because I was disheartened by the way the new blood was ruining the history, by virtue of weak business decisions, that had been built brick by brick by Yash uncle and his entourage. When most of their over-hyped mega star projects turned turkey there emerged a Chak De - a movie I didn’t watch but showed signs of a winner not because of the presence of Shahrukh but because, as reported, clearly the content was king. When Fanaa was being made and considering that Ravi K Chandran is a dear friend and had shot Fanaa with Aamir, whose family and my association goes a long way, it still didn’t entice me to watch it because I felt that it lacked the punch. Then YRF rolled out Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and besides the fact that Ravi was the cinematographer of this one too and it was the launch of Anushka Sharma who being from my city Bangalore had modelled for some of my close fashion designer buddies, yet both the reasons weren’t motivating enough to for me to watch the film due to its weak quality that was evident in the scenes that were being aired at that time on television. Time passed swiftly as it always does and sitting listlessly one evening last week I decided to pay the cinema a visit. In the Internet listing of the pictures that were currently showing, I found the poster of Band Baaja Baaraat appealing and even though I hadn’t seen a preview or read anything significant about it, I still decided to watch that film.

With no anticipation really other than being drawn by the poster of the film, I took my seat and soon after the introductory credits faded away and I first set my eyes on Ranveer Singh I knew that this is a film I was going to watch from the beginning to the end because Ranveer had the ability of filling you up with euphoria rather plainly by his impactful yet understated demeanour. His energy, innocence and dignity were something that you realised you hadn’t seen in ages on screen. As the movie unfolded, I was sold by this lad’s flair to portray his character to near perfection. I felt that he would go a long way in his career if he only refrained from biting into the tempting dust of wanting to get on the top quickly by signing films with recognised directors who more often than not made rubbish and defended their rubbish as well. I also felt that if he continued to maintain his focus and stayed with screenplays that would push him to polish his already intact skills then there was no way he would falter, dent a bit maybe on a wrong decision, but not falter.

The following day the news daily reported that Ranveer had been thanking the filmmakers for having taken the risk of launching him considering that he was a newcomer. For this I would add that its his luck that he was in the right place at the right time because no one else at this point in the industry, barring a Shahid Kapur, could have done justice to the role that had been etched out for him. And I honestly feel that it's not Ranveer who has to thank YRF but they ought to thank him because his effectiveness has put YRF back on track.

Anushka Sharma as I declared earlier, I have a soft corner for since her debut film was with my friend Ravi K Chandran. That I haven’t seen any other films of hers I think that Band Baaja Baaraat has proved that she is someone with substance when used correctly. No doubt that she has great screen presence. Her plus point is that she doesn't overact because I think she is well aware that her natural self is immense talent all on it’s own. Will be watching you Anushka from now on and do hope you only get what you’ve envisioned for yourself because you definitely deliver what’s required of you and deserve much more.

As the director, Maneesh Sharma is skilled. The screenplay by Habib Faisal is efficient and takes you where it is intended to take you. It teaches you a lesson or two not only of love but also of team spirit. It is indeed so true that one can work wonders when in the company of those whose souls connect.

The vigour in the tunes is catchy and contagious. Given that the songs are situational, they blend rather well with the screenplay. Thank you Maneesh for avoiding the unreal dream sequences shot in exotic locales that YRF is so known to add in most of their films.

The ego hassles that result post the dissolving of the partnership between Ranveer and Anushka was slightly overdone. Agreed when the harmony between two people is disturbed, they react trivially; reactions don’t have to be logical, but disrespecting what they have built with great interpersonal effort and behaving like spoilt children when they've been behaving like adorable adults exceeded the realms of workable behaviour for me. That said, I still maintain that there is a definite freshness to the entire approach of the film with the premise being very promising, even though it appears largely like the team has obtained inspiration from The Wedding Planner. Barring certain situations and the usage of time-tested clichés, the movie still managed to beguile me with the delicacy with which it had been handled.

I adored the way the team hasn’t stepped back from making a statement about how big stars throng weddings for a price and steal the show. The manner in which the scenes where Ranveer convinces the bride that ‘her’ Shahrukh Khan is none other than her own ‘husband’ to be is commendable. Quite seriously one doesn’t need a Shahrukh Khan to add glory to any event - we are all Shahrukh Khan’s in our own right if we believe in ourselves and believe more so in the people we love and who love us.

The other nuances I found refreshing in the film were how this girl doesn’t regret getting physical with the man she wants. Particularly the immediate feelings that they go through are very well depicted. The intricacies of how the subconscious mind seeps so unknowingly into our conscious (tu and tum) and how these days women are so very acceptable with getting physical is also something that has been shown eloquently and the confusion the situation throws up is praiseworthy. Another thing I have observed lately is that nearly all male leads on screen want to have this waxed look that leaves them no different from their female counterparts but Ranveer, despite having a near perfect body, has preserved his natural look. I think that men must look and feel like men and women must look and feel like women and we owe Ranveer another plus point here.

Conclusively, I trust Adi or any other powers-that-be don’t allow the triumph of this movie impede their imagination and end up choosing roles for the cast in their future films that could put their onscreen lives in jeopardy. By producing this screenplay YRF have proved that they have learned from their mistakes and are on the road to recovery. Adi is someone who gave my friend Jimmy a marvellous platform in the film Mohabbatein and I would only wish him the best because now he has given us Ranveer, a much-needed break in a film world that’s crumbling with known surnames who know not how to act and who yield no productive results and are yet given a million opportunities. I’m glad he has realised that this is a movie with all the right ingredients and the proof of the pudding has very well been proved and in case he seems to have any doubts about what he’d like to pick in the future, I’d only say don’t look too far, Adi - knock on Yash Uncles door and trust me there’s very little scope that with his wisdom you will ever go wrong.

For Kidz. For Chotz. And for the rest.

2010-10-17T03:31:00.002+05:30

For my Kidz, Rahul Narayan Shetty

Who has taught me that deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public, yet we must stand up for what we believe in!

For my Chotz, Rahul Karnani

Who has taught me that we ought never to forget that all theory is but grey and yet the golden tree of life springs ever green!

For the rest of the people who help make me who I am

As William Shakespeare aptly said, I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks!

Quit smoking.

2010-10-08T00:53:00.002+05:30

One doesn’t need electronic cigarettes, nicotine patches, to sign up at the local Nicotine Anonymous or whatever the rest of the fancy sounding jazz that might be in the market to help you kick the habit. Similarly, one can surely make do without the meaningless emotional blackmail or get stirred by the dumb images on the packs depicting the horrors of smoking, a feat which they hardly achieve. However, what one quite honestly needs is someone they love, not someone they think they love, but someone they really love, to ask them to stop lighting up. When that happens, you’ll never find your hand reaching out for a cigarette ever again.

Mild brush with joy.

2010-09-02T23:42:00.003+05:30

I woke up at 11.30AM and was slightly annoyed with myself for having slept this long into the day but since it was a holiday I knew I could give myself some room for taking it easy. By 1.30PM I was on my way to the gym. I did my warm-up and began my Back and Biceps workout with my buddy Ritesh. Strangely, I found my body ridiculously unresponsive to the very first variation of my Back workout. Trying hard to push and failing at it miserably, I managed to complete my workout purely by the craft Ritesh used in making sure that I didn’t give up.

Back home I felt listless and lounged about with a book of poetry by Rimbaud. If anything, his words added onto the misery of the already lazy day. I shut the book, called Rahul and set out to get a bite at UB City. We saw that City Bar was already packed with people and Shiro wouldn’t have opened its doors yet, so we landed up at Subway. The chap there greeted us with a warm smile and enquired how I was doing. I asked him if there was something else other than the usual Chicken Seekh that I normally ate.

“Why don’t you try the Chicken Tikka and Roasted Chicken combo,” he said in his typical ‘I have to sell this’ tone.

I thought for a while and glimpsed at Rahul who didn’t seem too elated, “I think the Roasted Chicken smells,” I said with a wrinkled nose when I heard someone laughing. I looked to my left and saw a young girl who would have been around nineteen or twenty years. “That was too funny,” she said with a sprightly smile, her scintillating aura something one could not afford to miss.

“What was?” I asked, noticing that she was wearing a lovely baby pink tee on blue faded denim jeans. Her right hand was twinkling with an assortment of bracelets. Her hair was well groomed and her skin was clear and brilliant.

“The part of the Roasted Chicken smelling.”

I smiled, “My health-conscious buddies tell me I ought to keep myself limited only to the roasted chicken and not the stuff that’s deep fried. I tried it last time and it had this weird smell.”

“Really,” she said making a face similar to my own expressions.

I nodded.

“Oh please add some more of the mayo,” she said as her eyes moved to the Sub that was in the process of being made for her.

“After that kindly make me two Subs of Chicken Tikka,” I told the chap as Rahul received a call and stepped aside. I did not make an attempt to glance at her although she was standing a couple of steps away from me. With silence at the counter, I watched the chap fill her bread with the vegetables when she said, “I think you must try Chicken Teriyaki. That’s one of my favourites.”

“Thank you,” I said as I requested the chap to change my order from Tikka to Teriyaki. Her Sub done, she picked her tray up and left quietly, giving me a slight bob of her head.

Once Rahul and I had finished our Subs, I excused myself to wash my sticky hands when I spotted her at a table on my way out. She looked at me with her bright eyes and I halted just a moment, “Thank you, I liked it too,” I said.

“You’re sweet,” she said and I pretended I didn’t hear that and added, “Oh yes, the sauce was also a bit sour.”

She laughed, “Are you on Facebook?”

I nodded.

“How silly of me, I don’t even know your name.”

I gave her my name and was about to leave for the restroom when I heard her ask me whether I didn’t want to know her name. I turned to her, “I’ll know when you add me,” I said and walked away to the washroom.

First They Came - Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

2010-08-18T00:43:00.000+05:30

First they came for the socialists,

and I didn't speak up,

because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up,

because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up,

because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left

to speak up for me.

Inception

2010-08-11T22:08:00.000+05:30

Nearly everyone I knew kept asking me whether I had seen Inception. Initially I assumed it was only a fad that would soon fade but when the hysteria only seemed to escalate around me, I finally succumbed to the temptation and, dear god, I ought to admit what a disappointment it was, since the intention of such cinema was to provide a vast, perpetually replenishing reservoir of raw material for the fantasies of millions of people, at which it had failed miserably.

The over-determined affiliation between cinema and dreams has been to borrow heavily from psychoanalysis. Right from its flickering around the time Sigmund Freud was working on his Interpretation Of Dreams, cinema was making its own way by trying to replicate the uncanny, image-making power of the mind since Freud believed that dreams were compounded out of the primal matter of the unconscious and the prosaic events of daily life. If he were alive now, he would have sadly laughed at how some are attempting to insult his work with such silly visual representations. I concur that there is plenty to watch in the film, but honestly there is nothing at all in the two and a half hours running time that counts as genuine vision. We get to know that the director’s mind is too literal and too logical to the full measure of the madness to let itself manifest in the characters. Instead of dealing with real confusion the director deals with an idea of ineffable ambiguity, which the subject he has chosen to treat most aptly warrants, but at which he fails, once again to deliver.

The film doesn’t come even close to matching the allusions and impact he has tried to create by weaving in a primal nightmare, which is more like a diverting reverie. Inception trades in crafty puzzles at times, but there are no profound mysteries to be found in them, and the gestures in the direction of mighty philosophical questions that he is trying to answer are finally too tactful, too timid or perhaps Christopher Nolan was simply too busy to engage in working on them a little more. The cities that fold into themselves, the chases that defy the laws that usually rule space and time along with the pursuit of competitive advantage by well-dressed, unemotional chaps is hardly the stuff that dreams are made of, not forgetting the beautiful virtuosity as a conjurer of brilliant scenes and stunning sets, along with his ability to invest grandeur and novelty into conventional themes that have fostered the illusion that he is some kind of visionary which is acceptable perhaps by the commercial cinema audience, but hardly any fodder for the intellectually hungry.

From here, I think, we need to shift focus, just for a moment, into another intrinsic part of human existence – reading. I remember when we were growing up, most of us feasted on material from Goethe to Jung, and by the time adolescence had knocked at the doors of our life we had been familiar with most of the theories that had shaped the minds before us and in a way we were somewhat in tune with what was anticipated in the nearest future based on the events of the day. Unfortunately, today’s technology dependent society is so very embalmed within its own constraints that reading is much of a luxury than a necessity to them and that’s were, with no offence to anyone, I was able to divide the people I knew into parts, A and B based on their summation of the film. The people who fell under part A knew that what they had seen was nothing earth shattering but a rather shallow attempt at the unconscious, as Sigmund Freud knew it, which was a supremely unruly place, a real maze of inadmissible desires, scrambled secrets, jokes and fears that surely Christopher Nolan cannot reach since he has limited access to it plainly because he has blocked his mind by the very medium he attempts to deploy with such unsuccessful skill. Then there are the people who fall under the category B who had no idea what had hit them when they saw it for the first time and expressed a desire to watch it a second time to decipher it. I think these are the people who need to, to begin with, keep aside their laptops and smart phones and pick up a book or two, not for me, or for that matter for the visionaries who worked hard to leave us what they did, but merely to save themselves the embarrassment of not having to make a fool of themselves before the people they know. They need urgently to focus at matters that are imperative to their inner and outer growth that they might have completely ignored or even discarded. If only they spared a moment and took time to read something substantial would they realise that Christopher Nolan has not done them a great favour with Inception. On the contrary, he has, in a funny way, shown us whom amidst us are intelligent, and who are not, not entirely by virtue of our cognitive intelligence but merely by the enormity of the knowledge we possess.

To sum it up, I think the answers to this supposed puzzle for those who still think it is a puzzle are very much evident in the film if you only know where to look for them. It sure isn’t a Rolls Royce in a Chevy’s body but quite the vice versa, and if after seeing it again, you still think that you haven’t got it, then you either need to get yourself a new set of spectacles or better yet inject your mind with an innovative inception.

Endurance training with Ritesh D'sa.

2010-08-07T23:12:00.000+05:30

Today was my first day of endurance training with my buddy and fitness consultant Ritesh. I'm in the process of writing what we did and how I felt while doing it. Will add to this post asap.

Beauty

2010-07-25T03:06:00.001+05:30

Sometime ago a friend asked me why I am loyal only to certain brands of clothes. Why I spend a huge amount on a particular make of cutlery or china and I didn’t know what else to say other than that its not the old world charm that drew me to it or for that matter snobbery that indulges me, as some perceive, but that I felt that modernity has robbed us of viewing and appreciating beauty. Beauty, it seems, has gone out of our lives. Hardly anyone even uses the word beauty today. It’s as if it has become archaic. In earlier times, art was what you were used to using on a day-to-day basis. It wasn’t something to be found on walls or in museums but in the articles you used daily. There was craftsmanship and skill that went into producing a work of beauty and being surrounded by such beauty added beauty to us inwardly and otherwise.

I understand that modernity has made it next to impossible to go back to making items of admiration to be used in daily life and that is why I think we require to educate a child of good design right from the beginning just as we teach a child the letters of the alphabet and manners. We ought to inculcate a natural appetite for things of good design and this appetite must manifest itself in a persons habits and fashions as a normal state of health. We have to bring in a kind of reform and reformation is a difficult process. It doesn’t happen easily. Majority of people are happy with mediocrity and would not volunteer to reform themselves by breaking down old habits and adapting to new conditions because all this involves conscious effort.

With the intellectual learning we obtain while growing up in school we ought to throw in an extra hour of some activity related to art. I remember in my school Baldwin Boys we had an hour of extra curricular activities every weekend where we were taught painting, pottery or to do something creative. For example, they threw in competitions to make calendar designs and award the best design with a suitable reward. That in a way aided in developing the creative and appreciative exercise of the aesthetic impulse in us and this one simple hour of artistic extension gave us the edge in winning over the ugliness that the industrial age has created. Also, I have to add that the aesthetic development wasn’t limited to the education at school alone, because at home too, I would see my parents surround us with beauty.

I don’t think one has to buy china by Johnson Brothers, stemware made in Sweden and furniture from Finland or for that matter a painting from Denmark, sculptures from France or the finest suits from Italy. One doesn’t have to go to the opera or watch the theatre, but what one has to do is surround themselves by art in their objects of daily use. Some would now complain that what were once items of daily use are now objects of desire. Indeed, procuring articles of desire in an age of ugliness has become expensive no doubt but one also has to work towards increasing the earning than burying themselves under the rubble of excuses. One has to also realise that one cannot impose aesthetics and culture from the top; it has to get into our bloodstream. It should grow out of the soil around us. It must become an inevitable state of mind born out of the elementary state of life, an intrinsic part of natural human growth.

In the end, I think beauty is something that appeals directly to the senses. Art becomes possible only when the concern of the workmen is that they are not told to make something beautiful but do so because they don’t know any worse.

Ritesh M D'sa

2010-07-20T14:27:00.002+05:30

Please don't be fooled by this man's innocent looks; he is remotely so, in fact he is no less fierce than the beasts in the left half of the picture - he is all of them, and, perhaps several more of them packed into him. I say this only because he killed me at my first personal training session with him today. But then again, Ritesh is the kindest friend you tend to find only once in a way and definitely the most genuine person you come across only one in a million.

Although the training session with him was punishing, I appreciate how he used his athletic skills to the utmost in making sure he accessed me rightly in order to chart out a definitive route in the weeks to come. Also, I cannot deny that at some point, and rather strangely, since I do not react this strongly to my gym regimen, began to feel my lips go dry and my head go woozy. Like a gentleman, who only needs a hint and not words to express anguish, he had me sit down immediately and disappeared behind the staff room door only to emerge with a banana that he made me eat. Once I had recovered from the sudden rush of blood flow to my head he informed me that it was not weakness or my inability to workout that lead to me feeling dizzy, but the real culprit was lack of sleep. He was clearly unhappy with my 3-4 hours of sleep daily and admonished me with such kindness that like a motor needs to be turned off to function better, or for that matter the radiator of the car warrants rest, else it begins to smoke up, a body too needs adequate rest in order to function harmoniously.

Ritesh – thank you bro for making all the difference. I will surely give you what you want for all the effort you would be investing in me, not because it's what you do best, but because you are an amazing human being and one of the best buddies one can only dream to have.

Suicide

2010-07-18T00:33:00.000+05:30

I am not for suicide but if you yet want to go that route, please do by all means. But in so doing don’t accuse anybody else for your own inability to cope with your demons.

Art.

2010-06-29T18:11:00.000+05:30

Be it the art of healing or the art of painting. The art of industry or the art of cooking, nothing compares to the art of procreation––for it is perhaps the only art, which is literally creative: the rest being merely inventive.

Advertising Tips from 2927 Communications

2010-06-28T01:53:00.002+05:30

I think we ought to kill the ‘tags’ given by agencies from time immemorial such as ‘creative’ – ‘art’ et cetera and let people grow. The idea quite simply is to give scope to grow exponentially without any barriers or cliché

Barring the marketing team, we've clearly eliminated the ‘suit culture’. We let the staff dress in whatever they find themselves comfortable in

We constantly challenge everybody at the office to come up with ideas

We hardly ever thrash any feedback. Remember that the most effective copy, ideas, images originate in times when you’re least thinking about it/them

We consciously involve our clients in the creative process right from the draft stage to the rough sketches and bounce off hopeful solutions too because an integrated ideation process works wonders for all the disciplines and people involved

There are no old-fashioned cubicles at our office, instead we use the open-plan design where the staff is given the liberty to plonk wherever they deem fit to do so

We are always on a lookout for young blood to fill up the senior positions. The younger, creative generation has the ability to understand new trends and has an instinctive grasp of the popular culture

We usually try putting ourselves in the shoes of the consumer. It’s the fail-safe way of widening our perspective and what’s more, it bridges their gap too

We more often than not come up with ‘identifiable creative initiatives’ rather than ‘in your face’ or over-branded campaigns

We NEVER exaggerate because the clients who mean business do not have time for theatrics. The most vital secret to effective advertising lies in telling the truth. Nothing works wonders than the simple truth

On Love by Julian Quintaes

2010-06-26T22:37:00.000+05:30

You can’t erase love, there’s nothing that will remove it...

Love stains your soul and consumes your thoughts.

And when you least expect it...

It vanishes!

- Julian Quintaes

Lord of War

2010-06-13T12:02:00.000+05:30

I watched Lord of War last night and loved every frame of it. Violence is sometimes shown as so inherently cinematic, but we all know that violence is also a very basic human feeling. Despite all the spurting blood and carpets of bullet casings in the film, what I adored most was the part where Cage admits to Hawke that his wife and son have left him, his parents have disowned him and his brother is dead because of him and yet he has no remorse and gets back to doing what he does best, selling arms, because he knows that's where he belongs. We ought to understand that violence is everywhere. It's between a parent and a child. Between the husband and the wife. It doesn't have to be only physical. Only the meek suppress it, the bold take it a step further. Agreed it is evil but at some point or the other, everybody ought to give in to it. To some those words might appear jarring, they would most certainly repel such thoughts and notions, and those reactions I reckon might stem from their inability to access their innermost nature (clouded with feelings of love and care) because if looked at from a practical viewpoint what Cage's character plays is human nature personified to its barest best.

Buy Haiti. Help Haiti.

2010-05-28T02:49:00.000+05:30

If you want to help the people who are recovering from the devastating quake in Haiti there is one thing you can do - buy products made in Haiti just as Mesh Gelman, an entrepreneur in a Port-au-Prince factory believes that commerce, not charity, is the most sustainable way to fight poverty.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

2010-05-28T02:37:00.000+05:30

The Indian advertising industry these days seems to be getting it wrong especially when it comes to some actor endorsements that simply don’t ‘fit in’ for their campaigns according to me. Presently, there is a television spot showing John Abraham talking about one of their many products. Undeniably, his body is more widely discussed than his brains, but one look at him when he isn’t showing skin and one would see that his inner noble nature which is so lucidly reflected in his actions lends a far more profound character to his personality than his mere six packs. And even if his six packs have been over-exposed there is still a lesson in that to be learnt – that a fitter mind and body leads to a fit and thriving life. However, I am unable to comprehend how the same brand has selected a female actor who oozes saccharine but lacks grace and poise to promote their product for the female audience. I am sure these chaps had their reasons. Somehow, these days, everyone has reasons for whatever they do.

Tai Chi

2010-05-25T00:34:00.000+05:30

Did a class of it on Saturday and LOVED it. Neelanjana, or otherwise known as Neel, was my guru and she is simply marvellous. She takes you through the process with such warmth and ease that it is surely a delight. Try it guys, you'll love the movement, the balance and above all the peace.

Julian and Farahdeen

2010-05-24T01:27:00.000+05:30

I am not someone who would post something private unless I want to and this is something that transpired between my buddy Julian and me couple of days ago and I thought it was worthy of a pasting here. Here is the conversation as it happened on chat -

Friday 21st May 2010

23:49 Me: Juliano! There bro?
23:50 Julian: Hello bro. Howz things?
23:51 Me: Undulating bro. For the first time when life is rather calm, I find myself at sea.
23:52 Julian: ?
23:53 Me: It seems like I have lost focus. Like I'm stuck in this abyss.
23:59 Julian: Who is there to blame in the absence of yourself?
00:00 Me: I need to find myself bro. I have to!
00:01 Julian: You will, it's there, inside you. Just let the monster inside you come on out and play.
00:02 Me: Its more like I tease the scars that never felt a wound.

IDLE

00:43 Julian: How can I help?
00:44 Me: The more I try to avoid suffering the more I suffer.
00:45 Julian: To love anything is to suffer my brother.
00:46 Julian: Bro, it may sound like a cliché but all you need lies within. Face the fear and you will create more courage. Be brave.
00:48 Julian: Suck it up, suck the pain. Love it. And leave it.
00:49 Me: Let me be my own psychologist. My own physician.
00:50 Julian: Not without my help though :)
00:51 Me: No doubts about that bro. No doubts ever.

Friendship.

2010-05-22T03:36:00.000+05:30

Friendship too is very much like marriage, only without the sex.

Shameful.

2010-05-06T00:17:00.000+05:30

I am shocked at the recent news about Times Square. Don’t these chaps realise that by planning or committing such heinous acts they are not only destroying the trust that people have in people but also wiping out any semblance of normality for their family for generations to come? Why can’t the Muslim youth of today put their intelligence to constructive development of the mind, the body, of science and the soul than indulging in such shameful deeds?

Café Noir - U B City

2010-05-04T15:49:00.000+05:30

I was not very happy to learn that the new café coming up in place of where the old pâtisserie Ecstasy and Addiction once stood was owned by the same management as the nearby Toscano. I say this because my experiences in Toscano were slightly unpleasant, both in food and service, but since I had heard well of Café Noir I attempted to sample the eatery in spite of my reservations.

Although it is situated in the ever-buzzing food court of UB City, the restaurant manages to clench guests with its casual ambience of a perfectly Parisian outdoor café. No restaurant is greater than the people who make it so and that’s the exact impression you get right from when you set foot inside Café Noir.

The courteous staff greeted me with cordiality while I sat in the patio and glanced through the bread, pastries and fine foods menu. Hitesh Tulsani, the young and smart chap waiting on me recommended a drink that he said would be made specifically for me by the barman. In no time my drink arrived and Hiten requested that I suggest a suitable name for it. Upon becoming aware of the ingredients (please try it out there) I called it Traffic Jam. Back to the restaurant the following weekend with friends, I saw that Traffic Jam was indeed put up on the menu under the ‘Barman Specials’ section. I thanked them for the kind gesture and they offered me another delicious mélange that I christened Angel Wings. I have only praises for the barman Purushotham Reddy and his enjoyable concoctions.

Not only had the staff obtained my loyalty by virtue of their kindness and careful attention, I also soon found the similar warmth in the owner Thierry Jasserand. A bright and polite gentleman, on most days you can see Thierry chatting with guests with utmost interest, and you can distinguish that the nature of his parley does not stem from formality but instead he genuinely enjoys putting everyone at ease while they are at his restaurant. During one of our many conversations I was happy to learn that he refrains from using mass-produced factory produce at the restaurant because he despises the chemicals, additives and preservatives normally found in them and instead has nearly all of their ingredients delivered fresh to the restaurant everyday.

One evening when I saw the tempting French style savoury tarts I asked Thierry whether they made anything in particular for health-conscious people like me. He smiled widely and told me that in French cuisine there was no ‘in-between’ so either you had the sugar, mayo and cream, or you just didn’t. I succumbed to his words and indulged in a delectable chocolate pastry and a lip-smacking salad with pasta drizzled with pesto sauce, chicken and some crunchy fresh onion, red and green capsicum and lettuce leaves. Noticing me enjoying the salad, he informed me with a twinkle in his eyes that they were soon planning to add a typical French dinner menu with red, rosé and white wines that ought to make the place perfect to linger over a simple but traditional satisfying meal.

My bill surprised me; I found it incredibly reasonable for the al fresco location and the ‘French art de vivre’ that the restaurant represents and it truly sticks to the motto of being able to pamper yourself by the affordable price-points that is sheer luxury even if visited on a regular basis too.

Café Noir is a place not to be missed not only for many reasons: the inspiring interiors, the fantastic food that makes it an immense success and the simplicity in which they offer the guests a little affordable luxury to indulge in every day. But most importantly, it is the souls behind it that make this place so very marvellous and there is no doubt that once you set foot in here you will discover one of the most satisfying dining experiences.

My Apple iPhone 32 GB 3GS

2010-04-27T23:19:00.000+05:30

I love it more than I love my, you know...

(Hold it there, guys! I only meant my Sony Ericsson).

The Station Agent

2010-04-25T00:27:00.000+05:30

What can I say, this is a movie all of us have to ingest and digest with utmost care. It is so very much close to life that if you haven't seen the film, then you quite haven't seen life.

I loved The Visitor by Thomas McCarthy as much as I have loved The Station Agent and now I am eagerly waiting to see Pixar's Up because Thomas is the screenwriter of Up. Whether it was his acting in Saint Maybe that left an unmistakable impression on all of us, or whether its his films that make us rethink our perspective on life, yet subtly, this is a man who has been providing us rather steadily with such marvellous cinema that there is nothing else really we can do other than bow and thank him for it.

Thomas McCarthy, thank you for your brilliance, and Thomas McCarthy, keep them coming!

The Green Zone

2010-04-25T00:17:00.000+05:30

From the opening first shot, the action thriller The Green Zone, is utter chaos, but upon looking closely you figure that surely there is a sense of immense clarity to the chaos. The less said the better about the film because you have to see it to know what you are seeing, and if you have seen it, and not seen it, then you haven't seen anything.

Cheers to the writer Brian Helgeland, director Paul Greengrass, actor Matt Damon and everyone else involved on the film, without forgetting journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran whose non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City the movie is credited to be inspired from.

A movie surely not to be MISSED.

Up In The Air

2010-04-22T11:16:00.001+05:30

I happened to see the film last night and what a useless waste of time it was. It had nothing new to offer in terms of story, dialogues, visuals, talent or sensibility. I wonder why people made such a fuss about something this mediocre.

However, the title design is something that is worthy of a mention. It has been designed simple, yet smart and only for that has it earned a place on my blog.

PS: Watch it only if you want to spend 108 minutes of your precious time, you could otherwise use having a conversation with someone you would rather want to, and make real connections with, than the garbage shown about connections in this film.

Think. Act.

2010-03-28T11:55:00.000+05:30

Who cares whether somebody is the richest Indian, some actor farted or a politician burped. I reckon we ought to bring an end to this useless nonsense and concentrate more on issues that would throw light on matters that may well make and change the world into something better. Time we stopped faffing and instead helped in transforming perspectives.

Anybody listening? I am sure you would, if you have any sense that is.

The human body.

2010-03-24T13:15:00.001+05:30

I feel the most expressive visual form of art one can find in the world is – the human body. How marvellous and miraculous is our structure that it is only through the senses of the human body can we apprehend the rest of the visible, tangible world. Nothing can, or ever will exist, if we do not.

So tell me.

2010-03-23T22:11:00.000+05:30

We, as a society have to heal ourselves, learn to respect and count on others, we have to be willing to be better persons, or we will die as individuals, more and more everyday. That’s life, ladies and gentlemen, so tell me now what are you going to do?

- Julian Quintaes

Another from my buddy Julian. More to follow soon.

Bad port and Old Monk.

2010-03-23T21:59:00.000+05:30

I was with a friend for lunch and he was telling me how he recently remembered his school days where, when he and his friends couldn’t really buy the best liquor, they would usually pool in money and settle for some bad port or Old Monk. He then went on to tell me that past many years he has the best liquor sitting proudly in his bar with some of the best glasses to suit the labels, yet it has been over two years that the same group of friends have met over a drink although they all lived only about 30-40 minutes away from each other.

Carzzzzzzzz!

2010-03-01T11:53:00.000+05:30

When I was in school I didn’t really care what a Jaguar, Pontiac, Cadillac, Bentley or even Chevy meant. Only when I was in college did I realise that all these stood proudly in my garage and I hadn’t cared much for them while I stood a mute witness to how some of my friends went crazy about the cars I had. When I watched their extreme reactions of joy on driving or even merely seeing them, I would feel like asking them what the fuss was all about. I mean, for me they were only four wheels that transported me from point A to point B, but for these chaps they were objects of their dreams and desires. Then arrived the turnaround; where lately and for some odd reason, I have been suddenly struck by this ridiculous urge to get for myself a Bentley, a Mercedes, an Audi or a BMW. As the interest to procure something fancy only seemed to escalate in me, not forgetting that I am not a great car enthusiast at all, I did the next best thing - ask friends which would be a good car to buy. If one friend suggested I buy a Mercedes SUV, another suggested a Range Rover and the list only seemed to swell with more names like Porsche, Maserati, Aston and what not. Perplexed and unsure, I knew there was one person I hadn’t asked, my buddy Nakuul so I sent him a text enquiring which car he thought I ought to buy. Past two days and with no reply from him, I called him. He apologised for his inability to respond much earlier due to his shooting schedule and said in his customary, calm manner, “What difference does it make, FK. It’s only a car, bro - four wheels that need to take you from here to there. If you ask me, what matters really is who is sitting inside the car, than the car itself. So for all I know you don’t need to buy anything fancy, but if you really want to then get something, get yourself a Beemer. I’ve seen it and it’s a good car,” he paused, “but forget all that and just drive the cars that you have now, na, baba.”

Inwardly, I knew that this was the voice I was most used to hearing in myself for all these years and of late I truly couldn’t figure what had got into me that had made me get off track because ultimately that’s what matters, who we are on the inside which inadvertently seeps into our public demeanour and nothing else matters, really. I must add that speaking to Nakuul as usual yielded the peace and balance, in thought and in life that I most expected I would find in his deeds and thoughts. Thank you, Naku for being YOU!

PS - This is what my buddy Sushma had to say when she read my entry. Adding it as it came to me from her on email.

i second what nakul said....very hypocritically though, but what can i say....i'm a victim of the world i help create myself

i knw how there's product parity, i knw how stories are created around different products to turn them into "brands" with "auras".....we turn reality into dreams

when u choose a "car on four wheels" - you're choosing it for what it is

when you choose a "car brand" - you're choosing it for what it stands to represent

and who's to say what's good or whats bad....sometimes we need reality and sometimes dreams...each rescues us in its own way

cheers baba!

Hmmm

2010-02-28T00:30:00.001+05:30

How steep are the steps to a strangers house.

Eliot with a twist.

2010-02-28T00:27:00.000+05:30

Greatness communicates itself before it is understood.

On William.

2010-02-28T00:21:00.000+05:30

Each many a coloured life he drew.
Exhausted worlds and then imagined new.

If only...

2010-02-28T00:19:00.000+05:30

If only a woman realised that she was sitting on a huge fortune.

The Visitor (2007)

2010-02-22T00:18:00.000+05:30

In Connecticut, we meet Richard Jenkins, who plays the lonely Professor Walter Vale. We get to know that for close to twenty years he has been teaching only one class at a local college. A widower, he doesn’t appear to be acutely dejected, but he doesn’t appear to feel much either, clenching whatever inner feelings he might have beneath an unfriendly yet courteous disposition. He enjoys classical music and despite not having the necessary talent puts himself through piano lessons in a lifeless endeavour to keep up some kind of connection to his wife who was a concert pianist. Upon the insistence of his colleague, the taciturn Prof Walter reluctantly agrees to leave his comfort zone to present a paper at a conference at the University of New York. When he arrives in Manhattan, he finds that the lights are burning and flowers have been arranged in a vase, in his apartment that he owns but has rarely visited in years. Puzzled, he checks the rooms one by one, to stumble upon, in his bathtub, the wondrous Senegalese woman Zainab (Danai Gurira) who sells handmade jewellery at a flea market. Zainab begins to scream when she sees Prof Walter while her drummer boyfriend from Syria Tarek Khalil (Haaz Sleiman) arrives and slams the Professor against the wall. After a tense few moments, Tarek discovers that someone they knew called Ivan had clandestinely rented the Professor’s apartment to them. Apologising for the misunderstanding, Tarek and Zainab pack their bags and leave. While they are waiting outside on the street as Tarek is on the phone trying to get a place to stay, the Professor’s preliminary dismay gives way to an instinctive flicker of empathy and he invites them to stay with him until they find another place. With this little gracious gesture begins the long intertwining saga between the characters that we end up cherishing for long after the movie is over.

One day the Professor is intrigued after watching two men play the drum in the park and when he gets back home and hears Tarek playing the djembe, an African drum, he is strongly drawn towards it. Tarek offers to teach the Prof how to play the drum and it’s pleasant to see how the inhibited old man is drawn out of his shell little-by-little and finally finds in the djembe a means of expressing himself. It’s interesting to watch how the young and the old generation surpass the gap of cultures and age by their mutual love for music. The actual tone of the movie begins to unfold when Tarek is arrested by the police at the subway and dragged away to the detention centre. You recognize how a human being, no matter how disconnected they might appear to be, will shake themselves up by crossing all the barriers when a connection happens between them, and how much they can stretch to make sure that all goes well for the ones they care for under such testing times.

When Prof Walter gets back home and tells Zainab about the incident at the subway, she is devastated and decides to move to her cousin’s place temporarily until things are sorted out. The Prof requests her to stay back but she thanks him for all the help and moves to her cousin’s place. This is a nuance that I found incredibly thoughtful and accurate from the Muslim point of view that the director has marvellously weaved into his narrative structure without it being obvious unlike how some of the most sensitive and learned filmmakers in India represent people of specific communities in local cinema in such a bad light and make no point really.

Unexpectedly, Tarek’s mother, the striking and elegant Mouna Khalil (Hiam Abbass), lands up at the apartment from Michigan when she fails to hear from her son for three days because Tarek and she are used to speaking to each other every day. I know I could go on and on but I seriously think I ought to stop now, or else I will end up ruining the surprises and layers you’ll get to see in the film because this is one film that does not deal with stereotypes and clichés and yet talks to you not about Muslims or Christians, but about people in a manner which you most know and like them. Similar to the intoxicating beats of the djembe that kept me hooked, I found this an extraordinary film whose muscle lies in its simplicity, although it operates at several levels all at once, and yet without much fuss. It seems to open up facets of life through its drama and delicate comedy and still you understand that it makes no specific effort to impart lessons or convey messages by manipulating emotions of the viewers save for leaving us with ample questions whose answers we have to discern for ourselves.

Then there were moments that had me bowled over such as when the Prof goes to meet Tarek at the detention centre. Tarek is asked to cut his chat short because they have to do a bed count of the people present and while leaving the enclosure says, “Goodbye, my friend.” with a melancholic look of loss in his eyes. At any other time those words are what we use most often in our normal conversations with our friends, but under the given circumstances, they obtain a total new meaning. They make you realise how important friendship really is. The second moment was when the Prof and Mouna are at the hotel having dinner and he tells her that he is taking a leave of absence for the rest of the semester because he wants to spend more time in New York. Mouna understands why he is doing this and tells him that what is happening is not his problem and he ought not to be doing so since he is a busy man with his teaching and the book that he is working on. The Prof glances at Mouna contemplatively and confesses to her that he is not busy at all because the truth is that he pretends he is busy working and writing when he hasn’t really done anything worthwhile in a long time.

Everybody in the film has done a magnificent job though my favourites are the characters of the Prof, Tarek and Mouna. However, it would be brilliant to see more of actor Haaz Sleiman who I consider very much capable of delivering complex roles with such ease and without fault. He says so much through his eyes that he quite literally makes you dance with joy when he is happy or shed a tear when he is sad. Richard Jenkins never overplays his part and we see that a lot of work has gone into his performance that has just the correct combination of suffering and a sense of humour. The soft and sombre Zainab is apt for the role she has portrayed, while Hiam Abbass lends depth and adds much nuance to her character fitting into it like a glove and giving us no room to find any blemish. Writer and director Thomas McCarthy knits a remarkable tale and it is enlightening to see that so much detail was set into it. I think that all of us must watch The Visitor at least once to appreciate the life that we live and to value the fact that at the end of the day, connections indeed, are everything to human survival.

Happiness.

2010-02-21T01:31:00.000+05:30

Happiness I feel is not found in perfection but can be easily felt if we were to learn to look beyond the imperfections.

Inner Voices....

2010-02-19T01:02:00.000+05:30

....can you hear me silently screaming for help....?
- Julian Quintaes

PS: Written by my buddy Julian. It would be unfair if I didn't add that to interact with Julian is like being a part of history. You may well wonder why I am saying this now, but in time, when I post more from him, you will soon realise the gravity of my statement.

What a weird world.

2010-02-18T17:35:00.000+05:30

No one is indispensable. No one. Yet sometimes you have to make some feel that they are most imperative to your existence merely to help them maintain their balance. But more often than not, the people you set out to help (while making a fool of yourself willingly) end up thinking that it's you who needs help.

ADAM (2009). A film more involving than you might expect.

2010-02-16T11:20:00.001+05:30

It was close to eleven thirty in the night and I was back home from a demanding day at work followed by dinner with a client. More than anything, I was yearning to put my feet up and take it easy, so I switched off my mobile phone and locked away my Apple. While trying to make up my mind whether I wanted to read the collected essays of John Berger or the uncollected works of Henry James that sat proudly on my writing desk it suddenly struck me that I had on DVD a film “Adam” that I was planning to watch but hadn’t got quite down to doing it. As I left the corn to pop in the microwave instructing my house help to fetch it for me when done, I settled before the television and hit the play button on my remote control. As the film moved along I observed how the believably eccentric still accessible title character Adam, a Manhattan engineer, was really. It was a delight to see his orderly apartment, stocked with multiple macaroni-and-cheese dinners and sober outfits that reflected a mind drawn to symmetry and familiarity and how he is coerced by circumstances albeit going through an emotional setback of losing his father and his job to cope with novel feelings that he seems to feel for his wistful neighbour Beth, played by Rose Byrne. Adam we soon see is an ardent astronomy-lover while Beth’s infatuation lies in teaching children. As the movie moved along, what got me quite by amazement is how Hugh Dancy so remarkably plays the character of a man born with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. When you watch Dancy emote so realistically you understand that not even Sean Penn had managed to astound the world without making our eyeballs cringe, or for that matter Hanks too who lent his role more mechanical finesse than soul whereas Hugh Dancy adds that rare authenticity to the role where he even light-heartedly tells Rose Byrne in the film that, “I’m not Forrest Gump, you know.”

Regardless of his social insufficiencies and the frustration you see in him when you know that he is unable to figure what someone else is meaning without it being told to him in un-minced words, or when he knows that you are looking for emotional comfort but does not know how to get down to providing it because an expression of display of the feeling is alien to him, you still know you can relate to Adam right from the beginning simply because I think each of us at some point, Asperger’s or not, have felt the same because it somewhere deep down represents our id. Whilst the film keeps you engaged not only by the romance of the two characters you uncover the subplot of Beth’s parents whose disruptive tone imparts most subtly on you a lesson or two entirely dependent on how you view life.

The humour is refined and convincing. The revelation arrives with the fact that we are not introduced to two perfect people who are going to make a perfect life together but we are instead taken on a journey with them that aids them to accept each other’s imperfections, that inadvertently helps them not only correct each other but also grow with a diet of healthy positivism. From the start you know that Adam is not all about the romance but it is more about the evolution of it – as all great moments of life are. All good things said there are some slight awkward moments that creep in on some occasions too. For instance you see Beth leap out of the couch when Adam asks her if she was sexually aroused while they had sat looking at the racoons the previous night in Central Park because he admits that he was aroused when they were sitting together. Although the scene was a bit tricky, the honesty of the way it has been handled surely takes away the initial awkwardness one feels when one watches it for the first time. On the other hand, what I found entirely out of context was the sudden and peculiar fashion in which the police end up hauling Adam when he is innocently watching the kids’ play at school, which you reckon soon, is where Beth teaches.

Adam is not a film entirely predictable; it is more involving than you might expect. Besides, not that I consider the Oscar any important, but since it has achieved such a cult status in the American continent I would like to say to the Oscar coterie that they wake up and recognise the sincerity in people like Hugh Dancy who don’t make Adam seem like a caricature of the syndrome. But on the contrary add soul into their roles by virtue of their talent rather than trying to tailor their performances like their predecessors have done to appease and achieve in coveting the statuette by the clout they enjoy in the hoity-toity circles.

An imperative and significant facet of life that the character Adam prompts you towards in the most delicate demeanour is that as cliché as it sounds, love is something more beautiful and deeper than merely being with one another physically. That it can transform you and make you even more beautiful than you were. There is such a marvellous clarity to the love in the film that it gives them room to grow together, but apart, and yet it always has scope for improvement. It would be wonderful if so many of us were to accept that feeling although we know we feel it but are too afraid to accept it merely due to our own insecurities or better put our inadequacies.

While the director Max Mayer has done an excellent job by keeping the roles well-grounded in reality and yet not losing the drama required to give it a mass appeal, I simply loved the way in which Seamus Tierney (whose work I am most unfamiliar with but loved here) has adoringly got on film the Manhattan locations. And when I see something shot so wonderfully I cannot but help adding that the camerawork clearly reminded me of my dear friend Ravi K Chandran, one of our countries finest DOPs who can literally breathe life into something that is lifeless merely by the merit of his craft. And like in his work you see that it is not in the complexities that he achieves genius, but purely in his simplicity, so does Adam too charm you on the same note.

Ruman on women!

2010-02-13T12:03:00.000+05:30

I logged in to my Facebook account after ages today and something written by my buddy Ruman (posting it here exactly as it was posted as his status message) really brought about a smile to my face not only for its marvellous sense of humour but also for, heck, why am I saying it all, you read it for yourselves and decide -

Whatever you give a woman, she will make it greater, give her a house she will give you a home, give her groceries she will make a meal, give her a smile she will give you her heart. give her sperm and she would even make you a baby:)lolShe multiplies and enlarges what she is given. So if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit..

Love.

2010-02-13T03:04:00.000+05:30

Sometimes love is like a shy flower. It takes a while to blossom.

A figment.

2010-02-01T11:32:00.000+05:30

I have more often than not observed that the real character of a man can be easily found out by his amusements, since no man really is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

My Kidz.

2010-01-29T20:35:00.001+05:30

I caught a breath between work and glanced out of the window at the dull-blue sky wondering how more often than not the thoughts and the still un-thoughts jostle against each other in my mind making it rather difficult to untangle what I was thinking. While my mind was roaming listlessly in the alleys of its thoughts I heard my phone ringing. Stretching my arm and reaching out for it I saw it was a call from my twenty-year-old cousin whom I most often write about on my blog. He told me in his sprightly voice that he had been out fishing where there was no mobile network and enquired whether I had tried reaching him earlier. When I admitted that I had tried his number twice and found his phone switched off he apologised incessantly for the inaccessibility. Whilst we updated one another about matters of consequence that had occurred between us in those days of not being in touch, he disclosed that he would be going for an audition for a Hollywood film the same evening since someone in the family knew the producers rather well. I smiled to myself imagining how magnificent it would be to see my kid brother in a movie and yet I was amazed at what had made him want to do something like that because besides being someone who read and wrote he was more of an athletic lad, full of energy and zest for the outdoors. Before I could ask him why he had considered the part he said, “I know bro this is something that isn’t me. But I always like to face something new; something that I know unsettles me. The journey I think would be most wonderful, unlike any other that I have taken and I so want to feel that I haven’t felt before.”

I could feel my chest swell, as I felt proud of him as ever!

Dear god!

2010-01-29T20:22:00.000+05:30

I was chatting with a friend recently about how the youth of today has nothing much to look forward to and what we most urgently need to do is - read. Read they must, I agree, but how are we to get them to read when the distractions of life are far too many for them to fathom. When you see restlessness in their eyes you feel like rescuing them but how can you prod them towards peace when peace is a feeling so alien to them. Yes, they have lost hope to live. Dear god, what a dreary world we seem to live in these days. And dear god, help us, help them.

Phir Mile Sur - what a failure!

2010-01-27T23:41:00.000+05:30

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara that was released way back in 1988 had a melody that set well into our hearts like an impression into wet cement. One can hardly ever forget how the classical renderings by India's great musicians and also the people chosen to represent the different states left an impact for as long as we can remember. What's more, when Lata rendered her part with such simplicity but not lacking the haunting and mesmerising power her voice had over the masses, it gave us goose bumps. Unfortunately, the latest one Phir Mile Sur is a dampener. It not only lacks melody, it has made a mockery of the people involved in it. Some of them featured in it are friends and some mere acquaintances but that aside I am left to marvel how anyone even agreed to be part of something this mediocre.

Hmmm...

2009-11-19T00:13:00.000+05:30

Strange how the love that gives us freedom from all shackles also more often than not is the one responsible for throttling it.

Two in One.

2009-10-31T00:23:00.000+05:30

70s

A part of the soul managed to escape and wandered the ether without purpose

80s

The wandering soul found a home

2009

The paths crossed and they were amazed as to how two separate bodies had had a single soul

Instinct.

2009-10-27T01:16:00.000+05:30

The Apple sitting on my lap; I was occupied in replying to emails that I hadn’t responded to for weeks due to paucity of time when my cousin brother came into the room humming a song and turned on the television. As my ears picked up fragments of music, lyrics and occasionally dialogues, I felt nice when I heard the incredibly polished but raspy voice of Anthony Hopkins.

“What an actor he is, isn’t he?” said my cousin.

Not looking up I said he was indeed.

“What’s this movie all about, bro?” he asked.

I glanced at the screen and it was the film Instinct that he was watching.

“I don’t know really. I’ve seen the movie in bits and pieces,” I said casually.

“Oh, like we see life.”

I studied him in a quick glimpse as he was watching the film, the thought racing my mind that we seem to move mountains seeking for treasures while they sit right beside us and it only takes such a chance moment to discover them.

PS – When I had him read the above, he smiled and said, “You simply make a mountain out of an ant hill, don’t you?” as he fell on the bed, clutched a pillow in his arms and continued, “Writers. Gosh. No wonder they are writers.”

Sunset - WE - Sunrise

2009-10-18T22:09:00.000+05:30

The BEST part was that we spent the evening together as the sun went down and all of the night we were lost in one another and enjoyed the sunrise together as well. I must say that it has been the most MEMORABLE day all of my life until now and I owe you more than I can ever imagine. Also my delight is doubled because it is 'our' memory that we shall ALWAYS cherish until the end.

As My Debt Grows, So My Love Does, Too

2009-10-17T09:19:00.000+05:30

As my debt grows, so my love does, too.
What you give I cannot half repay
Your love for me only wants me to love you even more.

I can't help being moody, often blue,
Irritable, anxious, sad, and gently leading me out of the doldrums yet you stay.
As my debt grows, so my love does, too.

I know I am lucky to have someone who
Will love me through this, day by troubled day.
Your love for me only wants me to love you even more.

Gifts like yours to me do not accrue.
Still, it's hard when giving goes one way, I don't know why I can't give you
As my debt grows, so my love does, too.

Yet unlike money, love is never due.
Its return is free, in just the way
Your love for me only wants me to love you even more.

A natural grace makes us two separate being but one soul in thought and deed
And so this darkness has its own bright ray:
As my debt grows, so my love does, too;
Your love for me only wants me to love you even more.

Nuts.

2009-10-14T14:31:00.000+05:30

My buddy Chethan is at his elemental best when you get him on phone or in person when he has just about woken up from sleep. All three of us partners in crime Rahul, Chethan and I were working until 3AM on an important film project; and by the time I went to bed it was close to 5AM. Waking up at 8.30, I called Chethan. After a prolonged ring he answered yawning and clearing his throat. When I asked him whether he had finished his breakfast he said he’d finished it long ago. I suppressed a smile at his white lies and asked him what he had had.

“Nuts, bro. I had nuts for breakfast today,” he said mischievously.

I laughed.

“Very funny, what are you laughing at?” he said, his voice all naughty.

“Listen, kiddo, its already late so tell me when are you going to get yourself something to eat and what are you planning to get yourself to eat?”

“Nuts’ bro,” he said promptly, “any nuts are good, especially nuts dipped in chocolate,” he paused and continued in an even mischievous tone, “I simply love them, don’t you?”

I laughed to my hearts content and hung up.

Thank you love.

2009-10-09T03:40:00.001+05:30

Love touched me today. It held my hands and kissed them gently for the first time. It breathed into me new life. Dispelled all my fears. Gave me great strength and inspired me to be like it. It is not in the morning or the afternoon or the night but when I am with it in my own world, where only it has access that it ends up defining who I really am. It lives with me, talks to me, and exhausts itself with me. You love and you alone makes me feel alive. Other men it is said have seen angels but I have seen you love and for me thou art enough. Love! Oh love! What a wonderful life you have given me.

Chethan

2009-09-17T22:35:00.000+05:30

From: Chethan - Sent: 17-09-09 06.58 - Received: Farahdeen

Bro, a stray thought just passed my mind, thought will share it with you – I know who I am and you know who you are. Lets be true, honest and answerable to our consciences and not to each other.

incredible, indescribable

2009-09-16T02:51:00.000+05:30

"How did this happen between us? This incredible, indescribable bond."

"When you looked at your sister, whom you hardly got along with, you wondered why she weren't a brother instead, right?"

"Umm hmm."

"Let's just say that I'm the brother you've always been yearning for and finally found."

Chethan

2009-09-16T02:39:00.000+05:30

From: Chethan - Sent: 09-09-09 09.09 - Received: Farahdeen

Bro I am feeling something I want to share with you – When I was born I knew how to love and be happy, the world and its people taught me how to hate and be sad.

From: Chethan - Sent: 11-09-09 07.03 - Received: Farahdeen

Good morning bro. I found my shoes. Hahaha… They aren’t important. Even if I had lost them I could have bought new ones, but the things I have lost in my life are the real important ones and I don’t think I can find them again. So make sure you hold on to things that you don’t want to lose. Even if its your own existence.

From: Chethan - Sent: 14-09-09 05.10 - Received: Farahdeen

Bro yesterday my car got wet and this is what I felt – She is drenched and I need to take care of her, who is my first love, and has stayed with me forever and will always do. Has never betrayed me. Always been with me. Loyal. Honest. Truly mine. Loved me irrespective of things and has only been mine. God I love her for eternity…she will forever be mine.

Sometimes...

2009-09-16T02:00:00.001+05:30

Sometimes you have to let people waver to figure out what’s right and what's wrong.

Time.

2009-09-16T01:57:00.001+05:30

People say that time is a great healer, but the thing is that we do not live long enough to find that out.

When I went red with...

2009-09-16T01:31:00.000+05:30

My buddy Chethan and I were at a common friend’s house and we were talking of food and I was telling her (my friend) that we went to new Bengali restaurant and while all the others got a nice chunk of chicken, I was only left with bones by the time the waiter came to serve me.

While my friend went into her kitchen to make us some tea, my brother came closer to me and spoke in a low tone - Bro, you know its only the dogs who get the bones, right!

Cologne - Pheromone - Pheromone - Cologne

2009-09-16T01:23:00.001+05:30

The weather was clammy and I didn’t want the air conditioner running because I had a bit of a cold. While we were driving through the ridiculous Bangalore traffic, I wiped off the sweat that was trickling down my baby brother’s forehead. He squirmed a little and seeing him feel awkward I wiped off the rest of it that was running down his sideburns and rubbed it on both my cheeks. A few weeks later I was chatting with my girlfriend about men and women and how one can hardly ever stay with one all of ones life because we are not now, what we were a minute ago. As the conversation seemed to get intense, I saw him keep aside the Time magazine he was reading and knocked on my shoulder. I looked at him while I was speaking to her and he said, “That's what happens if you use my sweat as your cologne, they will stick to you for eternity.”

Love.

2009-09-14T01:20:00.000+05:30

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

09-09-09

2009-09-09T22:59:00.000+05:30

A friend asked me today how I would want to die if given an option and my reply to her was –

- Silently in my sleep

- While on a plane. So that the end comes in a flick and the body is never found. That way it lessens the pain for those around

- And if I have hurt anyone close to me, mostly unknowingly, then I’d wish for the most painful death to compensate for the pain I would have caused them

Then she asked me what is the ideal age I would want to live up to. I told her that I had hoped to be around for another ten years, or perhaps twelve, and if I wouldn’t have died by then, then I’d move away from the country. Puzzled, she asked me why I was saying so when all that those who cared for you wanted to do was to be there for you when you’d grow old. I told her that no matter how much they try to put up a bold exterior it eventually becomes a pain for them to re-work their lives around for someone whose life is coming to an end. And that under such circumstances, it's best to move away than trouble the people who mean the most to you.

She looked at me with the weirdest expression and said that I was mad.

Pooh!

2009-08-17T02:52:00.000+05:30

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Pooh!” he whispered.

“Yes, Piglet?”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw, “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

~ A. A. Milne

Route 61

2009-08-17T01:53:00.000+05:30

On Sunday the 16th of August 2009, I realised how beautiful life can be when greatness touches it.

Thanks very much, C K.

Indebted. Ever.

Land of the Kama Sutra.

2009-07-31T23:52:00.000+05:30

India is one amongst the world’s most populated countries (the land of the Kama Sutra) and yet the censor board considers it their duty to pixelate the private parts of men and women on screen, not forgetting silencing the cuss words. Don’t know whether ‘they’ are stupid or think that ‘we’ are!

In time.

2009-07-21T00:40:00.000+05:30

Some friends too, in time, turn out useless as relatives.

Vishwa.

2009-06-18T00:23:00.000+05:30

While taking a break between my workout at the gym I asked my buddy and trainer Vishwa how he would best describe himself. He looked at me coolly and said in his authoritative voice, “I’m a two eggs in the morning, two pegs in the afternoon and stick it between two legs in the night kinda person.”

I laughed out loud and thought that this so aptly applies to all we men out there, doesn't it?

What remains?

2009-06-15T01:38:00.000+05:30

While I was in bed this morning I was thinking that if I take away the time of my infancy, my sleep, my thoughtless hours, my days of sickness and even in the fullness of years how few have been my hours of usefulness?

People.

2009-06-13T01:18:00.000+05:30

More than anything else in this world it is people who can keep people alive. You’ll have to trust me on that.

In life and death...

2009-06-10T22:29:00.000+05:30

My cousin’s paternal grandmother passed away on Saturday the 6th of June 2009. His grandfather was distraught. They had spent a good many years together. All of Saturday evening, he appeared troubled and sat in a corner, silent as a stone. All of Sunday he cried like a baby, mumbling that she should not have left him like that. On Monday morning he was still the same – perplexed and mumbling yet again how she could have left him like that. By the same evening he passed away too – and his face, that everyone saw, now looked completely relaxed.

After I was over the shock, I was soon stunned and as the news really sunk into me I felt lovely in a strange way. I mean they were quite literally ‘soul mates’ and this news was for me, in the truest essence, the purest form of true connection. Would I be able to love some woman this much today? I am certain I would not – this sort of love was not to be found in today’s blood at all. And would some woman be able to love me the same too. I guess you pretty well know the answer to that.

These tricky times.

2009-05-09T00:06:00.001+05:30

I loathe superficiality. I really so much search for meaning in women. Although they sure are around, I think finding one with such an attribute is a tad bit tricky in these times.

Quiet words.

2009-05-05T01:19:00.000+05:30

I think we ought never to assume that he who seeks to comfort us now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do him good. Who knows that his life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond our own. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.

Our share of work in love – little by little

2009-05-04T22:14:00.000+05:30

I was telling my nineteen-year-old cousin brother that while he was away my ex-girlfriend had come home after a long time last weekend and soon after we were done with the initial pleasantries she barged into my bedroom, flung opened the doors of my wardrobe and after going through my stuff how she shamelessly stuffed whatever she fancied into a bag that she was carrying. I also told him that she had said that she loved her new boyfriend immensely merely because she had a way of getting him to buy her what she wanted without ever making him feel that she was actually manipulating him. He seemed shocked and asked me how on earth I could allow her to do something like that. I told him that I didn’t know how to stop her. He looked at me carefully with a raised eyebrow, drew a deep breath and made away to play football.

Over dinner that night we discussed how I had let life take its own course and drifted away from her because I wondered what she would have done after I had married her. He left his soupspoon by the side of his bowl, wiped his mouth gently with the napkin and said in an unhurried tone, “There’s a lot more to marriage than four legs resting at the end of the bedpost, dude,” then he paused and continued, “And I wouldn’t have ever let that happen with her… I – I dislike people who have ulterior motives.”

I acknowledged his statement with a slight dip of my head and ate my meal quietly thinking about how delighted I was that life had led me right, as life leads everyone right, always. Finished with his dinner he sat at the table silently, watching me eat. Requesting him to carry on with what he had to do would have yielded negative results therefore I chose to be mute. And when I was through, he came up to me, kept his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the hair on my head. I pressed his hands and squeezed his cheeks lovingly as he told me he had an early day at college and needed to get some sleep. I wished him a good night and while rinsing my hands thought of how marvellous it made me feel that he was here and how that it had helped me realise how beautiful my world was. I was about to turn out the light when he came back. I scanned his face quickly to see whether there was something he wanted. “There hasn’t been a time that I didn’t know that you were always looking out for me. Says who that I…” he stopped, gave me an army salute, said good night and disappeared from the dining room.

i-connect.

2009-04-27T00:41:00.000+05:30

Strange how two people, not related by blood, by age could still be so incredibly similar – near carbon copies of each other. Strange that there is so much more to what we understand about the mind, about us, about life and so much more to what we actually feel. Sometimes I feel that the surface is merely an illusion, the truth is far deeper and neither have we, or can we, ever reach its nucleus.

Is it chemistry, biology or even the past life creeping into the present I do not know, however, of what I know is that these connections leave me so complete and so secure that it’s seriously something that I could never be able to sum up and neither could words.

What can one person do?

2009-04-13T00:59:00.000+05:30

What can one person do? Is a question that many people have asked me on and off when troubled by the state of affairs. I have met a number of people who know they want to make a difference but feel entirely helpless in not knowing how to do so. I was planning to write an article on the topic and was mentally preparing points as I was rambling with my youngest cousin brother at a mall. We were billing a pair of shoes at Salvatore Ferragamo when we ran into two of his classmates. Thankfully the heat of the fierce summer day had faded and the weather in Bangalore was windy and wonderful. His mates insisted that we join them for a coffee at the café in the food court. The table, out in the open by the ramp, was the only one available. Once settled the boys began chatting endlessly of this and that and I sat looking at my cousin who was barely contributing to the conversation but let out a laugh as and when he found something amusing. I felt happy to see that he was this independent young man of the 21st century who set his own standards and lived according to his own rules. Kindness, sensitivity and energy were part of his nature and at the same time he was incredibly clear about what he wanted out of life and even more clearer about what he didn’t. He was someone who’d pull up in his Aston Martin and drink a juice on the roadside and when I’d scold him for it, he would wear a naughty smile allowing me to read his inner thoughts which would be saying something like he knew how much I loved him and yet he was just fine with what he had done and that I was merely wasting my breath. When not at the gym or pursuing women of his liking, he played football and indulged in a game of rugby every weekend. More often than not, he came back bruised and bloody, and seeing him in that state made me squirm from anxiety. One afternoon, when he had come home with flesh sticking out of his palms, my patience gave way. Agreed, I was someone who never wanted to enforce my ideas on him; I wanted him to learn from his own experience but this was pushing it a bit too far. Sensing my unrest he kept his hands on my shoulders and spoke in a serene voice, “I know you’re hurt, bro, but the game is such and I promise to be careful the next time.”

Since he had a lean and muscular body without much effort, I wanted him to flaunt it but he preferred to wear loose tees that showed off his pecks that I later gathered was his subtle way of turning the women wild. I stumbled upon this secret when one of his several female devotees, asked me why I put on such boring shirts and not tees like my brother. I had smiled and asked her what difference it had made and she had told me that his loose tees made them all go mad because he had the art of showing just enough for them to want more of him while my shirts left them with no surprise or suspense. I shook my head and smiled at the new generation. They sure were far quicker than what we were when we were at their age. I remember the first woman I had had a crush on. I’d wanted to tell her that I thought she was the most gorgeous woman I had set eyes upon but by the time I had mustered up the courage, she was with someone else. If only I had had the gumption of today’s youth I was certain I would not have been left behind in the ‘scoring’ affairs that was the theme being discussed at the table. In order not to embarrass my brother I flipped through the catalogue from Paul Smith that I had picked up, wanting to give him the impression that he could talk candidly since I was too engrossed in my own world. Just as I was planning to visit the restroom, one of his friends asked him whether he had had any action lately from the hot babe he had been hanging about with at the college. I took a quick glimpse at my brother. He smiled uneasily and said that they were only good friends. I patted his back and smiled as I noted the tension in his facial muscles relax a little, although I figured that he was uncomfortable talking sex in my presence. From women the subject drifted to college and what they each intended to do with only one semester left to complete their engineering. While my cousin had decided to go to Africa and work with the UN for six months and then surf for the rest of the year at New Zealand, his classmate was planning to be a bio scientist and the other wanted to do a masters in philosophy hoping to shape the world on his own terms. Looking at his classmate I smiled silently – we had all gone there before and done all that, hadn’t we?

Intent on ordering another orange juice, I waved for the waiter when I noticed two old women walking down the ramp. The older of the two was holding onto the railing along the ramp and moving forward inch by inch. My brother immediately stood up and with his eyes he gestured to his friends to get up from the chairs. His friends paid no heed and sat like rocks. He moved his chair aside for the women to walk easily and asked them whether they wanted to occupy our table. The older woman smiled at him and kept her hand on his head and muttered in her faint voice that they were going to the table next to ours where two old men were already seated. No sooner had the women passed; his mates began teasing him that he had overdone it.

“What if she was your grandmother, dude?” my brother retorted.

“She wasn’t dude,” said one of the boys.

“I don’t get it, man,” said my brother.

“What’s there not to get, dude? Only gays behave courteously, man. Real men are rough and robust,” said the other boy.

My brother looked at them and laughed.

“I think you’re messed up, dude. You need help,” said his classmate.

My brother smiled without saying anything as I observed pity and not shock in his visage. When his classmates were gone I looked at him querulously. He smiled, “I’m least perturbed by the gay talk, bro. The word has become a joke these days. I feel people use it as a defence when they cannot be something they want to be,” he paused, took a sip of the orange juice I had ordered and continued, “but it’s them that I’m worried about. They don’t realise that if I were a doctor caught up in the middle of an outbreak I would be disheartened in not being able to help everyone but at the same time I would know that I would do the best I can to those within my vicinity. While there’s no ideal picture of how life ought to be, we ought not to feel helpless or ask what one person can do, but just go about doing it. Sad that people don’t understand that being modern does not mean losing one’s roots or one’s manners.”

As I watched him speak my mind floated to the images of the little boy I used to take care of – wipe his mouth when he messed up. Draw him out of a brawl when he knew he couldn’t fight physically but had the strength mentally. Help him clean up when he had fractured his hands. And as he sat before me I also realised that we usually look up to people older than us for strength and here I was finding not only answers to my article but also solace in my own sibling who was ten years younger than me. That’s when I remembered that even as a kid he never troubled anyone of us. What made me swell with pride was the fact that he sought jobs to make the pocket money he spent on his friends and women instead of reaching into the family’s old wealth. In time I had quite literally found a bit of my soul in him and as much as I tripped on the confident cool dude that he was, I also admired that he was just what anyone would desire to be, modern and yet someone who had not forgotten his roots. I wrapped my arm around his neck with my elbow on his shoulders as we walked to our car, easy and pleased that I had alongside me a proud part of India’s future, under whose casual, modern skin was firmly etched the reason and reality of life.

PS – When I sent the piece written above to some of my friends I was told that it was more like a journal entry. Another friend said that it was like a writer and not a journalist writing it. Well that was quite obvious – I am not a journalist. Another friend suggested I cite examples of an actor or a sportsperson in order for people to relate and that’s when I thought that I would not want to write about some media hungry, overexposed, money guzzling celebrity who made no difference to me. I would as well write about, say my grandmother, my parents, my siblings, my best friend, my teacher and how their life had had a far greater inspirational impact on my own. I admired my cousin brother for being a person who people could relate to for having the ability to speak his mind out knowing full well that it was not his fancy to save everyone’s soul but speak what was on his mind because he could never guess when what he was saying would strike a chord with the right minds at the right moment. I think we must speak up and make our ideas heard instead of feeling helpless about the state of affairs of the world today. I think we must become the change we want to see.

If only...

2009-01-24T18:36:00.000+05:30

People often tell me that they have only met me recently and yet feel such deeper connections as if I were in their life forever. Some say we’re linked from our past lives and some others say that it is rather scary that they fall such intensely in love with my nature. As scary as it is to them, I ought to admit that it scares the wits out of me as well. Then again, I think that the most fleeting of relation between people is governed by the state of mind they bring to it and when that happens, at once, a vastness will enter into it if only that vastness is there to begin with.

Scarlet Johanson

2008-12-06T00:46:00.000+05:30

This is what I loved about her when I saw Match Point –

Nola Rice: You’re going to do very well for yourself, unless you blow it.
Christopher “Chris” Wilton: And how am I going to blow it?
Nola Rice: By making a pass at me.
Christopher “Chris” Wilton: So you are aware of your affect on men?
Nola Rice: They think I’d be something very special.
Christopher “Chris” Wilton: And are you?
Nola Rice: No one’s ever asked for their money back.

Terror.

2008-11-30T23:16:00.000+05:30

Eradication has seldom yielded any positive effects, further leading only to chaos. The key, ultimately, is being humane and loving each other despite prejudices. Only that will save us – the civilisation.

Women.

2008-10-08T22:16:00.000+05:30

Naked, all women are the same. It's when they're dressed that they're more attractive.

You know...

2008-10-08T22:15:00.000+05:30

If you talk of essences, you're a fundamentalist.

Assumptions. Some.

2008-10-07T23:53:00.000+05:30

I wonder why sometimes people find it arduous to fathom that I can be entirely merry without having to achieve an anchor in the flesh. Although, I pamper myself to sexual encounters, certainly not continually, but when my mind merits such a compulsion, I engineer my innermost contentment and emotional involvements that are almost completely concerned to epistolary exchanges, painting and whatever else that might fancy me as opposed to sexual intimacy since sex has never provided me, barring the transitory dousing of my carnal fire, anything more.

Clearly, when I severed ties with my girlfriend of four years, I felt nothing. Life marched ahead with renewed vigour. My friends found it rather unusual that I was devoid of ache and sorrow. One of them sat me down one evening and elucidated that I was perhaps feeling exactly what anyone else under similar circumstances would feel, only, that my approach to grieving at the death of my relationship was to murder any palpable connotations I had about it. If my telling her that a thing when lost was lost and there was no use crying over it evoked in her disdain for me, further my endeavour to make her recognize that my principal concern was not with human relationships, or of wanting to rear a family but with the search of deeper coherence and sense, elicited a reaction in her so severe that she accused me to being utterly inhuman, not forgetting how she stormed out in a huff at not being able to make me adhere to her average sense of what she thought I ought to be feeling when what I was feeling was very much normal to me.

Current wisdom, assumes that man is a social being who needs the companionship and affection of other human beings from cradle to grave. It is widely believed that interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness. And yet right from the beginning I have been thought of as peculiar, odd, to be precise, who did not share the pains and pleasures of the average person. I marvelled whether this difference in me, implied abnormality? However, when I contemplate the common lot of mortality, I must acknowledge that I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of life since I am endowed with a cheerful temper, a moderate sensibility and a natural disposition to activity than repose. As far as some mischievous appetites and habits go, they sure seem to have been corrected by philosophy or time. Therefore, at the end of the day, I think that not all creative people are notably disturbed, like not all solitary people are unhappy.

Dare to be...

2008-09-04T01:38:00.000+05:30

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

e.e. cummings, 1955

Truly!

2008-08-16T02:43:00.000+05:30

The days of good English are ‘went’.

I dunno, do you?

2008-08-16T02:38:00.000+05:30

We don’t know how or why we choose to love the people the way we do. We just know we have to.

Battle of the sexes.

2008-08-02T01:50:00.001+05:30

I don’t know why people discrete between sexes? I don’t understand why they speak of the superiority of one sex to the other. Aren’t they making fools of themselves? Why is it hard for them to understand that each has what the other has not; each completes the other. That they are nothing alike and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and receiving from the other what the other can give.

Stick together.

2008-08-02T01:16:00.000+05:30

All of us need to stick together. Protect one another. The last thing we need to do is attack each other.

Play time!

2008-08-02T01:13:00.000+05:30

Long time ago at a party the chat went from one glum discussion to another, illness, crime, failing economy, terrorism, death, the unsafe environment, so on and so forth, when all at once, an elderly man stood up and said, “Play time!”. Of course, everyone thought that he was insane. Too many at the party had forgotten the value of mad impulses.

Sometimes, doing one crazy thing can make you look crazy but it can also make you happy.

" - "

2008-07-14T01:47:00.000+05:30

Give me silence,
water,
hope.

Give me struggle,
iron,
volcanoes.

- Pablo Neruda

...

2008-07-13T12:20:00.000+05:30

We ought to stop judging others by their behaviour just as we ought to stop judging ourselves by our intentions. We must not forget that it is people who make us feel and then it is people again, who also make us, at times, question what we feel.

Brightens the darkest day.

2008-07-07T01:35:00.000+05:30

Smiling is infectious,
You can catch it like the flu.
Someone smiled at me today,
And I started smiling too.

On the wings of time.

2008-06-29T02:27:00.000+05:30

The whole world seems empty, when one person is missing. It's at such times I wish I had remained a kid forever - it’s rather easy to mend skinned knees than repair wrecked hearts.

I hate good-byes.

2008-06-29T02:03:00.000+05:30

When life is just fine, someone leaves. Someone always leaves. In an instant they’re gone – flitted away, taking the stars from the night and the sun from the day! Gone, just like that, leaving a cloud in my heart.

Why can't we get all the people whom we love together and then just stay together?

Your kids today. Legends of tomorrow.

2008-06-22T23:51:00.001+05:30

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons, brothers and sisters and we as a family are a strange little band of characters traipsing through life sharing illnesses and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that binds us all together. But no matter how well we play all the above and unmentioned parts of our life, we also tend to take our family for granted and lightly.

Today, as I was lazily surfing channels I saw the theatrical trailer of Sammir’s latest film Mukhbiir. Seeing him portraying such a complex character with immense ease made me swell with pride. However, what gave me the chills were his eyes. Oh, what ability they had! They could terrorise like a loaded and levelled gun. They could offend like hissing or kicking, or in their assorted mood, by beams of kindness, they could make the heart dance with joy.

Up until yesterday, this was a kid I have seen growing up before me, and now, in an instant, I see that he is all grown up! A fool I was because in always looking at the larger picture of taking care of him, I had forgotten to observe little things in him.

Sam, I’m not taking you any lightly, or granted for that matter any longer, my younger brother hehehehe!

For each of us: our own.

2008-06-22T01:03:00.001+05:30

We all mean to write one story and end up writing another.

Let us not let someone else’s thoughts and beliefs govern us. Let us not mimic the life of others. Let quotations not be our passions and let us not accept someone else’s definition of our life, let us define ourselves.

Let us in our diary write precisely the same story that we want to write than ending up writing another.

Subi Samuel. Ruminations on. And with.

2008-06-20T02:19:00.000+05:30

My dearest bro

On the exhibition!

To hold our innermost conscience alert, which with every fully formed experience tells us whether it is thus, as it now stands, altogether to be answered for in its truthfulness and integrity: that is the foundation of every artistic production. And surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further. The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is, finally, the necessary, irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity.

Also, we owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures. Indeed, almost all that we can be said to enjoy is past or future; the present is in perpetual motion, leaves us as soon as it arrives, ceases to be present before its presence is well perceived, and is only known to have existed by the effects which it leaves behind. The greatest part of our ideas arises, therefore, from the view before or behind us, and we are happy or miserable according as we are affected by the survey of our life, or our prospect of future existence.

I loved every frame.

The Stay!

In a way, the experience was enlightening as well, by no means had I lived and seen things of that kind, and come to think of it, I am learning to see. I do not know why it is, but everything penetrates more deeply into me and does not stop at the place where until now it always used to finish. I have an inner self of which I was ignorant. Everything goes thither now, what happens there I do not know.

On Departure!

And we: spectators, always, everywhere, looking at everything, and never from! Who has turned us around like this, so that whatever we do, we always have the look of someone going away? Just as a man on the last hill showing him his whole valley one last time, turns, and stops, and lingers – so we live, and are forever leaving.

It was excruciating to leave you all.

Subi Samuel!

While I stood facing the infinite ocean on those colossal stairs at the Taj, the gale blew so incessantly in my face, and right there I felt a chill in my bones. My mind, as it usually does, wandered, and I comprehended that my fear of the ocean stemmed perhaps in the inner fear that I carry of death itself. I figured then that surely there is no room for debate that there is an element of death in life, and I was astonished that each one of us pretends to ignore it: death, whose unpitying presence we experience in each turn of fortune we survive because we must learn how to die slowly. We must learn to die: all of life is in that. When thoughts such as these were traversing my senses, I turned and I saw you: all of a sudden, my nomadic feelings seemed to settle, and settle because I knew I have my brother beside me. My brother, who is my protector, my god on earth, who loves me like the infinity of the ocean, and I realised from that instant that I don’t ever have to be afraid of death, or for that matter the ocean, after all, like your love, it is deep, abundant and immeasurable.

Your younger bro
- F

Like that...

2008-06-11T23:31:00.001+05:30

Sometimes what we’re all looking for is a little love. A little. And when we don’t get that, we give it away in loads to those around us.

Nakuul-Rahul-Sammir: My Three KIDDO Musketeers

2008-06-08T01:59:00.000+05:30

The three brats who are not just my life but my reason for living. If it’s not for them one would not know what it is to love and be loved. How fortunate and blessed I am to have them as my siblings.

PROUD
of you and
LOVE
you
IMMENSELY
IMMEASURABLY
and
INFINITELY
my
Kiddos

PS – All the girls who have sent me marriage proposals out there and for the rest of them who are interested, well you ought to know that I am a fiercely family orientated fella, my parents and my brothers mean the most to me, only if you love them as much as I love them can I be eternally yours. So the ONE woman who'll own my heart, if you think you have it, you know the drill...