Wisdom by Hindsight
Mike has a post up in his blog with a lady walking on slippery ice. it is a beautiful image.
That brought to mind a video that I saw recently which should amuse Mike and my other readers. I wish that I could understand Japanese but even without being able to I enjoyed the show. I hope you do too.
Wikipedia translates the title Kadvi Hawa as Bitter Wind. I propose that it should be Ill Wind. “Something bad that happens and makes you think other bad things will happen.”
I had seen a trailer a couple of weeks ago when I had gone to see another film, and was intrigued by the performance of Sanjay Mishra, a character actor who usually plays supporting roles with elan.
In this, the story revolves around him and to that extent he is the lead player. And as can be expected, delivers a powerful performance as a blind and marginal farmer in a desolate area of India. Ranvir Shorey plays a remarkable supporting role as a debt collector. One more amazing but subdued performance from Konkona Sen Sharma rounds off the contributors, bar one more minor role from Bhupesh Singh which is inconsequential.
The director has been able to get some tremendous performances from a talented cast and the photography of the locale, the bad lands of the Chambal Valley in Rajasthan is breath taking.
With all this to support it and a very topical theme of Climate Change, the film should attract crowds. It does not and even I will not advice my readers to see it unless there is nothing else to do on an afternoon. The story line simply does not support such talent.
If that title intrigues you, rest assured that I am not joking.
There is a gentleman in our Southern City of Bengaluru with that name. Even Wikipedia has a page on him.
You can read all about him in this amazing BBC article.
Drones are still new in India and not very often seen. Here is an interesting story that will tell you about the situation in brief. A friend is actually in the business of manufacturing them and I have had long chats on all the amazing uses drones are now being put to and am a great advocate for the increasing use of them. I actually would like to experience what Amazon has been threatening us with for some time – deliver ordered goods via drones!
Shackman on the other hand raises an important issue of privacy. In his typical style he has decided that both are antagonistic to each other whereas, I suggest that they are not but, can become if you allow them to. I accept that our privacy is very important and just to make it a very legal thing, our Supreme Court has come into the act with a ruling favouring our right to privacy as a fundamental right after doubts were raised when our primary identity method was sought to be linked to just about everything.
I personally do not have any problems with my privacy as I have enough and am willing to share my personal details with authorities who want it for various reasons. I can however understand why some others would not like to, as the possible damage to life and property could be much higher than my insignificant ones.
I would not however like a drone hovering over my garden when I am sitting there admiring the passing parade on the road adjacent. Apart from being an annoying intrusion, it may just chase away some nice specimens parading outside.
I think that the contents of the link that I have shared in the first paragraph should take care of invasion of our privacy here and would really like to learn about how it is in the other parts of the world.
Shackman has suggested this week’s topic. I hope that he is back blgging so that I can access his take on the subject. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Pravin, Ashok and Shackman.
Two days ago, I was in a car going to watch a movie with my friend, his cousin and the latter’s wife. The cousin, a very highly qualified practicing physician, citizen of the USA, is visiting India to check on his ailing parents. He asked me why I used a cane. I explained my problem with my replaced and revised hip joints and the five surgeries that I have undergone.
He asked me other questions about my health as well, being genuinely interested, and on listening to me, said like a typical Indian would, that we cannot escape our Prarabdha. I whole heartedly agreed with him as would a Muslim Indian who would simply call it Kismet or a Christian Indian, Fate. Such commiseration is part of our culture and every day vocabulary.
Recently, a Minister in one of our states used the same metaphor to impress on an audience of Indians in the local language and syntax about Divine Justice and the Indian media and trolls went after him like this report did.
Such sensationalising ordinary every day language to fit into a so called secular approach to public life is a peculiar feature of our English language press whose audience laps it up leaving me to wonder about our English speaking two or so percent of population and their contact with our roots and our culture.
A senior leader of the now pathetic Indian National Congress party, Mr. Chidambaram tweeted, “Cancer is divine justice for sins’ says Assam Minister Sharma. That is what switching parties does to a person,” Mr. Chidambaram and his ilk are what are called ELIMs, English speaking Left Intellectual Mafia by the not so fluent in English ordinary Indians like me who are more comfortable in our native languages. Incidentally such Leftists here have no compunction whatsoever in exploiting not the left ideology that we have been following since the early nineties!
I must also share what the Minister in the storm had to say in reply to Mr. Chidambaram. His English is not quite Oxbridge because he is comfortable with his native language, but sends his message loud and clear.
“Sir, please do not distort. Simply I said that Hinduism believe in karmic law and human sufferings are linked to karmic deficiency of past life. Don’t you belief that too? Of course in your party I do not know whether Hindu philosophy can be discussed at all (sic).”
Quite why Mr. Sharma asks the question at the end of his tweet will take another blog post and I am perfectly willing to write on it if my readers want me to.
My regular readers know that Vidya Balan is a favourite actor of mine and that was the only reason I went to see Tumhari Sulu. I had never heard of any of the other persona involved in the making of this film. It is not their fault though, as I am a relatively new comer to the world of Hindi films. I was therefore, pleasantly surprised to see some excellent acting from the entire cast, no doubt under the super direction of the director. With some nimble photography mostly within a small flat/apartment to support, the technical output is beyond reproach.
Vidya Balan in this role is like many bubbly, enthusiastic women we come across in our daily lives who are also subject to the kind of familial pressures/criticisms that the film brings in to bring out Vidya’s character. She does this brilliantly and carries the entire film on her shoulders. To that extent, I was not disappointed.
What disappointed me was the sudden twist that the story takes from being a kind of comic/serious portrayal of a middle class family of Mumbai suddenly coming to grips with male insecurity, patriarchy, juvenile delinquency, unreasonable school disciplining etc resulting in a twist to a very interesting story that eventually falls flat on its face.
I would still recommend this movie to the fans of Vidya Balan for her versatility and portrayal of a woman who is like many ordinary women that we come across in our daily lives.