I am a little argumentative today

The Jinnah debate continues. Now Arun Shorie has exploded and have many others about the BJP internal politics. I am interested to see what will come of it.

It rained and then it rained and then it rained again. I am almost happy.

I finished Little Women. I wish I had read it as a child. It might have meant, more than it ever will to an adult. I have now started Aldous Huxley's Chrome Yellow. Just a few chapters into it. This is my first Huxley. I think I should try more Proust soon.

I watched 'Sarransh'. Clearly Anupam Kher at his best. I then watched 'Paap' which Pooja Bhatt's movie. She is Mahesh Bhatt's daughter. I see a lot of his influence in her, but she has a style that is unique and in some aspects better than her father's. Mahesh is deeply rooted in Soviet and early 20th century European film makers, and constantly seeks symbolism in his frames. Pooja on the other hand has a far better eye for aesthetics and sets frames that are more fluid, beautiful and appealing. I have to say 'Paap' is not a very good movie. It is about a girl who is torn between her protective father, who wants her to join a convent, so that she does not have to suffer the disappointments of life and of course the boy, with six pack abs and funky haircut, who is also a very good guy. Less than mediocre acting, good background music and locales. Of course, you cannot go to higher Himalayas and, not find good locales!

Next on line is 'Alexis Zorbas' the movie.

I had a long conversation with my cousin last evening about too many things. It is same guy who went to Italy to audition for a music scholarship. He didn't get it but is not trying now trying for some others as they encouraged him to do so. We spoke of many things, but he seemed really shocked at my knowledge of erotica. He agreed that it was interest in human behavior but I doubt if he was convinced. He has led a very closeted life and is not really aware of the worst of human nature. Perhaps it is good that way for a while but not for ever. I see classical early adolescent disenchantment with life (I may be wrong in calling it classical, but this is way too common in the Indian context), but it is a little late as he is 20 years old.

The media has got over the Swine flu. It is no longer headline material, mostly because of Jaswant Singh and his book. I have on the other had got the flu, not the swine flu, but the common flu. My throat is really sore, and I am staying indoors and the slightest draft make me cough like I swallowed a porcupine.

One of the big issues in the media is the infallibility of Nehru and Sardar Patel. I have always thought that the opinions held are far too unnatural and unrealistic. Nehru among all the rest of us was flawed. He messed up the accession of Kashmir, he promised a plebiscite that never happened, he put Sheik Abdullah in power, made a mockery of elections in Kashmir... and so on. His foot-prints are everywhere in the messed up Indian economy of the 70s, not to mention the China and Tibet blunder. To suggest that he was super-human and the angelic aura built around him by his daughter and his party is just silly.

Sardar Patel, was simply a great politician. He is credited, justly, of integrating the 625 independent states the joined to form India. He too was not an super-human thought often called "Iron-man".

A realist portrayal of these men may solve the issue definitively, rather than quoting politically motivated history. Both Congress and BJP have played this game, it is a matter of coincidence that only BJP is involved in this one. Mayavati, in response to the statue row, stated that half the government projects in India are named after the Nehru-Gandhi family. It is an obvious truth and clear dichotomy. For the uninitiated Gandhi here has nothing to do with M.K. Gandhi, instead is the married name of Indira P Nehru who married a man named Feroz Gandhi, who is not related to M.K. Gandhi in any way.

I believe that Gandhi too has to be de-angelised and seen as a man. I had made several debates on the matter of beatification of our idols and the tragedy of its consequences. I shall try to post some of those things here later.

I am watching Mahesh Bhat's 'Sarransh'. I think Anupam Kher is the only actor in bollywood who was bald in his debut, excelling acting though. I am not particularly impressed by the movie. The theme and ideas although very relevant to those days, and greatly appreciated by me in the past, does not reverberate today. Maybe it is just me.

It is still raining. It rained a lot more last night.

The Jinnah debate continues. Hours back, Jaswant Singh was suspended from BJP for this Jinnah remarks. That makes me want to read up Jinnah. What was he all about? I wonder what happened to the Jinnah biopic that was planned a couple of years back.

Swine flu is coming............. There is way too much media attention and panic. It is almost a mass hysteria. It makes me think of Ganesha drinking milk, everyday for a stretch on slow news days. Every circus in town is going around with preventives and old grandmother remedies. I just received my batch of homeopathic preventives, I am not very sure how effective they are. I bought them for my maid too. In fact, I bought them for my maid and got some for myself too. I might survive swine flu, but I am not sure I can manage the house, if my maid gets it.

Stuff

Well, I am not entirely miserable. It rained cats and dogs last night and that has really helped. I forgot to collect Rs.200 from the cashier. It is as good as lost.

Little Women is getting interesting. I watched "A Dirty Shame" starring Tracy Ullman. She has done a really good job. A rather fantastical movie but a nice watch. It tries to comically catalog the post 90s sexual revolution, very much like 'Boogie Nights'. It is not as dark and allegorical as Boogie Nights but a light hearted and simple.

I have not run out of the sweets yet. Indians make obscene quantities and varieties of sweets for Janmashtami i.e. Krishna's birthday and my stock is still running. It may run out in a week.

I today learnt that the medicines I take, can cause cataracts. I have been having trouble reading and seeing far off things for some months now and, this came as a shock. I have to get an eye check up.

That's about it.

Post

The new shrink is not entirely bad. She remembers most of my nonsense. She made me start studying for my exams in December. I started on Monday. I am currently into thermodynamics. My old shrink in back from her trekking trip to the Himalayas. I have to speak to her soon. Nothing much interesting is happening of late. I haven't been out much. It rained a little the last week, but nothing to make me feel better.

Tomorrow is the birthday of Krishna. There will be festivities. The day after there will be a lot of sweets, that is, if I get of my ass and make them. Last week I visited the temple in Ramohalli. It was not pleasant experience the last time I was there as a lot of the people in that village and temple are simple jerks. This time I did nothing but sit and read, and said nothing. It was OK. The temple is actually quite pleasant. People are a lot nicer when you don't talk to them.

I wrote the exam on theology I was speaking about. It went fairly well, or so I thought. On Sunday I got a call form my teacher that I had to attend a oral exam on the same subject. This was entirely unexpected. He then told me that it was because I had done really well and they wanted to talk to me and the oral exam was just an excuse. I went. I spoke reasonably well. They seemed to be satisfied.

I have started reading Little Women. Yeah, I know, I should have read it like ten years back but I just got to it. I then remembered that Beth dies, from the episode in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. where Joey reads it and is heart broken. I am still not really into it. I know it is far deeper than the cutsie-jibber-jabber it starts off with, and I am eager to get to it.

I watched Ardhsatya of Shayam Benagal. It was OK. A little too linear to my taste. Then I watched Bandit Queen. It is a good movie. Phoolan Devi was assassinated in Delhi when I was in school, of course that is not in the movie. Seema Biswas is at her usual perfection, the other actors are great too. I can see a lot of hard work went into making that movie. I finally watched My Mothers New Boyfriend. Not really impressed. Meg Ryan is wasted in this ill planned film. It has a lot of obvious jokes and predictable twists. I am afraid, I am reduced to waiting for the next, Meg Ryan comeback.

I hear the sequel to Transformers has been released. I didn't watch the first and will not watch the sequel.

Saurabh Shukla has come out with a movie. It was initially suspected to be a rip off of Juno, but it isn't. I will watch when I get a chance, just to see if there is a single moment like in his movie The Piano. That movie "The Piano" didn't even go to DVD release directly, it was telecast on TV. It probably made no money, but it was a real masterpiece. It was an actors movie. I have watched it three or four times since.

I haven't been reading a lot of Ramayana. I got really into reading the sarva mula granthas i.e. the collection of the works of the first teacher. I read 20 out of 37. I will get back to reading the Ramayana soon. I think I have been making excuses, and not reading Ramayana enough. May be I will get the new shrink on the job.

The neighbours new kid is cute and OK. I didn't get to see her for long as she was asleep when I visited. I really can't tell if babies are cute or not. I don't think we are meant to. I read that babies understand dogs' gestures and expressions before it learns human talk. That is certainly an advantage as I don't think dogs say mean things.