So I will be making my "once- every-two-years" pilgrimage to see family in India in Aug 09. I go there a lot more often now that I have kids. It is important to me that my children should have some connection to my culture. I want them to be comfortable with and connect with both thier "adha adha" backgrounds. I am hoping that travel and forming relationships with family in India will do something towards that goal. Perhaps they will have a sense of curiousity about the culture that they can fulfill in thier later independant years. Either way... I am getting on a plane with them in early Aug and going there for a month.
My American Sister in law and high school age niece will also join us on our adventure. We have travelled a lot together before and being with them is super easy and not stressful at all.
My question is... would you take a vacation in Kashmir in August with 2 little kids and some American relatives as companions? Is it safe, is it good weather, is it a good thing to do? Would you do it? And if you would do it, how would you do it? What would you see and where would you go?
I have never been to Kashmir before. I need suggestions and your input. I do not know the situation on the ground, given the political situation that is in flux.
The husband is quite uncomfortable with me taking the kids to Kashmir by myself. I need to convince both him and myself that it is ok. I also feel responsible for my sisterinlaw and niece when they are in India.
Do you dear reader have any ideas or input about a vacation in Kashmir in August?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
In which she is moved to tears, ecstatic with hope and struck dumb with tension!
Last night we left ... fed, watered, pajamed and Wii engrossed little kids with visiting Grandma for a few hours while the husband and I went to see a movie.
What movie did we watch?
Slumdog Millionaire.
First let me state that I went to watch the movie with few expectations. The reason for this is two fold.
Many years ago, my first brush with a film dealing with the sweet sour lives of children in urban poverty was the iconic Salaam Bombay. My appreciation of the honesty with which the brutal lives of street children was depicted in this film, however soon turned to dust. Within a few weeks I saw a Portugese language film on PBS TV. The film was Brazilian I think and I cannot remember the name at all. This Portugese language film was made chronologically before Salaam Bombay. To say that Salaam Bombay was a straight frame by frame lift from the Portugese language film would be stating the obvious. I think I lost some respect for Mira Nair as a filmaker and Sooni Taraporewala as an original scriptwriter (not an adaptation) at that point.
Recently, a few months ago I saw another well received Brazilian film "City of God" dealing with the abject travails of children and young adults in a Rio Slum. The film had an "in your face, punch in the guts" sensibility about it. Brutal storytelling about brutal lives. I think for a few nights, I dreamed about the violence I saw rather than the shaded human stories woven into the film. For me, that is never a good thing.
I did not have much information about Slumdog Millionare until I actually saw it. I had read something about it in entertainment magazines and had read the announcements about the Golden Globe nominations. However, I did not know anyone who actually had seen the movie and had an informed opinion about it.
So you see, I went into the theatre, determinedly a blank slate.
Like Shehrezade wove a thousand Arabian stories of suspense and intrigue into an instrument prolonging her life everyday, director Danny Boyle and scriptwriter Simon Beufoy have woven a very taut web of a believeable story that kept me suspensefully at the edge of my seat until the last second.
Until the lights came back on in the theatre, to put me back in time and space... squarely into seemingly safe and priviledged suburban America.... I was lost in the Mumbai of my most honest romantic dreams and my excruciatingly brutal nightmares. This is a Mumbai that actually exists. I know that. You probably know that too. You and I have both seen and walked by all the incidents that make up this movie. Walked by them a thousand times and never seen them for what they are.
This is a story masterfully told with an Indian sensibility. Yes, I said Danny Boyle has an Indian sensibility. He totally "gets" it. He understands the way Indians think. He sees the colors we see. He hears the sounds and the music we hear and yes he can even smell the smells that we smell (big scene there). He understands how we live cheek by jowl, rich with the poor, with poverty and brutality and without judgement he presents the whole picture. No mean achivement this. He understands that we see heroes and villans perhaps differently from a western sensibility. He understands that in the Indian cultural context we can also view both Truthfullness and Deception sometimes as an "amoral" quality rather than only in Judeo Christian influenced immoral/moral categories. There is a lot of unspoken philosophy in this movie at many levels, but still the story telling reigns supreme.
I do not want to give much of the story line away so I will just touch briefly on the touchpoints of the story. The film follows the life of a street urchin called Jamal, his brother Salim and Jamal's object of yearning, a girl called Latika. They are all orphaned as children and left to the vagaries of street life. Harrowing and mind numbing encounters with gangsters controlling child beggers follow. Salim and Jamal are able to escape from the beggers gang. Alas, Latika is left behind. She will be sold into slavery as a prostitute of many kinds, in later years. The children grow up, each persons character honed in a unique way, each streetwise and each with a different path to and a different version of success and stability. A life on the knife edge of power and money in the pay of a gangster for Salim, a life as a chaiwala in a modern office setting for Jamal, and a reluctant gangsters moll for Latika. Every one of Jamal's actions and decisions is always influenced by his yearning for a reunion with Latika. He engineers an opportunity to compete in "Kaun Banega Crorepati", not for the joy of winning or for the money but because it is his chance to connect with Latika. He wins at every level on the game despite the motivations and machinations of a smarmy game show host with his own megalomanic agenda. How he manages to win at the game forms the storytelling framework of the movie.
Does he win the final game and does he get the girl? And what of Salim? For that my friends, I reccomend that you immerse yourself in one of the finest depictions of the surreal life that is the underbelly of Mumbai.
The pacing of the film is taut and very much like a thriller movie. There is suspense aplenty. There were absoluetly no moments of respite, and I was on the edge of my seat till the closing credits.
The music by AR Rahman was perfect for this Western made film with a very Indian heart. When the score of a film is seamlessly woven into the visual story and you cannot seperate one from the other or point out any part of the film as having a particularly striking musical moment, you know you have struck gold. AR Rahman has struck the mother lode of gold here.
The photography is gritty and suits the pacing of the film and its locations perfectly. The locations and sets had plenty of attention to detail and I could not find any fault with them at all.
Dont leave before the closing credits are done. The bollywood lover in me was satiated by what happened there!
There were only two problems I had with the movie. Both were script quibbles. One was the strangely unidimentional communal riots depicted with no backstory. Perhaps that was just part of the story the director wanted to get over quickly and carry on with HIS story. The other problem was completely surprising to me. It was the unsophisticated and standup comedic depiction of western tourists in India. I imagine that the director and scriptwriter were once themselves such tourists in India. In the movie they paint tourists in unsubtle, broad, brush strokes almost like caricatures in a Bollywood movie. Perhaps they had become too Indian in thought by the time those scenes were canned!
Dev Patel (Jamal) is perfectly cast. His chronological age belies his maturity as an actor. As Jamal, Dev gets into character seamlessly this vulnerable, brave and flawed hero. A bollywood seasoned actor would have been too much of a hero type and totally miscast. The role needed an unknown, and an actor who looked like he might fail as a human, to look and act the part of Jamal. Dev delivers.
Frieda Pinto (Latika) has a luminous quality about her. Beautiful in a touchable sort of way, and unselfconcious she IS Latika. I predict big things for this actress on the international scene as long as she has good handlers. The raw material is there for the molding.
Madhur Mittal (Salim) did a competant job, as did the rest of the supporting case. Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla, and Mahesh Manjrekar have small, but important parts that were played with thier customary ease.
The "big star but most underrated actor who did really, really great" award must go to Anil Kapoor as the smarmy game show host with his own agenda. He played to the gallery when he must and depicted all the complexities of a flawed megalomanic with subtlety and very effectively. So yes Anil Kapoor, its been a long time after Parinda when you did anything other than ham through a role. Enjoy your moment. And give us more. Please! A fan is waiting.
What did I love most about the movie?
The movie depicts romantic idealism at its best even within the limitations of the underbelly of the frenetic and monetarily driven city that is Mumbai. Jamal's love for Latika was for me one of the strongest and most evocative depictions of hope amidst barbarism in recent movie making. We need more of that now. Hope that is!
So Hopefully you will see this movie. Tell Anil, I sent you!
What movie did we watch?
Slumdog Millionaire.
First let me state that I went to watch the movie with few expectations. The reason for this is two fold.
Many years ago, my first brush with a film dealing with the sweet sour lives of children in urban poverty was the iconic Salaam Bombay. My appreciation of the honesty with which the brutal lives of street children was depicted in this film, however soon turned to dust. Within a few weeks I saw a Portugese language film on PBS TV. The film was Brazilian I think and I cannot remember the name at all. This Portugese language film was made chronologically before Salaam Bombay. To say that Salaam Bombay was a straight frame by frame lift from the Portugese language film would be stating the obvious. I think I lost some respect for Mira Nair as a filmaker and Sooni Taraporewala as an original scriptwriter (not an adaptation) at that point.
Recently, a few months ago I saw another well received Brazilian film "City of God" dealing with the abject travails of children and young adults in a Rio Slum. The film had an "in your face, punch in the guts" sensibility about it. Brutal storytelling about brutal lives. I think for a few nights, I dreamed about the violence I saw rather than the shaded human stories woven into the film. For me, that is never a good thing.
I did not have much information about Slumdog Millionare until I actually saw it. I had read something about it in entertainment magazines and had read the announcements about the Golden Globe nominations. However, I did not know anyone who actually had seen the movie and had an informed opinion about it.
So you see, I went into the theatre, determinedly a blank slate.
Like Shehrezade wove a thousand Arabian stories of suspense and intrigue into an instrument prolonging her life everyday, director Danny Boyle and scriptwriter Simon Beufoy have woven a very taut web of a believeable story that kept me suspensefully at the edge of my seat until the last second.
Until the lights came back on in the theatre, to put me back in time and space... squarely into seemingly safe and priviledged suburban America.... I was lost in the Mumbai of my most honest romantic dreams and my excruciatingly brutal nightmares. This is a Mumbai that actually exists. I know that. You probably know that too. You and I have both seen and walked by all the incidents that make up this movie. Walked by them a thousand times and never seen them for what they are.
This is a story masterfully told with an Indian sensibility. Yes, I said Danny Boyle has an Indian sensibility. He totally "gets" it. He understands the way Indians think. He sees the colors we see. He hears the sounds and the music we hear and yes he can even smell the smells that we smell (big scene there). He understands how we live cheek by jowl, rich with the poor, with poverty and brutality and without judgement he presents the whole picture. No mean achivement this. He understands that we see heroes and villans perhaps differently from a western sensibility. He understands that in the Indian cultural context we can also view both Truthfullness and Deception sometimes as an "amoral" quality rather than only in Judeo Christian influenced immoral/moral categories. There is a lot of unspoken philosophy in this movie at many levels, but still the story telling reigns supreme.
I do not want to give much of the story line away so I will just touch briefly on the touchpoints of the story. The film follows the life of a street urchin called Jamal, his brother Salim and Jamal's object of yearning, a girl called Latika. They are all orphaned as children and left to the vagaries of street life. Harrowing and mind numbing encounters with gangsters controlling child beggers follow. Salim and Jamal are able to escape from the beggers gang. Alas, Latika is left behind. She will be sold into slavery as a prostitute of many kinds, in later years. The children grow up, each persons character honed in a unique way, each streetwise and each with a different path to and a different version of success and stability. A life on the knife edge of power and money in the pay of a gangster for Salim, a life as a chaiwala in a modern office setting for Jamal, and a reluctant gangsters moll for Latika. Every one of Jamal's actions and decisions is always influenced by his yearning for a reunion with Latika. He engineers an opportunity to compete in "Kaun Banega Crorepati", not for the joy of winning or for the money but because it is his chance to connect with Latika. He wins at every level on the game despite the motivations and machinations of a smarmy game show host with his own megalomanic agenda. How he manages to win at the game forms the storytelling framework of the movie.
Does he win the final game and does he get the girl? And what of Salim? For that my friends, I reccomend that you immerse yourself in one of the finest depictions of the surreal life that is the underbelly of Mumbai.
The pacing of the film is taut and very much like a thriller movie. There is suspense aplenty. There were absoluetly no moments of respite, and I was on the edge of my seat till the closing credits.
The music by AR Rahman was perfect for this Western made film with a very Indian heart. When the score of a film is seamlessly woven into the visual story and you cannot seperate one from the other or point out any part of the film as having a particularly striking musical moment, you know you have struck gold. AR Rahman has struck the mother lode of gold here.
The photography is gritty and suits the pacing of the film and its locations perfectly. The locations and sets had plenty of attention to detail and I could not find any fault with them at all.
Dont leave before the closing credits are done. The bollywood lover in me was satiated by what happened there!
There were only two problems I had with the movie. Both were script quibbles. One was the strangely unidimentional communal riots depicted with no backstory. Perhaps that was just part of the story the director wanted to get over quickly and carry on with HIS story. The other problem was completely surprising to me. It was the unsophisticated and standup comedic depiction of western tourists in India. I imagine that the director and scriptwriter were once themselves such tourists in India. In the movie they paint tourists in unsubtle, broad, brush strokes almost like caricatures in a Bollywood movie. Perhaps they had become too Indian in thought by the time those scenes were canned!
Dev Patel (Jamal) is perfectly cast. His chronological age belies his maturity as an actor. As Jamal, Dev gets into character seamlessly this vulnerable, brave and flawed hero. A bollywood seasoned actor would have been too much of a hero type and totally miscast. The role needed an unknown, and an actor who looked like he might fail as a human, to look and act the part of Jamal. Dev delivers.
Frieda Pinto (Latika) has a luminous quality about her. Beautiful in a touchable sort of way, and unselfconcious she IS Latika. I predict big things for this actress on the international scene as long as she has good handlers. The raw material is there for the molding.
Madhur Mittal (Salim) did a competant job, as did the rest of the supporting case. Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla, and Mahesh Manjrekar have small, but important parts that were played with thier customary ease.
The "big star but most underrated actor who did really, really great" award must go to Anil Kapoor as the smarmy game show host with his own agenda. He played to the gallery when he must and depicted all the complexities of a flawed megalomanic with subtlety and very effectively. So yes Anil Kapoor, its been a long time after Parinda when you did anything other than ham through a role. Enjoy your moment. And give us more. Please! A fan is waiting.
What did I love most about the movie?
The movie depicts romantic idealism at its best even within the limitations of the underbelly of the frenetic and monetarily driven city that is Mumbai. Jamal's love for Latika was for me one of the strongest and most evocative depictions of hope amidst barbarism in recent movie making. We need more of that now. Hope that is!
So Hopefully you will see this movie. Tell Anil, I sent you!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A womans work is never done!
I know, I should have updated a long time ago. I have just been absolutely crazed this last week between preparing for Christmas, work and the fruit of our loins..the kids. And oh yes, the inlaws are also visiting! Tomorrow I am cooking for loads of guests and I am run off my feet wrapping presents, looking for a nice gift for everyone, and being the perfect wife/mom/hostess/employer/parent/volunteer/giftgiver/bathroom scrubber/cook/garbage takerouter/peacemaker between kids/fashion stylist to my daughter/ballet rehersal coordinator/hall monitor/jumping on the couch kid admonisher etc etc etc.
Tomorrow I think I will breathe deeply for a moment, after the guests are gone and the dishes are clean and the presents are put into" delightful so use immediatly/useful so place in closet/return to store for gift certificates immediately" piles and then I will update to talk about some serious stuff that I have been reading and thinking about.
Meanwhile, have a very Merry Christmas everyone!
Tomorrow I think I will breathe deeply for a moment, after the guests are gone and the dishes are clean and the presents are put into" delightful so use immediatly/useful so place in closet/return to store for gift certificates immediately" piles and then I will update to talk about some serious stuff that I have been reading and thinking about.
Meanwhile, have a very Merry Christmas everyone!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sharpshooter or Sharpshoer?
I know! I know! I should be more grownup and mature but I cannot help it. The devil on my left shoulder is making me do it... hehehehehe
This is so funny and just a bit mad.
Try it for yourself. Go on throw a shoe at Bush!
You know you want to! I know that you know that you do!
http://www.sockandawe.com/
This is so funny and just a bit mad.
Try it for yourself. Go on throw a shoe at Bush!
You know you want to! I know that you know that you do!
http://www.sockandawe.com/
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Why Obama needs my Ganesh Ring!
This is a piece I wrote the night of Obama's victory and I watched him make his gracious and hopeful speech at Grant Park in Chicago.
As the inauguration nears I pause and reflect at the long way American cultural and political mores have come.
Some of what I write about Obama's electibility and victory relates very well with electoral politics in India, the controversy over reservations (affirmative action) and how minorities and the "others" feel about vote bank politics.
What are your thoughts now that the election is past and we have all had time to digest what it means to Americans and the world?
Obama Wins!
So my main girl Hillary was not even in the running and I voted for the alternative. But… what an alternative! My muffin man! Yes, I am shallow that way! And yes, he has a simmering low-key hotness that I think is just super.
Hotness aside, I am going to be all stream-of-consciousness while I write down some thoughts about the Great Election. No editing, just what I feel. Some cynicism tempered by a sprinkling of hope. A pinch of salt, to balance the sugar or vice versa… whatever makes your pie taste great!
I took my 6 year old daughter into the voting booth, to press the button after my final selections were made. With great gusto, she thumped on the Vote button and ran out of the curtained booth shouting “Mommy voted for Obama”. There were a few cheers, and a few boos but it was all good. I was in my own familiar territory, upper middle class and privileged and amongst friends and neighbors. People who seemingly could ride out 4 years without being decimated whatever the final outcome of the election. I followed my child out of the polling place somewhat embarrassed by her exuberance but proud that she is on the vanguard of a time and generation where democracy will mean more of a genuine equal chance for a half brown person like her.
She was so excited when we (she punched the button) voted for Hillary in the Primaries. To her 6 year old mind, a woman President was a wonderous thing. She was disappointed when I told her this time around we would not vote for a woman, but the excitement she felt at the process of voting remained the same. Obama didn’t mean much to her, but his name rhymed nicely and was cool name to say and chant. He wasn’t a woman but for her it was enough to be able to punch the Vote button and be a part of the voting process. I pray that she will always be able to punch that vote button without fear or favor. This flawed but essentially wonderful concept that is democracy will shape her future in good ways. It will always allow her to dream the big dreams, and to believe her dreams can really come true!
To many white Americans who voted for him, Obama was”just black enough” to be their own special symbol of liberalism. He plays just enough basketball, wasn’t too dark in color, spoke no Ebonics, or had any lasting relationships with traditional black power groups. He is educated, and very importantly had a mother and grandparents who looked just like them. His wife does not braid her hair or have a name which ended with a “sha” or “ta”. Oprah and Colin Powell are his friends, rather than P Diddy and Snoop Dogg and he doesn’t call everybody Girlfriend or Brotha. He probably smoked weed as a student, just like them and wasn’t afraid to inhale. He was in effect “not scary”. For them, Obama was the best first baby step towards a more equitable equation for a racially and economically divided America. Voting for him made them feel good about themselves and their own evolution as thinking people.
For the people of color, (and that by definition includes me, doesn’t it?) it was a very passionate vote. For older African Americans who have experienced the sting of overt racism and have seen how long it takes for change to come about, electing Obama was mostly a symbol of the culmination of their long held hopes and desires. For the younger lot however they were voting not just for a symbol; they were voting for their immediate hopes. It was about decayed inner cities and racial profiling and economic hardship and fathers in jail and breakdown of traditional family structures and most importantly of being on the dole and losing your home. It was about being able to buy groceries without public assistance and paying the mortgage or rent next month and their sons and daughters not becoming cannon fodder in the army because they couldn’t get another well paying job without the right accent or dressing the part of the upwardly mobile.
I wonder how it will play out… these very separate agendas. Very disparate but all so necessary to the conditions that America sees today.
White America is satisfied that Black America has been appeased. A little self congratulatory back patting is in order. After all White America helped to vote in the Black President and symbol and that there should be no further complaining about racial discrimination or affirmative action. You have your guy, now enough! No more whining and really you are not going to get anymore sops!
Black America wants all their troubles to disappear with the waving of this magic wand. Of course, Obama is going to make it all happen. They will see good times en masse.
Everyone who voted Democrat this time around wants their mortgages paid, their retirement accounts brought back to health and for the war to go away. Obama will make that happen too. And he is also supposed to make it happen in 4 years!
Can he?
As I see it, the situation will get worse in the short term, before it gets better. But it will get better. After all a start has been made, a new goal has now at least been visualized. The route to that goal still remains to be examined and seen. That will take time.
A child of color or a poor child can now truly believe that he can become the President. After all there is one like him up there. But will the path to that spot be self evident or even open for a long, long, long while? Will a child who knows no privilege right now, know what to do to get there?
That my friends will take a very long time. A beginning has been made, but there are many who are going to be disappointed in the short term. Obama has inherited a thankless job in the worst possible circumstances. So can Obama sustain interest in his vision and sustain support long enough to be the change he seeks? 4 years is too short to do all he seeks to do. He is going to have to be more than clever to do that. He will have to be very, very lucky.
I want to send him my lucky Ganesh ring. He needs it. Very badly!
As the inauguration nears I pause and reflect at the long way American cultural and political mores have come.
Some of what I write about Obama's electibility and victory relates very well with electoral politics in India, the controversy over reservations (affirmative action) and how minorities and the "others" feel about vote bank politics.
What are your thoughts now that the election is past and we have all had time to digest what it means to Americans and the world?
Obama Wins!
So my main girl Hillary was not even in the running and I voted for the alternative. But… what an alternative! My muffin man! Yes, I am shallow that way! And yes, he has a simmering low-key hotness that I think is just super.
Hotness aside, I am going to be all stream-of-consciousness while I write down some thoughts about the Great Election. No editing, just what I feel. Some cynicism tempered by a sprinkling of hope. A pinch of salt, to balance the sugar or vice versa… whatever makes your pie taste great!
I took my 6 year old daughter into the voting booth, to press the button after my final selections were made. With great gusto, she thumped on the Vote button and ran out of the curtained booth shouting “Mommy voted for Obama”. There were a few cheers, and a few boos but it was all good. I was in my own familiar territory, upper middle class and privileged and amongst friends and neighbors. People who seemingly could ride out 4 years without being decimated whatever the final outcome of the election. I followed my child out of the polling place somewhat embarrassed by her exuberance but proud that she is on the vanguard of a time and generation where democracy will mean more of a genuine equal chance for a half brown person like her.
She was so excited when we (she punched the button) voted for Hillary in the Primaries. To her 6 year old mind, a woman President was a wonderous thing. She was disappointed when I told her this time around we would not vote for a woman, but the excitement she felt at the process of voting remained the same. Obama didn’t mean much to her, but his name rhymed nicely and was cool name to say and chant. He wasn’t a woman but for her it was enough to be able to punch the Vote button and be a part of the voting process. I pray that she will always be able to punch that vote button without fear or favor. This flawed but essentially wonderful concept that is democracy will shape her future in good ways. It will always allow her to dream the big dreams, and to believe her dreams can really come true!
To many white Americans who voted for him, Obama was”just black enough” to be their own special symbol of liberalism. He plays just enough basketball, wasn’t too dark in color, spoke no Ebonics, or had any lasting relationships with traditional black power groups. He is educated, and very importantly had a mother and grandparents who looked just like them. His wife does not braid her hair or have a name which ended with a “sha” or “ta”. Oprah and Colin Powell are his friends, rather than P Diddy and Snoop Dogg and he doesn’t call everybody Girlfriend or Brotha. He probably smoked weed as a student, just like them and wasn’t afraid to inhale. He was in effect “not scary”. For them, Obama was the best first baby step towards a more equitable equation for a racially and economically divided America. Voting for him made them feel good about themselves and their own evolution as thinking people.
For the people of color, (and that by definition includes me, doesn’t it?) it was a very passionate vote. For older African Americans who have experienced the sting of overt racism and have seen how long it takes for change to come about, electing Obama was mostly a symbol of the culmination of their long held hopes and desires. For the younger lot however they were voting not just for a symbol; they were voting for their immediate hopes. It was about decayed inner cities and racial profiling and economic hardship and fathers in jail and breakdown of traditional family structures and most importantly of being on the dole and losing your home. It was about being able to buy groceries without public assistance and paying the mortgage or rent next month and their sons and daughters not becoming cannon fodder in the army because they couldn’t get another well paying job without the right accent or dressing the part of the upwardly mobile.
I wonder how it will play out… these very separate agendas. Very disparate but all so necessary to the conditions that America sees today.
White America is satisfied that Black America has been appeased. A little self congratulatory back patting is in order. After all White America helped to vote in the Black President and symbol and that there should be no further complaining about racial discrimination or affirmative action. You have your guy, now enough! No more whining and really you are not going to get anymore sops!
Black America wants all their troubles to disappear with the waving of this magic wand. Of course, Obama is going to make it all happen. They will see good times en masse.
Everyone who voted Democrat this time around wants their mortgages paid, their retirement accounts brought back to health and for the war to go away. Obama will make that happen too. And he is also supposed to make it happen in 4 years!
Can he?
As I see it, the situation will get worse in the short term, before it gets better. But it will get better. After all a start has been made, a new goal has now at least been visualized. The route to that goal still remains to be examined and seen. That will take time.
A child of color or a poor child can now truly believe that he can become the President. After all there is one like him up there. But will the path to that spot be self evident or even open for a long, long, long while? Will a child who knows no privilege right now, know what to do to get there?
That my friends will take a very long time. A beginning has been made, but there are many who are going to be disappointed in the short term. Obama has inherited a thankless job in the worst possible circumstances. So can Obama sustain interest in his vision and sustain support long enough to be the change he seeks? 4 years is too short to do all he seeks to do. He is going to have to be more than clever to do that. He will have to be very, very lucky.
I want to send him my lucky Ganesh ring. He needs it. Very badly!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
No, not Scarlett OHara... scarlet fever!
So my baby boy has scarlet fever!
Oh my... there are no visions of sugarplums dancing in my head anymore! No siree, . As soon as the doctor bounced back into the exam room, waving her just washed hands in the air, I knew something serious was up.
Son had a mild fever for 2 days starting Thursday night. The fact that he had a fever made me very nervous. As a baby he had 2 episodes of Febrile Convulsions... convulsions from the sudden onset of high fever. That is harmless the doctors assured me but even the memory of those two episodes has me trembling. Holding him in my arms while he shook with convulsions, the frantic 911 calls, the ambulance and police cars screeching into our driveway to whisk us to the hospital. I have never been so frightened in my life. Horrible!
So ever the vigilant mother, I rearranged my work schedule, got a friend to transport Daughter to school and back and afterschool activities and I devoted my time to Son.
He stayed home from preschool on Friday. He played videogames and we did endless "art projects" involving copious amounts of glue and glitter and every string and paper in the house. He bounced and jumped on the couches until they were creaking for mercy. He wouldnt eat a thing, except for drinking copious amounts of lemon flavored Gatorade (a electrolyte sports drink). But he did not seem "sick"... none of the usual clinginess, crying, and temper tantrums that kids specialise in when sick. He had no other symptoms. No swollen glands, no sore throat... nothing! It seemed like one of those mild viral fever episodes that the kids bring home from school on a regular basis.
Sunday we went to the movies! He fell asleep during the movie and when we got home I noticed that he had a faint rash on his neck. I figured he was just wearing too many layers and was hot. He seemed just fine and and had not had a fever for 24 hours so I sent him off to school on Monday.
When I picked him in the afternoon he was covered in a red, sandpaper feeling rash. I mean just covered all over with rough red skin! Every possible inch. Just awful. I called the doctor and described the symptoms and she was all... come here right away!
A throat swab, culture and 5 minutes later, the diagnosis... a bad case of scarlet fever.
The room dimmed around me for a few seconds! Every Dickens book that I ever read had people falling dead from scarlet fever. So many books, written even in the first half of the twentieth century had people suffering irreparable damage or death from scarlet fever! Look at the references to scarlet fever in popular culture. I actually have an uncle who has a weakened heart from rheumatic fever/scarlet fever in childhood. The ground fairly shook under my feet. Like a Victorian mother given this diagnosis, I was a blubbering mess.
I was quickly brought to life by the doctor waving a SINGLE precription in my face. A prescription for a 10 day dose of Amoxicillin. Thats it! A single prescription for a disease that claimed lives just 40-50 years ago. A disease that had people quarantined for months if they even recovered!
The doctor assured me that it was ok to send him to school by Wednesday and that 3 doses of the antibiotic would render him non contagious. Imagine that! So simple.
Ofcourse she also said to make sure that he finished the 10 day course of medicine and to bring Daughter to see her if she develops a fever in the next few days. She said Husband and I will probably also develop some symptoms from exposure because Scarlet fever is so contagious. I was hardly listening to all that. My heart was just pumping joyously now. A single prescription and he was going to be okay!
Ofcourse today, I have to call the school to warn them that Son had come in on Monday in a contagious state. They will have to send letters out warning other parents to look for symptoms in thier kids and will have to disinfect all the toys. I am embarrassed about this. But really, how could I have known?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_fever
The wonders of modern medicine! Over and over I am thankful we live in todays day and age. I know our rapid technological advances have allowed us a greater ability to destroy and self destruct but we also have greater means to protect lives. So it is all good isnt it?
I for one dont exactly view the past in a Golden Hue. It was what it was, but today and tommorow is even better!
Warsmaking ability or not, a mother thanks technology!
Oh my... there are no visions of sugarplums dancing in my head anymore! No siree, . As soon as the doctor bounced back into the exam room, waving her just washed hands in the air, I knew something serious was up.
Son had a mild fever for 2 days starting Thursday night. The fact that he had a fever made me very nervous. As a baby he had 2 episodes of Febrile Convulsions... convulsions from the sudden onset of high fever. That is harmless the doctors assured me but even the memory of those two episodes has me trembling. Holding him in my arms while he shook with convulsions, the frantic 911 calls, the ambulance and police cars screeching into our driveway to whisk us to the hospital. I have never been so frightened in my life. Horrible!
So ever the vigilant mother, I rearranged my work schedule, got a friend to transport Daughter to school and back and afterschool activities and I devoted my time to Son.
He stayed home from preschool on Friday. He played videogames and we did endless "art projects" involving copious amounts of glue and glitter and every string and paper in the house. He bounced and jumped on the couches until they were creaking for mercy. He wouldnt eat a thing, except for drinking copious amounts of lemon flavored Gatorade (a electrolyte sports drink). But he did not seem "sick"... none of the usual clinginess, crying, and temper tantrums that kids specialise in when sick. He had no other symptoms. No swollen glands, no sore throat... nothing! It seemed like one of those mild viral fever episodes that the kids bring home from school on a regular basis.
Sunday we went to the movies! He fell asleep during the movie and when we got home I noticed that he had a faint rash on his neck. I figured he was just wearing too many layers and was hot. He seemed just fine and and had not had a fever for 24 hours so I sent him off to school on Monday.
When I picked him in the afternoon he was covered in a red, sandpaper feeling rash. I mean just covered all over with rough red skin! Every possible inch. Just awful. I called the doctor and described the symptoms and she was all... come here right away!
A throat swab, culture and 5 minutes later, the diagnosis... a bad case of scarlet fever.
The room dimmed around me for a few seconds! Every Dickens book that I ever read had people falling dead from scarlet fever. So many books, written even in the first half of the twentieth century had people suffering irreparable damage or death from scarlet fever! Look at the references to scarlet fever in popular culture. I actually have an uncle who has a weakened heart from rheumatic fever/scarlet fever in childhood. The ground fairly shook under my feet. Like a Victorian mother given this diagnosis, I was a blubbering mess.
I was quickly brought to life by the doctor waving a SINGLE precription in my face. A prescription for a 10 day dose of Amoxicillin. Thats it! A single prescription for a disease that claimed lives just 40-50 years ago. A disease that had people quarantined for months if they even recovered!
The doctor assured me that it was ok to send him to school by Wednesday and that 3 doses of the antibiotic would render him non contagious. Imagine that! So simple.
Ofcourse she also said to make sure that he finished the 10 day course of medicine and to bring Daughter to see her if she develops a fever in the next few days. She said Husband and I will probably also develop some symptoms from exposure because Scarlet fever is so contagious. I was hardly listening to all that. My heart was just pumping joyously now. A single prescription and he was going to be okay!
Ofcourse today, I have to call the school to warn them that Son had come in on Monday in a contagious state. They will have to send letters out warning other parents to look for symptoms in thier kids and will have to disinfect all the toys. I am embarrassed about this. But really, how could I have known?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_fever
The wonders of modern medicine! Over and over I am thankful we live in todays day and age. I know our rapid technological advances have allowed us a greater ability to destroy and self destruct but we also have greater means to protect lives. So it is all good isnt it?
I for one dont exactly view the past in a Golden Hue. It was what it was, but today and tommorow is even better!
Warsmaking ability or not, a mother thanks technology!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Review ka review, ham ka ham ho jaye!
Rab ne Bana di Jodi
I laughed, I cried, I ate ham! Yes I ate Samosa Chaat too, but later - after the ham had been consumed. During the movie my kids dozed off and my husband embarrassed me by yawning too loud and too often. But then they dont love SRK for his hamminess like I do. I am an unabashed fan. I am as they say... lattoo for SRK in the movies.
Okay first things first... the movie was a homage to SRK. Funny, the actor in an homage to himself and every film he has ever acted in. Lucky Ducky! How many of us would get to do that!
Secondly... SRK celebrates the art of Hamming it up. He does... he almost makes overacting a joyous thing! And his likeability factor makes us rejoice in it with him. He is the Ham Laureate! The meek average man, the rowdy rather vulgar alterego, the lover, the friend every frame he is in, he played unashamedly to the peanut gallery. I do not know if he means to overact quite so much, but the fan in me would like to think he did his entire part with tongue firmly in cheek. I really want to believe that he was laughing at himself as much as I wanted to while his chin quivered and his lips pursed up and his rheumy eyes filled with just enough tears to become lakes of pathos without spilling over untidily onto his cheeks.
For a man of his age (he is my contemporary so I should not snigger too loud) SRK's bod is impressive and he flaunts it well. Alas he didnt take off his shirt for me. Perhaps in his next movie. After OSO I was left panting for more. But oh my.... does he need a facelift or something... badly! He is looking haggard and my heart breaks to even say that.
Everything else about the movie is just filler. Literally. The story, the lead actress, the sets, the script, the supporting cast, the music and yeah even the myriad shameless endorsements. It is all really quite forgettable.
Having made the statement that the story is just filler, I will not bother to give you more than the outline. The script follows a linear, completely improbable story. Something along the lines of... Average man marries Average girl, but they are not "doing" each other yet for all kinds of stupid reasons. Average girl falls for vulgar showman type man who is really Average man in disguise. Average man happens to be a peculiar and rather unlikeable (to me) mixture of emotional masochist and chauvanist who enjoys playing emotional passive/aggressive games. They dance together and talk a lot about Rab. Then Average Man and Average Girl finally get together in the end and finally and hopefully start "doing" each other in the epilogue. Dammit... if they had got thier minds around to do the sex thing in the first few frames of the movie, perhaps Aditya Chopra would not have a movie to make.
The lead actress who has an unmemorable part is perfectly cast. Her looks are average, the acting skills are average and everything about her is unthreateningly average. Her dancing skills are average to boot. Her mannerisms and deportment are perfectly in sync with who she is supposed to portray. She could be any one of the gori, chitti, punjabi, very average girls I knew in Sadi Dilli. The clothes fit, the punjabi size nose fits. Her very ordinarniness is what makes her perfect for the part. A stunning or distinctive looking actress would have been terribly miscast in this story. In her very averageness she did well enough in the movie so I cannot fault her for anything. She really did not detract from anything. On a cynical note I will add that unless Anushka finds what more she has to offer ... looks, talent, powerful godfather, fewer clothes or noteriety she will find the going very hard in Bollywood. I do not think middling parts for average girls are at a premium in Bollywood.
Vinay Pathak provided able support. A talented actor and consistantly willing to let go of his ego and self, he provided polish in his loosely written part. He skipped between comic relief, pathos and detemination seamlessly. I wish his part had been more tautly written and he had better lines to say.
The camerawork was precise and good. The colors of the sets were beautifully photographed and in that the movie was a visual treat.
The movie could have been edited down by atleast an hour or so. Just cutting back on the trillion close up shots of a pursed lipped, quivery chinned SRK would have cut the movie down to about half its length.
Amritsar as location was interesting, as it has not been cinematically explored in Hindi Cinema too often. In that it seemed fresh. The Golden Temple looked lovely. The Amritsar streets could have been a dozen places in North India. Did the story actually need to be located there? Probably not, except Aditya Chopra probably already had the title picked out. The word "Rab" is very, very Punjabi and since that word is used about a million times in justifying the non-story of the movie, a Punjab town it had to be.
Being that the story and script were so lame, the music and choreography could have been the reason d'etre for this movie. Unfortunately both were dissapointing. I cannot think of a single song or peice of background score that stuck in my mind. The Item song was badly done and a complete waste of resources. What a waste of 3 popular actresses who could have added magic. And I said 3 not 4 since I did not intend to use the words Lara Datta and Magic in the same sentence. Whatever was Aditya thinking... he the maker of the perfectly scored and choreographed movie DDLJ! He crashed and burned in this department.
So did I enjoy it and was it paisa vasool?
Being that I paid matinee half price and my son got in for free (yes I have connections... hehehehe) and the Samosa Chaat was not bad and it was all about SRK and SRK and more SRK...
Yes I had a good enough time.
Next time, SRK take your shirt off. I will not be satisfied with less than that!
I laughed, I cried, I ate ham! Yes I ate Samosa Chaat too, but later - after the ham had been consumed. During the movie my kids dozed off and my husband embarrassed me by yawning too loud and too often. But then they dont love SRK for his hamminess like I do. I am an unabashed fan. I am as they say... lattoo for SRK in the movies.
Okay first things first... the movie was a homage to SRK. Funny, the actor in an homage to himself and every film he has ever acted in. Lucky Ducky! How many of us would get to do that!
Secondly... SRK celebrates the art of Hamming it up. He does... he almost makes overacting a joyous thing! And his likeability factor makes us rejoice in it with him. He is the Ham Laureate! The meek average man, the rowdy rather vulgar alterego, the lover, the friend every frame he is in, he played unashamedly to the peanut gallery. I do not know if he means to overact quite so much, but the fan in me would like to think he did his entire part with tongue firmly in cheek. I really want to believe that he was laughing at himself as much as I wanted to while his chin quivered and his lips pursed up and his rheumy eyes filled with just enough tears to become lakes of pathos without spilling over untidily onto his cheeks.
For a man of his age (he is my contemporary so I should not snigger too loud) SRK's bod is impressive and he flaunts it well. Alas he didnt take off his shirt for me. Perhaps in his next movie. After OSO I was left panting for more. But oh my.... does he need a facelift or something... badly! He is looking haggard and my heart breaks to even say that.
Everything else about the movie is just filler. Literally. The story, the lead actress, the sets, the script, the supporting cast, the music and yeah even the myriad shameless endorsements. It is all really quite forgettable.
Having made the statement that the story is just filler, I will not bother to give you more than the outline. The script follows a linear, completely improbable story. Something along the lines of... Average man marries Average girl, but they are not "doing" each other yet for all kinds of stupid reasons. Average girl falls for vulgar showman type man who is really Average man in disguise. Average man happens to be a peculiar and rather unlikeable (to me) mixture of emotional masochist and chauvanist who enjoys playing emotional passive/aggressive games. They dance together and talk a lot about Rab. Then Average Man and Average Girl finally get together in the end and finally and hopefully start "doing" each other in the epilogue. Dammit... if they had got thier minds around to do the sex thing in the first few frames of the movie, perhaps Aditya Chopra would not have a movie to make.
The lead actress who has an unmemorable part is perfectly cast. Her looks are average, the acting skills are average and everything about her is unthreateningly average. Her dancing skills are average to boot. Her mannerisms and deportment are perfectly in sync with who she is supposed to portray. She could be any one of the gori, chitti, punjabi, very average girls I knew in Sadi Dilli. The clothes fit, the punjabi size nose fits. Her very ordinarniness is what makes her perfect for the part. A stunning or distinctive looking actress would have been terribly miscast in this story. In her very averageness she did well enough in the movie so I cannot fault her for anything. She really did not detract from anything. On a cynical note I will add that unless Anushka finds what more she has to offer ... looks, talent, powerful godfather, fewer clothes or noteriety she will find the going very hard in Bollywood. I do not think middling parts for average girls are at a premium in Bollywood.
Vinay Pathak provided able support. A talented actor and consistantly willing to let go of his ego and self, he provided polish in his loosely written part. He skipped between comic relief, pathos and detemination seamlessly. I wish his part had been more tautly written and he had better lines to say.
The camerawork was precise and good. The colors of the sets were beautifully photographed and in that the movie was a visual treat.
The movie could have been edited down by atleast an hour or so. Just cutting back on the trillion close up shots of a pursed lipped, quivery chinned SRK would have cut the movie down to about half its length.
Amritsar as location was interesting, as it has not been cinematically explored in Hindi Cinema too often. In that it seemed fresh. The Golden Temple looked lovely. The Amritsar streets could have been a dozen places in North India. Did the story actually need to be located there? Probably not, except Aditya Chopra probably already had the title picked out. The word "Rab" is very, very Punjabi and since that word is used about a million times in justifying the non-story of the movie, a Punjab town it had to be.
Being that the story and script were so lame, the music and choreography could have been the reason d'etre for this movie. Unfortunately both were dissapointing. I cannot think of a single song or peice of background score that stuck in my mind. The Item song was badly done and a complete waste of resources. What a waste of 3 popular actresses who could have added magic. And I said 3 not 4 since I did not intend to use the words Lara Datta and Magic in the same sentence. Whatever was Aditya thinking... he the maker of the perfectly scored and choreographed movie DDLJ! He crashed and burned in this department.
So did I enjoy it and was it paisa vasool?
Being that I paid matinee half price and my son got in for free (yes I have connections... hehehehe) and the Samosa Chaat was not bad and it was all about SRK and SRK and more SRK...
Yes I had a good enough time.
Next time, SRK take your shirt off. I will not be satisfied with less than that!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
