Archive For December, 2005
Goa Return: I got here before Fanoos!
After a 31 hour back breaking journey after the travel agent screwed me over by putting me on Mumbai-Chennai mail, I got back to the city during the lull before the storm.
Feels good to be back after nearly 20 days!
For those interested in snaps, I’ve uploaded my Goa-Mumbai pics here. Too lazy for captions now. Will do that if time permits.
Also, the He says, She says column has been updated.
Here’s the IFFI Goa coverage, just in case you missed reading:
1. IFFI Goa – Curtain Raiser
2. Reality Check: Indian cinema plagued by lack of scripts
3. New laws to deal with piracy: Jaipal Reddy
4. All of Goa is a carnival: IFFI begins
5. Crowds throng IFFI
6. Snapshots from IFFI: Goa diary
7. Golden Peacock goes to Iranian film as IFFI ends
There are a coupla more stories to be published. Will update them here once they appear.
And you can continue reading the Goa journal here, here, here, here and here. Or simply scroll down.
As you can see, I got working from the minute I got home! 😉
Episode 11: Women are ladies, Men are boys?
He says:
Men have always been simple people with simpler needs and basic instincts. (Thought bubble: Sharon Stone cross-legged pose *slurp slurp*)
Think about it. His evolution has been about simple discoveries: fire, food, land, etc. And basic inventions: bulb, burger, computer, etc.
And how did it all happen? Because he simply refused to grow up, he always kept the kid in him alive. The kid who never stopped asking questions, the kid always up to mischief, the kid who broke rules, defied convention. The kid who believed that the only truth was that he knew little. Though they might pretend it, men always know that they do not know it all.
Which is why men exhibit child-like excitement every time they discover something. They don’t lose touch with their innocence when they give in to impulse. They lie out of fear of losing what they really like. They fight for what they want and don’t stop at anything.
They do not want to be in control of everything. They do not want responsibility. They like to sit back and let women mother them.
Men know that for the sake of balance and maintaining equilibrium on the planet, it’s essential for them to let the heart rule. Because, women have taken sole proprietorship of using their head.
Besides, most women believe they know it all. They believe they are grown up, lady-like and take upon themselves the responsibility of raising a child as a mother or a man as his wife.
It’s almost like it is their purpose in life to manage their homes, their lives, their families and take upon themselves the responsibility and reputation of being “practical” and “mature”.
Women simply love to believe that they are in control of their life. They like to believe they are grown up.
So men simply let them believe so. Anything that makes her happy. Because unless she’s happy, how would he get his basic needs fulfilled?
She says:
Men just don’t grow up.
When they’re fifteen, attaching a tin to a cat’s tail is their idea of a sophisticated joke. When they’re in their twenties, they are convinced that water pistols even scores in ways debates cannot. When they’re in their thirties, they battle their children for play stations. Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? They still find gross sexist jokes hilarious. And at eighty, only a man will marry a twenty year old, and steadfastly believe that women are more attracted to wrinkles than yachts.
And then they wonder why women think they’re juvenile.
Why do women marry and date men older than them? Because men take so much longer to mature emotionally and intellectually. Date a man who’s twenty-five, and be prepared for bursts of kleptomania “because we thought it would be kind of funny if we stole that no parking sign,” random fist fights “oh yeah? You think your girlfriend is prettier than mine? Eat dirt,” and stupid spends, “Dude, I got, like, this totally cool new phone. Only, I can’t afford to eat for about a month now.”
So men invented fire? If women weren’t around to make use of the flames, they would have still been sniggering and pushing each other into the coals with `childlike excitement’. “Snort, snort, now it’s your turn to roast.” Luckily, their wives and girlfriends realised that the big, hairy thing in the fire needed to be replaced with real food, so dinner could be made.
Makes you wonder how far civilisation would have progressed without women.
Of course men like sitting back and letting women take charge. It makes their own lives so much easier. The thing is, women don’t mind taking over.
After all, women have allowed men to run the world till now. And just look at the mess their inner-children have created!
Sometimes, you just have to use your head.
Episode 10: What’s "one of the guys"?
She says:
If you have a sense of humour, you’re one of the guys.
If you don’t fall into a dead faint when you see a rat, you’re one of the guys.
If you like whooping it up on Saturday night with ‘the gang’, you’re one of the guys.
What’s with this ‘one of the guys’ nonsense anyway? It makes you wonder whether every man’s idea of the perfect girl involves visions in frilly pink who smile demurely — and that too only when there’s an exciting breakthrough, like Lakme coming up with a new lipstick colour — about three times a day. (The rest of the time, they are probably expected to look wide-eyed and virtuous). Girls who swoon delicately every time a frog croaks. Whose idea of a wild party involves Earl Grey tea and cucumber sandwiches spread with low fat butter.
I don’t know whether this is good news or bad, but sorry guys, women like this just don’t exist. And perhaps they never did. I, for one, can’t think of a single woman who’s the embodiment of all those dreadfully feminine ‘virtues’ that all of us are supposed to possess.
Because none of the women I know bake cakes and waft on a haze of vanilla all day. They just pick up their snazzy cell phones and order them.
None of them sit picturesquely and bat their eyelashes adoringly at the men, called in to wrestle with plumbing/ laptops/ cars. When they need to get something fixed, they either call a plumber/ geek friend/ mechanic, or pull out manuals and fix it themselves.
And none of them are “gentle, compassionate, introverted, submissive and yielding” — the terms commonly used to describe feminity. Honestly, think of the women you know, and try matching them with all those adjectives. (After you stop laughing, maybe you could drink a glass of water to cure your hiccups before you return to this column.)
The bottom line is, women, like men, are are a bunch of very different people. They don’t have a pack of similar virtues, and thank goodness for that. After all, where would you be without your women friends who slap you on the back and tell you not to be a wuss when you whine, and then tell you how to fix your ipod, and your life.
He says:
Yes, the lady wins this one. Hands down.
Of course she has a sense of humour to write whatever she did.
Because, the joke’s really working.
The floor’s sparkling clean. I’m just rolled on it laughing.
A friend of mine suggested a simple test: Make a list of different people who make you laugh. Oh, of course, there are so many women who do that.
But the point is, they don’t intend to. Which is why you laugh.
Call any girl a clown and she’ll frown.
Because, my friends, most women consider the word clown derogatory.
Tell a man that and he’s sure to laugh and say: “Guess what? You’re funny too.”
She’s also right when she says women don’t faint when they see rats. They just become one of them. Jumpy, hiding for cover, lest the frightful monster gobbles them up. Men consider it perfectly natural for rats to co-habit their eco-system and do remember that they are right at the top of the food chain.
And what’s a girl gang? Ooooh, I’m really scared now. Because, the girls are going to drink their guts out and fall over me on a Saturday night. Ha ha!
So what is this “one of the guys” thing men talk about?
Come on, you need to be among the guys to do that.
I could write a check-list of what we dream, lust and fantasise about all day and all night. But I just heard that the list would not be printable. Oh damn!
Men have simple tastes, they are colour blind, so they wouldn’t even notice if it’s a blue lipstick or a black one she’s wearing. So whoever said they like their ladies to be dainty in pink.
Men have basic instincts, let’s just say they are very very basic.
They can laugh at themselves, call themselves clowns, lech at every other woman and perfectly not feel guilty, catch a rat by its tail, get pissed drunk on a saturday night, sport a Salman Khan wardrobe every single day, hit on women shamelessly, make them laugh and be laughed at.
Now lady, if you can do this, you’re one of the guys too. Else, just snigger dismissively, saying: “Boys!”
Goa Journal: Days 11-13
One of my three pending stories on IFFI finally appeared today.
Will post the other two once they are published.
Meanwhile, quick update on films I’ve seen in the last three days.
1. Apaharan: An exciting premise ruined by poor casting, no one other than Nana Patekar seemed to have any idea of what they were doing in the film. Devgan was good, but this is a role that ought to have gone to someone more younger and vulnerable. And why would anyone want to watch Bipasha in salwar kameez? Result: A subject with explosive potential gets watered down in the trappings of mainstream commercial cinema.
2. Good morning to Dad (Bolivian): Absolutely brilliant in portraying change in attitude of a country towards Che and works wonderfully in deconstructing the myth of a hero given demi-god status. As the film goes back ten years at a time as each act unfolds, the director quite cleverly shows what went into shaping public attitude and the subtle transformation over a period of time.
3. Silver Salt (Brazilian): I have loved every single Brazilian film I’ve seen till now, starting from Celeste and Estrela. Like Celeste and Estrela, this one too is about the making of a film as it draws parallels betweens filmmaking and reality. There were some wonderful lines in the film, which I now forget because of the overdose of films here. But I strongly recommend this film, if at all you come across it.
4. Hasina (Kannada): This won Tara a National award and you can see why. Truly world-class cinema as Girish Kasarvalli brings to life characters that are as real as they get, while telling a story of an oppressed Muslim woman and her wait for justice. Only crib: Could’ve been tighter, especially the portions where the director tries to split the film into five acts with the five times of namaaz does during the day. By the time the fifth prayer comes up, you can feel the brakes on the film.
5. Tiny Snowflakes (Iran): Iranian films surely know how to make the simplest slices of life look so beautiful, moving and engaging on the big screen. And this one despite its very slow pace, captivates you with its imagery and honesty. As I think back, there was hardly any visible plot or conflict, but the cinema works, just to once again demonstrate the power of visuals.
6. Dubai Return (Hindi): Ah! Don’t films with great scripts made poorly disappoint you? Aditya Bhattacharya (the guy who made Raakh 17 years ago) teams up with a pretty talented ensemble and as actor Irrfan put it, the film does “have a lot of moments” indeed. But like a line in the film goes: “Raita achcha hai, lekin raita khana nahin hai.” (The salad is good, but it aint food right?)
MADRAS INK. 