Paa .... Quite a Nice Movie

Paa was one good movie that I have seen in a really long time. It is one of those movies that make you happy about having made a good choice in spending money.
It’s the story of a small boy with this serious condition of Progeria. Amitab has done a real justice to the role. His transformation to Auro is simply wonderful and the makeup really deserves a good applause. His body language, sound, everything shows the kind of effort that he has put into it. And it is a really memorable performance from Big B.
Vidya Balan shines as the brave and confident mother, who brings up her son all by herself. Actually the whole cast is good and the movies will be remembered for good acting.
The script is good and there are some really brilliant dialogues.

But the whole Politian act of Abhishek and those media stunts do look a bit weird and do not blend well with the rest of the movie. The kind of things that he does to regain his popularity and credibility do not look a bit original. That Doordarshan bit of the show fails to impress the audience as it would in the case of any real life politician in India. And the much publicised theme of progeria is not well developed. They could have cut the making-of-a-politian bit out and had given a bit more of importance to progeria.

The music is average. Ilayaraja’s reuse of his own tune (the famous Malayalam song Tumbi vaa ..) doesn’t sound as good. And the situation, according to me, is a bit too gloomy for a full-of-life tune like that.
The way the credits were shown is a welcome change. Jaya Bachan’s appearance there is quite pleasing and I liked the whole experiment.
And the whole story is showing the changing attitude of present day women towards life. Gone are the days when women used to wait eagerly for the Father-of-my-son and it is nice to see the change reflected in our movies. Vidya is one of those ‘choice mums’ and that part of the story was treated pretty well.
Only thing that I could not understand was why they decided to call this movie ‘Paa’. The whole story is about a boy who has a serious medical condition and is brought up by his wonderfully strong, affectionate, caring and loving mom. His dad does not even know about his existence for a long time. This man realizes that it is his son only towards the end of the movie. Alright, he does take the boy out on a trip. From what I could understand, the boy’s death came a bit faster because of his realization that his parents are not married. That fight in the school were ‘bastard’ was used, gives him a shock. All his attempts to see his parents together put a lot of strain on him both physically and mentally. I really couldn’t understand why they called the movie Paa after an irresponsible father, who is not up to a real challenge in life.
All said, Paa is a must watch. It has its share of fun filled moments and there is enough of emotion and tears.

More Hate Poems

Every time I hear "I love u",
the hollowness stabs me.
A sharp, peircing pain, that-
seep to the marrow of my being.
I yearn to spit on these,
turn my face and walk away.
But this body is a beggar,
or rather a parah dog that licks,
the thrown way morsels.
And then-
Bask in the glory that never was!

*---------------------------------*

My heart, as hard as a rock,
Is tossed in the jungle of love.
Yearning, not for the footstep
of a wandering prince
The fun of being trampled on,
I've had enough for a moksha and more.
All I yearn for is freedom-
from the treachery of this body.
I know my freedom will be won-
The day I start hating you.

*---------------------------------*

One Day of Baby Sitting

One day my uncle asked me to baby sit for him. Since his daughter happened to be my favourite cousin, I agreed most happily. Now this five year old lady is quite smart and is a wonderful companion. I’ll describe the day’s progress even by event.

Her first remark was my dress was quite inappropriate for a good girl and that I should always wear a churidar with a shawl. one has to look modest enough. She added that my dress looks pretty old too.

Then she wanted to dance. Not only did she want to dance, she wanted me to join her and went on to teach me some moves in classical dance. Now class X English workbook was the last time i went anywhere near an exercise and my body is really really far from flexible. Naturally i ended up a lousy pupil and she got disgusted with my dancing skills soon enough.

Then she noticed that i'm not wearing a bindi, i haven't painted my nails and my hair is not combed. So we march to the make up room where i went thru all these processes on both of us. I followed all her expert advice and ended up looking like ... looking like nothing that i can think of.

Luckily it was lunch time and for once she focused her attention on something other than food. This was followed by a session in tv room where we watched a lot of rhymes and singed and danced.

Thus ended my day of baby sitting. I love this little girl very much and I enjoyed her company very much and it was real amusing. But then why do we bring up our girls teaching them ways of decorating themselves right from infanthood? why does this little child have to be so full of notions of modesty and appropriateness and all that bull shit? why can't she be taught to wear clothes and carry herself the way that makes her feel comfortable? I think we need to give some thought to the way we bring up our girls, the way we help them form their thought process.

My Hate Poems

These poems are inspired by my friend and poet Toby Joseph's Love Poems(the ones that i post in Facebook now and then).

I will never cry for you
Because every tear reminds me of you
Shared moments of laughter, pain and tears.
Ever tear that I preserve in my heart.
Boils and burns and keeps alive’
The memories of your Love.
Waiting to erupt,
A volcano of emotions,
Every time I think of you.
Until a whirlwind of Hate absorbs me,
And leaves the volcano dormant.

*-----------*-------------*

The deep dark chasms of Hate,
Often tempt me
With the promise of healing,
The wounds made by Love.

*-----------*-------------*

My body conspires against me,
Everytime we meet.
Or I could have let you know,
The depths of my hatred.


*-----------*--------------*

My First Pennukanal

This happened last month. My first ‘Pennukanal’ – in a traditional arranged marriage scenario, this is the meeting where the guy goes to see his prospective bride. Normally the guy arrives with an older relative or two to the girl’s house. Over tea and sweets, the relatives discuss the match, the girl is called and the guests see the girl. Then the guy and the girl gets sometime to talk. Now my first pennukanal was quite different from the whole process. Now when I think of it, I really find it amusing.

One Sunday evening, the guy’s brother called up my dad and said that, they would like to go to the office and see the girl. Pennukanal in office – a very embarrassing proposition- but I didn’t have much of an option. So office it is! The most awaited event took place some time around 11. The guy’s brother came to my office and escorted a most embarrassed and nervous me to the entrance, where the guy was waiting.

He: “It’s damn embarrassing to come to an office for something like this. That’s why I decided to wait here”.

Me: smiling most stupidly.

He: “What kinds of work do you have in this office?”

Me: “Software Development, Instructional Designing and Content Migration”

He: “How many offices do you have?”

Me: “4. The other offices are in Noida, Seattle and Delhi” (What exactly is in his mind?? A job shift or a marriage)

An embarrassing silence followed and exactly at that moment my colleague Anand* comes to the office. The moment he saw me he smiled and came over and started talking to me, taking this guy for a friend who has dropped in for a casual visit. Now I’m too nervous and embarrassed and couldn’t explain the situation to him. As I stand there perplexed not knowing what to say, my friend Indu* came out of the office and rescues Anand out of the situation. No one rescued me and I stood there answering and asking a few meaningless questions in between embarrassing silences.

Few minutes later the guy’s brother and father came into the situation and joined the conversation adding to my unease. After that the guy’s brother chivalrously escorted me back to the office – the same office which I enter and leave alone on all working days. That marked the end of my first Pennukanal!!!

NB: That proposal never progressed and I often tease Anand on how he destroyed the bright and rosy future that I must have had with this guy. !!!! :-)

* Names of characters have not been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals.

reinventing people, names.......

This post was inspired by Lenny's post. Being a dreamer and a loafer, Lenny's post brought to my mind , the picture of this milkmaid who I used to know during my childhood holidays spent in mother's village of Chekannur.


She was Janu amma. She was not just any woman, not was she the milkmaid, in spite of being the only milkmaid in her small domain. she was janu amma; not even palkkari (milkmaid) janu amma. Any other janu amma might need a house name, a husband's name, her job or something like that. Say Janu amma and that was her - the janu amma who brings to our houses at 6 in the morning.

She brings milk and gossips to all our houses early in the morning. She is the visitor to all these houses and not sorprisingly, when the first murder happened in Chekannur, Janu amma was the first witness. She was the first one to find out any thing that happened in any of our houses.

Stories about her milk business were many. People used to wonder aloud how she managed to give milk to atleast twenty houses with two cows. Many people say there was more water than milk in the combination that she used to sell. somebody with a creative vein even said that someone got a fish from janu amma's milk in one of those monsoon months when the water canal was too full of tiny fish. She must have added some water, howelse could she feed a large family with those two cows. In spite of the fish in milk, she was the milkwoman for our village.

She was janu amma. I don't remember talking to her. But I knew she had a name, I remeber her aluminium milk pail, I remember her mundu and majanta(she had a partiality to this particular colour) blouse, I remember her giving milk and talking to Vallyamma in the morning......

She was a part of my childhood. She is a part of my memories of the village called Chekannur where I spent many of my school vacations. (well, some of these are shared memories.. I may not have actually known some of these things myself....for instance I couldnot have known how many cows she she had, most of the stories about Janu amma must also have been told to me by my mother.... but they are there in my memory as I have seen them, heard them, lived them ..... stories my mother told of her days in this place... stories of people who surrounded her life, and of Janu amma among them...) Still, she is Janu amma. she is neither 6 in the morning, nor the money i paid her(she belongs to a period when i had not yet started thinking of things in terms of the money they cost me), she is not even the white creamy milk she sold (she defenitely belongs to a period by which i had developed a distaste for milk)... She is just Janu amma.

an experiment

a wery smol post
Jast a smol attempt tu see if ai kan rite sumthing that dosnot maik sens intentionali. Most of the taim ai rite stuf that doesn’t maik mach sens bat that jast happens. Ai don’t put mach efert intu that. this has taken up sum taim and efert. Hop u enjoy reeding this.
This thing is interesting. I jast want tu no hau sum fan kan b brot intu boring office laife. Jast tri reeding this and tel me wat u felt. Ai think it wud b gr8 if v al start riting in such kul ways and end up as incomprehensible as ever. Reed this and post gud coments that do not maik mach sens.