One Night Happenings

The more I watched this movie, the more I felt bad. No No. There is nothing wrong with this movie. How could there be, when it features in many top-100-of-all-time lists, when it has won the coveted 5 Oscars ( picture, director, lead actor, lead actress and writing), when the lead actor's fame so large and wide that Adolf Hitler esteemed him above all other actors( During the Second World War he offered a sizable reward to anyone who could capture and bring him unscathed), when the lead actress was so charming that she would mesmerize from start to end, when the director is considered to be one of the bests of his time winning 3 Oscars, when the story of the movie is so wonderfully romantic that you wear a smile all the time?
But what pained me was that my most favourite actor of India had copied every act, every word of the movie into an Indian version in which he stole the heart of millions. Yes, I am talking about Aamir Khan and 'Dil Hai ki Maanta Nahin'. I had no respect for Mahesh Bhatt. But after Ghazini (Memento), Ghulam (On the Waterfront) and now this one, my respect for Aamir Khan has begun to fade. But then I remember Rang de Basanti, Dil Chahta Hai and Lagaan. So, all is not lost.

And as far as this movie is concerned, it's a classic. Since I had seen and loved the Hindi version ( at least the songs were originial, hope so), the movie had nothing much to offer.
But watch it to realize how the creators of Indian entertainment industry plagiarize.

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It Happened One Night
My Rating: * * *
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Actors: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert
Director: Frank Capra
Tagline: Two great lovers of the screen in the grandest of romantic comedies !
Memorable Scene(s):

Alexander Andrews: Oh, er, do you mind if I ask you a question, frankly? Do you love my daughter?
Peter Warne: Any guy that'd fall in love with your daughter ought to have his head examined.
AA: Now that's an evasion!
PW: She picked herself a perfect running mate - King Westley - the pill of the century! What she needs is a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not. If you had half the brains you're supposed to have, you'd done it yourself, long ago.
AA: Do you love her?
PW: A normal human being couldn't live under the same roof with her without going nutty! She's my idea of nothing!
AA: I asked you a simple question! Do you love her?
PW: YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!

and of course

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smiles...
Sujeet

Pongalswamy said, "Why is it called 'it happened one night' when clearly it happened spanning several nights?"

India: Vision and Actualization

A century ago the lone Nobel Laureate for Literature of the country envisioned India thus:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Little did our Rabindranath Tagore know that we would come to this:

Where fear and insecurity cloud the mind,
and the head is low with hunger and shame;
Where ignorance persists and the "educated" act like fools;
Where a land is divided and sub-divided to cater to egos;
Where untruth and corruption prevail;
Where thousands of excuses invented to evade labour;
Where illogical dogmas overshadow rationality;
Where mind drifts away from thee
towards narrow alleys of immorality;
Into that hell of apathy, O "Papa", my country has fallen.

smiles...
Sujeet


Pongalswamy said, "I am not sure of where the country has fallen, but you have definitely fallen to the depth of obscenities by making a mockery of a great poem."

I AM 30

...rather "30 something" is the right expression. Couple of days back, I turned 30. Unlike most, but like many others, I detest the b'days. I mean who wants to realize that one more year has gone by, and only things you've gained are few kilograms and few grey hair. Of course for kids it is different; cakes, gifts, friends and all. But when you become little older, when all your dreams seem more and more distant, when you go through the existential vacuum, when your winnings looks so puny, when you start losing things that either you never cared for or thought to be indestructible, you just hate getting more birthdays. For last 29 years I had never celebrated my b'day. This year it was a little different. With change in my marital status, it was an expected surprise though.

30 years gone by. Not yet in the middle aged group, but definitely out of the young league.
To be honest, I am not freaking out. Somehow the concept of ageing has been diluted with time. Personal milestones have lost significance. "I want to find my own identity" or "I want to do something, be something" - sounds ridiculously teenage fantasy.
No no. I have no intention of sounding hopelessly dejected or frustrated. Rather, I am happy. Happy for my realization. I am in a state where I don't do stuff to achieve anything. I just do. It's like a traveller roaming around without any intention to arrive. It's like a ship lost in the vast sea, but is not in a search of a port. It can halt at a port, if it finds. But if it doesn't find, it doesn't matter.

Past 30 years, in many terms, be it social, financial, educational, etc etc, I have gained many and lost many. But, I don't want to count them. Rather I don't care. Failure and success has no meaning. I just live the day. Do what I can do. Let others measure the accomplishment. I stay away from that judgement.

I am happy. Rather trying to be happy. Sometimes I love to be sad. And, I become sad. My dreams being fulfilled everyday. I just dream for the day. I'm trying a life with no compunctions and no compulsions. I know it is difficult. Past sometimes hunt, even if unwanted. And future poses some unavoidable questions. Ignoring those is no easy task. But that's what I try to do. Avert them.

One of my friends never misses the opportunity to ask me whenever we meet, "Have you found the philosophy of your life?"
I am not sure, if i found that completely. But I am getting closer.


smiles...
Sujeet

Pongalswamy said, "Believe me, now you have begun to sound like that old man whom no one listens and he talks nevertheless."

And there was Blindness....

On a normal day when you are going on the road, suddenly you realize that the person next to you has gone blind. And the person next to him too. And then the other one. One after another another. Everyone. No one can see, but you. Now there is senselessness, insanity, anarchy. Of course, you do not expect any sort of rationality when everyone is blind. You are in the world of blinds. You see them suffer. And you suffer. Not out of empathy, but because of the feeling of hopeless helplessness. You feel more and more helpless because of hopelessness. And you are more and more hopeless because of helplessness. You just wait. Not out of hope, but because that is the only thing you can do. And what keeps you alive all the while....is possibly...love.

Seldom have I come across, apocalyptic literature so beautiful. So brilliant. Every page of this surreal fantasy emphasizes what a great writer Saramago is. He takes you to the reality that you would want to deny, too scary to accept. And the allegory is so strong that you relate to the fantasy feeling helplessly trapped. Probably the best allegorical literature I have read apart from Orwell's Animal Farm.

With no names of any of the characters, the story is set in an unknown country where suddenly everyone gets contaminated with a strange disease where they can't see any more. The story revolves round a bunch of characters who are referred to, not via their names (Blind people do not need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters.) but by a distinctive identity like the first blind man, the doctor and his wife, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with squint, etc. Their struggle to survive in the hostile circumstances, was held together by only the love of a pair of eyes that were some how could see all the misery.

This is probably the most unconventional form of writing I have read. After relishing through each page, I conclude that Jose Saramago is a genius. Writer and thinker like him upholds the sanctity of the Nobel Prize. I want to read more from him.



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Blindness
Author: José Saramago
Genre: Apocalyptic Literature
My Rating : A
Memorable Moment(s):
--- From start to finish
Memorable Quotes:
--- It is a great truth that says that the worst blind person was the one who did not want to see.

--- Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

--- I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.

--- The difficult thing isn’t living with other people, it’s understanding them.

--- we're so remote from the world that any day now, we shall no longer know who we are, or even remember our names, and besides, what use would names be to us, no dog recognises another dog or knows the others by the names they have been given, a dog is identified by its scent and that is how it identifies others, here we are like another breed of dogs, we know each other's bark or speech, as for the rest, features, colour of eyes or hair, they are of no importance, it is as if they did not exist, I can still see but for how long.

--- No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order. This is not anarchy, this is blindness. (Book Tagline)
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smiles...
Sujeet

Pongalswamy said, "People read famous books just to show off,"

Outscourced to India

One friend suggested about this movie that 'it is a must watch for every foreign entrepreneur who outsources his business to India'. I am not sure how relevant his suggestion is and whether the movie gives any view of India intricately at all, but it does have its funny moments.
As the name suggests the movie is set in the current times when most of the tele-marketting jobs are being outsourced to a cheap-labour country like ours. A high salaried manager gets fired for redundancy and to add insult to his injury, he has to train his counterpart in India whose name he can't pronounce. The guy comes to India, gets acquainted with her numerous idiosyncrasies, pleasantly or otherwise and finally finds a woman he can connect to.

For me this is just a run-of-the-mill movie targeted towards a certain section of audience. Despite having meaningful scenes like, when the call-centre employee suggests the foreign manager to learn about India first before training about America or the advice by the fellow foreigner to stop resisting India to appreciate it or the treat by the washerman in his home, the movie fails to make me appreciate it.
You might have seen many movies like this.Waiting for a good inter-cultural movie.

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Outsourced
My Rating: * *
Genre: Comedy
Actors: Josh Hamilton, Ayesha Dharker
Director: John Jeffcoat
Tagline: Todd just lost his job. Now he has to find his life..
Memorable Quote(s):
--- Just a word of advice, I remember feeling like you do, I was resisting India, but once I gave in, I did much better
--- China is the new India.

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smiles...
Sujeet

Pongalswamy said in his Tam accent, "Oh...Pleeeez. Could they not find a better looking Indian girl?"