The Edge of Tomorrow: the persistence of memory

I have been wanting to write this for a while. (And it's one of those things which I remember.) It's about good memory and not-so-good memory. I have been wanting to write this for a while. (And it's one of those things which I remember.) It's about good memory and not-so-good memory. 

I have a terrible one. I don't remember names, faces, birthdays. I forget the names of colleagues I've been working with for ages. I forget names of books I've enjoyed reading, I remember tunes, not lyrics: in one word- terrible. And numbers are my greatest weakness - turnover of companies, phone numbers, how much I spent on things, et al. I've been told that I only forget things which I don't care much about. But how can one explain my forgetting the name of what's-his-name in that terrific novel, you know the father who is raising two sensitive kids and defending a black man for murder, when I've read that novel at least three times? 

And the worst is - I forget incidents, and things said. And, boy, is it one big disadvantage in heated arguments, when the other party even remembers what I was wearing when I  called them something objectionable, ten years back in a heated moment. 

And then you have the others. People I'm intensely jealous of. My dad - remembers everything, starting from what he learnt in nursery. He is my encyclopedia for all questions of space, geology, engineering, mathematics, history, mythology, and such like. My second reference-book is Avi. He who reads widely and remembers deeply. He is marvellous to talk to, because like all good debaters, he can debate both sides with equal felicity. Then there is a colleague who remembers even the time (to the second) when he'd met me for a meeting on geo-thermal technology with five other people and the exact positions where we had sat around on a round table. And then there is one who remembers the color of my socks when I had first interviewed her (why was she looking there?). That interview was, by the way, ten years back. 

Then, I suspect, there are those who remember things which didn't happen. Which now comes in great use when they know they are having a discussion with someone amiably unhinged like me. Sharks, such guys. 

Now what triggered this write? This thrilling Tom Cruise film The Edge of Tomorrow, where the man, a reluctant soldier, is pushed into battle, dies and then gets alive again, and then dies again, and up again, and so on and so forth, but with full memory of the previous times. So he learns from mistakes, re-strategises, and then pretty much saves the world. The important thing here was the accumulation of memory - and the chance he gets to live the same moments again and again, until he gets it right. What a privilege. 

And then I thought of all the accumulation of memory we do. And though I know our heads are capable of infinite capacities to hold things, I wondered about the need of it. Of course it would help if we could relive our lives and amend things which we did wrong, but does it help to remember some of the things which we end up doing?

That sarcastic remark made in a verbal duel years back. The hurt one felt when someone loved does something insensitive. How someone ignored you in a party. How you were not in a list of invitees. Who forgot your birthday. A mistake made. Words exchanged. Someone who took advantage of you. Whatever. And then you have the same person in front of you. Different. Changed. Because that's what humans do. Every moment. They learn. They change. I confess, some don't. But here's the thing - if we look at a person and only have the memory of what he once did to you, where would the space to move forward anew be? 

And that's where people with great memories are cursed. They are cursed with the persistence of memory. Things they can't forget, however much they might want to. Ancient feelings they can't let go off. Old hurts which keep renewing themselves like new everlasting springs. 

I forget. And I think I'm blessed for it. I will have nuts to improve my memory, and chawanprash so I don't go totally dotty. And I am not a Mahatma, so I also remember plenty. But I love it when I don't remember old pains, old fights, old words of anger, old aberrations of loved ones. I will lose all arguments gladly, I will lose my promotion because I forgot last year's profit figure. But I think I will be a lighter person for it.

So my friend, you out there. When I meet you, behind my (genuine) welcoming smile, I might be trying hard to remember your name. Please don't feel bad. Please. Because I will also not remember the time you called me a dolt on one of my posts on my timeline. 

*hugs*

her: thoughts ~

Just these past few days  Tanu, Avi, Maayaa and I, on and off, and in different ways have talked about Facebook and relationships there, with people we meet and those we have never met. 

And then yesterday I see Theodore fall in love with his operating system Samantha. In the fascinating, beautiful 'her'.

How true or valuable are these links we build on social media? Are conversations we have with people we have never met an authentic road towards emotional bonding, or is it just casual time-pass? Is physical bonding the only authentic thing -  and everything intense on cyberspace a symbol of the vacuity of our times?  Does love have to have a physical presence or can a mind and a voice be enough to give your heart away? 

Samantha is a consciousness, which evolves intuitively as she gains more and more experience, through conversations. And she is a 'woman' of great depth, sexiness, intelligence and sensitivity. And the lonely Theodore, left devastated by the breakup of his marriage, is drawn to this magnetic hypnotic presence, which converses with ease, understands his needs instantly, makes him laugh, composes music on days of beauty and draws dirty pictures to make him laugh. Samantha might reside in a computer but is the perfect companion. And Theodore, with all the conflicts inside of him relating to this weird relationship, is irrevocably drawn in deeply by Samantha's increasingly irresistible charm. 

And, of course, problems start. 

I have seen 'breakups' happening on Facebook. I have seen desperation, indignation, anger, between so-called 'strangers' ( who know each other for years),  who have found beauty and connection in words and opinions, ruthlessly breakup with digital friends in fits of rage and then show sangfroid in their attitude, and umbrage in the fact that it was just a FB relationship and not a real one. 

Isn't there a lie involved there? And ain't words typed out and messaged out, as authentic as words spoken face to face? What is weird about building relations without seeing anyone if words can pierce something inside? And isn't hurt as authentic here or there, if it draws blood?

Scarlett Johansson's Samantha is a beautous 'creature', an incredible amorphous person to desire and spend a life with. She has winsome heartbreak in her voice when she starts off, and deep wisdom in the end. And like everyone whose mind and heart expands as one grows, so does hers. And just the way you can't take for granted a person who holds your hand, so can't you of someone who might well be an OS or on FB. 

Authenticity is never on the other side. It resides inside us.

Orange is the new black: Season One

It's an all-woman prison as we in India don't know anything about. The meals are wholesome, there are neat showers, the beds have clean sheets and everyone has their own cupboard. There are running tracks, a library, and leisure time and Christmas celebrations. As per Maslow's hierarchy, the problems here start higher on the scale. 

Piper is in because she's been ratted out by an ex-lover and drug runner Alex, who is already doing time in the same prison. But Piper is engaged to be married now, has sought to put her lesbian past, and pretty seedy activities, behind. And just then, she finds herself where she least expected - donning the orange loose clothes of prison.

The series engages immediately as it introduces a galaxy of characters which make up the facilities, as seen through Piper's eyes. She herself is an educated, sentimental, often wishy-washy girl, with her heart in the right place, often foolishly honest, perennially uncertain of what to do, and getting into trouble, even when trouble doesn't want her. 

And it's fun to see the myriad characters, play out their characters, black-white-grey, and how the episodic nature of the series slowly takes on themes, as we warm up to the players. An important part of the prison system is the mandala of the guards, wardens and senior authorities, and how their politics and proclivities impinge upon the fortunes of the prisoners. 

There is danger always around the corner, as screwdrivers get stolen, lesbians get aggressive, Christian nutcases push their religious agendas, guards push drugs, prisoners have secret sex, ethnicities congeal, and a prisoner becomes pregnant. But for Piper, nothing could be as good, or as bad, as her falling in lust again with her ex, Alex, even as her boyfriend waits for her. 

There is a lightness of touch as the series unravels, until in the seventh episode or so, it suddenly finds an emotional core. It's about the time Piper realizes how her emotional world is unravelling uncontrollably. She is thrown into solitary confinement. And the stories of outside which her boyfriend keeps bringing in, seem to be so beautiful yet so trivial, compared to what she was facing inside the prison.  Her heart hardens, her existence takes on an urgency to seek life where she can get it, and things start to go all over. 

The series is not dark and dense. There is a lot of light and song and secret-&-happy sex. But there is claustrophobia which keeps building up, and it writhes beneath the skin, and inside the heart and head of Piper. Until it bursts out in a paroxysm of unbridled anger & violence, appropriately in the end - all primed for next season.

I sometimes wonder what draws us to television dramas, so much so that we are ready to invest much time and priority plonked in front of the screen, watching the drama spin out. Of course the usual things are there - the story, the characters, the hooks, et al. But the real McCoy for me is - vulnerability. And the strength which characters find beneath fear. The finest moments in television often come from characters who get destroyed, destroy or overcome destruction arising out of a sweet spot of weakness, which is, well, so much like what we carry inside. We either see ourselves, or visualize ourselves being what those characters are. And the identification grows. 

We might not land up in prisons (heaven forbid!), but as we see Piper, we get an inkling of what confused decent people like us would be if we get there. And that's powerful. 

Walking in Yellow Boots into Strange Rooms

It’s strange that in the span of a week, I see a film and read a book, which are so similar. That Girl in Yellow Boots and In a Strange Room are both of genres which ostensibly have nothing to do anything with the other: one is a film of a search and the other a travelogue spanning 3 continents. But the journeys in both are through bleak landscapes of despairing lives.
That Girl in Yellow Boots is Anurag Kashyap’s least complex but the saddest of his films. Spare in its structure, linear in its telling, its characters, its atmospherics are all claustrophobic. It’s almost pre-ordained that none of its characters can ever find happiness, in spite of it’s protagonist, Kalki’s desperate search for it. For there seem to be some cycles which never seem to break, some lives which are forever condemned to penumbra.
Kalki’s search for her father in Bombay on the basis of a letter which she’d received from him – a tender soft missive which spoke of remembrance and ache - brings her into a hunt for the only glimmer of love she can see in her life. Progressively, the journey becomes one into her own self and her past and into those grey zones of our own lives which we hate to delve into. Her choice of a boy-friend – an abusive deranged drug-taker – is not just unfortunate, but one with her life’s story. Her choice of profession – a masseur who also gives ‘hand-shakes (a euphemism for hand-jobs) – is just another indication of the self-defeating choices she makes. Hence her search for a father who had left the family to fend for itself, is also one which is doomed right from the beginning. For isnt it true that deep inside each one of us reside the premonitions of the outcomes of the choices we make.
No one can ever leave the hall without carrying the pain and haunting despair of Kalki’s eyes in the final scenes.
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010) is a journey through desert, greenery and the sea, allegorical as it refers to our life’s progress -sometimes as followers, sometimes as a lover, and a guardian at times.
What we do with each one of these roles in our journey is a matter of choice, a matter of who we are, or a matter of life running away with the choices before we make them.
Damon, the protagonist, is damned to be the hand-maiden of other people’s wishes. His destiny is defined not by the choices he makes but by the nature of the people he is with. It’s a tragic life, where every change he makes brings him to the prison of his weaknesses. We are ultimately slaves of our natures, and every step of our journey, however far from our moorings we go, brings us back again and again to the black holes of our souls.
Damon readily agrees to be a follower, but comes against the selfishness of his companion, who is obsessed with his own needs, and uses his partner to serve himself. Isn’t it true that we subsume ourselves ever so often in our lives merely to maintain equilibrium, which finally is just a chimera?
And then he falls in love, goes miles to be with the man he falls for. And then he just doesn’t have the guts to say the precious words and take the next step. In an internal world of fear of consequences, however far the journey, the man does not move an inch.
And then when he becomes a companion, a true faithful one at that, to a girl beset with psychological problems, his trust is stretched and belied. He saves her life again and again, only to lose her finally to a selfish whim.
Our lives are an accumulation of our internal demons and the consents we give ourselves to do things which we know are wrong, but which we are unable to resist saying ’yes’ to. There are sadnesses and happinesses, but the greenery or the famine which we find in every step is invariably out of the seeds we sowed – or we didn’t. And the ideas of travelling, of going away, of coming back, all become attempts to merely escape time...

Delhi Belly - How to Burp, Fart, Curse and Run into a Hit!

This has to be the first utterly trashy, irreverent swear-laden Indian film to hit
the screens.

Unburdened with any pretence of keeping appearances, absolving itself of criticism
by publicly confessing to its abuse-drenched content, and pushing the edge of what
is acceptable on the screen, this is one path-breaking film. And all this is culture, 

more than counter-culture.

And when you watch it, its so life-like in its textures, its like seeing any bunch
of youngsters talking, freaking out, and getting punches out of life. That's how
normal this abnormal film feels like.

The tale is old, but never fails to hold interest. Gangsters after diamonds, and
innocents coming into the cross-fire. 

But nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the outrageous portraitures and
situations. The ways you can use orange juice, stool and neck-ties; what
woman-on-top simulation does to a man, how-not-shaving hurts a woman, lesson on
when-not-to-take-calls, what goes into street food, what happens when ceiling fans
fall from roofs - this film delineates so many situations and delivers with such
deadly accuracy that it leaves you breathless!

Perfectly paced, with a great soundtrack and superb performances, this film is one
helluva f------g ride! Uff! 

X-Men: First Class

And this is one nice movie.

It recognizes the weaknesses of the strong, the power of the fragile. It understands that pain often gets layered with age, but doesn't disappear. And goodness is often just a mental state at any given point of time.

And all this it does in a tale which nicely interweaves the Bay of Pigs episode of the Kennedy era with ambitions of immortality by some megalomaniac mutants.

What takes the film beyond its high-octane texture, underpinning it with conscience, is its realization that that being different can be a cross to carry, but it doesn’t have to be a reason to dismember or disintegrate.

It's interesting to note that superhero movies are now giving human messages more strongly than any other genre...

A film to appreciate, indeed.

The tragedy of 'I Am'

Great ideas don’t always translate into great cinema. Provocative subjects cannot, alas, always translate into provocative story-telling.

Given the dramatic story of the making of I Am, and its unique ability to capture the popular imagination of the social media for its funding, it’s surprising - and deeply disappointing – how expectations are belied.

What has happened here, in this film, is very simple. The film is poorly written. Full stop.

 I Am deals with problems which generally don’t get discussed – paedophily and homosexuality, artifical insemination and displacement of a full community of people from their homes, here, the Kashmiri Pandits.

Afia has an infidel husband who leaves her and she decides to have a child from a semen-donor. Her best friend is shocked when Megha asks the friend to check with her brother, if he would like to be a donor. She asks another friend for his semen. All she receives is a snide comment “Sure, but can we do it the traditional way.”  Then she goes to a clinic for a donation. But before agreeing to his donation, she wants to meet the donor. She does. And the meeting is bland and meaningless. All that happens is that the donor seems to take a slight fancy for her. But she’s not interested. So? Where is the battle, the internal struggle with prejudice? Where, in the name of heavens, is the drum-beaten sensitivity? The fact that the donor seems to have built a minicrush on her, and she tears his number off is an apology of a climax, which shows nothing.

The meaningless story-telling continues in the second story. Take Megha, a Kashmiri Pandit, in the second story. She goes to Srinagar to give her house to the residents who are staying there, because her family had fled during times of extreme unrest. Self-obsessed with her sorrow of loss, she rants on and on, until her Kashmiri friend tells her about the loss which the situation had wrought in the lives of the locals, and what it had done to their ambitions too. This piece is shown as a realisation which is ridiculous. Particularly after Megha sees the army-ridden cantonment the whole city ahd become. She seriously didn’t realize that the locals were living half-lives forever in the shadow of fear and violence?

And then Abhimanyu. He is a perfectly normal man with a girlfriend, and he carries on with another woman with whom he seems to be having a fairly ambiguous relationship. And the pain he carries inside himself like a precious heirloom on a mantel is that he was a victim of paedophily by a step-father. And then after the stepfather dies, he tells his grieving mother the truth and asks her – you didn’t know? The fact that he was sexually molested was by itself frightening. But what was the effect on him? How was his life, beyond his father, compromised? There’s absolutley no indication of that. A song with Abhimanyu standing alone in public spaces is hardly enough to show his internal turmoil.

And then Omar, the homosexual. He picks up a guy, wants to make out in a car, and is accosted by a tough policeman, and has his money and belongings taken away. Until he discovers he was set up.  Now the simple fact - it wasn’t his gay intimacy which made him get accosted by the police. His fate would have been the same if he had been caught flagrante delecto in a car with a woman . And he would have had to face the same cruel consequences. Plain and simple. What else did he expect? The simplistic logic baffles.

Onir has been on a downward slide after My Brother Nikhil. His Bas Ek Pal was a shameless lift of an Aldomovar film. His Sorry Bhai was good-looking and empty-feeling. And in this film, his shallowness comes out in the lame writing and incoherent search for a core center, which is never really found.

The tragedy of the film lies in its lack of powerful stories which move and make us question our prejudices. Just picking up a topic doesn’t indicate an automatic investigation of all the issues which make the topic incendiary. For example, whilst in the Omar-sequence, the policeman scene is lacerating in its impact, it is a consequence more of Omar’s horniness and indiscriminate choice of picking someone off the street to make love to. Where is the trauma of being a gay?

The lack of ideas reflects in the faux-artiness in the Abhimanya-sequence where he keeps having dreams of himself as a girl. One sees no indication of him facing any real problems in his day-to-day life.

The tragedy of the film does not lie in its characters but its artless and clueless writer and director.