Bidding adieu to office blues!

I am destiny’s child (or so I would like myself to believe) and impulse is my driving force. Calculated contemplation was never my strong point and thank god for that. Ideally I’d like to be the master of my own time, but in today’s age of plummeting economy and skyrocketing inflation, this seems like the most atrocious wish of a severely pampered child.

Hence, after some deliberation, I’ve developed a convenient middle path for myself. I keep taking a break from economic enterprise (woe falleth on the Economists of the world who consider housework as non-economic activity) once in a while to indulge myself in the freewheeling state of being footloose and fancyfree.

Keeping this tradition alive I’ve decided to call it a day in Bangalore. I know doing so at this point in life is committing professional hara-kiri. But then, I was never given to seeing my life as a balance sheet (cynics can term it as being impractical).

Right now I am quite excited to go back and slip into the new role of a dutiful housewife, cooking lau chingri and kochchu shaak with gusto. But more importantly, I’m looking forward to doing things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Who knows, given my predilection for throwing up surprises, there’s a high chance of you seeing me somewhere that you’d never ever expected to! Keep guessing ;) …

(PS. Tonight it’s wine and cheese and everyone’s invited. :) )

Lit-beat's latest pin-up boy

For those of us, who follow the works of Indian writers writing in English, this year has been phenomenally providential. There have been three major releases so far Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and the recent Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. Each writer is a literary heavyweight in her own right but none has received so much media attention as Amitav Ghosh.

Gone are the days when Amitav Ghosh used to be published by the venerable Ravi Dayal. Most of his books then used to be released quietly, without much ado, at the most allowed an academic response in one of the few serious newspapers (as the content would hardly arrest the attention of non-serious readers of fiction).

Not so any more. With a well-known publisher talking over the literary rights, Amitav Ghosh has now been ordained with the mantle of Indian fiction’s most printable face. Since the past few weeks so much of print and air-space have been accorded to Sea of Poppies that people who follow Ghosh’s literary trail quite closely know all that’s there to know about the book and can hold forth in a party conversation without even turning a single leaf.

This leads me to wonder, how beneficial media excess is after all, if it leads us away from the real thing. All said and done, the writer needs to reach out to his readers through his works. Media can facilitate that process to a certain extent but should restrain itself from going into an overkill. Honestly speaking, I do not want to read any more interviews of Amitav, nor do I want to read any dust-jacket-based hastily-cobbled-up review of the book. Simply put, I want the BOOK now to talk to me. Others please step aside, will they?

It's Osian Cinefan Film Fest once again!

After the verbal diarrhoea that assailed me in May, June was spent in relative calm, mostly trying to rid myself of all unwanted emotional baggage accumulated over the past few months, an emotional summer-cleaning if you please.

With July the sporadic showers are back again and so are summer treats like mangoes and jamuns. It’s also that time of the year when Delhi experiences an eleven-day film extravaganza in the form of Osian Cinefan Film Festival.This year the festival is from 10 - 20 July. For those who need some cuing-in, Osian Cinefan is a film festival dedicated to Arab and Asian cinema. Started by Aruna Vasudevan and her movie-loving friends, nine years ago, the film festival is now supported by Osian, the auction-house owned by Nevile Tulli.

Osian Film Fest for me in a single snapshot means sauntering through glittering venues richly decorated with cine artefacts, grabbing an almost-stale patty/sandwich while rushing from one Sirifort auditorium to another, shedding copious amount of tears in a dark auditorium, marvelling at the young directors and their repertoire, secretly wishing to be part of a film production, catching a Makhmalbaf flick in between edit meets and proof reading (thank God office was just a walk away!), and desperately trying to find an auto after a late-night screening and walking back 5 km at 1 am through Delhi’s deserted streets.

As I write this I fight back the intense urge to rush and book a ticket to Delhi (S is to be blamed for steering me clear of it.) Helplessly I click through this year’s schedule and try and live those days, clinging to memories’ unfaltering support. Wish me luck!

Chocolate gateaux, Truffaut and the first May showers

Fast facts first.

• Francoise Truffaut, born in 1932 (6 February), was one of the leading French directors in a genre called new wave cinema.
• He started out as a film critic and later began making his own films.
• Convinced by the idea that a film is primarily an impression of a director’s style (auteur theory), Truffuat left a distinct mark in world cinema.
• Orson Welles inspired him to make his first film “The 400 Blows”, heavily borrowed on his own life experiences, that was released to much critical acclaim.
• Besides “The 400 Blows” some of his other films include “Jules and Jim”, “Shoot the Piano Player”, “Bed and Board”, “Two English Girls”, “Day for Night” (Best Foreign Film Oscar, 1973), and “Small Change” (Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film).
• Truffaut died in 1984 (21 October).

My first tete-a-tete with Truffaut (alack, only through his films) happened as a happy coincidence. Those were the days when I used to be the master of my time. On such a hot May afternoon, while gallivanting Delhi’s streets, I found myself on a quiet tree-lined avenue, near India International Centre, looking askance at a sepia-tinted poster of a handsome man in a beret, posing in front of a camera.

But such was the arresting pose of the person that my oblique attention gave way to a deep probe. As it turned out, Alliance Francaise was screening a retrospective of this auteur and, like most Delhi events, entry was free. Now, the magic of the silver screen has never failed to seduce me. Hence, I happily made my way to the auditorium, and immediately got immersed in the son et lumiere of Traffaut’s cine world.

That May afternoon remains etched in my memory for a variety of reasons. Primarily because I discovered Truffaut’s cine magic and secondly because that evening I had a taste of my first chocolate gateaux, soaked in the annihilating lust of Mathilde’s relationship with Bernard (“Woman Next Door”). And as I was making my way out of Alliance, silently sending a prayer for an afternoon well spent, I was completely caught unawares by the first (read: sudden) showers of the season. Cinema, cakes and walking through laburnum-strewn streets on a rain-drenched evening … what more could I have asked for!

About time

There was once a little girl who placed her trust on this big bad world, unconditionally, without a trace of doubt. For, never in her wildest dreams did she foresee that one day she’d have to pay a price, a price so dear that she'd be left scarred for life.

Cut to a room full of men and women, twenty to sixty years of age. A workshop is in progress. Everyone is asked to recall an incident, a moment in their childhood when they felt physically violated. Nine out of ten people in a sample size of two-hundred report in the affirmative. And yes you’ve read it right, it can happen to males as well.

Paedophilia is no longer a kinky headline in a daily, happening in far flung places. It’s very much a part of our social reality. In fact it always has been, only that it was never reported. Reports say, most cases of paedophilia never go addressed primarily because they never make their way out of family closets. Because of this, what could have been a minor infection, possibly set right by a single dose of antibiotic, has now become a full-blown case of incurable gangrene, so much so that screen narratives (Mira Nair’s “Monsoon Wedding”, Madhur Bhandarkar’s “Page 3”) and print accounts (Pinky Virani’s “Bitter Chocolate”) now deem fit to address, albeit in small measures, this social scourge.

Very few countries have addressed the problem of paedophilia publicly. One country that has taken bold and positive steps about it is the tiny warn-torn Sri Lanka (yes incredible, isn’t it?). Its Family Welfare Department has been regularly issuing posters for parents, teachers and older children to make them aware of this malaise. Children are encouraged to talk about it, confide in their parents and teachers if they are abused. Adults are counselled on how to exactly deal with a child who’s been traumatized by any such incident. Taking the cue from its neighbour, the Indian government is slowly breaking free from its shell. The recent visuals/adverts on Doordarshan usher a welcome and much-awaited change.

It is something that has happened to me. It is something that has happened to a lot of people I know. Your child (God forbid) can be the next victim. Get vigilant. Act now!

No laughing matter this

Well it’s official now. Somewhere between driving ourselves to achieving that elusive bottomline and managing to stay just above the deluge that comes in the name of work, we have lost our sense of humour. But believe me we, as Indians, had loads of it! At least that’s what our folklore tells me.

But that was a long, long time ago. Long before the bane of globalization hadn't crept in and made competition a dirty word. Laughing at yourself and the world at large was not considered inappropriate (read: uncouth) then. As a matter of fact, court jesters were held responsible to keep the king’s head in place and inject good cheer and commonplace wisdom into the lives of people as well. Had it not been for court wits like Birbal and Gopal Bhand, Akbar and Raja Krishnachandra would have become grumpy old men, not kings of repute they are known to be now. Life is indeed not funny at the top, and court jesters knew that only too well.

Fast forward to the twentieth century and the picture is far from being a happy one. Trust Bollywood to tickle your funny bone and all you get is ribald, slapdash humour in return. Look to your colleagues, with whom you spend most of your waking hours, for mirth and you draw a blank there as well.

Laughter is not a well-coordinated exercise every morning, it is much more than that. A spontaneous outburst of joie de vivre when the boardroom is heaving under a cloud of stress, a glint of naughtiness in the eyes, a penchant to laugh at oneself when everyone thinks you’ve done a great job are what we sorely miss in our dying-to-reach-nowhere society. At least I do!

What's cooking?

Like a true-blue Bangali, I salivate over the aromas that waft from the kitchen and can spend hours exchanging notes on anything from shukto to sushi. But unlike other members of the ilk, when it comes to brandishing my culinary skills willingly, I cut a sorry figure. Simply put, I am a reluctant cook of the very first order.

Which is not to say that I have faltered. I know there are mouths to be fed, parties to be returned…New-age psychotherapy even pitches cooking as an effective stress buster. But evidently, I’ve failed to see through it all.

Cooking for me is a cumbersome exercise. Period. And predictably so, since the whole rigmarole starts with the basic dilemma “what to cook”. On good days, when contents spill forth from the fridge and strike you with a brainwave, you hit the stew-pot instantly. But, after a hard day at office with hunger pangs gnawing at your guts, your “Aha” moment seems aeons away!

But then I am a Bong (oops bangali ;) ) and being a foodie is sort of mapped in my genes. I need my luchi fix almost every Sunday, a steaming hot Ilish machher jhol as rains lash the parched earth, notun gurer payesh when there’s nip in the air, not to mention other droolworthy delights. Hence, no matter how much I hum and haw, I still reach for the kitchen when I’m feeling down and pamper myself with a lip-smacking dish.

And, oh yes … did i mention ... there’s always enough for gatecrashers.