Imagine a scenario where in Hollywood they decide to make a biopic on Oprah and to enact her on screen, they chose Scarlett Johansson instead of Viola Davis!  What could be more ludicrous than this?  Something similar has actually transpired here in Bollywood.  To make a movie on the life and career of the female boxing world champion and Olympic medal winner Mary Kom is a legitimate creative aspiration for any film maker.  More so when she has made all the Indians proud considering she faced so many hardships in life, being a woman and coming from North East, such a neglected and isolated part of the country.  She has literally punched above her weight to get where she has.

I know that aesthetics, authenticity and attention to detail has never been Bollywood’s forte.  But in this instance, I would like to point at their utter disregard for even the basic norm when it comes to making a so called ‘’biopic’’, and it’s that the person playing the character should have a close resemblance to the subject matter.  Anybody familiar with India would know that people hailing from the North Eastern region of the country share the same mongoloid features as their brethren in other South-East Asian countries, and for the faithful portrayal of Mary Kom, the least the film maker could have done was to have picked some talented girl from there who closely approximated the boxer in terms of looks and features.  But what do they do?  They draft a simpering Priyanka Chopra, one of the many Punjabi actors the Hindi film industry is infested with.  Now Priyanka Chopra (PC for her adoring fans) is one of the biggest movie stars in India and a huge box office draw (though I don’t like her, but then that’s just me poor sod!).

Even if I stretch the bounds of credulity to its breaking point, I cannot imagine Ms. Chopra in the persona of Mary Kom.  And with all due respect to the gritty champion that Mary Kom is, even she would agree that she’s nobody’s idea of a beauty queen.  I have not seen the movie nor do I intend to, by all accounts it has been an indifferent and a lazy effort but that’s hardly my point.  PC must be over the moon, thinking that she has done one better than Hilary Swank in ‘Million Dollar Baby’.  The sooner she disabuses herself of this notion the better.  Say what you will about Hollywood, they don’t display insincerity when it comes to depicting real life people.  Whether it’s Ben Kingsley essaying the role of Gandhi, Denzel Washington playing Malcom X, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk or Nicole Kidman enacting the role of Virginia Woolf.  And what can one say about Daniel-Day-Lewis, he not only played Lincoln to perfection, but he became one.  Do the Indian film makers believe that our notion of womanhood should confirm to the stereotypical standard set by the lowest common denominator?  In this mad rush for commercial bounty, must they throw even the most basic requirements of movie making to the wind?  By selecting PC as their Mary Kom, they have shown, in my view, a shocking lack of sensitivity not only for this petit champion from Manipur, but to the entire womenfolk of the North Eastern region.

It is not very often that something stirs a deep emotion in me.  That creates a churning within, so much so, that your eyes well up.  When I read ‘’ I Married a Communist’’, I underwent the same emotions and some more.  Besides examining one of the most paranoid period in American history, when almost every member of any society was being scrutinized for his or her suspected involvement with the communist party, through our narrator and Rothian alter ego Nathan Zuckerman’s reminiscences, we also chart the topography of human desire and the sheer folly of it.

When, after many years, Mr. Murray Ringold, who was Nathan’s high school teacher of English literature, tells him about the tragic unmaking of his kid brother Ira Ringold, with whom Nathan shared a very special relationship when he was one of Mr. Murray Ringold’s pupil in school.  At some point our narrator lost touch with Ira and moved on in life and is now himself over sixty years old writer, living a reclusive life in rural New England.  What Ira meant to Nathan, but more importantly, what Nathan meant to Ira, has been dealt with most poignantly.  Both Ira and our narrator could not be more dissimilar beside their significant age difference.  Ira was this giant of a man who, with the help of his older brother Murray, literally raised himself from the gutter to become this famous radio star.  To say that Ira had a harsh upbringing, would be a gross understatement.  As Mr. Ringold relates to Nathan that he himself found the civilising path in life and became a teacher, it was never clear to him what Ira, this giant sized brother of his was running away from or running after.  He would try to find solace in Communist ideology, and then he married one of the biggest movie stars, if for nothing else, than just to inhabit a world as far removed from his own as could possibly be.  And then the annihilation began.  An annihilation that was so spectacular and grand in its scope that the mind reels.

But let me not digress.  The purpose here is not to delve deeply into the plot of the book, but to examine why I felt the way I did.  When I see in my mind’s eye the two old men sitting there on the patio in the deck chair, one in his sixties and the other in his nineties, who in another life were pupil and teacher respectively.  As old Mr. Ringold sits there night after night, six nights in a row and only because he knows that he will find a patient listener in his favourite pupil, who shared something subliminal with Ira.  As I see in my mind’s eye, the old age has done its job on Mr. Ringold good and proper.  It has pruned away at his vitality.  The thing about the old age is that you can bludgeoned by life into submission.  You have been exorcising the ghost for so long that you don’t know what it is like not to be surrounded by the shadows all the time.  This conversation between two lonely people makes you realise a few fundamental truths about human beings.

You will betray and be betrayed.  Betrayal is not static, but is in constant motion.  Just when you thought that you have controlled it in one place, it leaks out of another place.  We are a betrayal factory.  You can deal with the cynic and con artist, but a hypocrite is a dangerous liar for he doesn’t even know when he is lying and betraying.  You have got rid of every illusion, God, ideology, politics, but the one thing that will finally get you is your own idealism and unhinge you.  As Nathan Zuckerman reflects on these in the middle of night long after Mr. Ringold is dead and gone, long after everybody is dead and gone.  I tend to think there is no such thing as happily ever after and you will be punished no matter what.

As a human being, you are allowed to be anything.  You can be beautiful, you can be ugly, you can be rich, you can be poor, you can be conservative, you can be liberal, you can be straight, and you can be gay.  No problem as far as I am concerned.  But what you are not allowed to be in my book is to be a crashing bore.  And by God we have more than a couple in our extended family who shall remain nameless for obvious reason.  Whenever I am about to be paid a visit by these worthies, my heart starts sinking, because it is so utterly soul destroying to be in the company of a crashing bore. 

Now who is a crashing bore you might ask.  Well, anyone would does not see the funny side of life, anyone who does not see the tragic side of life, in fact, anyone who doesn’t see human existence in all its shades and dimensions.  One major characteristic of a bore is that they are so much in love with their own voice that it is impossible to get a word in edgeways.  The more wrong they are, the more righteous they get, but for that you first have to be able to make your point which is not easy.  Another thing is their remarkable capacity for passivity and shutting down.  While you have shown the courtesy to listen to them while they were droning endlessly about their son or their son-in-law or their extraordinarily talented daughter, it could be also about the tribulation of their job, about some incident in the distant past, something you are hearing for the nth time, but the moment you try to bring something else to the conversation, to introduce a new element by saying something, that’s when their talent for shutting down is revealed.  They will not only become invisible, even though they are right in front of you, but they will become impervious to what you have to say about anything.  You would be perfectly justified in thinking that it might be more profitable if you banged your head against a brick wall!  They will have you believe that just because they have piled year upon year of simple but monotonous living, they are the repository of all the wisdom, and you will only gain by listening to their spiel.

I can only say that they are a wet blanket, they are rain on my parade and they are on the march of humanity.  

The Emmys are the biggest night in the world of English television.  And they didn’t disappoint in putting their best foot forward and presenting a grand show.  Seth Myers is one of the most charming and witty host I have seen.  It all comes so naturally to him.  But sometimes I think the award itself are becoming too predictable.  There is no element of surprise, maybe next year.  Even so, it was a bit surprising to see ‘’Downton Abbey’’ not winning any major awards.  Maybe because I am a huge fan of the show but anyway.  I have no hesitation in admitting that I’m a sucker for these shows, be it Academy, Golden Globe or Emmys, I have made it a point over the years to watch them.  I have a genuine admiration at how well they are organised and how beautifully they are presented.  The Indian award shows in comparison look so tawdry and disorganised.  I know it could be because I follow the English, especially American shows and therefore emotionally more invested in them and identify more with them than the shabby and lowbrow Indian shows.

Come to think of it, the golden years of Hollywood movies is perhaps over, but we’re really witnessing a golden period, indeed a sort of renaissance as far as television is concerned.  So many creatively gifted people crafting so much of compelling TV for us to savour.  From the shenanigans of a suburbia in ‘’Desperate Housewives’’ on the one hand to the tragic metamorphosis of a struggling high school chemistry teacher into a crystal meth king in ‘’Breaking Bad’’, from the social upheaval of the early 20^th century, post Edwardian England in ‘’Downton Abbey’’ on one end of the spectrum to an ode to the America of the 60s warts and all in ‘’Mad Men’’ to the other.  And never mind such an abundance of hilarious comedies.  The point being that, if you are a connoisseur of quality content on television, you’ve never had it so good.

Talking about television, now I know that the so called reality show ‘’Keeping up with the Kardashians’’ is not many peoples idea of gripping television, in fact, it can be positively tortuous.  Just as an aside, I have a theory.  Even beautifully dumb women like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton can be a fruitful presence in life at times for their interpolation diffuses guilt.  I also think that they are far from dumb.  One runs a very profitable business and the other is a globe trotting DJ.  Off course you are free to disagree with me but that’s what I think.

Ramblin’ on…

I have often seen among people inside my family and outside, a peculiar attitude.  The more wrong they are, the more righteous they get.  When you demonstrate to them the fallacy of their position through empirical evidence and cogent argument, they take refuge in the time worn clichés of culture, tradition, honour and what have you.  In any discussion or debate, the opposing view is not based on reason and common sense, but on grievances, real or imagined.  Why don’t we have more enlightened view of life in general?  I suspect that people in general like to associate with and seek the company of the likes of their own, and the moment they are confronted with something or someone not like them, that is beyond the pale of their cosy assumption, the anxiety takes over.  If you say that life on a day to day basis can be a bit of a wretched business in this country and those who have the good fortune of leaving its shore for western hemisphere are probably right and justified in not coming back, when you make your point most calmly and rationally, and not just on this issue, but on any serious matter, the people in general are ready to jump at your throat.  Why is it getting so difficult to have a civilized discourse going?  Why can’t you say that it is our choice to launch ourselves into the unknown, to be undisturbed by the past—without the apprehension of repercussion?  You are not in the business of lying.  You just manipulate the truth to keep disaster at bay.  The walls are closing around you. Is it so difficult to aspire to decency and harmony?  Must you also be swimming along with the rising tide of meanness and bigotry?  They think your complexity mocks them, but you think their simplicity mocks you.  You wonder what the malaise is and what the symptom is.  Is your vibrating passion up to the scratch to take on society’s onslaught?  You’re left with only one and one question only.  What’s the bloody Goddamn point!!  Let them go to hell... let everybody go to hell.  What do you care if wallowing in stupidity gives a large mass their mojo.  Cook your goose, stew in your own juice!!  You are only curious to know what really the shape of the oblivion is.

Every frame of DOWNTON ABBEY is a poetry in motion.  From the characterizations to the plotline to detail of that period, everything seems pitch perfect.  No wonder this Sunday evening British drama has become the global phenomenon that it is today.  Now we have seen some other TV shows that have captured the zeitgeist of their era (MAD MEN comes to mind), but none about that period in history about which we have very little idea.  This is the end of the Edwardian era.  The Great Britain is the preeminent superpower of the world.  The industrial revolution is sweeping the landscape.  The first Great War (First World War) of the modern era has had a profound effect on the society, and the Earl of Grantham Robert Crawley and his family are having a first-hand experience of this churning that is taking place across the land.

One of the remarkable aspect of the show is the relationship that this aristocratic family shares with their servants.  During the early years of industrialisation in the United States, the relationship between the master and the servant was on a more egalitarian footing.  When a servant met his master on a social occasion at a neutral venue, they would acknowledge each other as their social equal, and there would be a nice informality to the whole thing.  But in England, the social divisions were more entrenched and ossified, and the show beautifully captures that without being judgemental.  There are so many interesting characters in the show and however minor the role, no one is without relevance to the general storyline.  We see basically a clash of American and British value system in the way Lord Grantham and his wife from America, Cora, the lady of Grantham conduct their business with the household staffs.  What can one say about the indomitable dowager countess Violet, the mother of Lord Grantham and Granny to the three Crawly sisters, Mary, Edith and Sybil.  Let’s just say that being imperious never looked so cool.  She can come up with such a biting sarcasm that will leave you gobsmacked.  And you just can’t ignore the ever reliable Mr. Carson, the committed butler of the house of Downton.  His stiff upper lip, the sheer desperation to preserve the old world and old ways of doing things, even though the end of the war has practically struck a sever blow to the prevalent social mores.  This first demolishing and then erecting of the social barriers after the war, has so many people finding themselves on the wrong side of the fence, and how they negotiate their way out of this hidebound society is a fascinating watch.

Since I am about to finish the second season, and there are three more seasons to go, it would be a bit presumptuous of me to say more, but I think one could do a lot worse than give in to the irresistible charm of this wholesome British drama.

Every day, roughly four hundred people in India leave their homes but they do not return.  Almost all of are killed in road accidents around the country.  India has the terrifying and dubious distinction of being the country with the highest number of road accident deaths anywhere in the world.  The tragic death of a newly appointed cabinet minister and a prominent leader of the BJP, Mr. Gopinath Munde a few days ago in the heart of metropolitan New Delhi is just one of the latest in a series of chilly reminders about the realities on the Indian roads, where anything goes, might is right and the law of jungle prevails.  It is seriously appalling how anyone can get a driver’s license and become a Rambo on the road in this country.  Even my neighbours thirteen years old son has a free run of the family car, in fact, the parents take a lot of pride in the fact that their son can handle a four wheeler at this age, never mind that he could grievously hurt a few on the streets.  The traffic rules are observed more in breach than practice in this country.  In most cases, the violations of rules don't incur a fine of more than hundred rupees, that is less than two dollars, whereas in the US it could be anywhere between a hundred to a thousand dollars.  But here even if the cops catch you DUI, all you have to do is just fish out a few crisp currency notes in his face and you have made the day for the poor sod!  From not wearing a seat belt, to overcrowding, to overtaking from the wrong side, everything is par for the course in a place where human life has no real value with people falling off the bus tops, people falling off train tops, people tumbling down from construction sites.  There have been quite a few instances where some big shot or high and mighty mowing people down while they were sleeping on the footpaths by their shiny SUVs and then trying to buy their way out of trouble. The mind reels at the senselessness of it all.  With India adding ten million vehicles every year, the situation is only going to get worse if we don’t make safety and following the rules and regulation a national and moral mission.