Paris Je T'aime (Paris, I love you)

There are some movies which we forget instantly and then are some like Paris Je T'aime, which linger on in our memories. The movie's unique selling point is its 22 directors. Each director has directed a short film (5 min) and all of them have been put together like a collage, the bits melding seamlessly with the whole. Because of the sheer number, one tends to forget a film or two but when reminded of them we instantly remember the story.

Even among all the brilliantly done films, Gurinder Chadha's clip stands out. It depicts a chance interaction between a white, Christian French teenager and a French Muslim girl. The beauty lies in the simplicity with which she shows how easy it is for two communities to exist if there is mutual tolerence and respect on both sides.

My other favourites were the miming couple, a tragi-comedy with a surprising ending, and the story of the Nigerian guy. In the first clip, the oddball pair find each other in a jail and live happily ever after, their story recited by their 10 year old son. The second clip was a story of a Nigerian guy who does odd jobs and dreams of asking a pretty black, French university student out for coffee. He gets knifed trying to chase the woman but she remains unaware till the very end (she doesn't even recognise him till he sings the same song which he used to sing while working at the parking lot where she parked her car). While the lyrics are incomprehensible, the song remains in your consciousness, soft as a spring breeze.

Some of the films also focussed on parent-child relationships, the most poignant being the young mother who leaves her baby at a day care to take care of a rich woman's baby. The scene where she sings the same lullaby to put both children to sleep reminded me of a scene in the old Hindi film "Sujata", where the young mother sings a lullaby (hawa dheere ana) to put both her baby daughter as well as the unwanted, orphan baby to sleep.

The aging couple getting a divorce or once famous film star couple trying to recapture their lost passion or the husband devastated by his wife's death although he was planning to divorce her -- all show different nuances of love.

The film ends with a clip about a middle aged single American woman who comes alone to Paris on a holiday, tries out her French on the natives (who answer back in English) , starts yearning for a companion and ends up falling in love with Paris nonetheless. It left me with a strange feeling -- would I end up like her, a nice but slightly pathetic creature for whom people feel sorry? I don't know why women are the ones who are depicted as these lonely, pathetic creatures who end up yearning for a companion in their middle ages. But I guess some stereotypes are hard to overcome even by the avante garde French directors!

There were some films which were plain incomprehensible -- especially the vampire love story and the Asian salon story -- but they are too few to matter. Watch the film for the sheer brilliance in terms of ideas, humour and poignancy.

Bheja fried, boiled or sunny side up?

With a name like Bheja Fry, one wouldn't need to take too wild a leap of the imagination to peg it as a comedy. However, the question to give one sleepless nights is what kind: would it be a tacky David Dhawan-Govinda type comedy with inane storylines and silly humour or a whacky, Rahul Bose (remember Jhankaar Beats and Pyaar ke Side Effects) type comedy with tongue-in-cheek humour!

Luckily for us, director Sagar Ballary gives us an honest to goodness comedy of errors. The movie, lacking star power, depends solely on an interesting storyline and good acting (hallelujah to that!) to carry it through. And carry it does on the able shoulders of Rajat Kapoor as Ranjeet Thadani and Vinay Pathak as Bharat Bhushan. Thadani and his friends have a passtime, a bit cruel but mostly harmless fun. They invite a quirky but not too bright personality to a Friday dinner and entertain themselves with his antics but do not let on that he's the designated joker. Yes, welcome to life of the rich and the bored! Thadani is a director of a music company with oodles of money (mostly black) and Bharat Bhushan is an Income Tax officer with one abiding passion: Bollywood songs and trivia and unknown to him, he is the designated joker for that Friday's dinner. What happens next is a series of mishaps because of which Thadani is forced to spend the Friday evening with a sprained back, an absconding and possibly unfaithful wife (played by Sarika) and Mr Bharat Bhushan. In his quest to locate his wife, Thadani makes the mistake of elisting Mr Bhushan's help. A comedy of error follows where Thadani is forced to befriend his wife's first husband (and incidentally his one time friend, played by Milind Soman!), invite another Income Tax officer, Asif Merchant, to his house in order to get an address of a pirated CD seller and get slapped by his "nymphomaniac" girl friend!

If there was one flaw, it was the absolute caricaturisation of Asif's character (played by Ranvir Shorey). But I couldn't get a handle on what the caricature was based on. However, the rivalry between Asif and Bharat Bhushan over India-Pakistan cricket matches was a treat to watch. While the politically correct might take offence and accuse the director of pandering to the Hindutva brigade by showing Asif as a Pakistan team supporter, the more discerning would hopefully see the humour in it. The fact that Bharat Bhushan and Asif are also best of friends and Bhushan characterises Asif as one of the most honest and keen eyed officers in the IT office might act as hints.

But, all things considered, its a nice, fun and above all intelligent movie. May their tribe increase!

Should I feel guilty?

One day my boss told me if there is a deadline then it’s my duty to stay at office till 11 in the night to finish it. When I told him, there were logistical problems because I lived in Gurgaon which is an hour from my work place and very unsafe to boot for anyone traveling at night, his answer was ‘but we provide a cab for you!’ Mind you, the cab is just hired from a local taxi stand (not a company owned or employed cab or driver). But apparently, for the boss, it’s totally safe for a woman to go in such a cab at 11 pm from Delhi to Gurgaon! When I objected, he looked suitably startled and said, ‘but you can’t expect me to drop you home.’ I was so taken aback by his attitude that I started wondering if I was over-reacting.

The next day, walking down the road on my way to lunch at a nearby place, I had to pass a group of men sitting around a table at a roadside food stall. Nothing happened. In other words, no one whistled, tried to grope or even sing an obscene song. They just leched by undressing me with their eyes. But that’s business as usual on Indian streets. You learn to ignore such looks with a feeling of relief even while your skin crawls….at least they didn’t try to grope me or pass an obscene comment or try to follow me.

That same day, I was sitting after office hours reading a book and waiting for my father to pick me up. Other colleagues had left for the day. The place was in darkness except for the floor I was sitting. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was alone in the building with a couple of office boys (night guard and one or two other workers). The first thought that came to my mind was ‘what if they see me alone and try something funny?’ Yes….even in my mind I used the word ‘funny’ as a euphemism for rape. I immediately got up, switched off my computer and went downstairs to wait for my father on the road….and felt relieved that I had the presence of mind to avoid a potentially unsafe situation.

Again, the question came to my mind. Am I over-reacting? But then, I started thinking about it from a different angle. What if I had remained in the room and had got molested or God forbid raped? Would I then be told that I was stupid to have not realized the danger of sitting alone in an almost empty office? That I should have taken reasonable precautions for my safety with the implication that as I had not done so, I somehow deserved the molestation or rape.

I realized that in our society one half of the population has no idea what the other half has to endure. Or even if they do, they choose to ignore it. To my boss, it was unreasonable of me to refuse to work late at night even when he was providing me with transport. But, if I did use the transport and something ‘bad’ (another euphemism for rape!) happened, society (by that I mean family, friends, police, court, general public….) would automatically blame me for being stupid enough to have taken a cab alone at night.

It is a dilemma that, I believe, all women face, especially in a society like India where modernity has yet to lose its reputation as a corrupter of morals. If women want to be taken seriously at the work place, making “excuses” about safety or family emergency is akin to committing hara-kiri of their career. On the other hand, if in their quest for professional glory (or just to keep themselves from being fired), they do ignore personal safety or a family emergency, they are seen to epitomize modernity in all its ugliness. Of course, that happens only if the woman is unfortunate enough to get molested, raped or killed. Instead of blaming the perpetrator of the act, the blame is heaped on the woman. What was she doing so late at night at that part of the town? Why was she taking the bus/auto/cab so late at night? These are the questions that are asked furtively and not so furtively.

I don’t know if changes will happen in ten or twenty years time or even in my lifetime. But change it must for a society to be called truly modern and egalitarian, where both men and women have equal right to safety and equal right not to be blamed as a victim for “encouraging” the perpetrator.

Impressions of Alwar (cont.)

Cities in India are a study of contrasts - high rise buildings beside dilapidated slums; latest cars beside bullock carts; six-lane flyovers go hand in hand with pot-holed lanes; children begging at streetlights while flabby children of rich parents munch on a packet of Lays and a coke. All this and more exist side by side in the cities. Villages, it seemed to me, more a study in lack of contrasts. The mud houses and the concrete buildings of the schools and the panchayat had the same look of hopelessness. Although the mud houses were the more flimsy of the two (since it looked like they could get washed away with a one good downpour), at least they were well-kept and spotlessly clean. The concrete buildings, on the other hand, were dark, dingy and dusty. The children could barely read, if at all. The dry ration kept at the Anganwadi Centre as part of the Mid Day Meal Scheme tasted like saw dust (as Raghav, being 6 years old and not inhibited by any kind of political correctness, very aptly put it, "no taste"). There was one female teacher present at the first school with whom Priya and I spoke to after inspecting the loo (that kind of broke the ice)! She drew a pretty sad but I think accurate picture of the state of education there. According to her, the school had a high drop out rate, especially for girls. Social vices were rampant such as drinking. Children were pulled out of school for months during harvest season or if parents had to leave in search of employment. When or if they were re-enrolled they had to start from scratch. Boys were sometimes pulled out and sent to better schools or for higher education (the school was only till Class 8). No such luck for girls. College was a distant dream for them since even among the boys only a handful went to college. Therefore, the stranglehold of poverty and social attitudes seem to be the biggest hindrance to progress of any kind. I also think that for these people education (or the mechanical way it is imparted in our schools) does not hold value because it does not translate into jobs or a better way of living.

I came away with a feeling that things would not change for these people until something drastic was done. The place is a few hours (3 hours) from Delhi but seems like a completely different world and era. Except for the teacher, an Anganwadi worker, and an ANM we did not speak to any village woman. As we walked through their clusters of houses, they just stared at us with expressionless faces. Some of them would return a smile shyly if we smiled at them. It reminded me of our annual visit to the zoo as kids. The difference here was the animals did not show half as much curiosity as we did for each other even though we were all the same species!

Impressions

What sets rural India apart from urban India? Leaving aside all the usual cliches, what struck me most was the quiet hospitality that villagers show to any person from the city. We would never reciprocate such dignified courtesy that easily. While I've no romantic notion of an idyll Indian village a la Bollywood movies, our office trip to a couple of villages in Alwar reinforced this view.

The purpose of our visit was to get first hand knowledge of how various government schemes, routed through Anganwadis, health centres, schools and panchayats, work in reality. We, at PRS Legislative Research provide research assistance to MPs. Therefore, it is essential for us to have some first hand knowledge of the workings of government schemes and institutions.

We visited two schools, an Anganwadi centre, a panchayat and met, among other people, an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife, Primary Health Centre doctor and a number of Panchayat members and a couple of Sar Panches. While the government is pouring more money on the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme than on other schemes (the Panchayat gets Rs 12 lakh for SSA and around Rs 10 lakh for all other projects), there was little evidence of improvement. The schools were in dilapidated condition with barely any facilities and the children were barely literate. The contrast with a private school in a city is so stark that one instinctively feels guilty. Guilty that we have so much opportunities while these children through an accident of birth is forced into a life of no opportunites and almost no hope of a better future. It is so frustrating to hear that while money is coming in, there is hardly any proper utilisation of such funds. Apparantly, some of the money was used to build a second room for the principal while the need was for classrooms. The almost painfully transparant hoax was the computers. They were displayed for our benefit still in their plastic covers and one of them not even connected to the CPU. The fact that they actually thought that we would be impressed by the computers spoke volumes about how the government ensured compliance from schools.

Amidst such depressing realities, certain funny incidents stand out. A kid crawling up and falling sound asleep on Madhukar's lap. Madhavan's expression when a 4-year-old started bawling while he was trying to put a tika on his forehead as part of the enrolment ceremony. Priya stating in her American accented Hindi that she's from U.P. Me struggling to avoid going inside a toilet that I had said I needed to use two minutes back (the problem was not that I actually needed to use it but I had said so only to check the availability and condition of the loo).

(To be continued)

NRI Week in Movies: Water and Namesake

Water and The Namesake are completely unrelated except for the fact that both directors are expat Indians. Water was directed by Deepa Mehta (of Fire and Earth fame). I don't know whether controversy dogs Mehta or Mehta dogs controversy -- both Fire and Water earned the ire of religious extremists in India. Fire, because of its theme of lesbian love in a middle class Indian family and Water, because of its depiction of widows. While I have no truck with the religious extremists of any kind, the story of Fire seemed tacky in the extreme. Except for the two lead female characters, everybody else seemed like parodies of perverts. The saving grace were Shabana and Nandita Das's acting skills.

With Water, it seems the other way round. It had a fairly strong storyline but the acting was abysmal. A piece of wood has more expression than the two main leads (Lisa Ray and John Abraham). However, the lack of acting skills of Ray and Abraham were made up by Sarala (who essayed the role of Chuhiya, the child widow) and Seema Biswas (as the dignified and motherly widow who acts as Chuhiya's protector). There is no denying that widows in India had a raw deal and kudos to Mehta for highlighting it (although she's definitely not the first or the best) but the quoting of random scriptures without context was jarring. Now the question of authnticity -- the reason for portraying Gandhi as a saviour or more aptly a catalyst of change on the issue of widows could be two fold -- either Mehta lacks knowledge of history or she used the most recognisable figure in the Western world when it comes to India. On this, I have only one thing to say -- at least she didn't try to show a white man riding to the rescue of the widows!!!

The Namesake was a different ballgame altogether. Its based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Jhumpa Lahiri and boasts of great actors such as Tabu and Irrfan Khan in the main roles. The movie is a leisurely exploration of a couple's relationship with each other as well as their children. Maybe because its somewhat autobiographical, it refreshingly does not have a cause or an agenda to promote. Therefore, there is no drama over the arranged marriage nor does it show the husband as a monster or a saint. They are just your garden variety couple who comes to the US to make a better life for themselves. There is no grand love story but a gentle exploration of the relationship as it grows and matures.

The book is more focussed on Gogol, the son and his trials and tribulations as a second generation Indian-American. The movie balances both relationships well. Kal Penn as Gogol is phenomenal. His transition from a bratty American teenager to a mature young man is extremely believable and strikes a chord. Who hasn't encountered such kids in their families?? However, the sister gets much less screen time. Its not so much the fault of the director as the book since it focusses mostly on Gogol. A very watchable movie as it depicts the lives of so many NRI Indians without stridency or sycophancy.

Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.

This is just a random post. Nothing much has been happening except work and more work. Watched Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. Though it was a fun movie and definitely worth a watch. For a first time director, this was a fair attempt at walking the middle ground. Shabana and Boman as usual were phenomenol in their portrayal as the elderly couple on their honeymoon. But my favourite were the Bong couple: Kay Kay and Raima. Kay Kay's Partho as the quintessential Bong guy (intellectually open yet traditional in outlook) was a treat to watch and so was Raima as Mili. I liked the touch of feminism in her as she rediscovers herself as a free spirit. The only jarring note was the so-called "Super hero" couple!!! They were just downright silly. The gay theme seemed a little forced. It seems to have become mandatory for progressive film directors to include gay characters (whether they are needed or not)! I have always wondered what happens if a guy is attracted to a straight guy. How does he deal with it? Hopefully, with all the experiments that are going on in Bollywood, some director would take it upon himself or herself to explore this theme. The rest of the characters were adequate (Amisha Patel as Pinky the spoint Punju brat, Dia Mirza and company). Hope to see more of this type of fun cinema...may their tribe increase in Bollywood!