easter

so for the easter holiday i did what so many others did- followed one sugar-high with another. one chocolate mousse cake thing, box of macaroons (form my lovely neighbour) and chocolate easter bunny down i think i might be over this though.

on the last few days my i'm catching up on some of the movies on my list ethta i have been wanting to watch.

1. teeth.
i loved this. was hysterically funny, and briefly wanted similar mutation myself.

2. letters to juliet
bah. but then what was i expecting.

3. flipped
i really enjoyed easy a. and i liked this one a lot too. and somehow despite how cutesy it was it managed not to be annoying. which is no mean feat.

4. unfaithful
now.. in general i dislike films about cheating spouses, because i find that they make me terribly judgemental and unforgiving, aspects of myself which i would like to ignore a smuch as possible. but this one i really enjoyed. and the film was so pretty. i loved the way the windy new york day was shot, and how lovely the whole thing looked.

and the new doctor who episode.
so they've taken him to america and shoved an fbi agent in. and nixon. well obviously. i'm still loving this series though.

in other news- egg curry happened with some success last night. and today- kadhi.

song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3rDMJERl64

More movies

The best film of the last few weeks has been Les Meilleurs Amis du Monde (The Best Friends in the World). I loved this one so much. It made me cry big fat tears; the guy sitting across the aisle from me in the flight was most amused. It was funny, and sad and sweet. This one is about two sets of married-couple friends: one couple+son is visiting the other(+son) in their shiny new holiday home. While on the way the visitiing couple accidentally hear what their hosts really think about them when one of their phones redials by mistake. The weekend is a series of plotted and then later un-planned disasters. I would definitely watch this one again. Plus it had a llama. I like movies with llamas.

Last week I watched Phas Gaya re Obama. Which I'm glad I went to, despite my misgivings. Except for the female-Gabbar Singh gang bits, where all these women had sex with men to torment them (where do I even begin to talk about how annoying this was) the movie was pretty funny. It could have been a bit shorter. But the end was great. And I haven't enjoyed the second half of a Hindi film as much as I enjoyed the latter part of this, in a really long time.

In comparison Band Baaja Baaraat had much less going for it- one very pretty girl, with lots of pretty clothes, a very attractive scruffy boy, lots of Delhi-city references and one catchy song are more than other people are peddling these days (Tees Maar Khan?!)- but it could have been a much much better movie. I am partial to movies that reference Delhi University. I could also watch a whole movie about DU hostels and faffing about north camous; and this movie started off with this which is why I have decided to like it, despite being most annoyed with the patchy end. And the heroine's propensity to try and solve all her problems by calling the hero an ass. I oculd also have done without the overlong body-glitter song shot against the Jodhpur Palace. Jodhpur and Delhi are my two favourite movie locations, and I love it when they get worked into the story in the way this film did. For this I will overlook the boring yellow-flower petalled song. But there are only so many trades that one can make before categorising a film as vaguely disappointing- which is what this one was.

In Transit

It took me 34 hours to get home- from Geneva to Bangalore. 22 of these were in Doha- at a most pleasant hotel not far from the airport. Exhausted from two weeks of exams and two days, post exams, of drunken revelry I decided to stay in the hotel room for most of the day.

Enid- which I saw just before leaving for my Bangalore bound flight was very good. It made me detest Enid Blyton, and want to punish her for being evil to her children. But me enjoyment of the Faraway Tree tales, and the rest is quite secure- as the books have magically remained perfect in my head despite their author's apparent evilness.

On the flight from Geneva to Doha I watched three movies. Usually I like to eat and fall asleep but as I was stuck between two very twitchy men sleeping was impossible.

Weddings and Other Disasters was alright. Nothing special, but I don't watcha lot of Italian film- specially not recent stuff.

Heartbreakers- with Vanessa Paradis was very entertaining. It was a bit of a French lesson, which was good, and the dance bit was fun. I would recommend this one.

I also saw all but the end of Step Up 3- which I would not recommend to anyone. It was a foolish movie. And even though I love So You Think You Can Dance, there was no getting beyond how ghastly this movie was.

On Christmas morning I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Why does Brad Pitt make these slow and tragic movies- where everything seems to be on an epic scale- but is just - ... movies like a River Runs Through it; or the other where he plays the guy who steals is brother's wife- the woman who makes with all the men in the family. That particular kind of Brad Pitt movie I am getting very tired of. Maybe he's just so beautiful that they don't know what to do with him, except stick him in these frames with the endless sea, or grass, or mountains. (Is it showing that I don't like him much? I don't.)

And then theres all the stuff I watched this week- while at home- which I shall do a separate post about.

Happy New Year everyone

geneva

so i wouldhave liked my first post about geneva to be about the snow, or the food, or the st bernards (but i have not seen any yet)
instead it is about an argument that consumed my saturday night. about quotas and reservations. though i had promised myself that after lsr i would stop having these.

it was a v long conversation with another indian girl, mediated by an excitable italian boy. who kept the conversation civil by interjecting when either of us got snippy.

it was about about caste, identity politics, reservation and education. i think economists should be put in reserved areas and not allowed to make policy decisions. they should do research and allow other people to decide how the world is run

it is impossible to convince someone who tihnks otherwise that the benefits of quotas and reservations outweigh negatives caused by the potential for misuse
and that saying that the govt 'should' do more by investing in education instead of having quotas is pointless as there are many things the govt should do but that having protective legislation makes the govt obliged to do some things.
increasing the number of things it has to do as opposed to making a wish list of shoulds.
which is really pointless as unless you are exceptionally placed the system is beyond repair for one or a group of 20,000 individuals
but economists live in a bubble. it is composed of the terms growth rate and development. and this is v problematic. they should be made to visit the real world. i dont understand why we keep studying the model of perfect competition. as we have all decided that it is never going to happen. we study not the perverions of the system; instead we keep thinking about what happens when it is perfect. it will never be perfect. it is pointless to keep thinking of what should happen.
but then perhaps it is no less utopian to imagine a less unfair world, than a perfect one.
it ended inconclusively.

movies

Kynodontas (2009), is not for the squeamish. And that's about all I can say about it without some sort of spoiler. It gave me the creeps but I would recommend it to those strong of stomach. If you saw The Ballad of Jack and Rose- this is about three times more disturbing.

Other things I watched this month include

1. The Accidental Husband- thoroughly avoidable.

2. Serenity- not as much fun as as Firefly. And highly disappointing in terms of which characters Joss Whedon chose to kill and which he chose to keep alive at the end.

3. Firefly- which I loved. Though I think its a bit incongruous that 500 years into the future we will have spaceships, advanced medical technology and yet be dressed as if in the 19th century. Not a major problem for me though; didn't detract from my glee at the whole series. Though I do think the story arc could have been written out a little more crisply. Or something. More twists. More plot.

4. Coraline- which was ok. Excellent black cartoon cat and lovely music. But I shan't be watching that again.

5. P.S. I love You- bah. Though it was nice to see Hilary Swank in pretty clothes this is not enough to make me watch a whole movie.

who said

i've just had a week of involved discussions about singing the national anthem, patriotism and why politicians should be shot on sight. now in a house like ours, where all of us are rather opinionated the degree of peace is relative to how many people are in the room. i resent being made to stand up and sing the national anthem when i go to the movies in ahmedabad. i don't at all resent getting up early and racing out at nine in the morning to find a flag to sing at on independence day. i think republic day is a bit of a fraud, though i do recognise that the constitution is quite important and all that. but singing the anthem is a gesture, and i feel like there's more drama attached to the day independence was acknowledged.

what i did today was go out and buy a pair of sunglasses. which is makes it no different from what i might have done on any other day. except that there was less traffic today.

i do find though that i am more open to reading poetry on state holidays- in general. so i spent the afternoon with agha shahid ali, cups of tea and home made cookies. and am spending part of my evening with k satchidanandan. here- have a poem. after this though i am going off to watch firefly.


Who Said?

Who said
that waiting is a
railway station in North Malabar?
That a dawn in uniform
will arrive there in a coffin?

Who said
that memory is a fragrant window
opening on ripe cornfields?
That our bodies grow cold
as light grows dim there?

Who said
that trees have ceased to follow
wind’s language?
That we must conceal
from lilies and rabbits
the news of the death of love?

Who said
that now noons will be
heavy like a drunkard’s head?
That evenings will have sick hearts
like a lover’s whispered songs?

Who said that we are running barefoot
over red hot iron
with a fistful of childhood rain?
That we will, at the end,
hand over our keys
to the same rain?

Who said that men once dead grow younger
and then they enter another Time?
That all the birds that vanished
at sunrise will return
when the world ends?

Who said
that we would understand everything
with no one saying anything,
but will still not share
anything with anyone?

© K. Satchidanandan
From: Vikku
Publisher: DC Books, Kottayam, 2002
ISBN: 81-264-0465-5



© Translation: 2002, K. Satchidanandan
From: At Home in the World:
Publisher: Full Circle, Delhi, 2002

http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=2865