'SACHIN DEVOTEE' OR 'SACHIN-HATER' - WHAT DOES ANY OF THAT MEAN?

I can understand people not being in love with or in awe of Sachin. I get it even if you don't like him much. I completely understand if you have better things to do. I just don't get Sachin haters. What does that even mean? And what's to hate anyway? By saying you are a ‘Sachin-hater’, you are actually putting him on a pedestal much higher than he already enjoys. May be he is not the greatest. May be he is not even great. May be he is no hero; he is after all just a sportsperson and never claims to be anything more. Some love him merely for the entertainment he has provided over the years. Some because they think he is one of those few who touches hearts across borders, religions, castes and classes. But to look with scorn and a sense of superiority at those who shed a tear during his retirement or those who say they love him is a bit patronizing, don’t you think?

And then there are those who say that people shedding tears at Sachin's retirement are otherwise callous people who don't give a damn when people lose lives at the border or during terror attacks or other catastrophes. Why compare the two situations at all? Is there really a comparison?? I mean if anything, you are the ones who are trivializing the lives lost. In the moment, people cry over the smallest things - movies, TV shows and similarly sports. 

Yes some of us shed tears when people win or lose sports, when people retire, when we watch movies but also when we see a helpless person on the street, terrible mishaps take place and people lose lives or when great social leaders die. And believe it or not, we also cry when loved ones are in trouble – in fact I can’t even pretend to know what I might do if that were to happen; cry, act strong or worst possible outcome, not able to cry because of being in a state of shock or trauma. Sometimes in grave situations, we might even try and do more than just shed tears. Provide help may be if we are in a position to. Just as we are capable of laughing at good and bad jokes, we are capable of crying during tragedies, victories and moments of sadness spanning a vast range and intensity.

Coming back specifically to Sachin, here’s just a short note about what Sachin means to me. Since I was a little kid, I started enjoying cricket and cricket at the time, in the 90s was all about Sachin; simply because he was the only one who played well consistently, with passion, like a kid keen on winning and doing well each time and with ethics. He was the guy who got India out of precarious situations time and time again and we came to associate the Cricket of the 90s with Sachin. It means that for the last 20 years I have watched him play and hoped each time that India and he succeed. He has entertained me for the last 20 years. A little confession; I don’t consider myself a particularly motivated person; someone who goes all out to achieve something they desire. And it is precisely that quality (missing in me) that I admire about Sachin and also a lot of other people, far greater as well as closer people. Now I feel a sense of loss, a sense of losing a part of my childhood and realize that all those beautiful moments are now buried way in the past. And so I shed tears. Does that mean I will shed tears everyday from this day on? Some of us criticize him as much as we praise him. I wanted him to retire earlier than he actually did but then, now or later, I would still have become emotional. I am not even so sure that he should have received the 'Bharat Ratna'. I have criticized him for not being more outspoken about dirty politics surrounding cricket. I, in fact, admire Dravid much more for doing what few other cricketers have done; speaking up against corruption in Cricket.

Today, I was left dehydrated after the speech he made. I was touched by the speech. And you know what, this is not the first time in my life that I have been moved - like I said I have shed many a tear; some during catastrophes, calamities, sports victories and losses, retirements, deaths, personal tragedies of course and some during the worst of movies! So if today, after listening to Sachin’s speech I don’t go out and declare how much I cried when someone died or profoundly moved me so many years, months or days ago and instead mention the most recent occasion when I did, which happens to be Sachin’s farewell speech, does that make me stupid, emotionally weak and/or a terribly callous person? If it does, well I promise you, there is little I can do. I just can't help it! 

NIKHIL ADVANI'S 'D'DAY' - WHAT IDEOLOGY?

Films like ‘DDay’ really annoy me. The following write up is full of spoilers!

The first half is good; believable and likeable characters with emotional tracks that you immediately connect with and a very realistic and gritty feel to the film. I fell in love with Irrfan Khan pretty much immediately. I started liking Arjun Rampal once his mystique gave way to an intense relationship with a prostitute (Shruti Hassan). I didn’t really get Huma Qureshi’s emotional track at all but anyway, a minor thing like that was easily forgotten.

The actors are great – Irrfan is mind-blowingly brilliant. That one shot when he bids farewell to his son at the airport took my breath away. That isn't acting, I thought! If a camera is suddenly pulled out and a picture taken, most people, in the middle of their individual moments, end up looking awkward and camera-unfriendly. But when you are acting for the camera, I believe it would be very difficult to conjure a look not meant for the camera. For me, Irrfan is this character feeling that emotion. It isn’t acting. It is a moment of brilliance and there are many such brilliant moments in the film, thanks to Irrfan. Rishi Kapoor is as usual effective, although I do feel that he is capable of much more than what he showcased in this film. Arjun Rampal has mightily improved. Shruti Hassan is a great surprise package for me and the supporting cast is excellent as well.

The cinematography is superb. A realistic feel with effective gloominess and grains (which works in this film as opposed to in 'Lootera', considering the space, the aesthetic and the tone of the film in focus) mixed beautifully with stylistic shots and lighting that become evident without taking anything away from the narrative/content.

But let’s not get too much into the technicalities and the craft, however great they might have been. The film is good up until the ‘Alvida’ song, which is an absolute delight in the way it’s visualized and choreographed. Things are looking up and then suddenly, it all goes downhill! The film goes for a toss. The characters suddenly become "filmy", lose their appeal, things become too convenient and story finds escape routes through coincidences. And I am not going to harp on all the dragging towards the end and the unnecessary twists and turns and hyper-emotions that put me off completely.

I am going to instead focus on the thing that usually annoys me the most about Commercial Hindi films of the ‘Political Thriller’ genre. What ideology exactly is the film trying to sell? Isn’t it our usual favourite; the only way out is to take law in your own hands which films like ‘A Wednesday’ and ‘Rang De Basanti’ did to my annoyance. We love to hear stories about messiahs coming and saving us from the claws of corrupt politicians. But at what point does a vigilante stop being that and become an uncontrollable force that misuses all the power bestowed upon him/her.

And how are we expected to be so blind to the fact that the so-called savior within the film is selling out to the demands of the very charming, very charismatic and a very cunning villain. Each time Goldman is captured, all he hopes for is to be killed so that he doesn’t have to go through the ordeal of being interrogated, incarcerated and humiliated. Or so I believe! (It’s possible that Goldman is simply taunting him knowing fully well that the Indian agent would never kill him. I didn’t see it that way. I may be wrong but I choose to stick to my perception.) Goldman tempts the RAW undercover agents to shoot him but they don’t because they don't want him to become a martyr. They want to bring him back to India alive. At first, it seemed like that was merely a device to prolong the film but later I convinced myself that perhaps that WAS the right thing to do. In the end, after a lot is lost and sacrificed and against all odds and an unbelievably long amount of time spent in the theatre, the mission of bringing Goldman back to India is accomplished, the agent pulls out the gun, says a fancy line and shoots him! I mean seriously?! Of course when Goldman gives an annoying speech about how he is an Indian, glad to be back and he can continue his business sitting in any of the jails, out eventually only to enter ‘The Big Boss’ house and sit and talk with Salman Khan etc., I felt like snatching the gun out of Arjun Rampal’s hand and shooting him myself. (Wait I am confused, actually I felt like shooting Nikhil Advani; it sounded more like the director’s philosophy than the character’s anyway.) But then that precisely is the purpose. I felt that the speech was Goldman’s escape route. He wants to be shot! He wants to be rescued from all the humiliation he would have to go through post the arrest. He invites temptation so that he can be freed from the ordeal that’s to follow; he does it all very cleverly and guess what, it works too! He tempts the agent to shoot him and the agent does! Not only does he attack the constitution by taking law in his own hands but also sells out to the demand of the man who is responsible for the doom of many Indians and his own friends. As if all that isn’t enough, he finishes the film with an awful line about how Goldman must take off his rose tinted glasses, face the new India, the changed India, the India that’s not “cowardly” anymore and doesn’t flinch at the thought of flaunting guns and pulling triggers. What a message!

After having been treated like a complete idiot by the filmmaker, the only thing that could have made it worse still, was an applause from the audience as the end credits rolled! Yes, there was…plenty of it!

MARTIN SCORSESE'S 'THE KING OF COMEDY' - WEIRD BUT WONDERFUL. DISTURBING BUT DAZZLING.

A tragicomedy…a delightful film...a film that’s sad and funny at the same time. (I mean exactly at the same time!) 

A loser, a kind of a character you see and think, “Yeah, there are people like that around; so delusional that they tend to lose sight of what's real and what's not.” You find it difficult to empathize with them until you spare a minute and give your conscience a little prod only to realize how close their reality and their goals are to yours; it is only the approach that is alienating. Even as an audience, you find it difficult to sympathise with this Rupert Pupkin character even though you are aligned to him throughout the film - which more often than not works; say in complex cases like Kubrick's 'Clockwork Orange' or simpler cases like Ramu's 'Satya'. 

In 'King of Comedy', you don’t even know whether the person you are half-rooting for is talented or not because you haven’t been given an inkling of a clue about his talent or the lack thereof. You are uncomfortably close to his life, his financial situation, his dreams, his fantasies, confined in his closed bedroom with him - his bedroom is almost a manifestation of his fantasies but know nothing about how good or bad he is at what he loves to do. That reminds me of a scene in the film; a wonderful example of the director's clever "'No entry' beyond this point" - you can be in his room, in his head but not know a thing about a crucial aspect of his life. This wonderful ambiguity about Pupkin's talent takes a complex shape in the scene when he makes a tape for Jerry. He practices his lines in front of a cardboard cutout/wallpaper audience in his room and plays recorded laughter in the background. As the camera pulls back and continues to do so for a while, it makes you feel more and more like the audience is laughing at him and not with him. Sitting in this audience, is of course, you. 

The film oscillates between the real and imaginary. The fantasy scenes where the principal of his school apologizes to Rupert on National TV, Jerry begs for him to take up his show for a while to increase the ratings are hilarious and tragic at the same time. These scenes also add to the ambiguity of Rupert's professional abilities. You are laughing but it's not with Rupert, it is certainly at Rupert and to a certain extent at yourself. Rupert, throughout the film, is unintentionally funny for the audience, hence, once again becoming a butt of all jokes rather than the man who makes a living by telling jokes. 

The imaginary, ironically is more relatable than real. We all fantasize like Rupert does, we all want our principals to apologize to us, even better if it's on National TV - to admit it would be like admitting to insanity but it still is real whereas the real in the film is so dark and so action oriented that not many of us would take the liberty of indulging in it. It’s this upside down/inside out phenomenon of the film that is so wonderful and weird at the same time. 

Like I said before, what you have been allowed to see is Rupert Pupkin's struggle and his desperation to somehow get to Jerry Langford. And when he conceives the whole plan of kidnapping Jerry, you begin to think he is stupider than you thought. But it’s only in the end that you see his act on TV for the first time and realise he’s indeed talented and that all he needed was one chance, one small window of opportunity which was so difficult to come by. He concludes his act by saying something to the effect - He has tied up Jerry and that is what a person has to do to reach here (a laughter later) you will believe me when you read the papers tomorrow and then you will wonder why I did this, well because I figured that it’s better to be a King for a night than to be a shmuck for a lifetime. It is this last sentence that just explains it all; it sums it up - his behaviour, his actions and you immediately buy it. You like the character for it and you wholeheartedly root for him for the first time in the film when the film ends; which is a risky thing for a director to do but so refreshingly novel, disturbing and interesting. 

Scorsese, you are slowly becoming one of my favourites, up there with Truffaut and Kubrick! And yes, I saw 'Taxi Driver' some 10 years ago and loved it but somehow I became more of a Schrader fan than Scorsese's. 'Raging Bull' put me off, but it's been a while since then and I have been watching Scorsese films for many years now and been loving most, barring some of the obvious ones. The man's working for 4 decades and he is still younger in style and content than most young filmmakers. Looking forward to 'The Wolf of Wall Street'.

THE BEST PASTA FROM RUCHI'S PRECARIOUS KITCHEN!

Hey, those of you who want to taste the best Pasta dish ever, take the following route and end up in the culinary heaven! I am sure chefs, connoisseurs, epicures and gourmets will disagree with me but who gives a damn anyway; it is you the public that I really care about, so let’s have Ruchi’s Special Pasta and make them ‘Go Green’ with Envy. 

RUCHI’S ‘GO GREEN’ WITH ENVY PASTA (SINCE 2006)

IN 14 SUPER-EASY STEPS

IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT BETTER!

1. Boil the pasta and make sure that while they are properly boiled, they don’t go all soggy or break but stay nice and firm. 
2. Drain all the water out and to keep the pasta from sticking with each other, rinse it with cold water.
3. In a wok/deep pan/kadhai, put some olive oil. 
4. Add chopped baby spinach (Take reasonable quantity of baby spinach because once in the wok with the heat on, the mass substantially diminishes.) 
5. Put salt and pepper as per taste. 
6. Add the boiled pasta to it and stir well so that everything mixes properly and the pasta starts looking green. 
7. Add finely chopped Italian herbs including any or all of the following: Dill, Basil, Thyme, Rosemary (I like to avoid it, it’s a little bitter), parsley, sage, oregano, chives, marjoram etc. (I would like to put in at least 4 or 5 of these.) 
8. Add dry oregano (preferably) or any of the above mentioned herbs, dried. 
9. Add 1 and a half to 2 heaped tablespoons of basil pesto. (If you are buying it, I like the one with pine nuts in it.) 
10. You can add more salt and pepper if need be. 
11. Mix everything together. 
12. Nothing really needs major cooking. Just as everything is nicely heated and mixed together, you can turn the flame off. 
13. To serve, garnish with olive oil, dried oregano and grated parmesan. 14. Before starting, say, “Ruchi’s pasta is the best pasta ever. Amen!”

FOR YOU DIETER BEHNS AND BHAIS,

THIS RECIPE IS A BLESSING IN DISGUISE...

JUST REMOVE THE GARNISH

AND RELISH THE DISH!

AND THOSE OF YOU, WHO DON'T GIVE A DAMN

ABOUT DIET AND SUCH OTHER SHAM,

ADD SOME OLIVE OIL, PUT IN SOME PARMESAN

AND THANK RUCHI FOR HER CULINARY IMAGINATION!

I must tell you guys that the only reason of my unveiling my secret recipe is that I don’t know when next I will get a chance to cook this dish myself. In Australia I used to be able to find some really good pasta and all the Italian herbs that made the dish possible in the first place; I don’t know where to go for the same in India. So those of you who know where to find these things, Good for you! Whereas, the ignorant ones like myself, Bad Luck! Of course the ignorant but creative ones, All the best! because I trust you to take inspiration from this and evolve it into your own dish with local ingredients and hence a ‘local flavour’.

Note to myself from the future (added in 2012): All the ingredients needed to make this dish are available in supermarkets and stores like 'Nature's Basket' and it's quite a hit with all your friends!

AN ODE TO FACEBOOK

Okay guys, it’s official! I am addicted to Facebook. I am sure there will be a lot of people like me out there. But I have a story to tell…unlike most of you (na na na na na na!).

Just about a month back, I would run as far from Facebook as I could. I created a profile because a friend forced me to but never ever bothered to go on and check what was happening in that world. I preferred My Space or Orkut. I just thought Facebook was a bit too difficult to grasp; too many things happening at once; too many applications, people sending in requests I couldn’t get my head around. All in all, it felt more like a complex web of things to dodge rather than a comfy chair where you sit and send messages to people who are either too far or too undesirable to be called – These things are the best way to keep in touch, I believe. You say a ‘hi’ and then you forget about them for a couple of months, again after which you drop may be another ‘hi’ said slightly more creatively for deception. Anyway coming back to my reluctance to stepping into the dark waters(!!) of Facebook, I was in fact quite forcefully led into it with a point to prove and my ego scarred by a friend of mine who kept saying that after all it wasn’t rocket science and if indeed I found it difficult to understand, I must have an IQ of 30 (which I believe is pretty bad). With those words I was faced with a challenge. I had to prove to her, to myself and to the world that I wasn’t a 30 on the IQ and I was certainly not one of those to run away from challenges. So that was it!

Not that anything got any easier. I was still just as averse to it. While the mind had journeyed from being reluctant to being ambivalent, the heart was fiercely determined as ever. So there I was. My first look at Facebook happened at last. It didn’t look inviting at all. We shared mutual repugnance. I was inundated with information I thought was least necessary or desired. I managed to reach the bay and kept at it for weeks to come. While I may have started logging in more often than I did before (which was never), I didn’t do much but look around and back out in disgust. People kept poking me and I didn’t know how to stop them or shout back at them or superpoke them (it’s great by the way, you can even throw flaming poop at people which I only discovered today when I saw it smeared on my face thanks to a friend who until then was only hugging and cuddling me…but it’s kind of a dream come through, I mean throwing it) and I kept thinking this place was the best place to purge your frustration but alas, I was only at the receiving end since I knew none of the techniques.

And then one day something happened. On surface it was just another day. The alarm went off, I snoozed it, it went off again after its stipulated 10 minutes, I snoozed it again and again and again until my alarm sprouted legs and kicked me out of the bed…all very usual…I brushed my teeth, cooked some vege and heated my bread, had my bath…yeah yeah okay…I stop here but you get the drift. It was all very normal and on such a seemingly dreary day, I reached the office, half an hour late as usual. But things were different. I couldn’t tell what had gone wrong but there was a strange desire, someone was urging and I, ignoring, urging and ignoring, ignoring and urging until that someone put their foot down….right on my foot and man, did it hurt! But I didn’t react because I needed it and for the first time I knew my time was up. It was time to conquer this strange strange world. I started exploring and I found stuff like movie quizzes, IQ tests, honesty boxes (well I was always at the receiving end of nasty remarks while playing ‘Fish Tank’ or something it was called in school and this was my chance to give it back), compare people, minekey, You’d rather and other such crazy applications which warmed me a little to the whole idea of Facebook. And then there was no looking back.

Gradually, it became an addiction and now has reached the intensity of slow poisoning. It also got me blogging, which is a good thing I guess…for the writer at least. Now I have to go back to Facebook every 10 minutes and hope to find loads of messages, comments and ratings waiting for me. So while I am at work juggling with 20 things and doing it quite successfully, there comes a point when I choose to just drop the balls and enter Facebook with wide eyes full of hope as if I were entering a producer’s office who had promised me to fund my script lying in the drawers for the past 7 years.

But did I mention that there are rough times too. Those times when nothing awaits you there, no messages, no comments, nothing, when life seems drab, there are always a million quizzes to cheer you up. And those quiz makers are Gods, I tell you! They know you in and out only through a few questions. In 4 questions, they tell you who you are, what you look like, what animal you’d be reborn as (which in my case is a HIPPO by the way…some life to look forward to!), who you’d date and also what his name would be. Isn’t that amazing guys? It’s a miracle, I’d say.

So that is Facebook for you. Changing lives! (Thank goodness my family is not reading this…)

AN ODE TO THOUGHTS

At the risk of sounding clichéd, proverbial and philosophical, I am going to have to draw an embarrassing metaphor to try and explain where I am going with this blog. Here it comes. Life is a Rubik’s cube. Very few understand the pattern and only a handful crack the trick. I am certainly not one of them. Just like most people, I am constantly groping in the dark to make sense of my life and the world around. But what is interesting is that this obscure and incomprehensible life is richly laden with situations, events and thus thoughts. These thoughts emerge as I fall and then again when I rise, sometimes with effort and sometimes with fervour.

Actually thoughts are the funniest things. They seem to bombard you from all the directions, at any time during the day or night and take you to places unguarded, unforeseen and untrodden. They can be simple, they can be complex and they can be outright bizarre. And man, can they be powerful! They can wreck you and leave you frail and feeble. They can invigorate you and motivate you to go on living and loving this strange life. They can give you ideas - ideas for a better life, ideas for a richer life and ideas for a creative life.

If such is the case then why do we suppress our thoughts so much? Why do we force ourselves to push them back in the darker recesses of our labyrinthine mind? I mean, of course, we are all social animals and sometimes you just have to...for the sake of living a symbiotic life. But aren't we doing it a bit much these days? Aren't we restricting ourselves to blindly following the thoughts of the larger group out there? Why aren't we allowing our beautiful minds to flourish and grow through those thoughts that bear ideas and expressions? Why does everything new and different always amount to blasphemy? Why are stranger hairstyles not acceptable to us? Why are dress codes so strictly adhered to? Why do we watch only Bollywood or Hollywood movies with a certain pace and linear structure? Why does everyone have to believe in God? Why do I have to be tolerant to those who think astrology is science? (Well I do. I do have to be tolerant. That is what we all need to learn to be. I think that is the only way for individuality to sneak in. But coming back to astrology; this is again a product of not rational and individual thinking but blind adherence to 'Indianness'.) Why do I have to belong to a religion, perform its never-ending rites and rituals and why, oh why, do I have to belong at all? These are questions I ask myself everyday. These are questions I wish people asked themselves more often. These are the thoughts I wish weren't suppressed so often as they are.

Sometimes when I think just how many categories I fall into, I get amazed. Why can't I simply break out of all those boundaries that stifle me and be a nomad just like my thoughts? Being an Indian student, you can either take up Arts, Science or Commerce. Why the bloody hell can't I choose mathematics and English literature together as my subjects? Again, why are we limiting our thoughts to regular, mundane and accepted?

The key I think is like I mentioned earlier; tolerance. We need to learn to listen, to bear with what we hear and to give people a real chance to express themselves. We need to accept that there can be diverse ways of thinking and living life. We need to stop oppressing people on basis of what they are, how they think and how they live their lives. And when we do reach that level of tolerance towards 'the other', we need to do some creative and yet rational thinking for once. We just need to think and I swear, we won't need wings to fly.

JUST 2 FILMS OLD AND OH, HOW I ADMIRE TRUFFAUT!

I watched Shoot the piano player by Truffaut recently.

I have totally fallen in love with Truffaut after having watched just 2 of his films...Bed and Board (fabulous) and the one I mentioned above.

What is unique about him is this utter disregard for the normal, the conventional and the law. The way he sets out to destroy all kinds of conventions and norms in his films is fascinating to watch...even murders and death in his films seem commonplace, inevitable, laughable at times and yet poignant. The most amazing thing about this is that he is never too weird or too boring to watch...he is not like the absurd school of thought or the surreal school of filmmaking who leave many untouched, baffled and bored...

Another quality of his, which is in a way a part of his disregard for conventions, is his mixing of the genres...it's not a mess like Indian masala films, neither generically distinct like Hollywood...it's a very conscious effort at mixing the two or more unseemingly disparate moods...like for example, drama, action, tragedy, social reality and comedy in Shoot the piano player. Similarly, romance, drama, tragedy, social reality and comedy in Bed and Board. And this mélange is not the usual "black comedy" either...which is essentially treating a rather serious subject through comedy...its plain mixing of completely different genres.

And most importantly, what keeps any viewer hooked to his films, is his inherent sense of humour. His comic outlook towards the most serious and tragic events in life, his frivolous perspective on life as a whole is endearing to watch. There is humour in every scene...no matter how routine, tragic or grave the content may be.

His acute understanding of human relationships and especially the romantic ones is incredibly touching, universally appealing and identifiable. He brings out the most routine sentiments in his dialogues draped in a humorous garb and leaves the viewer laughing hysterically, tickled and touched all at once.