All the world's a boss fight

First there was a yellow circle. Then it opened up just a little and moved. Right, left, up down, at the press of a button it went 'wakka...wakka...wakkka' Death to little dots. The ghosts were oddly colorful considering their very touch meant death, at least to our intrepid, hungry hero. Then there was a blur. Cars, plumbers, castle rooms that were little more than squares of '-' and 'I'. There was also a woman in a red hat and a red coat, looking back with an oddly seductive smile and a gleam in here eye. But the prince was no blur. Never did rescue the princess, I was never very good with time management anyway, but the prince was good. Fat soldiers, thin soldiers, hell his own shadow was no match. His trusty sword and random Erlenmeyer Flasks filled with potions. Tried again the next time he came around. Things were prettier, more colorful, but again, those damn floating heads got in the way.
Fast forward a few years, and the world got darker. Persia was a memory, Trishtram was the present. Clickity, clickity click went the mouse, until it joined the broken pile and the devil was trapped in the stone, and the stone was trapped in the hero. On the second trip, there was no sword or shield, but the chainsaw was a fine replacement. So was the double barreled shotgun. Oh and when things got too hairy, there was a big fucking.... well, you know.
Of course monsters were par for the course, as were monster trucks. For a while they were fun. Sheer madness. But suddenly there was a boy Joseph. See, he had this mark on his arm, and he could call....things. Monsters, dragons, elementals. And there were three others. They didn't go to hell, but they did go everywhere else. From sun kissed monasteries where the beautiful tiled floors almost gleamed in spite of the green creepers between them, to long lost cities that a god's grief had turned to stone. Towering spires scraped the sky, their tips hidden behind the cotton ball clouds. For the first time I saw cities, and people and marketplaces. They almost vibrated with life, a world where not everything was about me. A real world. For days I traveled, and finally, the false god was dead. The new god had risen. My work was done.
But the devil does not lie still. His world had not been vigilant, the hero had not been strong enough, and I was needed. But who was I? The strong, the holy, the lithe, the fiery or the cursed? Long white hairs flew in the wind as I raised hell, to fight hell. This time hell was right here, on earth. No living breathing world this, for there were so few left to breathe. Minuscule patches of safe haven, a handful of survivors, selling the tools of survival, and then, hours of battle. The stronger I grew, the tougher they became. But I would not be stopped. The brothers fell, first the Lord of Hatred, then the devil himself. Spears of bone ripped his red hide, and with one last anguished scream, he fell. There was one more, the angel said, but he would come later. In the icy wastes of the barbarian lands, deep in the World stone keep, evil would rise its destructive head. But I was the fury of nature, beasts at my beck and call, plants at my command. Destruction was no more, but the worldstone was shattered. It had to be done, said the angel. But what did the future hold? Only time will tell.
For a while, the past was forgotten. Gods wanted to be entertained, and humans were the pawns. Only humans? No. There were others. Hulking mechanized brutes of steel and rage, bizarre creatures from other worlds. Death was not an option, just a moment to catch a breath. Kill or be killed, an endless cycle of birth and rebirth, punctuated by the anguished cries of my fallen victims. In many arenas I fought, and rose to the one in the sky. There waited the wise one, the one who craved liberation. With a streak of light as fast as thought and as red as rage, I fulfilled his wish. The god's were sated.
I would fight again, but not for gods or trophies. It was a fight for survival, and I would not have a lifetime to do it. Just half of one. But that's another story. for another day......

The Literary Dimension

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett.

Nosing around in one of the many bookshops I frequent (as much as moolah permits) in an around Delhi, the quote really struck home. Of course , its not just shops, but anywhere books choose to gather. I remember slipping into the school library during a period when our mathematics teacher was not feeling so hot (teaching 57 unruly kids packed in a small room and as resistant to learning as possible without actually rioting and a paycheck so little that bank tellers laugh at you when they cash it is apparently not great for health. Who knew?). Our librarian, being a nice grandmotherly woman let me in the Backroom, where all the uncatalogued books were kept. Delicious new packing boxes were spread all over the place, and I was in heaven. Anyway, long story short, she discovered me four hours later, oblivious of the time, when she was locking up. I had missed the entire school day. While I realize that admitting to cutting classes to read books puts a dark streak on my cool as ice, almost James Bondish image, I will not deny that story. In fact I am proud of it. bookshops are as integral to my life as breathing or KFC. I spend an extraordinary amount of my free time in bookshops. And that is probably when I miss Kolkata the most. There, the bookshops had Coffee bars in them . Here the coffee bars have a corner for books. Ok no, thats a lie. There are decent enough bookshops here. But nothing like a miles of aisles that Landmark(nee Starmark) sported. Or even the smaller but no less interesting Oxford. Bookshops in Delhi are , to put it nicely, dull. The same square rectangular room. The same two or three bookshelves set up like gun racks in an armory.And then there are the assistants. Oh, how I love the assistants. It's not difficult to attract their attention. Just stop for more than five seconds before a bookshelf or even squint a bit and there they are. Step one in their holy mission to irritate and bother is to ask you if they can help you with anything. Of course the only way they can actually help anyone is by tying a reasonably heavy weight around their ankles and actively looking for the nearest large body of water. But since it would be pointless to explain that to them, plus you might get thrown out and still have an hour to kill. So the safest thing to do is mention the name of any writer who is not on this months bestseller list. First there is a frown. Then an imperceptible call for assistance from the corner of his mouth. Of course, the colleague who he was calling has already sauntered away to assist someone who made the fatal mistake of stopping to tie his shoelace. Step three would be to scoot forward to the check out desk where an acne ridden teenager who would rather have maggots feed off him than be here is listlessly playing Solitaire. Considering he was hired simply because he could distinguish between a mouse button and a shirt button and has enough motor skills to point and click, he isn't very helpful either. Ah, but he has his ace in the hole. He has the DATABASE! With the flourish of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, he types in the name, and with an equal flourish, he announces that there is no such author by that name. Not just that, he doubts if such an author ever existed or even such a name can ever exist and you sir, are pond scum of the worst kind. Ok he doesn't say ALL those things but his tone speaks volumes. This is your cue to lean forward across the desk, look at his monitor and gently inform them that it is not NEL GAYMAN, but NEIL GEIMAN you want. Still suspicious, and now convinced that you are nothing more than a troublemaker, he types in again. Ah-ha ! Just as he suspected, there is no such author by that name either. How dare you disturb his afternoon reverie, how dare you annoy the assistants, how dare you...at this point you can cut him off and tell him that you completely understand his irritation at NEEL GEMAN not finding a place in their inventory, that is still not who you are looking for. Of course, by now he is frothing at the mouth and search is already on for a reliable straight jacket, but somehow, he manages to type in the correct name. At this point he calms down a little, and with the cheerfulness of Hitler turning in a class report about the second world war , informs you that according to his database, such a writer does exist (although he is obviously still not convinced), they are not stocking any of his books now, very sorry, do you want to place an order and more importantly leave a deposit?? This would be your cue to hand him the two Neil Geiman books you found half an hour ago and ask for the bill.

Meat Puppet

Feeling like an empty room, a bother to even exist, I am irritated by the need to make sense of it all, thoughts keep crowding my head, shapeless and formless, made of vapor and color, no form really, just a painful reminder of how I am, empty and vapid, nothing making any sense, I force myself to it but it slips away to the other side, I have nothing to say, wish I could keep saying that all the time, nothing but a meat puppet of instinct and confusion, frustrating and irritating, words are there but not for me, for me no shape no structure no form, wish I could be like the ones I admire, bend them to my will, make them like animals in a circus ring, whip them into submission and see them dance the way I want but what do I want really, to follow the rules, what happens when the rules are so hazy and blurred that you wonder if there are any rules at all, when you know there are but won't reveal themselves to you, feel mediocrity and incompetence but to make peace with it is just unacceptable and to fight against it is impossible, shameful hurtful little reminders of a being that wants to fly but cannot , not because it's wings are clipped but because it never had any, slugs shouldn't dream of open skies, but slugs don't have imagination do they, , where exactly does imagination take you, nowhere really, just makes you more aware of what keeps you trapped and tied , want to talk and communicate but like trying to pour water from an empty vessel, how to create things that don;t even exist. even for this i have to stop and think, not meant to be like this, just a stream, but keeps getting interrupted by other streams, mind like a cobweb, no straight lines, no one way to go, every knot an intersection, an accident waiting to happen, waiting to knock me off course , no thoughts just silly little ideas that spark and die, no depth, no meaning.

When the Slumdog had his day

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that Who Wants to be a Millionaire is apparently a live show. It doesn't matter that a slumdog speaks perfect English. It doesn't matter that the show's host tries to feed a contestant wrong answers, as if he had a stake in keeping the kid away from the big prize. The movie never asks you to believe it, just accept it. There is a reason why most people who have seen Slumdog Millionaire either love it or hate it. It's a movie that asks you to check your cynicism at the door. It's like magic. You know none of it is real, because how could it be. But believe for a moment that it IS, and you will be dazzled, intrigued and entertained.
Slumdog Millionaire has become an international sensation, another , possibly the brightest feather in the cap of Danny Boyle. It has a 95 percent rating on Rottentomatoes.com and an 8.7 user rating from IMDB after nearly forty thousand votes. And like all things that were never meant to be this big but did, it has attracted criticism from all quarters. Right now there seems to be three major gripes against the movie. Let's look at them one by one.

1) Slumdog Millionaire is not a 'believable' or 'real' movie. No it isn't. When did it claim to be ? It's a modern fairy tale (and if you think it's a little too brutal to be a fairy tale, read some of the stories before the Grimm Brothers degrimmed them for the kiddies.) set in the slums of Mumbai. It could be set in the slums of Mexico city, or Cape Town, or New York or any city where abject poverty lives side by side with BMW's and skyscraper's. It's not about reality. Jamal is not a real kid from the slums. Like I said, the fact that he can speak perfect English doesn't matter precisely because the movie doesn't even try to be real. The setting and the surroundings are rooted in realism, but the story of Jamal shines through as wildly implausible, improbable and heartwarming. It's not how things COULD be. It's how things SHOULD be.

2) Slumdog Millionaire does not paint a TRUE picture of India . This one actually makes me laugh. You don't say ??!!! Name me one movie, one single movie that captures India perfectly. Slumdog is not a movie about India, or even Mumbai. That's just where it's set. It's a movie about Jamal, a boy who was born in the slums but goes on to win a television quiz show and the heart of his childhood sweetheart through a series of extraordinary coincidences and sheer grit. Also, more than a little helping of brains. When the little Jamal, covered in shit, holds up a grubby hand defiantly clutching an autographed picture of Amitabh Bachhan, he does not represent all slum children. He is just the joy of achievement breaking through.

3)Slumdog Millionaire is a typical masala movie that Bollywood has done a million times before, and has been scoffed at for its trouble. I won't disagree with this statement entirely. Yes, it is a very masala movie. And Bollywood has tried to do it before. But never has it been this smart, this slick, and this beautiful. The child actors here look and act like little children. There is a hard edge to their innocence, as there should be. They are not obnoxious little angels, as bollywood has traditionally tried to represent children. They don't give sage advice to the elders about communal harmony and the goodness of man. Coupled with smart editing, a riotous use of colour, and the very effective-in-building-tension KBC music, Boyle may have made the perfect masala movie.

So does slumdog deserve the accolades it is getting? I vote a resounding yes. It will not be nominated for many awards in the acting category, although Ayush Mahesh Khedekar as the youngest Jamal gives a heartrending performance as brilliant as Darsheel Safary in TZP. Dev Patel has a limited range of expressions, most of them being some variation of bewildered, but his sullen anger in the opening scenes comes off well. Frieda Pinto is in there for too short a time (she comes in about 80 minutes into the movie) to judge, although she is competent in what she does. Anil Kapoor overacts as usual, but makes the character work as a slimeball . The problem with his Prem Kumar is that he is given no motivation to be this antogonistic towards Jamal. Is he jealous that a street kid could make it this far? Does he truly believe Jamal is cheating? There are no answers. Irrfan Khan does a bad guy/slightly less bad guy thing he is so adept at. But the stars of the movie are The child actors, the sights and sounds of Mumbai (and Agra), and a script that wraps you up if you let it, and gives you a thrill ride to remember.