An Indian Beautiful Mind

Jeevan Nath, the recluse strategy Prof at Kingston University and a cricket enthusiast is in centrefold of talks for his path breaking Game theory of cricket, which is expected to revolutionize the way the sport is played. Just a week before a largely mysterious entity in neighbourhood, quite an ostracized member amongst colleagues and openly mocked figure amid student circles; Prof Nath has transformed into an epitome of recognition.

“Prof Nath’s achievement is the result of sheer dedication and hardwork” says Gajhodhar, the watchman of ‘Infinity apartments’. “Nath, a man lacking half the helping of heart, since the debacle of Indian cricket team in last world cup had been behaving even more weirdly. He was often discovered talking to himself at lengths” said fellow professor Mohan Sen in an envious flavour.

“Since last three years he regularly observed our matches with religious devotion taking colossal notes and often irritating fielders by paddling his bicycle from deep extra cover to silly point” reported Vinod Ganguly the conceited captain of Infinity eleven. “On complaining he retorted that he was governing our dynamics and weighing it against huge samples of people ranging from those of Munaf to Raina” added Vinod.

“Since recently he was often seen sketching strange illustrations and scripting complex equations on window panels. Once a baffled him even tried breaking the glasses with headbangs but fortunately aborted crying ‘I can’t see it’ ” added Gajhodhar. “Previously when inquired about his mysterious research, Nath termed it as an assignment for a cricket coach Vinaysheel Parasher whose identification is yet to be revealed” said Prof Mohan Sen.

We tried to get in touch with Prof Nath but could only manage interviewing Mrs. Aleesha Nath who found some time for us while ironing dozens of old twisted handkerchiefs. She told that Prof Nath, eventful scripting his plausible Nobel acceptance speech, was struggling to blend the paradoxical equations of love and logic. “You Just can’t imagine how pissed off he is since his eloquent speech at Kingston’s felicitation ceremony was not appreciated in the similar fashion as was his theory by the crowd bleeding blue.

PS: Written with a space at Faking News in mind :)

The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

Once while being interviewed an ebullient Salman Rushdie, my last post’s buddy, said that during his Oxford days he learned more from the Friday night shows than course books. It may sound unfounded to many but not me. I too can claim with conviction that in this case I have reciprocated him, infact I have even gone few steps further in embracing the first one and almost ditching the later. Once while taking one such learning filmy-session through a 2004 neosurrealistic classic ‘Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind’ directed by Michel Gondry, a brilliant exploration of human memory and relationship, I came across the above mentioned lines. During the movie when Mary Svevo, played by Kirsten Dunst, recited these lines of Alexander pope to Dr. Howard, though totally involved watching, a fascinated I paused to take out my diary and pen it down. Later, as habitually, while surfing through the wiki pages of the movie I came to know that these arresting 4 lines are a part of a 366 lines long poetic epistle ‘Eloisa to Abelard’, a terrible tale of a rebellious love (though the word terrible was unnecessary, love as always is, in any form terrible).

To fathom out the entire poem is a colossal task and will require an understanding far above my meager intellectual capacity. For the time being the uninitiated reader needs to know only this much that Eloisa while suffering from separation and realizing that now a helpless Abelard can never reciprocate her love prays not for forgiveness but forgetfulness.

As now there is no Mrs. Lizzy around to explicate me such enigmatic verses, a seeking me tried googling it out, and not to my surprise there were plentiful explanation by many generous souls. What I found is this that the above lines are in a sardonic tone. Vestals were the virgin maids of ancient times who were devoted to the services of temples soon after birth. They were held as symbol of purity and peace. Ordinary people tangled up in the blues, as man is inherently sadistic, envied them for their so perceived peace of mind. But here Pope doubts there happiness. He argues that what other saw in them as happiness was actually there ignorance. Since they were ignorant of the world around they knew of nothing, neither true happiness nor real sadness. There life was nothing but a hollow and futile existence, as to be blameless is also to be empty, meaningless and blank, without the weight of choice and consequence. If we want only what we're given -is that happiness? No. Sometimes change can be costly, and not always rewarding, but standing costs dreams and desires.

At the any stage in our life we are nothing but the sum total of our memories. We are happy when the memory we cherish dominates our psyche. Similarly unpleasant memories make us downhearted. In a way life is all about collecting good experiences, because we will all relive them umpteen times through our reflections. But the problem with human mind is this that it is more a RAM based device, where the secondary storage is lost in the piles of recent data’s. Sometime a small bitter moment takes over the years of togetherness, as all the sweet memories are buried in the sand of time. It is only in the afterthoughts that we realize the true worth of a relationship gone bad by a small clash, but then mostly it is too hard to make corrections as there always is the ego factor. When Friedrich Nietzsche quoted “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders” he too displayed similar attitude as a poignant Eloisa. He considered the forgetful lucky as they forgot even there bitter memories but then at same time they were also reduced as creature of the moment, with no treasure of past to live upon. At times when some recent experience troubles us we too urge for forgetfulness to get over the painful part but a mere reflection will suggest that how hollow life will be without memories.

The above mentioned movie approaches the same human dilemma in a splendid manner. It is the story of Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), a couple as distinct as two extremes, while Joel is reclusive Clementine is vivacious, but both of them find happiness together. However once a small misunderstanding blows out of proportion and an impulsive Clementine had all the memories of Joel erased from her mind by a surgical process ( a liberty which artistic independence allows the storyteller). An angry Joel reciprocates her by opting to obliterate her memories. As if “Look at it out here, it's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy! By morning, you'll be gone”.

But in order to wipe out the memories the operating machine first needed to map those particular memory cells thereby enabling the holder to view them one last time while in an unconscious dream like state. It is only when Joel revisits his memories with Clementine, he has afterthoughts; and he recognize that though few moments between them were bitter but majority of them were happy and he understand that it was Clementine who brought meaning and magic to his mundane life through her vivacity. The rest of the movie take place in Joel’s mind, and from here the neo-surreal part begins. Now onward it is shown how in his mind Joel with Clementine struggles to rescue few of their memories from being completely washed, and while leaving them again he realize that these memories are all that are left behind as their life together, and once they are gone a life once lived is gone as well.

The one message that the movie pass is that if only one can stand apart and watch his whole life from a distance than one can realize that how wonderful a life it was, inspite of all the so thought mistakes committed. A second inferential message could be about accepting people as they are because they are still the same wonderful person inspite of their imperfection and if you have found happiness with a person once you will find it with them once again. All you need is to wipe the dirty spots which come in a relationship and this wiping doesn’t needs a spotless mind but a pure heart. Because in real life there is no surgical process to clean dirty spots of memory it could be done only by defocusing from those spots and viewing the larger picture which requires an open heart. And hence it is more important to have a pure heart than a spotless mind.

IN THE NAME ONLY

Well it’s been a long time coming. Almost three months. Somewhere in the middle of all the bedlam I was eventful contributing my own chaotic ingredient. In all these creative mayhem I happened to indulge in various new stints. One of which was producing a movie written and partially directed by me. And due to lack of actors I even got a role in it. The movie was 6:42 mins long, with a budget of 23 Rs only and my part was somewhere around 30 secs now that explains all your querris. About the script writing part here is the abstract that we submitted along with the mini movie.

IN THE NAME ONLY

‘In the name only’ opens with an unknown man writing an entry ‘democracy?’ in his diary. Then the scene shifts to the office of cabinet minister Kashinath Tiwari where he is busy working on his biography aided by writer A.K. Joshi. They are joined by Kashinath’s political right-hand Ramakant. In the subsequent scenes it is disclosed that though Kashinath has never been to college he asks Joshi to put in writing the contrary and other such bluffs to exalt his image. While choosing an apt college name Ramakant advises sticking to a Hindi name which will support their Hindutva agenda.

In flashback it is revealed that Kashinath used to work at a tea stall where he came in contact with a contemporary materializing leader of a Hindu outfit. During a conversation the leader was impressed by his aggressive remarks and envisages in him the potential of a latent demagogue and hence seduces him to join his outfit. With time the leader’s calculation was established and along with Kashinath he reached to the corridors of power. The stature of Kashinath as a politician rose as he played the self proclaimed savior of Indian cultural and religious values.

The scene returns back to present where Kashinath is attending his son Munna’s call. Ramakant apprises Joshi that Munna was a University topper to which Kashinath reveals that that too was the game of power. The viewer is acquainted with the story of how Munna’s copy was swapped with that of a scholarly student Manohar, in a series of flashbacks. The writer Joshi is appalled to hear this story.

The picture now returns to the opening scene where it is disclosed that the unknown man writing the diary entry was in fact a disconsolate and poignant Joshi himself. After making the entry he takes out a letter addressed to him as ‘Dear daddy’. The letter is actually a suicide note by his son, who turns out to be the same boy Manohar.

Through this short film the creating team wants to communicate the message as what kind of people are running our politics, how the Indian demagogues have baked and elevated issues like religious and cultural discrepancies to assuage their self ambitions, how they are bluntly practicing favoritism and nepotism exclusive of hesitation. In the movie what starts as a normal working day in Joshi’s life in minister’s office develops into the day when he realizes how the politician has played with his son’s future and in a bigger picture with that of nation for meeting their own goals and how still as an individual he is helpless to still work for them, and how still are we the citizens susceptible to sordid politics.

P.S.- You may wonder why at all I posted this crap. Well it was out of sentiment spawned in me by affirmative reaction of enthusiastic fans. You know sometime even a thinking mind plays an emotional fool... and I am not even a thinking mind. Now I really feel sympathy for Rakesh Omprakash Mehra.

P.P.S.- The movie made it to the finals of 'Cognizance 09' in eastern India. :)

Overlooked middle class

That was a stage when dish TV was still a fresh experiment in India, and a rare commodity in small towns akin to mine where having a dish connection destined getting loads of undesired frenzied cricket fiend in your drawing room to track team India when they were overseas and no more accessible on Doordarshan (however watching gregariously helped to put up with the gloom of loses we consistently guzzled on foreign soil). I was privileged (still wary) to have it near the beginning. That was also the stage which I used up by and large watching no matter what on TV. It was a time when I was entirely eclectic and robotically followed the whole lot. Thus I have a reasonably first-rate experience of Hindi cinema under my belt. Though I am not proficient to keep track of it from past few years as for a while I was busy in preparation for highly demanding cutthroat competitive exams (though what I finally landed in makes me feel ‘Was that worth?’) and after that I was struck by Hollywood masterpieces (so you see, I take no lessons from life).

Now though I don’t watch them anymore, but few innovative and creative exceptions, still by following the trailers on TV and internet I observed that all most all the bollywood yield are either dealing with a same monotonous stories based in a high societies aristocratic backdrop or on underworld and criminals psychology. We have one camp of director, producer delivering feel good movies full of pomp and show illustrating all the exotic and striking locations, big mansion, costliest automobiles, sexiest and shortest attire, cosmopolitan lifestyles, latest trends, phoniest dialogues and exceedingly illusory characters (karan jauhar is a champ in this group). Then we have another camp delivering movie depicting criminal mindsets, filthy language, underworlds jargon, scrupulous politics, unwrap prostitution, intricacies of pervert system, crooked officials and one indomitable chap against all odds (Ram Gopal verma leads here). Then there are also some who are on the go creating senseless and irrational potboilers (Faraha Khan is the Queen in this genre).

If we leave aside some very rare exceptions than in past few years hardly any movie was made showing the simplicity of a common man’s life and the middle class way of affairs. Gone are times when a Hrishikesh Mukherjee touched the cords of entertainment with the fingers of an ordinary man to create eternal tone of art. Gone are the times when just an Amol Palekaer and Uttpal Dutt were all it needed to create a spectacular success of peerless comedy.

When I think why it is so that middle class has been omitted from silver screen in India I get few response. One is may be the geniuses of olden days have already exploited all the stories which could be possibly thought of as entertaining regarding this class. A second notion says may be the general mass itself is not much fascinated in paying to see the same melancholy of his day to day life on screen and perceiving this fact the directors are reluctant to make such ones. My third speculation is as mostly the filmmakers themselves are from the cream of the crop elite class and are not much sentient of the ramification and shade of life of middle class and are incapable to discover it now they vacillate to make a movie on it. Whatever the exact reason or reasons may be, indubitably (no may be) there is large interlude of absence of movies of this particular genre and thus creates a space which if proficiently exploited can ensure good returns to filmmakers. Now seeing that management gurus like Mr. Arindham Chaudhary and corporate houses like Reliance are trying hand in moviemaking may be someday they may realize this fact and we may be fortunate enough to witness few may be classics of this genre in our era and may reply our parents ‘See its not all crap, still we have lots of movies which make sense.’ Till then it’s only a lot of MAY be.