hathirpithi

UPDATE YAY!!

2007-08-05T11:38:00.000+05:30

Quick Update: Now back in Delhi.

Bombay Local

2006-09-24T14:49:00.000+05:30

*In Bombay, the train spits you out when it tires of you. One moment I am 20 people away from the door at a station where the train will stop for less than 90 seconds, and the next moment the crowd has somehow made a way for every single person to exit. I always have to stop, look back and watch the train pull away from the station to convince myself that, yes, I actually made it out the door to the platform. In Bombay, every day, every act is a minor miracle.

*Haven't upated my blog for ages. Intially because I was lazy and now because I have very limited access and time for things such as blogging. Which fact of course explains why I would now use my limited to update.

Incredible India

2006-07-31T10:13:00.000+05:30

As far as I am concerned, this is the most expensive blog I have ever posted. It has taken me 200 rupees to buy 15 minutes worth of internet time. At home, that would buy me nearly a month's worth of broadband access. Long live India!
And that brings me to the end of my 15 minutes access to the Net.

Air fare

2006-07-26T13:04:00.000+05:30

This was where I lived in Arunachal. Having left it and now being totally mired in Dirty Delhi, what I wonder is--what is the price of fresh air and natural beauty? How much would we be willing to pay for it? Maybe our cost of living should also include such elements. There is a cost to living in polluted cities--breathing air that damages our respiratory tracts, drinking water that corrodes our insides and eating food that is laced with pesticides. If there were a price attached to all of this maybe we would find that someone who earns 10,ooo rupees in Arunachal is actually much richer than somebody who earns 20,000 rupees (if not more) in Delhi.
I know I would be willing to pay a lot to wake up in a place where I can breathe in lungfuls of air that smells of flowers and wet grasss. I know that there has to be a negative price attached to breathing air that smells either of garbage or petrol fumes.
Only question is--is it enough to take a drastic salary cut and move to an area where I would get clean air, water and food?
What do you think? Is money for fresh air, rolling hills and clean rivers a fair tradeoff?

Rain

2006-06-25T12:52:00.000+05:30

Arunachal remains as beautiful as ever. Would help though if the rain would let up a bit. Seems to me I complain too much. In Delhi, I complain that it does not rain enough and now that I am in a place where it has been raining non-stop for the last seven days, it seems to me that this could be that phenomenon called too much of a good thing.

An aside -- Seems to me like a lot of people coming to this blog are from the United States. Almost 80 percent. I find that puzzling.

The problem with so much rain is that creepy-crawlies thrive in it. Saw a beesa after a years today. That is the Assamese name for a furry, inch-long insect, which if you touch or even brush against accidentally creates a reaction that leaves one scratching the spot for ages. It is not at all pleasant.

There are leeches too. Too many of them.

Now for the good part. It is fun sleeping with a light blanket in peak summer. And not having the fan on.

The greenery is astounding. Lush, blooming, spouting, growing, infringing, inundating. The trees, the undergrowth want to push human beings out. This is their time, their day and their age. They are winning. Soon we will only have plants everywhere. The creepers will enter through cracks in the walls and windows and strangle people while they are still sleeping. The leeches and the beesa will then feast on the corpses. Maybe some other insects will spin cocoons around the bodies and the larva will feed off the bones and the eyes and the rotting flesh. And then we will have a whole new world, where only insects shall reign. Maybe it will be a better world than the one we have created.

You are only a woman

2006-05-04T10:33:00.000+05:30

Blurt was pretty but a very blank girl. Seventeen about turn eighteen, Blurt loved all the attention she got from men. She was exactly the kind of girl men loved to love and women loved too. She was aware of the fact that she was pretty, very aware of it. She would spend hours spent in front of the mirror, part in admiration, part in consternation over a blemish that only she could see on her white, flawless skin. Blurt was pretty high on the looks quotient, but very low on the intelligence quotient. Not that women who look good arent also bright or women who are bright are not stunning looking.They are. Wouldn't want to reinforce stereotypes, but this is Blurt's story. Blurt who was so taken with her own beauty, her face, her body, her clothes that she never paid too much attention to the rest of the world, which was a bad thing because if she had paid a little more attention she would not have died the way she did. She was coming back from school on one hot summer day in May, yes, Blurt was still only in school when she died, when she took a ride from a classmate. Rich boy he was too. His daddy had given him a big car all his own that he would drive all over town. So on that fateful day when Blurt escaped the heat in the airconditioned car, rich boy "proposed" to Blurt. "Would she be his girlfriend?" Blurt laughed. She should not have. She should have agreed and gotten off the car, gone home and told her parents. You don't laugh at rich little boys. Oh no, you dont. And if you do, you have to pay the price. So rich boy whose father was a politician was offended. He did the next best thing to salvage his honour. He dint drop Blurt home. Took her to his farmhouse. Called his friends, five of them. They all got drunk and took turns to rape Blurt hour after hour while her parents sat at home and worried about their daughter. And then when they were done, they took her unconscious, battered body and threw it like a piece of rag on the side of some dusty, deserted road where she bled to death. They found her body the next day. Ghastly little rich boy's daddy packed him off to the US where he spent the next four years using date rape drugs, getting drunk and eventually never mustering a degree. Daddy had taught him that women were good for only one thing and that they should be used and discarded once you are done with them. As for Blurt's parents, they did not pursue the case. The cops told them about how powerful the politician was. Blurt's parents had two more children to look after--two sons. They did not want to take on a powerful politician, least of all for a girl and surely not when they had sons who needed looking after.

Written for the Blank Noise Project.
There is no moral or even a point to the above story. It is not even much of a story except that if you live in India and are a woman you had better get used to the fact that for a majority of the population you are a burden, have no right to live, and if you are alive you had better get used to being stared at, groped or raped. It does not matter what you wear or what you do. If men stare of pass comments as you walk down the road, it is your fault. You have to have solicited it, sent some signal you know. If you get groped, it is definitely your fault. What were you wearing? Was it too tight? Why do you walk down that road? Surely you should know better. You are a woman, you know. These things happen. Live with it. And if you can't, either stop going out of the house without a male escort or at least stop fussing about it. You are a woman, live with it. You are weak, you need protection. Just don't become one of those wretched feminists, who are so passe, making issues out of non-issues. Oof, spare me you your diatribes. It is all in your head. This does not happen. And if it does, you have asked for it. Ensnared some poor unsuspecting male to lech, grope or rape you, just so that you could get some attention. So just shut up and keep quiet about it already.

All’s well that ends well

2006-02-19T04:10:00.001+05:30

Delhi is hot and getting hotter by the second. This blog now officially takes a summer break till July 15 . Below is the last 70-errrr for the season. Cheers.

Dr. Neha was 40 years old when she married fellow orphan Bhim, a handsome 21-year-old. Initially, it was odd for Bhim because he had to stop calling Neha aunty. But it worked out well in the end. Bhim is about to become a doctor too and the happy couple has a son and a second one is on the way.

Beauty

2006-02-19T04:10:00.000+05:30

Ok, here is another random 70-er

Radha was world’s most beautiful girl. When the gods fell in love with her beauty and fought over her, Radha decided to run away to a place where there were no gods. She ran to the ends of the earth and wherever she ran she found the gods still fighting over her. Eventually she stopped running because she realized that the gods were too busy fighting over her to really notice her. And while they continued fighting, she married Hriday, a man who was blind.

Fate

2006-02-19T04:09:00.000+05:30

Sheena and Meena were twins. Sheena was ugly, Meena was pretty. Sheena hated Meena for her beauty. So one day she killed Meena and got Meena’s face transplanted onto hers. Sheena then became a model, married a rich man and lived happily ever after. Till her kids were born. You can run, but you can’t hide. Sheena’s kids were uglier than their mother ever was.

Dakhinpat Satra, Majuli

2006-02-16T11:16:00.000+05:30

Majuli

2006-02-11T14:47:00.000+05:30

Majuli is flat as a pancake, has no roads, no public transport to speak of and is very very dusty during the dry winter months. But Majuli was still worth every bit of the dust that coated our Sumo, our hair, eyes, clothes and luggage when we went there.
In Assam, Majuli is known for its Vaishanavite monasteries. There were more than a 100 of them and now there are just 20 or so because the river Brahmaputra has been gnawing away at the island, which is now half the size it was in 1950. These monasteries are called satras and the monks, most of whom are celibate, are called bhakts.
Just to make things clear, Majuli, despite the fact that erosion is such a serious problem, is a HUGE island. It is one of the largest river islands in the world. So it is not like the river can be seen from every part of the island. You have to travel at least 45 minutes from the center of the island to any of its banks.
We went to a monastery called the Dakhinpat Satra, situated in the southern part of the island. The journey to Dakhinpat was painful. Like I said there are no roads so it was one long, bumpy, dusty ride from the circuit house where we were putting up.
The local population is very helpful and very inquisitive. Before they give you directions, they all want to know where you come from.
To be fair, the journey to Dakhinpat was also very beautiful. I saw more birds in the forty-five minutes it took us to get to the satra than I have seen in my entire life. Majuli is dotted with ponds and marshes and bridges that are left hanging forlornly in the middle with the ends having been washed away by the river during the monsoons.
Floods are a common phenomenon. During monsoons, people move bag and baggage to embankments or any other high ground they find. You want to go to your neighbour’s house in the monsoon? No sweat, just row your boat across to their doorstep. We met a family that said they live on a boat during monsoons because of the floods.
Coming back to Dakhinpat, the monastery was pretty much empty when we went there because most of the bhakts had gone for a function organized for the CM who was vesting the island that day. But we found one really old bhakt who must have been well into his eighties.
It is hard to describe Dakhinpat’s beauty and tranquility. Vast open skies, exotic birds dotting the marshes next to the monastery, clean air and monks who are so kind and warm to absolute strangers.
These monasteries earlier used to be very strict. They would not allow women on their premises after five in the evening, but that is not the case now. We reached at 5.30pm, strolled around the monastery and capped it off with some payokh (kheer) offered by the very kind monk Benudhar sarmah.
All in all, it did not matter that we did not know anyone, by the time we left Majuli we had made a lot of friends. That is the beauty of Majuli, more than its natural beauty, it is the hospitality of the people that is so touching.

Woman smart, Man smarter

2006-01-18T22:25:00.000+05:30

My parents have only two children. Both of them daughters. It doesn’t matter to them that they don’t have a son, but it apparently does to a large number of strangers who always commiserate with them about their lack of sons. That my sister and I are both reasonably well educated and financially independent, matters little to them.
right now, I am in Arunachal, which I thought was better than the northern states in the way it treats women. They do treat women better, but women are still not considered to be equal to men at least in some tribes.
We went to a couple of Nyshi houses in and around itanagar, the state capital. Nyshis are the most dominant tribe in this hilly, thickly-forested state in terms of population. Seems like polygamy was a common practice among this tribe. The richer you are, the more the wives you should have. It is a status symbol and the other wives do not even mind. In fact they actually encourage it. Apparently it helps to have other women around the house to split their chores in the house and the field. And of course, if the first wife doesn’t have enough sons, a second or a third one is almost mandatory.
And it was while I was talking to one of these women, one of them said my parents don’t need a son, because I am as smart as a boy. She meant it as a compliment and I will take it as one. It is just that I am a wee bit disappointed because I expected more of Arunachalis.
And tomorrow I am off to Majuli, one of the largest river islands in the world and the seat of Assam’s Vaishnavite culture. More on that later.

The homeless

2006-01-08T12:18:00.000+05:30

I met a homeless woman at a shelter recently. She had been abandoned by her husband after he married a much younger woman. She had three kids from ages 2 to 5. She had lost a four-month baby to Delhi's cold. But she was proud of the fact that her kids were going to school. She was happy to be able to sleep in the shelter at night. She was absurdly grateful to the people who had arranged the shelter. What gives her the right to be grateful for so little? Why is she grateful and not resentful? Why does she accept a system where the keepers of law are her biggest predators? Why do we talk about India's booming economy when the state had failed a quarter of its population abysmally at every level--be it health, law and order, livelihood, basic living conditions. How dare we talk about India shining, when India is most definitely not shining, at least not for Yasmin and her children.

Post outsourced

2005-12-21T03:06:00.000+05:30

I have finally done it. I have outsourced my first blog entry. Any wild guesses as to who wrote this, but it’s not me. Just someone doing my job. Ah, it feels good. Stuff is getting done! I have accomplished something - without really doing it. In either case, I am not sitting idle. I am doing other substantial work as well, but reveling in the notion that other equally substantial work is being done as I would have wanted to. And it’s not a question of cheap labor or anything - it’s just a profitable relationship where one person gives and the other person takes. No harm done, no feelings hurt. So the bottom line is: I have updated my blog. By the way, just came across this this hilarious account of Saurav Ganguly’s situation. Must read.

Nuclear family

2005-12-21T02:30:00.000+05:30

They met at a friend's wedding, fell in love, married, had two lovely daughters. After 10 years they could not get along with each other, got divorced. They went looking for love again. The wife found it, the husband did not. The daughters live with their mother and her new husband. Their father has not found love, but he has married again. The daughters now have a new mother and a new father. That depressed them so they killed themselves. That depressed their parents so they also killed themselves. Their spouses married each other.
And now this blog has been updated.
Happy?

Dead farmers and the media

2005-12-10T12:53:00.000+05:30

I like this by Sonia Faleiro , a Mumbai-based journalist and this by Hemangini Gupta, yet another journalist.
There are too many stories slipping through the cracks because media houses are too busy chasing the presumed interests of their target audience.

Five stars

2005-11-29T02:26:00.000+05:30

I read a lot of blogs. Too many for my own good. Following link after link after link. Have discovered the Tams like to stick to their own, the bongs to their own; inevitable really, but really, extremely annoying. But I came across one that I really liked today
http://alaphia.blogspot.com. Very matter of fact, short and sharp. Real pleasure to read.
In my personal rating system she gets five stars.

UPDATE

2005-11-27T02:02:00.000+05:30

This blog needs an update. This is it.

What NOT to do

2005-11-08T08:54:00.000+05:30

I am gearing up for 2006. I have list of resolutions of not what I want or intend to do, but I should NOT do. I really do have nothing better to do for the moment so here goes.
* I will NOT sleep for more than ten hours a day (afternoon siestas are not included in the 10 hours. Also, if I sleep less than 10 hours the previous day, then I need to make up for the loss the next day even if I exceed 10 hours)
* I will NOT finish two boxes of chocolates at one go simply because they are there (But maybe if there are five, I could take it up as a challenge)
* I will NOT put off paying my bills. Not paying them does not mean that eventually somebody will forget that I owe them money. It just means that I have to pay them twice as much
* I will NOT fight arbitrarily with random people on the street for ogling, being rude or being bloody minded enough to get in my way just to irritate me. (Auto-wallahs are not included in this. I will fight with them anytime, anyday)
* I will NOT put off filling petrol in the car because, unlike what Richard Bach would have you believe, machines CANNOT run on air. I will keep trying though.
* I will NOT jump red lights except when I am getting late and others around me are jumping it. (I live in Delhi, so you know what that means. he!he!he!)
* I will NOT exceed the speed limit. Above exceptions apply
* I will NOT demand or expect gifts (People who do not live in India, this most definitely does NOT apply to you irrespective of how many clothes/chocolates/perfumes/etc you think I have. I always have room for more)
* I will NOT honk at those who do not whiz off the moment the light turns green. Does not apply if somebody is honking behind me. Then I join junta in the honking.
* I will NOT make excuses to not exercise unless I have had the five boxes of chocolates, it is too hot, too cold, there is too much to watch on TV, we have family or friends visiting, I have to attend social-dos, there is too much work or if I need to catch up on lost sleep.
* I will NOT worry about job/height/weight/age/health/money/finance unless I get fired, get shorter, fatter, balder, unhealthier or poorer.
* I will NOT spend too much time or effort on making silly lists that I have no intentions of sticking to. No exceptions.

55-er

2005-10-23T01:14:00.000+05:30

Taking up Anti on a challenge issued long ago. Writing a 55 word story.
*Deep Breath* here goes

It was time to decide. Marry the man her parents had chosen for her and settle down to a life of domesticity or listen to her heart and run away with her best friend and lover.
She chose her heart.
And lived happily ever after with Roshni, the girl she shared her childhood, youth and life with.

God...you listening?

2005-09-21T01:59:00.000+05:30

I wish I could believe. I want to believe, I am ready to believe, but...There is always a sad little "but" appended to the things we really want to do . I just want to be able to believe in God the way I see others around me do, with absolute assurance that God does exist. The way they go to a temple, bow their heads, and pray sincerely, sure in their belief that their prayers will be answered, I want to be able to do that and not look sneakily around making sure I bend my head when others do and raise it on cue. I am more worried about that really than praying. Sometimes I even forget I am supposed to pray too.
I lost my faith in God the day I got my second year results. I had gone to Kamakhya, right after the Xaat too i.e. when the temple opens after it closes for 12 days because the Goddess is ostensibly menstruating. So when it opens, the crowd triples, consisting mostly of widows. Don't know why. Anyway the point being that I went then, when it was THRICE (lest you missed the first reference) as crowded as usual, stood in line for FIVE hours to enter the temple and then after all that what did I get--a third division. I mean if God can't even ensure a simple thing like respectable second division, there is no point really in believing in God is there. If at the end of the day I can't get more than I deserve just by praying, why bother?
Might as well just work hard and take the credit for it instead of thanking God for it.
But just in case there is a God who reads hathirpithi, then God should know that these are just words and I mean no offence. That actually deep, deep down I have rock solid faith in the existence of God. And just in case the Gods are still tuned in--I could do with a job that pays me twice as much as I earn now.
Old habits die hard.

On fellow bloggers

2005-08-30T09:50:00.000+05:30

The more I read blogs, the more opinionated I get about what I like and don't like. This of course has nothing to do with the content of my blog. The standards and rules I expect others to uphold will not be applied to me.
I find that there are a lot of people who write well. That is the good part. But I don't understand this compulsive desire most have to publish their opinion of the latest book or movie. There are some who do a good job. Reviews take effort. And now a shameless plug for a friend. Payal does a very good job of reviewing books. Her review is detailed, informative and not overly opinionated. Read her Harry Potter review, and you will know what I mean.
But most others have a very shallow approach to reviewing. It is annoying, superficial and shallow and it is worse when it is done by self-important, self-indulgent bloggers.
Bottomline? Your opinion does not matter. Just as mine does not even as I write this. And it is important to know that.
It is simple. Either entertain or inform.
And this blog shall, for the next few posts, review other blogs. Hathirpithi has finally found a purpose to its life.

Books

2005-08-20T22:57:00.000+05:30

I think everybody has their own take on why they like to read books. Mine is that they were my best friends and gave me company through the worst of an awkward adolescent phase. They have always been my companions on long, boring train journeys. For as long as I had a book close at hand, I would never be bored or lonely and that was the promise hidden in every book.
But more than that, the joy of reading has always been more about entering lives that are so different from mine and yet being a part of it. It is being allowed to enter the most intimate parts of somebody's home and being warmly welcomed. It is about forgetting oneself while reading the book. Sure, television does that and so do movies, but it is never the same as having one's own image of the printed word.
And so when people tell me they don't like to read, I always feel a little sorry for them because I think they are missing out on so much.

Poor Aamir

2005-08-17T21:07:00.000+05:30

Poor Aamir Khan! seems like the world will just not give his personal life a break.
All TV news channels are now carrying reports on Aamir Khan's illegitmate son with freelance journalist Jessica Hines.
And with this we bury objectivity--Star news is actually saying stuff like "bechara Jaan, is main uski kya galti hai ki uska baap usse nahin milna chahta hai," or something on those lines. How hypocritical. As if they care.
Anyway, turns out he also had an affair with Mamta Kulkarni. That disappointed me. I mean, surely he could have done better than Mamta.
But apart from that, while I avidly follow the news on Aamir's colourful life on television, my sympathies lie strictly with him.

The Kite Runner

2005-08-16T19:35:00.000+05:30

Sometimes one comes across a book that makes one feel so good about having read it; feel privileged almost that one had the opportunity to read something like it. For me, that book was "The Kite Runner." I was totally unaware of the hype surrounding it and I just accidentally stumbled across it. I had two books to read last weekend--"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" and "The Kite Runner". HBP was something I had been saving for the weekend, something I had been looking forward to. But the less said about it the better. Thank God I had "The Kite Runner" to turn to.
What Khaled Hosseini does is paint a very vivid picture. The book just comes alive. So what if I have never been to Kabul, I could see it in my mind's eye. I could see Amir and Hassan, the two childhood friends, one the master and the latter the ever loyal, faithful and very lovable servant. The one whose first word was Amir and who was eventually betrayed by the one he would have done anything for. I could see the two boys going to a hillock, climbing trees, flying kites; feel Amir's loathing for himself and his pain at his father's coldness towards him.
The pain of betrayal and the joy of redemption.
It is just a book that made one want to not read anything else for a while. Not my words, but something that Isabelle Allende says about the book. I second it.

Porn Times

2005-08-03T11:35:00.000+05:30

Sex Sells. If so, the Times of India must have seen its circulation soar in the past two days.For those who hadn't seen the MMS of Preity Zinta's look alike bathing or Mallika Sherawat's twin (?) making out with a guy, The Times of India has taken care of that particular shortfall.For the past couple of days Delhi Times has been doing stories on the MMS of various film stars or their look alikes in various states of undress and sexual gratification. Exposes are fine, but why is Delhi Times carrying explicit pictures which leave nothing to the imagination. And I mean nothing. Yesterday it was Preity Zinta, today it is Mallika Sherawat. Who is it going to be tomorrow? Riya Sen?The Times group is using sex to sell its paper and, worse, pretending to do so in the guise of serious journalism. Does it really have such a poor opinion of its readers that it thinks they won't see through the ruse? I detest such journalism where the only thing that matters is how much you sell, and not what you sell.But for those who like porn, access to it just got cheaper. For Rs 2, you can now settle down to your daily fix of porn brought to you by India's largest selling daily, The Times of India. And for those who like news, well, you poor sods had better get used to seeing porn first thing in the morning. Or switch to the Indian Express.

Poor me

2005-07-29T04:24:00.000+05:30

How much is "ek karod biyasi lakh dollars" in rupees anyway? Just heard on one of the news channels (the tackier one that has been around for a long while) that that is how much Maria Sharapova made last year. In ONE year.
I won't make that in ten lifetimes.
Suddenly I am not feeling so blessed anymore, not that I mostly do, but now i feel even more less so.

Live and let live

2005-07-17T22:12:00.000+05:30

If the world is only black and white without shades of gray, then life will be difficult. Unless of course each one of us has our own individual sets of black and white. What is an absolute black for me, might not be so for another, in fact it might even be the absolute opposite. So then would there being grays in this world really mean that I have one set of standards for myself and another for others?
And if the world only had shades of gray, without any absolutes, we would flounder, won't we? Be buffetted in one direction by one strong current and in an absolutely oppposite direction by another. That doesn't sound too good.
I think it would be easier to just live by one's own rules and allow others to do the same.
Having solved my life's biggest problems, I shall now get back to doing what I do best--watch TV

Query

2005-06-26T01:06:00.000+05:30

We have stripped women and put those images on all mediums. A scantily clad woman raises no eyebrows. It is de rigeur--to sell clothes, cars, books, conferences. The point is why haven't we done the same to men? Is it because it is men who make all the decisions or is it because they are aesthetically so unappealing that nobody wants to look at them? If there were more women who were decisionmakers, would we then have more images of close-to-nude men and fewer images of such women? Or would it be status quo?

Chasing the monsoon

2005-06-10T08:28:00.000+05:30

Monsoon is the hot topic of the day. Sometimes I really wonder what the Mughals and the Brits saw in Delhi to make it the capital of the country. If they had to spend so much money to build a city, why could they not have chosen one with a better climate. I wish we still had this system of summer and winter capitals. It is crazy crazy to live in Delhi in summer. Sheer madness. Curse the Brits! And the Mughals. And it never ever really rains enough to slake this city's thirst.
Read this book recently, a rather old one actually, "Chasing the Monsoon." All style, no substance. All that the author (forget his name) does is chase parties and fellow foreigners during the monsoon. The title of the book was much better than the book. To be fair, the book was very well written. It was a breeze reading it.

Vijeta

2005-05-29T03:51:00.000+05:30

I had a lot to say about Vijeta, a film produced in the early 80s by Shashi Kapoor to launch his son Kual Kapoor. But I find myself hidebound by the pressures of writing for an imaginary audience and trying to explain why I choose to write about a film made in the early 80s. It is not easy to discard this audience or the rules that have been ingrained in me--the "so what" factor being the hardest to shake. There is no reason really to write about this film except that I just watched and I liked it immensely. And I would like to share it with myself :-) (What seriously are the odds of anyone stumbling across and actually reading this blog among the millions that exist.)
OK, now for the movie. I have always been a great believer in the power of the written word. Movies have never appealed to me the way books have, even if these days I actually do talk more about reading than actually reading. But what was really, really wonderful about Vijeta was that it was such a wonderful story--a neat beginning, middle and end. And since I am my only audience, I shall indulge myself and not waste my time writing about the story of the film.
Sometimes the yardstick by which one measures what one likes is by what one doesn't like. I do not like this constant emphasis on love between a man and a woman being the only relationship that deserves attention--and that really is all that our movies talk about. It is irritating to always come across this assumption that everybody is always seeking love, and that it is only when one has a mate that one is complete. THere are so many other relationships in our lives--the ones that we share with our parents, our siblings, our friends, our relatives, neighbours, colleagues. Who is to say that we live only for one relationship. And that is why I like Vijeta. Because it talks of a troubled relationship between a father and his son, the son and his mother and the son's struggle to carve a niche for himself, not because he needs to, but because he has a point to prove to his father. and of course love does happen, no hindi movie worth its salt would ever not have that angle.
The point really is that everybody is real in the film. Shashi Kapoor as the father who had to face partition and comes out of it tougher than nails, rekha as the long suffering wife, kunal as the son who cannot forgive his father's transgresses.
One can so easily identify with Kunal and his need to prove of himself; his need being so great that he is crushed under its pressure, has to struggle with it and yet overcome it.
What I did not like about the movie was the way it ended. Got way too filmi. The war scenes were way too long, and the bit where Shashi kapoor goes and tells his son "Vijeta ban," just did not work with the rest of the film. Almost like "ab film ko khatam karo." but still it is one film that I know will watch over and over again.