Building as a stage.....

Got to see an amazing performance today. Project Bandaloop, an aerial dancing troupe from San Francisco, performed at the LIC building at Connaught Place today. The best thing- it was a free show and we came away with the satisfaction of having seen something special (and a stiff neck too...) with the glass facade of the LIC building providing the perfect backdrop. Too bad we couldn't get inside the complex for the repeat show in the evening- courtesy the CM and the pass-bearing janta. You can read more about them here http://projectbandaloop.org/.

You can also see their previous performance at Golconda Fort, Hyderabad here http://vimeo.com/17125457. That's what they call "site-specific" choreography.

Is there a way out?

Sometimes I feel so helpless....at not being able to contribute or suggest something that would mitigate all the senseless violence that is carried out in the name of rights for communities or states or other sundry factions we have put ourselves in. Can we ever get out of the vicious cycle we've got into?

I just heard of the massacre in Sonitpur from my mom (gave the papers a miss yesterday & this morning). How can they live with the blood of so many innocents on their hands? My blood curdles at the cold-blooded manner of killing. Imagine returning from work, looking forward to spending time with your family, when your vehicle is stopped, you are asked to line up, you are segregated on the basis of your language and killed, because you are not a native speaker. Such a wasteful way to die. Can we really take pride in our identity if it is the very thing that kills us? I dare imagine the guilt mixed with the relief the ones who were spared must be swamped with.

I don't know who is at fault. I don't know if there is an absolute true answer to that. But it's not what I want our future to be like. I don't want to anticipate a future where we are so divided and assailed by revenge that we don't care "how many civilians or armed forces we kill in retaliation for one life taken."

Decisions, Decisions..........

Right now I'm pleasantly busy with quite a bit of work. While I haven' really chalked out how I'll complete all of them, thankfully there's no great pressure. Let's see how long the calm lasts.

I'm also trying hard to plan out what would hopefully (but looking bleaker by the minute) be my first Rajdhani Express trip- back to Tezpur for the winter vacations (Did I mention I'm pursuing my Masters in Environmental Planning at SPA, New Delhi??). I've always wanted to travel by a Rajdhani (and obviously avail the comparatively better food). It's a tough call actually- travel all by myself for a long 30 hrs for a new experience or take advantage of my brother's generosity (read " tickets sponsorship" & company on the 2 hr flight???!!!)

P.S.: We always say- the youth are the future of our nation...... Well it doesn't seem to be a very bright future going by the antics of Aditya Thackeray. I hope he doesn't try to pitch his book for the syllabus instead.

Am back from the dead......OK for a loooooooong time I just didn't want to write anything....just one of those things. But I'm promising myself I would be more regular this time around. Helps keep one sane.

Alright then....Point to note for today: Tatas gift $50 million to Harvard Business School. No Indian schools in sight???!!!!!!

A few of my favourite things (….and some of the un-favourite ones) & other random facts

- Love the smell of rain on dry ground but not getting wet in a drizzle

- I buy myself white / pink roses because I love them but none of my friends think I’m the type of girl who'd like flowers (read unfeminine)

- Listen to all genres of music except heavy metal, trance, rave, techno

- Love listening to songs in languages I don’t understand (then the lyrics don’t distract me too much)

- Chicken momos, Chicken Maharaja Mac and rice with mashed potatoes (aloo pitika is what we call it in Assam) are my comfort foods

- Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits is my favourite romantic song. Love Jo waada kiya wo nibhaana padega but don’t know the lyrics of either one…never mattered to me

- To kill a Mockingbird is the book closest to my heart. The Day of the Jackal is the thriller of my choice

- Love romantic comedies - especially Roman Holiday - and musicals

- Like watching happy movies

- Am envious when I watch a good dance performance – I missed out on a probable good performing arts career

- Love the Harry Potter series

- Would like to meet Steven Spielberg and A.R. Rahman someday

- Want to visit Israel, Santorini (Greece) and New Zealand before I die

- Want to own one of the little white and blue houses in Santorini and a ranch in NZ

- New York Nagaram is my favourite A. R. Rahman composition

- Frank Lloyd Wright is the architect I admire most

- Abhay Deol is the actor to look out for in India

- I once harbored a huge crush on Nicolas Cage which lasted 2 years

- The bad movie I liked (everyone has one) was I see you…Arjun Rampal was unbearable in it but I still liked it

- Am absolutely hopeless at social niceties and making polite talk

- I often go to watch movies alone……and love it

- Like to be tidy

- I sometimes have these weird OCD phases and have a low attention span other than during exams (then I’m under duress)

- Hate my lack of will power

- Am a compulsive planner

- I never liked Sholay too much….or DDLJ…or KKHH

- I don’t think I’ll ever like Star Wars… or Indiana Jones

- Have tried but not been able to read Anna Karenina (too gentrified and long), Midnight's Children (don't get magic realism), Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (extemely fine print- the pages per hour rate is painfully slow to keep up my attention) till date

- But I did read The Lord of the Rings.....I just left out half of the book where there were detailed and long descriptions of the various places (OK...that doesn't really count as reading)

- Haven't seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy- I want to watch all 3 in one go which calls for almost 11 hours at a stretch

- Watch movies in fast-forward mode to get a feel of it and then decide whether to watch it or not

- Another weird habit- reading the last pages of a book first...even for a thriller. Doesn't spoil anything for me- I love the process better than the result

- Like visiting places but not the journey bit- have bus/car motion sickness

- Talk a lot but most of the time they are just fillers because I’m not too comfortable not doing anything. Once I was reminded to breathe while talking

- Am a glutton…well almost

- English is the language I talk to myself in

- Get the inflections of most languages right

- Have a signature laugh...variously described as "auto-rickshaw with a brake failure", "Delhi buses on UP roads"...etc

The 2009 Academy Awards

Not a lot of surprises on the winners front. Hugh Jackman was a competent host but I missed the humour of the previous ceremonies. The 2007 show was my favorite. Ellen Degeneres as the host was funny and pleasantly irreverent. Plus there were some killer sequences by the shadow dance group (if you could call them that) Pilobolus; if you haven’t seen them check them out on youtube- they are freaking amazing.

I’m sure having 5 previous winners introduce the nominees in the acting categories seemed like a good idea on paper- it didn’t translate that well on the stage though. The process seemed sickeningly indulgent not to mention time consuming. I’d have preferred to have complete versions of the nominated original songs even though the medley was pretty good.

In any other year Slumdog Millionaire wouldn’t have won Best Adapted Screenplay- being one of the film’s low points. But I guess with the bunch of screenplays nominated this year, it seemed like the best choice: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was too much like Forrest Gump, both written by Eric Roth; Doubt adapted from a play which can be considered easier that adapting from a book; Frost/Nixon again adapted from a play and is almost a verbatim representation of the interviews it is based on; The Reader was a story many people couldn’t sympathise with. Add the fact that Slumdog went on to win the Best Picture Award, the screenplay award was pretty obvious.

The biggest surprise for me was Departures winning the best foreign language film- I thought Waltz with Bashir was a sureshot winner with Cannes winner The Class as a possible longshot. Sean Penn’s win, though not entirely unexpected, was also a “huh???” moment for me. And it was fun to see Danny Boyle jumping on stage “in the spirit of Tigger”, Kate Winslet’s dad whistling for her to make out where he was seated and the entire Slumdog team on stage for the Best Picture Award. If only the Academy had decided to nominate Wall E and The Dark Knight in the Best Picture category, Slumdog Millionaire would’ve had tough competition. Wall E was arguably the best film last year but the Academy conveniently relegated it to the animation category. As for Dark Knight, if it’s leading man was not a superhero but an ordinary conflicted person it would’ve struck Oscar gold or at least a nomination. Guess a record-breaking blockbuster comic book movie didn’t seem serious enough for the Academy members.

The best moment of the show was when Philip Petit, the man who walked the tightrope across the 2 towers of the WTC and the subject of the winning documentary feature Man on Wire bounced on stage, did a disappearing coin trick and then balanced the Oscar statuette on his chin. That’s one spontaneous performer.

The Slumdog Millionaire Rollercoaster……

Has finally reached its pinnacle. From late last year, this picture had been building up an anticipation I’ve never felt before. I saw it last month and its very obvious flaws notwithstanding, I knew I’d like to see it triumphant at the Oscars.

Let’s talk about the movie before getting down to dissect its Oscar fortune. As the name of the movie is splashed across the green banian of a cricket playing kid with the strains of the magnificent O Saaya playing in the background, I knew I was watching something special. That whole sequence is my favorite in the movie. Trust Danny Boyle to throw you into the madness headlong- it’s exhilarating. There’s this bit in the sequence where the camera moves out from showing a small portion of the slums from above to a bigger one, then even bigger and finally encompasses the entire slum seen in its blue and grey roofed patchwork glory. Freeze that shot and it looks like a painting.

The movie works because of its upbeat spirit which effectively comes through. The passion of those working in it and especially of the director is seeped into the movie. It is not perfect cinema but it’s honest- you know that it’s been made with a lot of love and commitment.

I read Q & A when it first came out in 2005- it seemed like an OK book but nothing great. 3 years later it’s inspired the year’s cinematic sensation. The book was not such a great success judging by the fact that the book is now titled Slumdog Millionaire (with a small mention “previously published as Q & A”) trying to cash in on the movie’s fame. I never thought it would make an Oscar worthy movie- it was too filmy. But after watching the movie, I realize it’s not so much about the story as about the way it’s told.

The flaws are obvious- the most glaring being the dodgy screenplay. The book was taut if not anything else. It would’ve been more plausible had they had shown every question that Jamal answers. I have this feeling that Simon Beaufoy compromised on the logic part to play on the emotions. It’s not the best of adaptations but the pace of the movie and the positives manage to make up for it- just about.

The main characters of Jamal and Latika are not well fleshed out- their bond doesn’t really come across. You can’t really grasp the depth of their relationship. Jamal, while in the youngest avatar is a sprightly little kid, grows to be a nondescript, uninteresting character. My favorite character is that of Salim. His is well etched character- family loving but with an inherent mean streak. That scene where he sells off Jamal's precious Amitabh Bachchan autograph is intantly chilling but that's what makes the character very real. Though I wish Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala had played the adolescent Salim better- it felt like he was just mouthing some theatre lines.

That brings me to a small niggling flaw- the jarring switch from Hindi to English as the brothers move from childhood to adolescence. The English sounds so forced and affected after the unfettered Hindi dialogues. Or else they should’ve stuck to making the entire film in English- it would’ve maintained the continuum.

Slumdog isn’t a movie about individual performances- I’m actually surprised that Dev Patel and Freida Pinto got nominated at a few awards. Freida had nothing much to do- her real test would be the Woody Allen movie. Nor do I feel is Slumdog a movie about Mumbai- though the city is a very apt setting for the curve of the story. All the print space taken up by how Mumbai has been shown in a bad light, blah, blah, blah were all just beside the point. Critics might have made a far more stronger case out of the screenplay loopholes.

As a cinematic experience though, Slumdog triumphs in a big way. The cinematography is dynamic and the editing crisp- you feel as if the camera shots are choreographed to the background score. And what a score it is! Rahman has done better earlier but the way his score has been used in the movie is a feat to be seen. He totally deserves all the accolades he’s received.

But I reserve my highest praise for Danny Boyle. He must be a magician to create a heartfelt movie from a not-so-good piece of writing. Plus he looks like a fun person- not like the dour, philosophical types.

To everybody who hasn’t seen Slumdog Millionaire- go watch it. If you could watch it without any prejudices (I know that’s tough with all the hype surrounding it), you’ll love it. To those who have seen it- watch it again, even if only to get high on the O Saaya sequence.