Pluto and IPL

I had just got home and settled down to watch an IPL match, when Pluto quietly snuggled under my leg and started to lick my feet. I gave a loud sigh for I knew what was coming. Sure enough a minute later, he got up, plonked his paws on my knees, and said ‘ What about teaching me IPL Cricket?’.

I was relieved. This was easy. ‘It’s called 20—20 cricket. Each team has 20 overs….’.

Pluto barked, irritated.’I know that. I watch more of IPL cricket than you do’ ‘I meant the practice and training.’ ‘Well you have to forget classical cricket. The main shot is the swipe. Anything and everything, you swipe. Just for variety you hit straight and occasionally loft with all you have.’ Pluto barked again.’’You are missing the real thing. Teach me how to edge and mishit. After all , most runs are scored of those shots’.

‘Pluto, you can’t be taught those shots. They just happen!!!’, I screamed.

‘It just happens?’. Pluto looked at me incredulously.’Then why do the batsmen brandish their bats, knock gloves with their partners and smile at the TV camera as if they’ve played a great shot ?’. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘ That’s just to rub salt in the bowler’s wounds.’

Pluto digested that after a lot of chewing on a chicken stick.’ Why are the bowlers all crap—being hit for 4s and 6s?’, he asked. ‘The batsmen just sees the ball and swings the bat.That is why bowlers rely on variations of pace so much. Some of the batsmen are exceptional sighters of the ball and are strong and time the ball.’

Pluto was persistent.’Why do they miss so many catches?’ .I sighed. Most of the catches missed are high ones. The ball swerves in the air and is lost in the background’. ‘I would have caught them,’ Pluto boasted,’ Would they have given Rs 25000 to The Pug Welfare Fund?’. ‘Probably,’ I said, ‘But you needed to talk to Lalit Modi first.’

Pluto’s eyes gleamed. I was now getting the direction of his thinking and was getting apprehensive. Explaining cricket to a pug was okay. But explaining Lalit Modi?? Sure enough, Pluto started firing.

‘Why does Modi speak so fast?’, he queried.

‘Well, he has a lot to say,’I said weakly. Pluto gave me a knowing smile and said,’ He has to finish speaking between his tweets!!!’. I conceded that with a silence, hoping he would shut up now.Pluto wandered away, but sure enough, he wandered back, his puggy brain working furiously. I braced myself.

‘Why does Lalit Modi love spas?’, he asked, shaking himself. ‘He has a high tension job. He has to relax, you know’, I said. Pluto grinned. ‘Keep his eyes focussed, you mean,’ and he dragged out the following photograph!!!

‘What is sweat equity?’, he asked,twitching his puggy nose. I knew that I was done for.’Well, actually, that is when persons employ someone whom they cannot pay now. That person works, and gets a share of the profit later.’ Pluto was ecstatic.’That’s exactly the way I work’, he said.’You know Jacqueline of the next house. She is my girl friend. I give her the choicest tit bits, and she reciprocates.  It’s actually –HIS sweat—Her equity !!!’

 

Having explained everything puglogically, Pluto dozed off. Before sleeping, he kept on muttering, ‘Lalit Modi—I want to know about the haveli and the spa….’.

Lalit Modi—beware!!!!

 

The Japanese Wife

Based on an improbable story by Kunal Basu, Aparna Sen directs a landmark film “The Japanese Wife”, produced by SaReGaMa Films of which she is the Chief Creative Director.

The film from the beginning is different and lyrical. The curiosity created by the big box arriving from Japan and the acceptability of such happenings in a small traditional Bengali village leads us on to a love story based on letters which has developed between Snehomoy (Rahul Bose) a school teacher in a remote village of the Sunderbans and a Japanese girl Miyagi(Chigusa) running a grocery shop near Yokohama in Japan.This sequence is tightly and brilliantly edited.Many letters later, they decide to marry with an exchange of a wedding ring and a pair of bangles by post. They behave like a devoted married couple without meeting each other for seventeen years!!!Their reality is based on photographs, gifts (like kites and champak flowers),rare phone calls and of course the letters!!!! Communicating in English which is a foreign language to both and therefore full of hesitation and mistakes—they still build a world like a devoted couple without being in physical proximity.

According to the writer Kunal Basu, who also plays a cameo in the film after his decades-ago debut as a child actor---“It is a relationship of great intimacy but no domesticity.”

 

Snehomoy’s guardian is his Mashi SoiMa (Moushumi Chatterjee)who has brought him up and who after an initial fretting accepts the situation, though she complains that her dream of grandchildren can never come through via letters!!!!

Enter a widow Sandhya(Raima Sen) and her son Paltu who come to live with them. Sandhya was once shown to Snehomoy for marriage, but he had shown no interest. Sandhya’s presence is disturbing for Snehomoy as she raises desires in him. Moreover, she cleans up his cluttered room and brings the peace of domesticity into his vision. They suddenly caress each other in an emotionally upsetting situation. Snehomoy immediately wants to write to  Miyagi, his confidant and wife, but cannot.

Meanwhile  Miyagi falls ill and Snehomoy takes leave without pay to get assistance from local Ayurvedic and Unani and Homeopathic physicians, before he knows that she has cancer. A local doctor guides him to an oncologist who thinks that her lifespan is limited. Coming back, he gets caught in inclement weather, develops pneumonia, and cannot get the requisite medicines as the area is flooded. He dies, Getting the news, Miyagi   shaves off the hair on her head(?Due to chemotherapy), adorns the white sari of a widow, and comes back to Snehomoy’s village. A monochrome last scene shows the dead Snehomoy floating in a boat onto an eternal destination. This scene is reminiscent of many Japanese and Korean films.

The direction is sensible and sensitive.The scenes have been crafted with great care and precision.The camera movements are beautifully controlled and expressive and seems so rightly balanced, Emotional highs are  counterpointed with the mundane and the humourous. Yet the thread of tragedy is omnipresent. There is not an iota of crudity. even the scenes of masturbation integrate thoroughly.It is like a slap in the face for films like 3 Idiots which made up for a dearth of creativity by their vulgar manoevures. Truly creative people do not need such brittle props.

Anoy Goswami’s camera captures the Matla river in all its moods. The river dominates as a medium of communication and beauty and tragedy.The cinematograpghy is outstanding and will surely win awards for the magnificent frames, movements and colour balance. The mood of the film is greatly enhanced by Goutam Basu’s Art direction.

Sagar Desai’s  use of Japanese music  is  superb. There is no song as such nor is one required. Clever mixes of local and effects sounds enhance the viewing pleasure.

The acting is controlled and mostly apt. Rahul Bose impresses with his hesitation and intensity, his care for others and his devotion to his wife. He is obsessed by the relationship yet hesitant and unable to call the shots. He can handle a polaroid, but cannot make a STD call.Though one wonders whether that led to the character being one dimensional. Even in the lively kite flying scenes, his energy level was a bit low. Moushumi Chatterjee acted with restraint but somehow was a misfit into the role. Having seen Chaya Debi or Molina Debi or even Shobha Sen or Sabitri Chatterjee in such roles, it is difficult to accept plucked eyebrows, her nose twitching, and her essential glamour in this role.  Being a character actor is to sacrifice your self and Moushumi just could not do it.

Raima Sen acted expressively, but again was too glamorous for her role. The contrast with the other village women in the boat and mela was too much. A girl brought up in the village would unhesitatingly pull up her sari to avoid the mud and would not walk so gingerly on the stone steps at the river bank.

Chigusa was outstanding in the last scenes. Her vulnerability and her strength brought great moments to the film.

The high point of this film was the kite competition. Superbly compiled and scripted , the transformation of a kite contest into a  jingoistic issue was amusing. A kite with a broken thread suddenly became a symbol of loss and sorrow. The kites in the sky returned in the closing credit scenes to round off the film.

However there were some weak areas.

Assuming the story is of modern Bengal, considering the mobile phone, fax, STD booths, specialised Oncologists, Beedi jalai by Bips on a TV screen, and shots of Kolkata, it is somewhat difficult to believe the simplicity and naivety  of the main protagonist Snehomoy and the village inhabitants. How can a modern schoolteacher be unaware of emails and fax? How can the villagers accept Snehomoy’s postal wedding? Everything here seemed a trifle too sweet.  The massive storm sequence should have affected all the village people but that is not shown. Probably Aparna discarded that thought as she was painting on a smaller canvas.

     

The dresses were too new and modern. Poor schoolteachers and their families do not wear sparkling whites, nor do they wear such sophisticated shoes. The contrast with the other characters was an eyesore.

The makeup of Moushumi was in certain scenes , too obvious. Do these villagers, specially widows, smear so much of cream and powder on their faces?

Sparkling whites and cream and powder and plucked eyebrows!!!!

One reaction was pithy.”This is a great film if it had been made by a debutant. For an experienced and established filmmaker like Aparna , this was a bit of a fairy story”.

Overall this film is an exceptional one, of great human moments and emotions which leave you affected at the end. It is a film of taste and fine beauty, of grace and wonder, of seriousness and great imagery. It is in many ways  like a glorious Haiku.

It emphasizes the great differences between the good Bengali and the good Hindi film.

In my book highly recommendable and a Must—see.

Subho Nababarsha

 

In spite of the growing years and the paunch and the increasing cynicism, Poila Baisakh has a cathartic effect. Inexplicable, but the world looks a little rosier, indiscipline and uncleanliness looks a little out of focus, and the cold wind which flows in from the Hooghly river and flutters my hair seems that little bit more tangy. Memories stream in and go like flitting traces of sunshine. Childhood seems palpable still. Father’s call from the room below, mother’s blowing of the conch shell, my sister’s secret call to share some hidden goodies—and books and the favourite stair landing spot besides a window---was only yesterday.

I spent the evening listening to Byatikromi singing songs of Salil Choudhury. Byatikromi is a group of doctors—all leaders in their specialised fields, who sing because they like to, and who sing well enough to perform shows and record CDs with Sa Re Ga Ma Pa---all for charity .

Listen to the three songs below, which transported  me to a different land, and era, where there was no TV or Internet, only these songs percolating from the radio or disc record players, transcending the grime and the smoke and streetsounds, making the world just that extra colourful, just like Nababarsha now and today!!!!

Click on the links below….

http://www.box.net/shared/m7v0ug3b33

http://www.box.net/shared/7h2tpdb7mn

http://www.box.net/shared/o8x1vcf65a

Chains

Friends are everywhere—childhood, school, college, workplace, colleagues, relatives….

Sometimes they are nowhere—specially in the depths of night, when the dark , menacing clouds close in on you, and only lone stars flicker and are immediately covered by clouds driven by an impatient wind.

And they are also in chains—bound by their own lives and responsibilities, sometimes willing but unable to come in your hour of  need, or talk to you when you need it most.

And yet you need your friends because they and only they can give a dispassionate opinion or tell you that you are not positioning yourself correctly.

And of course, we are all in chains, visible and invisible, commitments and responsibilities, external and internal, prisoner of our own fears and ambitions.

So the key word is positioning. Where do you think you should be? And where you are….Here is the ultimate call—brutally honest and factual. After all, why do we lie to ourselves ? And why do we live in dichotomy—one face to the world and one in the inner mirror—because salvation if there is anything like it , means the ultimate coming together of those two faces blending into one.

It means breaking the chains—and it can be done sometimes slowly, sometimes with a dramatic heave…

And then you can fly and fly…..