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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Ratheesh KrishnaVadhyar's LiveJournal:
| Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | |
| 9:17 pm | The Colors of Evil I read yet another collection of Ashokamitran's short stories in translation - The Colors of Evil, a collection of 13 stories, translated by N Kalyana Raman. Many of the stories in this collection are set in backgrounds that are familiar to me after reading the author's autobiographical works. In two of the stories, we see film studios and film makers, reminding of My Years with Boss. There are a couple of more stories set in an office-environment, which look like the author's own experiences during his days at Gemini Studios. Two stories have a young boy as the central character strongly reminding of the colorful and memorable atmosphere of childhood that the author created in Pathinettavathu Atchakkodu. There is even a story in which a foreigner - a Chinese girl - comes as the main character, which looks like an extension of Mole!. This autobiographical nature of these stories, and N Kalyana Raman's excellent translation make them a good reading. My favorite story in this collection is Inspector Shenbagaraman, which I think is a masterpiece. Chandrasekharan, the main character, is a school student, and he narrates the story. Once he gets a chance to meet his classmate's uncle Shenbagaraman, a Police Inspector. His classmate doesn't have a very pleasant relationship with his uncle (he is actually too scared to talk to him), and the Inspector's ways of life are not exactly respectable (He reminded me of Bhaskara Pattelar of Paul Zacharia's famous Malayalam story); but somehow he develops a great liking for Chandra. He takes Chandra to the doctor when he falls sick, invites him and his siblings for movies, and so on. The inspector actually finds a quite obedient and lovable assistant in his young friend. We come to know of Shenbagaraman's life from the young boy's perspective, who is "constantly bewildered by life, and forever in danger of losing his innocence", as the translator says in his commentary. The story has a touching climax, and I felt that a film can be made based on this story. |
| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | |
| 6:51 pm | Malabar Wedding Malabar Wedding, debut film by directors Rajesh and Faisal, was surprisingly refreshing, especially since I watched this movie with minimal expectations. It is a comedy. Perhaps not the sort of one which we would watch ten times and would still want to watch again; But surely something that is neatly made, which makes us feel "good". The story is made around this game (?) called sora which is nothing but fully organized and planned practical jokes played during a wedding day (I was not aware of such practices until I watched this movie). A group of youngsters lead by Manu (Indrajith) are the people behind sora in the village. Occasionally, sora reaches the narrow border between harmless jokes and serious abuses that can potentially break the marriage itself, and Manu himself turns out to be a victim on his wedding day when his friends make him drink alcohol without his knowledge, send dirty clothes to the bride's house as her attire for the wedding day, and do a few similar sort of things. A few other minor mishaps happen without their involvement too. However, the sora team just wants some fun, and they are there as good friends to solve any problems during the day. The film shows these entire incidents in a humorous way. I liked the performances, and moreover, the interesting (and a little unconventional) way the directors have presented this film. There are a few sub-story-threads running in the film (like the love affair of the cook played by Anoop), which are equally interesting. There are no villains in the film - I was guessing that one of the heroine's (played by the beautiful Gopika) relatives would turn out to be a villain in the climax, following the line of most of the movies of recent times, but that was not the case. The climax was still a bit disappointing, as the directors brought a "twist" in the end, which didn't go well with the rest of the story. |
| Friday, July 4th, 2008 | |
| 10:46 pm | Kumbakonam The Kumbakonam railway station is a small one, and when we get out of the station and look at the surroundings, we get a feeling that we have landed at some place a couple of decades back. A few auto-rickshaws were parked outside, and we negotiated with one guy to take us around Kumbakonam and show a few temples (there are some 20 temples around Kumbakonam) for 200 rupees. Our return bus to Bangalore was at 8PM, so we had roughly 4 hours with us. First, we went to Darasuram, to watch the 12th century Chola temples dedicated to Shiva and Parvathi, constructed by Raja Raja II. Darasuram is a village four kilometers from Kumbakonam. The archeology department has maintained this place very well. We found many people relaxing in the beautiful lawns surrounding the two temples. In front of the temple complex, there is a damaged gopuram. Only the base of the gopuram remains now. Looking at the size of this base, I guess it might have been a pretty tall gopuram. Airavatheshwara temple, dedicated to Shiva, looks a bit like Brihadeshwara temple, though the tower over the sanctum is much shorter. There is a mandapam with several intricately carved pillars in front of the sanctum, and this mandapam is built in the shape of a chariot drawn by horses. The idol in the temple is still being worshiped, and the temple opens at 4PM for darshana. We thought we would be able to enter the temple only at 4, and were about to sit in the lawn, when one person standing near the entrance of the temple clapped hands to call us inside. It seems we could enter the temple any time, though the inner sanctum would open only at 4. The inner temple compound is a peaceful place, with not a soul to disturb you with noise or chatter. We roamed around for some time, trying to speculate about the Puranic stories that are being illustrated in the carvings on the pillars. The tower over the sanctum has remains of colorful murals on it. I guess it was a very colorful structure during older days. After some time, the pujari called us, and we had darshana and came out. The Parvathi temple is adjacent to Airavatheshwara Temple, and it is architecturally very similar to the latter. We had a quick darshana there too.  Airavatheshwara temple at Darasuram  Mandapam in front of Airavatheshwara temple at Darasuram  Damaged gopuram in front of Airavatheshwara temple at Darasuram  The tall gopuram of Sarangapani temple, Kumbakonam From Darasuram, we went back to Kumbakonam, and had quick darshanas at three temples there - Kumbheshwara and Nageshwara temples dedicated to Shiva and Sarangapani temple dedicated to Vishnu. There are many shops on the narrow lanes surrounding these temples, and we were amused to see a huge pile of agasthya cheera being sold by an elderly lady sitting in front of Sarangapani temple, for 1 rupee a bundle. We bought 10 bundles from her. From a bookshop, I got a small book on the history of Kumbakonam temples. Somewhere in these narrow lanes, the house where Srinivasa Ramanujan stayed is located. I wanted to visit that house (I guess it is converted to a museum now), but we didn't get time for that. At 7PM, our auto-rickshaw driver dropped us at Kumbakonam bus-stand. We found a Saravana Bhavan restaurant close to the bus stand, and entered it with great expectations. However, I was disappointed seeing the tables covered with flies and the dirty wash basin. The attitude of the person supplying food too was not very pleasing. We quickly had some parathas from there and came out. Then, we went to another restaurant nearby to have coffee (I liked it so much that I asked for a second cup). The KSRTC bus to Bangalore started at 8:30PM. It was a miserable journey. The National Highway to Bangalore was under maintenance, and at many places, there were no dividers in the road. Every now and then, I would wake up from my sleep hearing a big sound, as the bus passed over a speed-breaker at full speed. Then the bus would shake violently and move forward as if it has lost control. I could then see the headlights of a vehicle coming right against us in full speed, and feel the adrenaline rushing from my stomach, thinking that all is over. Then the driver would apply breaks quickly, and both the vehicles would halt, leaving just a few inches between them. This happened several times, and finally I gave up the idea of sleeping. I looked around and found that most of the other passengers were too in a similar situation. At some place, the driver stopped the bus and slept for a few hours. I hoped that a relaxing nap would make him more alert when he drives again, but I was mistaken. Eventually, we reached Bangalore at 9AM, four hours later than the scheduled arrival time. |
| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | |
| 8:44 pm | Srirangam On Sunday morning, we checked out from our hotel and went to Thanjavur railway station to catch a train to Trichy. We found out that we just missed the train at 7:15AM and the next train would only be at 9:30. But there are buses to Trichy every 5 minutes. We caught one, and after a tiring journey (thanks to the roads under repair), we reached Trichy at 10. From the Central Bus Stand, we caught the town bus number 1 going to Srirangam. It took half an hour to reach Srirangam.  Rajagopuram at Srirangam The Ranganathaswami temple at Srirangam is regarded as the largest "functioning" temple in the world. The main temple complex is not so vast, but there is almost a mini-township surrounding the temple complex, filled with various commercial establishments, and several tall towers. The tallest and outermost among them, the 72 meter tall Rajagopuram, was the tallest temple tower in India until the recent competition of Murudeshwar temple tower. The construction of this Rajagopuram was started several centuries back, but it was completed only in 1987. We could really feel the massiveness of the tower when we pass through the entrance, which looks like a tall lengthy tunnel carved out of rock. Then we enter a pathway with several shops on both sides, selling anything from kitchen utensils to books on spirituality. The atmosphere is also filled with the aroma of hot ghee dosa, vada, sambar and filter coffee being sold from various smallish restaurants. There are many more towers to follow. When we entered the main temple complex, we could see a long queue for getting the darshana, and someone told us that it could take at least two hours for having the darshana. So we decided to just say our prayers standing outside and then return. They were selling temple prasadam in front of the main temple complex - dosa, pongal, tamarind rice and curd rice, all served on banana leaves. We were very hungry, and hence tasted all the four types of prasadams. They were tasty, but a group of beggars who surrounded us made us feel uncomfortable.  Paddy fields on the way to Kumbakonam We came out of the temple, and bus number 1 took us back to the central bus station. The Trichy Junction railway station is close-by, and we quickly went and bought tickets for Kumbakonam. The train, Mysore-Mailadudurai express, was already there in the platform and was about to start at 1:05PM. We had two cups of refreshing coffee each from the railway canteen, and boarded the train. Most of the compartments were empty, and we could have a relaxed journey (We could even purchase some vegetables during the trip, when a few women and children of the village got in the train to sell vegetables at some station). At 3, we reached Kumbakonam. Our plan was not very optimal. Trichy is on one side of Thanjavur and Kumbakonam is on the other side. So, during our journey from Trichy, we passed through Thanjavur, and we were to come back the same path in the evening during our return trip to Bangalore. |
| Monday, June 30th, 2008 | |
| 10:33 pm | Thanjavur Last weekend, we had a visit to a few places of Tamil Nadu. We decided to stay at Thanjavur and then visit the surrounding places from there, and hence booked a room at Sangam Hotel at Thanjavur. We started from Bangalore on Friday evening by a KSRTC bus headed for Kumbakonam, which reached Thanjavur at 6:30AM on Saturday (which was an hour later than the scheduled time of arrival). The bus stopped at the "New Bus Stand", which was more than 2 kilometers from the city center. We took an auto-rickshaw to the hotel and checked into our room. We got out at 8:30 and walked to the Brihadeshwara Temple. It was a twenty minute walk from the hotel. The townspeople were all very helpful, and hence it was easy to locate our way. We spent two hours at the magnificent 10th century Chola temple. I bought a small book written by Dr Kudavayil Balasubramanian from a shop nearby, which gives good information about the history and architecture of the temple.  Brihadeshwara Temple, Thanjavur  Mysterious figure of a man wearing a hat - appearing on the tower of Brihadeshwara Temple From the temple, we walked to the Royal Palace, which is around a kilometer from there. The important things to see at the palace include the Sarasvati Mahal Library where several ancient manuscripts are exhibited, the tall bell tower, and the colorful durbar hall of the Maratha kings (though it is mostly covered by pigeon droppings as of today) who used to rule Thanjavur from the palace. There is also a huge tower near the art gallery, but we couldn't enter the art gallery as it was closed for lunch-break at 1, and would open only after 3. Sarasvati Mahal library also sells books, but the only English book I could find was Manora - Maritime History and Architecture by Dr M Rajaram and Dr Raju Poundurai, which I bought.  Paintings on the walls of Maratha Durbar Hall at Thanjavur Palace We decided to have lunch at Saravana Bhavan restaurant, and tried to locate it using the city-map from Lonely Planet guide-book. But there didn't seem to be any signs of Saravana Bhavan at the place where we thought it was located. We asked a few people, but they gave contradicting directions. Finally, we gave up, and took an auto-rickshaw to our hotel. After having lunch from there, we took rest for two hours, and then went to Brihadeshwara Temple again, this time by bus (a kind elderly lady - she was a Malayalee - helped us to catch the right bus). Unlike in the morning, the temple was a bit crowded. We got the darshana of the massive Shiva Linga installed inside the sanctum (it is 13 feet tall). It was an overwhelming experience - thinking that more than a thousand years back Raja Raja, the great Chola ruler, also might have stood at exactly the same place near the sanctum to have the Lord's darshana. The colorful characters and incidents from Kalki's classic, Ponniyin Selvan flashed through my mind. |
| Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | |
| 9:25 pm | Dashavatharam Kamal Hassan plays 10 characters in his latest film Dashavatharam, and it seems this is a record sort of thing. In the climax scenes of this film, we could see the hero, villain, observers all together - all played by Kamal Hassan! Thankfully, the heroine is Asin, and not Kamal himself. Apoorva Sahodarangal, Avvai Shanmukhi, Indian, Aalavandhan (I haven't seen this film) - I think characters requiring intense makeup have always fascinated Kamal Hassan. However, all those films had some interesting story-lines and were good entertainers. Dashavatharam, on the other hand, just remains as a boring fancy-dress parade. |
| Saturday, June 21st, 2008 | |
| 10:33 pm | Tess Today I watched Roman Polanski's movie adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. A well made film with a wonderful performance by Nastassja Kinski who portrays the central character - And the film provides beautiful visuals of European village landscapes accompanied by a brilliant music score. |
| Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 | |
| 8:18 pm | Chandamama Collector's Edition For a long time, I have been hoping that Chandamama would bring out a collection of stories published on their magazine. I was happy to get a such a collection recently, the Chandamama Collector's Edition, a book that they published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the magazine. This is a beautiful book, printed neatly in high quality paper with a colorful illustrations reproduced from the magazine. There are a few articles depicting the history of the magazine, too. I was a bit disappointed with certain things, though. First of all, I felt that the format of the book (which looked like a large photo album) made it inconvenient to hold it in hand and read. I think they should have published it in the same format as that of the magazine. Also, I felt that they should have added more stories in this collection, even if it meant reducing the paper quality to keep the price the same (the paper quality of the book is too good that I was hesitant to touch its pages!). Another disappointing thing was that more than half of the stories in the collection are from the post-2000 period. Chandamama is a 60-year old magazine, so I was hoping to read more stories from the 1950-70 period rather than the newer ones. Another point I didn't like was the selection of certain stories like that of Birbal and Thenali Rama. They were surely entertaining, but we have many other sources for Birbal and Thenali Rama stories. I hope Chandamama would publish an exclusive collection of their trademark Ancient-Ideal-Indian-Village stories of the older period, which I think would make me feel more nostalgic than this Collector's Edition. |
| Sunday, June 8th, 2008 | |
| 3:56 pm | Tea & Me Tea & Me is a memoir written by ESJ Davidar, remembering his years as a tea planter at Peermade. ESJ Davidar joined the Indian Army shortly after Independence, but after serving the country for five years, he decided to enter a different field of work. He was hired by SITE (South India Tea Estates Company), one of the earliest tea companies to be established at Peermade. Even though India had attained Independence, the British were still very much around, owning many companies and managing several organizations. SITE was a British company, and when Davidar joined the company in 1953, he was the first Indian Executive to be employed by the company. Within a few years, Davidar starts feeling bored of the routine life of a Planter, and decides to leave. But because of various reasons he changes his mind and decides to continue for some more time. This cycle repeats several times, and eventually it is after 24 years that he retires from his Planter's job. During this period, Davidar sees the British company gradually taking more and more natives in senior positions, and eventually selling the plantation itself to Indians. Tea & Me is not a complete account of these 24 years. Davidar just narrates a few interesting episodes from his Planting days, like his interactions with various British officers and Indian laborers, handling of the trade union problems, life at the plantation and its people, flora and fauna and "ghosts", his experiments with shikar, and his trips to England. Davidar introduces us to many kind hearted British officers in the company, like William Horrocks and Col. Williams. After Davidar, the most important character in this memoir is CJ Madden, who was instrumental in hiring him at SITE; The author gives a vivid picture of Madden in black & white, giving us an account of the British officer's helpfulness as well as professional tactics. Even though it has been more than 30 years since his retirement, Davidar still feels the wound he had when his British superiors showed discrimination against him by putting restrictions on his overseas trips, and by a few similar such means, and he doesn't hesitate to express his feelings in this book. His descriptions about trade unions of Kerala are a bit one-sided, and makes us feel that the union leaders were just a group of antisocial elements. But everywhere, his interesting, clear and frank descriptions give us a clear picture of his thought process, and we would be able to see things from his perspective and empathize with it. I liked this book, and I felt that Davidar should have written more. |
| Saturday, June 7th, 2008 | |
| 7:49 pm | Akkarakkazhchakal I enjoy watching the program called Akkarakkazhchakal that comes on Kairali TV at 9AM on Saturdays. Somehow I don't always make a point to switch on the television at this time on all Saturdays, but thankfully, someone has captured and uploaded the episodes of this program in youtube, so I watch the missing episodes from Internet. This comedy serial shows the life of a bunch of Malayalees living in the USA. Some of them have been living there for a long time and have kind of "settled" there; A few have just arrived from Kerala, and have taken up various jobs. Even though they try to adapt to the lifestyle of USA, they still have all signs of Malayalees - good or bad - intact in them. Some of them try to make themselves appear like westerners, but whenever they get a chance, they wouldn't hesitate to exhibit their "real self". The serial shows various incidents happenings in their lives in a funny way. The initial episodes of the serial were a bit amateurish, but there has been a lot of improvement in later episodes. Interesting characterizations, witty dialogues, refreshing performances by all actors (I haven't seen any of them in any other serials - mostly non-professional actors, I suppose) and the sense of humor that the directors (Abi Varghese and Ajayan Venugopalan) show in every frame of these videos make this program an interesting watch. I think Akkarakkazhchakal is far more entertaining than any comedy movie released in Malayalam in recent times. |
| Sunday, June 1st, 2008 | |
| 8:25 pm | Moment of Innocence Mohsen Makhmalbaf's film Moment of Innocence is yet another Iranian "film about film". It is an interestingly made and unique film, showing the director's attempts to make a film based on an incident that had happened in his own life when he was a young man. Makhmalbaf had participated in the anti-Shah movement when he was young, and had stabbed a policeman. He was caught and jailed for a few years. Twenty years later, Makhmalbaf plans to make a film based on that incident. After a short selection process (reminding of Salam Cinema, another Makhmalbaf film), he selects a young man to play the young Makhmalbaf. The policeman whom he had stabbed, selects a man to play his own role. However, Makhmalbaf proposes another man for that role, and asks the policeman to train him. During the training process, we get to learn a few things about the life of the two characters - The policeman had fallen in love with the girl whom Makhmalbaf had used to distract his attention during the incident, and that had transformed his life. Apparently, Makhmalbaf too had loved that girl, but she had got married to another man while he was in jail. The climax is a "freeze" scene, which I found as open to many interpretations. |
| Sunday, May 25th, 2008 | |
| 4:46 pm | Living with the Himalayan Masters I read the book Living with the Himalayan Masters written by Swami Rama. Swami Rama was initiated and adopted by a Himalayan sage during his early childhood, and thereafter for several decades he lived in the Himalayas, practicing many Yogic methods, traveling and meeting many sages of the mountains and Tibet. He held the position of Shankaracharya of Karvirpitham in South India for a few years, but he left the position to continue his Yogic practices. He moved to the USA later in his life, and founded Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy. In the book Living with the Himalayan Masters, he remembers his years in the Himalayas. I was prejudiced while reading this book, as I had read in the Internet about the controversies surrounding Swami Rama's life in the USA. I quickly browsed through the book first, and found several photographs showing various stages of Swami Rama's life, right from his young age. "Does a Sannyasi living in the Himalayas find it amusing to have himself photographed at regular intervals?", I wondered. But, while reading the contents of the book, my opinion gradually changed. Written in simple prose in an extremely readable way, this book makes an excellent reading. Swami Rama mentions that the Yogis attain superhuman siddhis as a side effect of their practices, though they don't have any significance in the spiritual progress of the person. In the book he describes a lot about miracles performed by various sages; He adds that he is telling about these miracles only to illustrate the vast possibilities and immense potentials of human beings. Actually, reading about these miracles made me feel that I was reading a work of fiction from a world of fantasy - Yogis who read and influence other's thoughts, Yogi's who levitate, Yogis who become invisible, Yogis who are capable to travel thousands of miles in a second, Yogis who "change bodies", Those who die at their will and those who "come back" to their dead-bodies - There are numerous stories of such supernatural feats in this book that things like controlling one's heartbeat at will and moving remote objects through mind-power (which Swami Rama himself is said to have demonstrated during a lab experiment in front of scientists at Menninger Clinic) start looking like pretty common things by the time we finish reading this book. We may choose to consider these narratives as fictitious stories or otherwise, but there is no denying the fact that they make a good reading, and more than that, the messages the author passes through the stories are very valid. Another likeable aspect of this book is the way Swami Rama draws his own picture in the book - We see in him a somewhat mischievous but inquisitive young man, who many times proves to be a difficult student for his Master. We could easily identifying with him, as he takes us through his journeys, getting bewildered observing the miracles done by the sages, disobeying and questioning his Master occasionally, getting indulged in the luxuries of World at times and then coming back to a Sannyasi's life, and so on. |
| Sunday, May 18th, 2008 | |
| 9:09 pm | Through the Olive Trees I watched Abbas Kiarostami's film Through the Olive Trees (1994) today. This is the fifth Kiarostami film I am watching, and I get a feeling that he has made more "films about films" than real films. Where Is the Friend's Home? was a film based on a simple story, with mostly non-professional actors playing the characters. Life, and Nothing More was a film which showed Kiarostami's travels through the earthquake-hit areas where Where Is the Friend's Home? was picturized - It showed the director's attempts to locate the actors of the first film, to make sure that they are all well and fine. And Through the Olive Trees is a film which shows a few days during the picturization of Life, and Nothing More!! In this film, we see the picturization of a small 2-3 minute sequence from Life, and Nothing More. The actors playing the husband and wife in the film make many mistakes and the director (played not by Kiarostami himself, but by a different actor) gets satisfactory results only after several retakes. Apparently, in the real life, the young man playing the husband had been trying to win the heart of the girl playing the wife, but the girl refuses to respond to him. The man is persistent, though. The climax of this film is interesting - It shows a static frame for nearly 10 minutes - We see the girl walking through the (olive?) trees, reducing to a small moving dot in the distant landscape. Then the young man follows her quickly and for a few moments we see the two small dots coming closer and flickering near the horizon. Then, one dot - the man - quickly recedes back to the foreground. Did the girl finally accept him? Kiarostami doesn't give a clear answer, and ends the film there. |
| Sunday, May 11th, 2008 | |
| 9:39 pm | Kalyan Varma's Photography Workshop This weekend, I attended a photography workshop at Koramangala, organized by Kalyan Varma. I have been a very frequent visitor to his website http://www.kalyanvarma.net/ for quite some time now, and have been an admirer of the beautiful photographs that he captures from forests of South India. He quit from a safe and secure employment to do the job he likes - I don't think that many people would have the courage to take that step, howmuchever they wish for it. During the workshop I realized that he is a good teacher too. The workshop was quite useful. Yesterday there was a theory session, where some of the basics of photography were explained and then he went a bit into the details of white balance, exposure and histograms, and gave a few tips about composition, taking several famous photographs as example. Today morning we did some "field work" at Lal Bagh, followed by a session on various image processing techniques. Below are a few photographs I took from Lal Bagh today.       |
| Friday, May 2nd, 2008 | |
| 10:03 pm | "Nokku Kooli" !! In a recent edition of Malayala Manorama, I was amused to read CPM Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan's comments about "Nokku Kooli". Even though Nokku Kooli is a well-known practice in Kerala for many decades now, and has been filmed in numerous comedy films and portrayed by Toms in several Bobanum Moliyum comic strips, I was not aware that it has been officially assigned this interesting name of "Nokku Kooli". Actually I remember reading about this practice in the Kuttan Kandathum Kettathum comics by Krishnan, that was published in Mathrubhoomi weekly during the late 1970s, so I guess it was already a well-established custom that time. In Kerala, various Labor Unions have assumed these funny rights to receive payment for any sort of "loading and unloading" happening in the state, even if they haven't done any work. To quote from a Deccan Herald article, "It is the wage that has to be paid to the recognized trade union workers of an area when a person or organization loads material on to a vehicle or unloads with the help of friends or helpers instead of these workers. These wages are no pittance either, but often up to four times the normal wages laid out by the labor department. Those undertaking construction or moving household articles while shifting their lodging and companies have no choice but to pay up. .. The rational behind this strange practice is that only the unions have the right to load or unload material. As such, they should be paid even if they did not take up the work.", and that is exactly Nokku Kooli, which literally means "Fees for Observing". I wonder if any similar interesting practice has ever been followed by any other civilization of the World for such a long period of time. |
| Sunday, April 27th, 2008 | |
| 8:32 pm | We had gone to Irinjalakuda to attend the Koodalmanikyam temple festival. I was all excited to go for the festival until last Wednesday, when I heard the news about the unfortunate incident at the temple - An elephant had gone berserk and killed 3 people during the festival. Even though elephants have been creating mischiefs at the temple during the festival every year, I think this is the first time that someone is getting killed during the incident. The thought that the calm and quiet premises of Koodalmanikyam temple, that have always been an embodiment of sanctity, were to be the stage for such tragic happenings made me feel more depressed. I had booked train tickets long back, and decided to go, anyways. I forgot to take my identity card as required for the e-ticket, and hence ended up paying extra money for the travel. The journey was okay, but I felt the heat as unbearable at Irinjalakuda. I watched the Sheeveli on Friday and Saturday, and I felt that yesterday's Melam was good. Crowd was less, perhaps due to Wednesday's tragedy (There were no elaborate functions on Thursday, and even on Friday the procession was conducted with less number of elephants). Today is Pallivetta, but we returned yesterday evening itself, as we didn't get tickets for today evening. On Friday afternoon, someone pressed the calling bell at home and I opened the door to find an old man with white beard and twirled mustaches, clad in old dirty clothes standing outside. He stared at me. I thought that he might be a beggar, and stood for a minute with a questioning and somewhat unfriendly expression. Then my mother told, "He is Kumaran, Don't you remember him?". He was the person who used to climb the coconut trees in our land (there are only two trees, apparently). I was seeing him after many years, and I found that he has changed a lot with age. It seems he has been insisting on climbing the trees himself in spite of his age until an year back, and had become very upset when my father suggested him to retire. Nowadays, another guy called Hari climbs our trees but Kumaran visits us occasionally. He talked to me for a few minutes when I stood there sadly, remembering about old days. Mother gave him "Vishu Kaineettam", he said "Kumaran potte..tto" just as he used to say during those days, and walked away. |
| Thursday, April 24th, 2008 | |
| 1:35 pm | La Terra Trema Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948) is a touching film showing the tragic story of a poor family at the fishing village of Trezza in Sicily. The family includes Ntoni and Cola, two young men, their mother and siblings, and 70-year old grandfather, all living in a dilapidated little house near the seashore. Fishing is the only source of income for them. They work hard during nights at the sea, but the fishes they catch are bought by wholesale dealers for very cheap prices and so they end up with having just enough money for their survival. The wholesale dealers own all the boats and have a monopoly over the fish markets, and they treat their employees, the fishermen, like slaves. But Ntoni, who has just returned from a military service, is a man with revolutionary ideas. He decides to buy a ship and do the business on his own, instead of working for the wholesale dealers. He convinces his family to mortgage their house - the only asset they have - for starting their own business. They buy a small boat, and the family starts going for fishing on their own boat. They get a good catch initially, and start dreaming of happy days ahead. But tragedy strikes as the boat is partly destroyed in a bad storm. The bank takes away their house as they are unable to pay back the loan. Ntoni and Cola are jobless now, and the other fishermen, who had been jealous of them, would be only happy to see them on the roads. The wholesale dealers make fun on them. Bad things come all together, and the family goes through a sequence of tragic events. In the end, Ntoni decides to take a job with the wholesale dealers again, with his revolution still burning deep in his eyes, beneath the ashes of depression. We know that he hasn't succeeded, but we get a feeling that he hasn't failed either. La Terra Trema was made 60 years back, and watching it today would make us feel that its storyline is very predictable. When Ntoni decides to buy a boat, and when we see his sister going to buy salt for applying on the fish, we get a feeling that they are not going to succeed. We could sense the imminent tragedy at many other instances in the film. But this predictability doesn't diminish the appeal of the film; instead I felt that it makes the film more touching. That could be perhaps because the film is portrayed so realistically, with performances that are so natural (In fact, the film is picturized with real life Sicilian residents playing the characters). |
| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 | |
| 9:05 pm | Manik Bandyopadhyay's Stories I had enjoyed the translation of Manik Bandyopadhyay's Bengali novel Putul Nacher Itikatha which I had read a few years back. Later I bought two books by Manik Bandyopadhyay, both collections of his stories. But I got a chance to read one of them only this week. This collection of 16 stories, along with few reviews, commentaries and articles, is published by Thema, Kolkata. The stories are translated to English by various writers, and edited by Malini Bhattacharya. One common element in all these stories is that the characters in them are far from idealistic. An poor man who prefers to sit at home and torture his family members than to go for any work, a thief who burns the house of his helper, a widow who tries to attract a well-to-do man for becoming more prosperous, a woman who tries to murder her sister - These are the main characters in some of these stories. Too much of white would make fiction look unrealistic, though too much of black would perhaps not; But I felt that the stories don't really rise above the portrayal of ordinary lives of these characters. They didn't inspire me; Actually, I felt that they were too depressive. Even though I liked the narrative structure used by the author in the stories, I doubt if I would enjoy reading any of these stories for a second time. |
| Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 | |
| 10:36 pm | Katha Parayumbol The Malayalam film Katha Parayumbol tells a simple story. Balan (Sreenivasan) is a barber living in a remote Kerala village. His business is not going well, and a modern beauty parlor has started its operations close to his shop, and has taken away most of his business. He couldn't even provide replacements for the clay pots in the kitchen that his wife (Meena) keeps on breaking everyday. His children couldn't pay school fees. One fine day, the sleepy village wakes up as the news reaches that a film is being picturized in the village, with superstar Ashok Raj (Mammootty) playing the hero. Balan casually mentions to his children that Ashok Raj had been his childhood friend, even though they have never been in touch after their schooldays. Balan is so sure that the famous star wont be remembering him, or even if he does remember, he wont like being called as a friend of an ordinary villager. But, through the children, this news leaks out and then Balan's image in the village transforms instantaneously. He is regarded as an important man then onwards, and people surround him to take his help for getting in touch with the superstar for various purposes. His life would never be the same again. Sreenivasan used to make great satirical movies once upon a time. I think his classic scripts, Sandesham, Vadakkunokkiyanthram and Varavelppu, all memorably picturized by Sathyan Anthikkad or Sreenivasan himself, would be remembered as long as people watch movies in Kerala. But, last few years, his films have been showing a constant downtrend and what we see in Katha Parayumbol is a Sreenivasan who is not even a mere shadow of the veteran writer of the 1990s. The plot is pretty thin and goes in an entirely predictable line, but that shouldn't have been a problem if the presentation was not so pathetically clichéd. Srinivasan's characters always had light shades of caricatures, but in this film, they just remain as cartoon characters - be it the beauty parlor owner played by Jagadeesh or the rich man played by Innocent or the production executive played by Suraj Venjaramoodu (who keeps on irritating me in almost every Malayalam film these days) - and still they fail to make us laugh. In fact, throughout the entire movie, I didn't feel like even smiling once. The dialogues and scenes from the King of Satire don't even reach the standards of a drama in School Youth Festival competitions. Balan's wife's (Meena, who is a total misfit for that role, though it doesn't really matter) pongachcham in front of the neighbors, his daughter's dialogue that "her ambition is not to become engineer or doctor, but to become a student who is able to pay her fees regularly", the tuition-center owner's (Mukesh) tricks to extract the pending payments from his students - these are supposed to be the key "satirical comedy scenes" in the film!! Near the climax, Sreenivasan tries to bring some feel-good element in the film, by showing the super star's emotional public speech at a school function, in which he remembers his old friend who had helped and inspired him during his childhood, and thus giving an illustration on how people can reach the heights of success and still keep the old days in their hearts. In spite of being a below-average film from Sreenivasan, Katha Parayumbol is actually better than many of the intolerable Malayalam films like Roudram, Kangaroo and College Kumaran that were made recently, and perhaps that is the reason for its popularity. |
| Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 | |
| 9:03 pm | The Alchemist Paulo Coelho's book The Alchemist, an International best-seller, has been with me for many years now; But it was only recently that I read it. However, I have read many of the curious sentences and phrases in this book earlier, like "When you really want something, the entire Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it", which I think is the most famous one. Many such sentences in this book are very popular slogans which have been used in email signatures by many people. In fact, people had run out of such curious statements that they had started looking for lesser ones like " "Let's sell tea to the people who climb the hill" -- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist", etc., and I used to think that they were densely meaningful in the context of the story told in the book. The Alchemist starts as a very readable and interesting folktale. A shepherd of Spain dreams of a treasure near the Pyramids, and a strange man - actually, a king - whom he meets, inspires him to follow his dream and reach his destiny. The king also gives him a few tips about following the omens. The shepherd sells all his sheep and starts for Egypt. On the way, his money is stolen and he is forced to halt at a coastal town for nearly an year to make money for further travel. I found the book to be interesting till this point, but soon the author steps aside from the framework of a fable. What we see later is that the story goes into background and a repetition of the phrases about dreams, destiny, omens, beginner's luck, love, language of the heart, soul of the heart, heart of the soul, soul of the universe and many such similar things occupy most of the pages, which left me confused regarding what the author is trying to say. These sort of keywords make the book appear like having several deep philosophical meanings in it, and I could see shades of teachings from many world religions in many passages (like seeing the entire universe in a grain of sand, soul of the heart becoming a part of soul of Universe (?), the Buddhist outlook about suffering, etc.). But I felt that these passages are open to several interpretations, none of which have anything thought-provokingly novel in them. In the end, the shepherd returns to the place where he had had his dream - apparently, the treasure was at that location itself, and he has been searching for it all around. If taken as a simple story, I couldn't appreciate Alchemist much - In fact I felt it to be a tiring read. If taken as a work on spirituality, it lacks the clarity of expression which I believe is a must for such works. |