Jay ho

Now that the manic coverage of Slumdog Millionnaire is over I at last feel I can say a word or two about the movie and ofcourse ARR - Rahman continues to surprise me with his humility.

Of course almost all commentators went on to say this was not his best work - I was surprised about the vehemence and uniformity of the comment. Granted 'Jai ho' may not be the most pleasing song of Rahman's composition - but isn't that irrelevant? Oscars are given for a particular subset of movies - and in that subset perhaps this song was the best - I find it strange that instead of judging the song within that frame most people were talking about his compositions from ten years ago. It was also extremely unfair to write-off the beautiful background score as the children flee the policaman, during the riots etc..

And we also had our Shobha De and other commentators who felt Slumdog was not an Indian movie and there was no need for us to feel thrilled but went on to say we should be happy about 'Smile Pinky' winning. That logic did stump me quite a bit.

Slumdog is often clever, sometimes irritating, once disgusting, at times disturbing and occassionally boring - there is the clever premise, brilliant screenplay and great direction but somehow it is quite forgettable. In that sense it is in good company with other big oscar winners.

Women characters of Sujatha

When I read that novel by Sujatha with that hotshot business tycoon Vairavan, I thought 'nice, but unlikely to happen in real life'. And here we have the Satyam saga.

That novel is only one of the many where I ended up disappointed with the female character. Most of the women characters of Sujatha are either slightly dumb or worthy of pity. No doubt one feels extremely sorry for his 'Renuka' or his 'Vidya' from 'Pen yendiram'. But those are few and far between. Most of the female characters are instead irritating and oddly too idiotic.

Take for example lawyer Gannesh - the intellectual dimension that Sujatha brings to that character or that charming rogue Vasanth, who can forget dashing JK - lovable and impressive characterization.

I am unable to reconcile that to the complete lack of similarly strong women. An avid Sujatha reader might point out 'Nithya' of 'Vaiymaye vellum' or 'Nirupama' of 'Edayum orumurai'. But I personally think both characters are quite one-dimensional. They don't have the depth of thought and extensiveness that his strong male characters have. The only two female characters that show minor shades of intellect are both dead before we meet them.

I wonder why.

A brand new year

A measly dozen or so posts this year. Abysmal performance by Radhika. I already rue what email and blogging have done to my writing skills. I used to write letters that would span pages and pages - after all it didn't seem worth to post a letter that was roughly ten lines. Then came the email revolution and blogging. Now we have micro-blogging! I just have to package my feelings, profound thoughts and moods into a nice capsule of eighty words and voila my friends can follow the nitty-gritty details of my life. I have promptly registered in micro-blogging sites, of course.

Back to Madurai for a short trip. Heard FM radio on the way - somehow had this strong feeling based on TV/Radio, there is hardly any serious discussion going on among the youth. I must be getting old! There wasn't anyone who said anything surprising - people reacted extremely predictably. Very depressing!

Had spent October in Ooty. Was a lot of fun. Now in Yercaud. It is much less touristy than Ooty. I was romanticizing about the bygone years. How much fun it would have been to walk into a lamp lit ball room of an English collector in one of these hill stations. Consoled later that as a brown woman I would not have been allowed or most likely wouldn't have survived the Mudumalai forests.

Flowers on the road

This morning I decided for a change I will walk to the shop that is a couple of kilometers away instead of wimping out and catching an auto. Thanks to my inability to raise the windows in my car and the rain that had battered the previous evening, I had to navigate potholes and open drains, brave extremely irregular and uncaring traffic, a battalion of street dogs and the strong stench from large dumps with their rotting filth.

African tulips on the rain washed asphalt are easy to spot from within a car.

Monkey Menace

Apparently some neighborhood monkeys have discovered my apartment complex. I opened the utility patio door to a chaotic scene the other day. Unwashed dishes strewn about, trash can upturned.. I have to read up on what all monkeys can do. I wonder if they can open doors or turn my gas on. They could sneak in through the ventilation slots too. One of these days I am going to find a little monkey sitting on the couch watching TV when I get back home. Then again, it will be in good company.