Desicritics Author: IdeaSmith

Comic Strip: It's Not A Lie If It Makes Someone Happy

IdeaSmith — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:30:22 EDT

Well, what else is a woman to do?

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Movie Review: 13B - Not Fear's New Address

IdeaSmith — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:40:14 EDT

Flush with the success of my earlier movie plan which turned out such great results, I decided to go one extra and spice up my next movie outing as well. So, I proposed 'Kitsch is Kool'. The idea was to do something unusual with a touch of whackiness, all in the name of entertainment. I decided to pick something different. Comedy...nah, we did that last week. Oscar winners...too bloody high-brow (Besides it was more fun to diss celebrity style)! Drama...umm, show me something else. How about horror? And what could add more ice to the chills than watching it in a rundown, semi-seedy theatre to add atmosphere? No comfortable plush sofas to sink your face into during the scream-moments, no multiplex comfort food of caramel popcorn and seat-delivered colas. Just rattling, creaky rexine seats where your knees bumped into the cold metal of the seats in front of you, each time you shrieked. 13B at Chandan cinema was the plan.

I'd love to tell you how, full of daring and adventure, I set forth with my brave bunch of movie-buff friends. Instead, every single one of them chickened out!!! Even my plaintive sell of

But guys, just imagine the thrill of facing up to your fears! After all, darr ke aage jeet hai!

was met with,

No!! Darr ke aage nightmares hai!

Like that. Hmph, so I ended up mall-ratting as usual and watching 13B in the aforementioned multiplex complete with comfort food. So not kitschy, definitely not kool. Maybe that took away from the experience, maybe my review would have been nicer if we had gone with the original plan.

13B is driven forth by Madhavan who despite his cult status in Kollywood (the Tamizh film industry, for the uninitiated) has failed to make a splash on the rest of the Indian audience. To his credit most people have fond memories of him in Banegi Apni Baat and Sea Hawks but the big screen seems to be rather cruel on South-Indian men, doesn't it? Considering the hero is a very large proponent of a movie's appeal, it already starts off with a handicap.

In addition, 13B is playing in that rather unfashionable genre of Bollywood horror movies. After the steady Ramsay brothers diet of B-grade potboilers (Veerana, Khooni Murda), the Indian audience was introduced to relatively more sophisticated offerings minus the ketchup-blood and clay-masks of yore. Ram Gopal Verma played guardian angel to this movement with Bhoot and Darna Mana Hai. I don't know how commercially successful they were, compared to the other Bollywood fare but they certainely ushered in a new age of horror in Hindi movies.

Cut to the present. The audience has been seeing a steady stream of 'experimental' movies right from the short-length skits favoured by Nagesh Kukunoor to NRI flicks to collages (Darna Mana Hai, Dus Kahaniyan) to audience-targetted films. Purely from a marketer's standpoint, now would have been a good time to take a leap forward in the undeveloped theme of horror movies. By that premise, 13B is over a decade too late. Raat was made ages ago, Urmila's wide-eyed Bhoot has shocked us all years back. What else is new?

The characterization of 13B is extremely dated with a honey-sweet joint family that precedes the generation of saans-bahu politics. None of the characters really stand out. Poonam Dhillon in her comeback avatar could have done so much more, had she just had a bit more to do than look annoyed at being disturbed during her noontime soap viewing. Sachin Khedekar (who shot to fame with Sailaab, a king among Hindi TV soaps) was perhaps a little too larger-than-life for TV but shrunk to his podgy-man frame in the movie. The movie doesn't exactly make the best case for Madhavan to kick-start his Bollywood career either, since he alternates between huffing & puffing up the staircase (what on earth was that about the broken lift anyway??), wide-eyed mania and goofy grins. That boy needs a lesson on not smiling too much, it makes me want to call him Mr.Cheese (and not as in Kya cheez hai!).

What's worse, there was actually a background score! Not a soundtrack to add dimension to the horror theme, a fullblown honest-to-Hindi-movie-goodness, background score complete with running around trees and *shudder shudder* an item song! This was about the only scary thing in the movie (and trust me on this, I'm a real 'fraidy-cat otherwise).

With a theme like Sab Khairiyat Hai, I was rather hoping this story would experience a Stepford Wives-esque ephiphany and explore the sublimnal horror of mind-controlled perfection. No such luck. By the end of the movie I'm only left with the feeling that there is someone who's even more petrified of gadgets and technology than I am! After all, my nightmares have never been of spooked television sets (even if I did entertain a haunted lift once). It looks like the makers were rather spooked with the idea of making a movie too. If you're looking for chills down the spine, ask a friend to dump an ice-tray down your shirt. Don't bother with 13B.

Relationship Lawlessness & Social Criminals

IdeaSmith — Fri, 6 Mar 2009 13:01:42 EST

I recently saw a movie about relationships and love. In one scene, a man and a woman meet in a department store and strike up a conversation over the cash register which continues till they walk out. Standing on the sidewalk, they talk, like any two strangers who've just met, of things that interest the other and ooh and aah over what they have in common. Then, just on the verge of that crucial 'ask for her number' moment, the guy shrugs and says,

I can't do this. I'm married.

It struck me right between my eyes just then. They were following a socially accepted ritual. Then they reached a point where an expression of interest had to be made or not. And it could not be made since he was clearly unavailable. The social mores dictated that he not go any further unless he was intending to take it forward seriously.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Last year I went to Europe on holiday. After enduring much ribbing about Turkish delights and Greek gods, I returned to report that no man had flirted with me. My mother, on the other hand, told me of one of our co-passengers who had struck up a conversation and told her she was beautiful, adding with a snide look at my dad that he couldn't say the same about her husband.

She was highly surprised (even though I spend all my time telling her that she looks at least a decade younger than she is - and she does!) till I added that in some western communities, it was considered polite, practically a social requirement to mock-flirt with a lady and compliment her on her fine form. This especially for a married woman, since it was quite clear that it was in light vein and was not intended to be taken seriously. Quite unlike India where it would be considered highly inappropriate to flirt or compliment a married woman.

On the other hand, my father pointed out, that it would be equally inappropriate for the same men to have flirted with me since I was clearly available. Flirting would have been an indication of serious intent, a formal expression of interest.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~We are still in a nascent society as far as dating goes. Our parents generation invented love marriages in this society; we are the generation that brings in friendship between the sexes as well as socially sanctioned romantic/sexual relationships before marriage. We haven't quite learned where to draw the line between friendship-comfort and attraction-commitment. We are still experimenting with how far we go with being funny/cool/charming and where it trespasses into flirtation.

Think about some of the relationship scenarios that are very real to us today. The 'best friend' of the opposite sex that makes the girlfriend/boyfriend so uncomfortable. The good friends (sister-brother...this is really the most convoluted one of all) who vehemently decree that other people have dirty minds. The older colleague/father of a friend/friend of father/husband of a friend who are really friendly, but perhaps a little too much sometimes?

Don't we all know a guy who promises the moon and earth to every second girl, believing correctly, that she'll keep it to herself because in the larger sense, it still isn't done for a girl to admit that she's been with a guy? There is nothing to check him from repeating the same over and over again, no one to brand him for the cad he is. Even after the crime is complete and guy is far away, possibly chasing a whole new set of girls or actually married, how many of the women he has wronged are actually going to speak up? And if you say you don't know such a guy, give me a call. I have a private 'Hall of Shame' of these social criminals.

How about the committed ones who pass off their behaviour as harmless friendliness? There's a general 'kehne mein kya harz hai?' syndrome working here. The problem is that people do fall in love, hearts get broken, trust is rended and lives are shattered. You can deny those are very real crimes, nasty things that people do to people.

As modern women, we are expected to be 'okay' with a certain degree of liberal expression. The question how far does that stretch? It's okay to know a lot of guys, it's fine to go out with them, even flirt with them, get into relationships with them. But all of that provided it ends in the institution of marriage or at least a 'stable, steady relationship'. But from meeting a guy to ending up in that last socially sanctioned comfortable relationship, it's a long way. Most men fall short far before that. Or I suspect a lot of them aren't even intending to go that far but try and drag out as much as they can get before they need to rat-tail it 'before it gets too serious'.

We stuff our best-looking side into our public persona and bury our insecurities. We put up with a guy who is 'commitment-phobic' for months and months because we don't want to be nags. We're okay with the 'just good friends' tag. We even tolerate cheating and tell ourselves patience is a virtue. What happens when he dumps you to go chase another girl and propose marriage to her in a week? You can be sure a crime of sorts has been committed but who's going to haul in the offender?

And if you're thinking this is equally true of women as well, I agree. With one small exception. Men who have been wronged in this manner can speak up about it and they do. Where else do we get such nasty phrases like slag and tease from? On the other hand, a woman who has been wronged cannot speak up. Liberated-ness be damned, one of those aforementioned crimes was perpetrated on me. I didn't dare speak up since I knew even our common friends would just think I was stupid for having believed such a guy in the first place. Well, you live, you learn.

Last month, I was flirted with by a committed man. I was unsure on when exactly I could draw the line and just relieved to get away without too much embarrassment. As I'm writing this post, I'm being propositioned by a married friend. This relationship is sometimes questioned by my friends who believe (quite correctly) that he is a social criminal. I agree and yet I continue to be friends (only in every sense of the word) with him. But few relationships are this manageable and heavenaloneknows that this one wasn't easy either.

Let me end this by just saying that delightful as this state may be with its glorious rule-lessness, the very lawlessness of it leaves each of us vulnerable to social crimes.

Movie Review: The Pink Panther 2 - Pink Diamonds And Jade

IdeaSmith — Wed, 4 Mar 2009 06:44:06 EST

After a spate of Pudinhara-inducing movies like Valkyrie (heavy: good but seriously serious) and Dilli 6 (does this city produce anything palatable??), I decided I really needed something different. So underlining my pukka suburbanite status with Vodafone Tuesdays, I found myself in a multiplex late last night, watching Pink Panther 2.

The movie was just what the doctor had ordered for my ailing mid-week spirits.

What really works for the film is that it is just implausible enough to be funny, never erring into the area of ridiculous. Also, if you missed the first Pink Panther, no worries - even with a repeat cast and plotline, the movie is complete in itself. All you need to know is that the Pink Panther is not a person or even an animal (don't scoff, I was asked that at this show and I asked the same question at my first movie!).

Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, gives a perfect encore with the flourishy, fumbling, funny Frenchman act. His comedy is resplete with slam-dunk-downstairs slapstick and liberally laced with lingua franca humour. He's undoubtedly the star of the show.

The movie does have a few other goodies to offer other than this talented white-haired funny guy, though. A few of the jokes from the earlier movie show up again in snide references to hamburgers and karate. I particularly loved the irritating Ms.Manners with her unrelenting demands of politically correct speech. My favorite exchange in the movie was:

She's ze kind ov' woman you have ze babies with.
Ze babies??
Yez. Lots of ze babies. All day long ze babies.

Alfredo Molina, the evil Doc Ock of Spiderman 2 makes an appearance as a Brit detective and he's flanked by Andy Garcia repeating his romantic villian act of oily-guy-who-almost-bags-girl-but-she-finally-picks-the-hero act (Ocean's Eleven). He is a perfect counterfoil to Steve Martin as Clouseau's Italian rival at work and in love. The odd thing is that the first time I saw each of these actors in their respective aforementioned roles, I thought,

He looks like an Indian!

Which brings us to the Indian who is not that woman they all want to have 'ze babies' with. Please, please stop calling her India's ambassador to Hollywood! If you must, give that title to A.R.Rehman; at the least the man has talent! But Ms.Rai? She's got a real talent for not being noticeable at all!

Yes, yes I got that she turned out to be the real crook. Could anyone miss that with the last scene having her draped in hot pink? But really, tell me just how does a hot (?) woman in fabulous clothes, surrounded by not-so-hot-guys and one decidedly drab madam in Paris manage to not stand out at all? I mean, at least as eye candy? So much for her dusky features making her look exotic, La Rai just looks tired, over made-up and haggard. All the chances for some high drama are wasted in her affected, posturing. Jade isn't just the colour of her eyes, it describes the person.

Really, don't go watch Pink Panther 2 because it has an Indian in it. Go watch it for Steve Martin and his madcap capers.

Material Girl

IdeaSmith — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 10:20:27 EST

I went diamond-shopping this weekend. Last year I received a corporate pat-on-the-back with a financial award. Someone suggested that I spend it on jewelery instead of frittering it away on clothes, books and shoes. It took me months but I finally agreed.

It's not even the first major purchase I made, even for jewellery. I saved up on my first job and bought my father a new cellphone and my mother, a diamond ring. That was a funny feeling. A memorable feeling, a funny one and one I'll treasure all my life - the exhilarating thrill that comes from being able to buy something for the people you love, who have provided for you all your life.

A few years later, I'm going big-purchase-shopping again. But it just is different. A different kind of different.

I think in my head, despite all the wondrous freedom of financial independence and mental release, my liberated-ness has a few gaps in it. Like little stitches still binding me to old ways of being, long after I've snipped away the life I want to wear.

Diamonds are usually received as gifts, not bought for oneself. Gifted by a man - a father, a brother, a lover, a husband. If diamonds are a girl's best friend, it's because those sparkly stones carry the monetary value that they were bought for, but also the power of being cherished and indulged by men.

Diamonds have been symbolic for years and they continue to be so. Only my diamonds don't list out the men who will lavish their affections on me. They remind me of everything that I've worked for and achieved. The power to buy a diamond as well as the right to wear one that is truly my own. It's just odd how long it took me to accept the feeling. Not feel guilty about lavishing it on myself, not feel obligated to spending it on someone else or something more important/intelligent, not wonder if brandishing my economic power made me seem like even more of a man-hating feminist than people usually accuse me of being. It took me a long time to accept that it was okay to buy a diamond for myself and feel good about it.

Newfound power doesn't come easy; it's scary.

Poetry: Roadkill On Memory Lane

IdeaSmith — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:55:50 EST

Did you ever hear the call of memory
that screeching wail of nostalgia
like tires on tar
and you couldn't help looking back,
wondering if anybody died
and realising it wasn't you?

Did you turn back to proceed
and gape at the unfamiliarity of now
the past and its accidents seem so much real
and feel yourself lose footing on the road of reality
while even the blood stains from yesterday's carnage
fade away before you can grasp them?

Did you ever walk back into your past
and then find yourself lost,
not knowing how to come back
- Nostalgia is so disorienting -
and while you're frozen in your own mind
you get hit by a flood of something you never saw coming?

Maybe forgetfulness is just a way of ensuring we don't become roadkill.

Office Space

IdeaSmith — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:34:58 EST

While my current job is not my first, it is the one that I consider the real start of my career. Since I joined, I've switched three places, teams and bosses these past three years. With each shift I've replicated the space around me.

First, my phone with its cord unknotted (I religiously unravel it every morning) and a funny scribble stuck on it with a post-it. Next to it, is a scribble pad to jot down numbers, notes and messages. This is flanked by a neon green plastic case that once contained a gift watch that my friend received. I retrieved the case along with its matching neon green cushion. Under that cushion is a secret stash of chewing gums and boiled toffees. I lost my taste for confectionary sometime back but some of my close work pals haven't. I keep it well-stocked for them (the way I’d keep my refrigerator full for friends and family who’d decide to drop in).

There's also a stuffed birdie sitting on the cubicle wall, a beanie owl with a graduation cap (or sometimes a green dinosaur with red spikes alternated by a beanie Hunchback of Notre-Dame) somewhere in grabbable distance. These are for those ARRRGGH! moments when I can't get a hug so settle for clenching a stuffed toy instead. And finally my visiting card (for referring to postal address) clipped to a porcelain cow (which I first thought was a piggy, its mouth was so snouty!).

My papers neatly stacked at the end of the day on the other side of the screen, next to my calendar. Three different neon coloured highlighters are lined up under the screen and put away at the end of the day, away from careless (and light-fingered) people. A post-it affixed to the corner of my screen says 'Stay hungry, stay foolish'. A jacket hangs on the back of my chair, sometimes alternated by a sweater.

I spend most of my waking day here. My workspace says that this who I am. Colourful, quirky and compulsively tidy.

Last year, I moved again. A new division, a different role, which started as a temporary stint but extended out into a larger arrangement. I now have a cabin of my own. It took my three hours to pack up everything from my earlier desk but all of 15 minutes to set up again. I put down very little in this new space since I had no idea how long I would be staying.

Pulling out your roots is so difficult (not to mention heart-wrenching) that I subconsciously decided not to put down roots again.

Now, my desk is bare. Even my new computer’s packaging has been retained and hangs dustguard curtain-like over the top to be flipped over each morning and back on at the end of the day. The minute I switch my monitor off and shut the door, any sign of life is gone and all it is, is an empty room. So this office is cold, Spartan and impersonal. There’s nothing to show that I sit here, work here, live here for the better part of my life.

I guess home is so much about how much of yourself you put into the space around you. I’ve put nothing in and hence I’ve been a nomad for seven months. Enough on the road now. Next month I’ll move again. This time I’ll take my owl beanie along and maybe I’ll carry a potted plant to keep me company and my room alive when I’m not there.

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire - Phir Bhi Dil Hai Filmistani

IdeaSmith — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:36:52 EST

Slumdog Millionaire is that rare combination of a strong plot and skilful storytelling that marries grit and glamour seamlessly.

You would think that a firang's depiction of India would be all 'exotic desh'...swollen-bellied babies starving outside the Taj Mahal and begging children. The movie does have hunger, poverty, slums, streetkids and beggars. Even the Taj Mahal. But of course, can you realistically expect a foreigner to be able to resist showing that in a movie about India?

And yet, Danny Boyle manages to veer away from cliched expressions and brings us the story of the great Indian dream. Money, love, fame, glamour all after struggle, grit, disappointment and insurmountable hurdles. What's all this hoo-halla about glamourising poverty? Haven't you heard of rags-to-riches tales?

I remember the hysteria that gripped the nation surrounding the first winner of Kaun Banega Crorepati. Why was the show so popular? I doubt anyone going through the Indian education system could really, truly care about learning and knowing more. The quest of knowledge was certainly not what kept people glued to the show. Why then did people dance on the streets, why was there so much excitement surrounding the jackpot success of a guy nobody knew? Because he was one of them. Just an anonymous one of the millions. He represented a dream that was suddenly a possibility. What one of them them could do, the rest could very well aspire to.

What's a boy from the teeming millions doing shaking hands with the most famous man in the country? That's real life meeting larger-than-life. Look me in the eye and tell me that that doesn't touch you.

Butch, Not Gay

IdeaSmith — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:46:40 EST

When I was a kid, the apartment two floors above us was occupied by two ladies. They were both teachers. One of them was tall and stern-looking. The other one was short, roly-poly and generally jovial as you would expect someone of such a build to be. Both of them had short, cropped hair and they were always seen together.

I'd usually see them returning in the evening, with handbags and ubiquitous black bags, synonymous with Goan Catholics, presumably loaded either with students' papers or with vegetables and meat for that night's meal. I was a little scared of them, as I was of all teachers, even those who didn't teach me or even at my school.

Many years later an older neighbor-friend whispered to me in wise big-sister hushed tones,

They're lesbians.

I haven't seen them in years but I thought of them recently, when I started writing for Gaysi. I was about to say that I'd never known any lesbians closely but it occurred to me that perhaps I had. Or had I?

They didn't look like lesbians, which leads me to question,

What do lesbians look like?

A friend opined that they're generally tomboyish-looking and don't care too much about dressing in a ladylike manner. I retorted,

That described me in my teens too and I've never been a lesbian!

You know what I mean, she said and rolled her eyes.

Not really, I wanted to say. Did she mean they were all butch?

I ended up having a long debate with a lesbian friend over the meaning of the word BUTCH - an argument that unfortunately was never resolved.

The dictionary tells me that

Butch:

a.	(of a girl or woman) having traits of personality, dress, behavior, or appearance usually associated with males.

b.	(of a male) decidedly or exaggeratedly masculine in manner or appearance.

c.	A haircut in which the hair is cropped close to the head.

The teacher couple did have short hair but they dressed in uniformly bland, printed blouses and skirts in sombre hues. Very teacher-like. I don't know about butch, much less lesbian.

Of the two other bonafide lesbians I know, one certainly fits the description, being completely characterised by her 'Don't take panga with me' style of dressing. Not even on the same planet at girly. The other one is...well, tricky. She's one of those 'smart-dressing' types. Which is to say that she never looks like she spends too much time on her appearance but looks good and tastefullly dressed anyway. I'm not sure that's any more butch than my teacher-neighbors.

I've heard a few ridiculous things like 'if you wear a single anklet on your left ankle, you're lesbian' which sounds suspiciously like someone tried to think up a female alternative to the 'earring in one ear - surefire gay' which is even more ridiculous.

Incidently I've worn a single anklet on whichever ankle I've felt like, for years. And sported every possible length of hair, with my current style alternating between casual mop and cropped chic. My wardrobe contains oversized sweaters, men's dungarees and superbig shirts. Also skirts, leggings, frilly blouses, tank tops and other female paraphrenalia. And as an icing to the butch-cake, remember those ads for Ray-Bans years ago?

They said only men could be pilots. They said Aviators were for men.

Hah! I love the big, circle-turned-triangular dark shades and who cares if anyone thinks they're masculine or not?

Hence I conclude that being butch has nothing to do with sexual preferences. A short haircut is just that - a statement of style, a yen for convenience perhaps but not necessarily an indication of homosexuality.

And I come back to the fundamental question of whether it is possible to figure out a woman's sexual orientation just by looking at her. I've written about Gaydar but I find that only applicable to men. What do you think?

Why Commitment Starts To Look Attractive

IdeaSmith — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 06:12:17 EST

Ever since I've put up this slightly controversial (and I'll admit biased and brash) post - actually even before that, I've been hit with the question of why I do want commitment at all then if it's such a terrible thing. My reasons may not be all deeply soulful or romantic or even honorable. As I see it, commitment (read marriage) is a solution to a number of niggling, nuisance-ey problems.

Sure I enjoy the liberatedness of being liberated, the freedom to decide my own social life, the no-responsibilities carefree lifestyle that my committed friends seem to envy me for. I have written about the virtues of being single.

But there are plenty of things that I don't like about being single. Being single means a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people (many of whom in my esteemed two-bit opinion shouldn't poke their nose into my life at all). Here are some reasons I would like to be in a committed relationship.

Wives of guy friends do not view you with immediate suspicion assuming that you're just scheming to steal their man away, never mind that fact that you've probably had a chance to do that if you wished much before they even set foot in the man's life.

You are not required to be a last-minute escort (if you're female) or chauffeur (if you're male) for out-of-town single friends of friends/family.

You don't get mysteriously dropped out of movie/dinner plans with friends who are all now part of twosomes each.

Other women (even your friends) don't make direct or indirect references to your supposedly exciting, fast-moving sex/dating life.

Eyebrows don't shoot up when you pick up a baby or coo to a child. Who says single women can't be maternal?

You are not automatically put into one of two buckets - repulsive/sick/defective or flightly/fast/sluttish .

You aren't the target of unwanted and embarassing attention from married men of the neighbors/schoolmates/husbands of colleagues/ex-boyfriends variety.

You are allowed to have problems too and no one shuts you up with "What do you know? You don't have to run a household/adjust to a man/kids to look after."

You don't have to leave parties and social engagements early so as to avoid imposing on friends to drop you home.

Your family is willing to let you live your own life.

Your personal life and social calendar doesn't become everyone's personal property for value judgement - relatives, colleagues, acquaintances, neighbors, co-passangers.

Obviously these are not ALL the reasons to get into a relationship. If anything these are the 'fringe benefits' of a relationship that have started to become so important that I'm inclined to think a good number of women would want to commit just so they can enjoy all of these. I'm really tired of having to fight a battle each time I want to do something, simply because I'm single. The same thing seems to move so much faster for women who have an 'attached' tag on. Granted social engagements and lifestyle options aren't the most important things in the world. But that's precisely why it seems like such a waste to have to go to so much effort for something so minor - or go without.

A relationship has its uses and I'm unabashed in saying that I intend to enjoy all of them fully when I get into one.