Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The drizzle returns....

... to early morning bangalore. Riding through the morning air, fresh with the scent of the rains.... a new sense of aliveness all around, as if everything around you has been washed clean...the roads, the roadside trees, the vehicles, the people moving into a new day of work, even those who're blissfully idling on park benches---everything is fresh, new and life-affirming.

My penchant for good cinema must've started wayback in the days of Doordarshan, when every sunday afternoon, DD would telecast award winning regional cinemas. Two movies that remain in memory even today---Ende mammati kutty...in Malayalam, about a couple who give up their adopted daughter to her rightful mother who's become a wreck after losing her daughter. The other (don't remember the name) was about two mentally challenged youngsters who fall in love with one another and get married. These arty movies struck a chord where dishum-dishum and romantic bland stories failed. Then apart from some brilliance from Maniratnam and a few good movies here and there, most of my movie watching was confined to hollywood blockbusters and some hindi romances. Tv5 asie would telecast good french movies but we lost the channel when our satellite tv provider changed.

Imagine my delight when I found a movie rental shop close to my office, which stacked the best movies from all over the world. From Kurosawa to kshelofski, from coppola to tarantino, from age-old classics to the latest award winner at Cannes....Cinema paradiso has the greatest movies made in every culture, in every country.

The first movie I took home last week was Salaam Bombay, India's entry to Oscars two decades ago. And all of my favourite movies are available on the shelves, which means that I'll have to keep aside a chunk of time every weekend for them.

Reading a novel or a piece of writing and then going back to it after sometime---it gives a different feeling. Like Lord buddha's words--'You don't step into a river twice'---you never read a story twice. You change, your world view, your attitude, your personality changes, and with these your perception of the story changes.

Maybe this applies to all our interactions and relationships. You never meet the same person twice.

Reading what I wrote around this time last year---about Lord Ganesha and the fantasy I formed about him at a young age-- it gives a similar yet different feeling. Similar because the sense of separation still haunts when the festivities are over. Different--how I know not!

Days of anxiety, of excitement, of a new fear, of renewed hope....a great turbulence within!

Emotional distancing is something I price very high, yet it's terribly difficult to achieve. To be free of your emotions, to watch them from a distance, knowing fully well that they aren't you...YOU are a witness to these emotions------ I wish I could do that.

4 comments:

  1. I just rewatched Salaam Bombay again a few days ago .. It was just as good as I remembered, and my favorite movie of Mira Nair's except "Mississippi Masala"

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  2. Enjoy the drizzle, and enjoy the emotions - both are fleeting! But you know that!

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  3. I wish that I could feel as you did in the rains I have encountered today. For me it was a lot of splashing and auto accidents holding up traffic. Thankfully, I really had no where to go.

    That movie rental shop is quite a find. I have been seeking videos of movies from other lands for years and have found only one store in Louisville that stocks any—and those are mostly from the UK and Japan.

    You are so right about going back to something after a time. I recently read journals I wrote in the 1980s. Wow! I wonder where… but then that’s part of the joy of re-reading: the wonderment.

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  4. Reel fanatic...
    ...Good movies must be similar to good wine---the older they get, the better. That is, only if you have a taste for them.
    You have a fascinating blog on movies. I'd love to read about movies which may not be wellknown but which are full of substance and depth.

    Val.... Yeah, enjoying both. But drizzle allows you to be a witness, not the emotions. They only overwhelm you, don't they?

    Nick...if your cable provider has tv5, you're in for some fantastic french movies. We're shortly shifting to Dishtv, which means, more of such movies and less crap.

    The journals that I kept 7 years ago are the best literature(?) I've come across. They are magical--of course, for me alone. But who cares?

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