Shawshank Redemption - What we need... the most!

 How late to a party can one get?

In my case 25 years plus.  I am watching one of the best most acclaimed movies 26 years after it was released and nominated for the best picture Oscar. 

But I am not the only one – the movie didn’t become a hit and collected less than half its budget at the box office.  Instead it became a success when people saw it through the VHS rentals.

ANNOUNCING MY BOOK - Our Quizzing Journey

Have great pleasure in announcing the launch of my book co-authored with my brothers "Our Quizzing Journey"

Available on Amazon and you can buy it here.

Also available in paperback which you can buy here.  

The second helping…

One of my social acquaintances - a voracious consumer of books, movies, TV serials, newspapers etc  mentioned he’d seen only one TV series again as in twice.  No, He wasnt showing off - but it was purely a mindset that a lot of folks have including my better half - my wife.

“Why are you watching this again, havent we seen this before?” if I am watching a movie on TV - one that we have seen before. I sigh and move on.

Seema Biswas on stage

“Can you please take your seats, Seemaji has a back ache and cannot be in this position for long” tells us an usherer addressing this to the attendees of her play.

This is a double act - two single act plays both performed by Seema Biswas for Tagore's centenary celebrations. Both are based on stories by Rabindranath Tagore. The first is directed by her friend and the second one is directed by herself.   I have purchased tickets for both plays and just happy that I have got this rare chance to watch one of the finest actresses from India perform on stage live.

Maa Retire Hoti Hai

I had the fortune of watching the premiere of the play “Maa Retire Hoti hai” starring Jaya Bachchan.

This was in Dubai, and there was no chance in the world that i could even dream of attending this, and not just because I couldn’t afford it.

Satyajit Ray Presents 1 & 2

Doordarshan is India’s legacy national TV channel, owned and managed by the Government.  This was the only TV station available for my generation in our childhood and we therefore had mostly limited choice and terrible stuff to watch.

Yet, sometimes they’d get it right.

One such was when the almighty Satyajit Ray, possibly India’s greatest film director, collaborated with his Son Sandip Ray, to produce a TV series aptly named… “Satyajit Ray Presents” (SPR)  They produced another sequel a few years later named SPR2.

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY

For me the book makes it to my favorites more because of who recommended it rather than the actual story or movie based on it.

Its been nearly over a decade since I read the book for a third time & finally handed over the book to my social circle. The movie was frankly terrible and Clint Eastwood was quite choppy and still getting his grip as a director with most dramatic scenes handled terribly.

“Freedom At Midnight” and “The Men Who Killed Gandhi”

I am lumping these two books together as they are on the same subject and I thought offered a different perspective from what I knew about or was taught about history.  Both were great reads - only I read them nearly two decades apart.

India & Indians are quite open about hypocrisy in our lives, inevitable since the system is geared up towards that.  A honest discussion is almost rare and shied upon - we are more queasy than the Brits on a lot of subject.

Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister series

There are very very few books converted into TV series or films where you can say the TV series/ film was as good or better than the book. 

IMO the Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister TV series is one such rare example.

The genius of Mindy Kaling

Dr. Mindy Lahiri (created and played by Mindy Kaling) inhabits a parallel universe created solely by herself - and I really badly want to get in!! 

Its a charmed life and she is reveling in every moment of it, and surprisingly its worked as the Mindy Project is one of the most popular series of recent times.

                                 

Breathless by Shankar Mahadevan

To me breathless by Shankar Mahadevan is the one album I know in which each song is crafted to an outstanding standards and the output is therefore songs which can be on my playlist forever.

As usual I have never been much into music, and would never know of the latest songs or hit songs, only finding out through acquaintances or through mass media.  I might have read about it and found it gimmicky (according to news reports, in one of the songs Shankar sings straight for around 4 minutes without pausing for breath – hence the name of the album. He denied it during his interviews saying it was pre-recorded and mixed)

Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami

To me, Kafka on the shore is one of those really engaging novels – wouldn’t call it unputdownable, but it can really get into you, like few books do.

I fell in love with Haruki Murakami (nearly 35 years after he wrote his first book – so that’s really a late start).

 

My new love - Haruki Murakami (and art films)

Being a late laggard has its advantages.  I discover Haruki Murakami thanks to Scheherazade in the New Yorker and am instantly hooked.  The advantage is that there is a great, and big body of work to now savour given how prolific this author has been (writing since the 1980s).

However, Haruki is not everyone’s cup of tea and can be challenging – and perhaps that challenge is the very thing that makes his short stories and novels interesting.

Haruki’s stories can have various effects – right from melancholy, to surprise, regret, an epiphany, nostalgia, interest – the whole panoply of emotions can come through at any point. As you go through them. But the one which is inevitable is a strong desire to discuss this immediately.

Haruki Murakami's “Scheherazade" in the New Yorker

Short stories can be tricky and I think the jury is out on what really makes a good short story.  When I got around to reading the short stories outside my textbooks -  This is very different, I realized,  from what I read in school - which were mostly reeeeally short as in SHORT stories. Most of the stuff I read in school were the shorter ones by RK Narayan (malgudi) and O Henry etc.

So, some very good ones would actually not be very short at all. I quite liked reading Maugham's stories from the orient, and expatriate life back in the days when colonization was in its last days. Jeffrey archer, Roald Dahl, Jhumpa Lahiri etc. were some of my favourites (and I think the entire list would be difficult to put down ehre)

Broken Images: Shabana Azmi at her best

There are such gifted playwrights and actors on the Indian stage (we are indeed very lucky to live during their times) – its hard to choose one best performance out of so many.


However if I had to choose the second ten best  – this would be one of them. (I think top ten would be hard for me... and just to rub it in - I just recently read Naseeruddin Shah's excellent memoir "And then One day" where in the photos section he lists the ten greatest performances on theatre he has ever seen - and each of them stellar actors. The closest I have come to the list is - to see a few of the actors live, or a couple of performances from other actors - not exactly fulfilling - close but no cigar...)

Broken Images is a play written by Girish Karnad and the English version directed by Alyque Padamsee and stars Shabana Azmi.

                             

I had watched Shabana before in Tumhari Amrita where it was fairly staid and not really the best showcase of her talent (I think!).  But Broken Images is truly a testimony to her enormous talent.  Even better – it pits her, against herself.  So she’s competing with the very best – herself!!

Steve Martini

OK for this one, I need to thank Preeti Zinta in Dil Chahta Hai – no, actually the quizzing scene (yes, that’s another topic coming soon) – for introducing Steve Martini.

I am a late laggard in practically every area but especially in the case of arts. I usually watch a movie only once the buzz gets out loud and then, maybe I get around to watch it (now on DVDs).  But I never watched Dil Chahta Hai when it was in the cinemas, not even when it was a huge hit.  Finally someone gave me the file for this – he’d seen it a 1000 times on DVD.

Anyways I distinctly remember someone asking a question on what book is Priety Zinta reading in some song from Dil Chahta Hai.  So when I finally saw the movie on mylaptop I froze that scene to see which book was she reading and who the author was.

And yes, as a late laggard I had not been reading Steve Martini either.

But the next time I was a book store I picked up a copy of Steve Martini, and it was hard not to fall in love with his writing.

Seema Goswami's recommendations of books to read

Sharing things that bring you joy is such a simple and fundamental delight – it’s not celebrated enough.  This is not gifting, but telling people you know (and others) that you discovered something new or unknown, exciting and loved it, and now are recommending others to try them.

Marketers dub it 'word of mouth' and try influencer marketing to get opinion-leaders to push their wares (nowadays through SEO).  This gets so overboard that it’s hard to find the real expert advice from say a paid testimonial.  Further, it is hard to get a recco that sooo much meets your requirements and matches your tastes that you simply have to go and get the recommended product – and, of course recommend this to more people – just like I am doing right now.

Nigella Lawson

Ok let’s get the obvious out of the way. As the stand up comedians say, ‘‘it’s impossible to talk about ____  [INSERT BUXOM CELEBRITY’S NAME HERE] without using your hands”.

And yes, that is a prominent aspect that strikes you – the abundant, bountiful, wholesome, hearty goodness – a figure like the Venus de Milo sculpture and the voluptuous women from the renaissance paintings.   (It ‘d be easier and less offensive for women to describe her – Seema Goswami, an editor with HT described Nigella’s cleavage ‘quivering like a well set blancmange’).  So yes, that's the obvious that everyone knows and likes, but there's a lot more...

Dick Francis

I discovered Dick Francis much later in life and it took quite a bit to get to like him.   But once I did get a hang of him, it was hard not to consider him one of my favourites.

I do not read intense stuff like what comes in Oprah’s reading club nor a fan of classical literature. (In fact books like ‘to kill a mockingbird’ and ‘Color purple’ used to leave me rather depressed and frustrated). My preference has always been popular pulp fiction. In fact I dig anything that is an easy read – preferably the faster I can finish it the better – which means my brain is not taxed much, and yes, usually these books also help me fall asleep. 

Elizabeth Gilbert and ‘EAT, PRAY, LOVE’

Imagine you are an editor/ publisher and get a request for a book – where the author asks you for a major advance. An advance to spend a year travelling across the globe. Those travels would include a mix of sun, sand and lagoons, as well as one of the most expensive locations in the heart of Europe, and there would be one of the muckiest places somewhere in between.  And then, there might be a book about all of this somewhere after the end of the year. Would you buy into this pitch, however less or well-known the author was?

Well the world, at least millions of readers like me, shall forever be grateful to this kind soul who approved this request for it produced one of the most brilliant, literally life-changing books ever – EAT, PRAY, LOVE