A Man's Place - Arnie Ernaux (Translated by Tanya Leslie)

 Annie Ernaux (1940) is a French writer and the 2022 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In this slim 72 page book she writes about her father who grew up on a farm with very little education, moved to the city to work in a factory, worked through the war, ran a grocery store with his wife and a cafe, and stayed in the sidelines of life with his many unfulfilled dreams, his little comforts and his overall shame at not feeling like he belonged in this world.

Annie writes about her father's life simply with no drama, touching upon aspects like what money meant to them, or entertainment, or intimacy. Obsessed with being correct he would be polite, put the best foot forward when there were guests, berate himself for not being politically correct or for showing off his ignorance, worried about what others thought of them all the time, worried that his illness might eat into their savings etc. Annie's accomplishment at passing the teacher training course was one which filled his life with pride. She mentions small details - the photo he took with her standing in front of their house, the paper which mentions her passing the course second in her batch. His favorite song, the time he took little Annie to the central library to borrow books with no idea how to. The way he would address her university friends with utmost respect. And his illness, two months after her passing the exam, and the slow realisation that he may not survive it.  

It's painful, heavy and honest and I could identify myself with parts of him, just as many men perhaps do as they grow older. Thanks Vinod bhai. Another wonderful book from you.

Excellent Gesture by Hotel Royal Court

 Yesterday when I went to the ground I received this from Rahul - a letter from the MD of Hotel Royal Court, Madurai where we had stayed with the Hyderabad team during our Buchi Babu fnals. It was such a lovely, well worded, thoughtful letter which is almost like a citation, something I will surely preserve.

Such care and thought is rare and it shows how much the hotel management values its customers and strives to mark such moments by making such memorable gestures. In all my years I do keep track of such thoughtful gestures by service providers and can see why some brands command loyalty and love and why some do not. Hotel Royal Court served some amazing food in its buffet, had very courteous service and well maintained rooms and certainly will be my preferred choice when in Madurai.

Thanks Mr Sikkandar Rafiq. We had a lovely and fruitful stay there and we will always remember your hotel and its service fondly. And you will always rank very high in my list of top customer service exeriences. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 Anything about coffee seems to get our attention - certainly mine. I wonder why coffee is always associated with dates and romantic meetings whereas tea (chai) is to do with friends and informal hangouts. I guess it has something to do with marketing. Anyway the story has been written by the author in Japanese and translated into English by Geoffrey Trousselot.

The premise of the story is that if we could go back into our past and change something we always wanted to what would it be, who would we meet. So there is a cafe in Tokyo where there is a seat which is occupied by a ghost and which is vacated by her when she goes to the toilet during which time one can sit in her place and order coffee which transports you to the place and time you want to visit. The conditions are many but suffice to know that whatever you do in the past during this visit will not change the present and you must come back before the coffee gets cold. So there are many who believe in this urban legend and come to meet someone from the past - four precisely. One to find out if her lover will return, one to give a letter to his wife about his growing Alzheimer's condition, one who wants to meet her sister who died and another to meet a daughter she never met.

The premise is interesting. The writing style with so many details is not really the kind I enjoy so much. I realised Murakami does the same thing to me - distracts me with a lot of details that I forget the main story. But obviously its a personal opinion because the book is a global bestseller.

Thought for the Day - The Hiding Place of Slippery Ideas

 The many wonderful ideas and thoughts that come to our mind which we fail to jot down because we think we will remember them but forget them soon as the moment passes - real gems each one of them - slip away into this hiding place where they lie. If we can uncover that place we find so many of our flashes of brilliance, of insights which can change the course of our life perhaps!

Each such memory or thought that has slipped away seems so fragile, so fragrant, so slippery and out of reach. So beautiful. 

Sankarabharanam - Movie

 1980. 

It's been on my list of rewatches for a while and I am glad I could watch it finally. Many new facets showed up this time - last I saw it must have been as a school boy in 1980! Sankara Shastri and his life of dedication as a musician, his principles and beliefs, the pure love between him and his admirer the courtesan Tulasi who finally becomes his patron, the carrying on of the legacy by her son, a dramatic end where the maestro dies in a music school dedicated to him by his secret patron.

K Vishwanath once again carries subtle shades of an artist's relationship with his art, the purity of relationships born out of mutual respect and admiration with finesse, bringing to fore the irony of life and also the beauty of life.

Sankarabharanam is so named because Sankara Shastri is supposed to have mastered the raga and he is called Sankarabharanam Sankara Shastri. The film apparently opened to empty theatres much as Sholay did, and soon picked up, running for years in some theatres - in Bangalore, Madras - until it was dubbed in Tamil, Malayalam and so on. It was played in many international festivals and received many awards. Somayajulu's performance is rated in the top 25 performances in Indian cinema and the film itself was ranked 11th in a poll about Indian cinema.

   

Black Buck Resort, Bidar

 After many ambitious plans were made and dropped, we decided to make a quick 2-day trip to Bidar's Black Buck Resort which had been on my mind for a while now. The drive was easy - a three and a half hour drive. I booked the cottage with no real idea of how the place would be - it comes to some 10k per cottage. It was Dasara time so we figured there might be some people around too. Anyways since it was considered a tranquil place out in the jungle I hoped for some quiet reading and stuff.  

View of lake from cottage

Sample cottage

Check in time is 130 so we took off at around 9 and weaved our way through heavy traffic on the Mumbai highway - the road near BHEL is in bad shape thanks to the new flyover and the traffic does not abate until way way longer - a sign that the city has grown. Perhaps almost till the ORR. We motored on and I found that even the highway was under some repair or the other so it was a jerky ride.

The road less travelled

Road to nowhere - actually to water

 The only good thing was the number of food courts that seemed to have popped up all along and we stopped at one such place - Patnam restaurant and Madurai restaurant. The latter was open and served some good breakfast stuff in some heavy duty plates. I liked it.

Then to Zaheerabad where we played many matches in our youth and turned off the highway towards Bidar which was some 30 kms, and then past Bidar towards Black Buck resort which shows up on GPS. A village road and then a country road and then in the jungle we find the resort. Its full of langurs, harmless if you let them be. We got Cottage No 5. We dumped our stuff and headed off for lunch where we met Ashwin, Abhi's friend from the colony. The chap from the resort told me the list of activities - boating at 4, sncks at 6, bonfire at 730, star gazing at 8, dinner at 830, birdwalk early morning, safari early morning, city tour at 945 am next day and so on.

The green contraption is a light with spikes

Made the mistake of getting on a coracle ride which was pretty pleasant until he decided to spin it around which was a bad idea - my head spun for a long time. Next time, no such adventure sports for me. Back to the dining area for snacks (pakoda), and then back to the cottage. Plans for a blackbuck safari at 630 am were made and we hit the sack early.

Safari jeep

Black Bucks

Next morning we were up for the safari which was a ride in a modified Gypsy along with a couple of couples and their kids - psychologist Diana and her husband Yohann and their kids, dentists Shefali and Mahesh and their kid. Off we went with Hussain who showed us many birds and named them and drove us some 18 kms to the place where the black bucks live. Quite a sight they were.We clicked some pics and came back in time for breakfast.

Self-explanatory

Bidar fort

A quick shower and off we went to the city tour with our fav co-travellers. The city tour included a trip to the bidri craft shops which were inside the old fort. Diana bought herself some bangles and the guy wrapped it in a newspaper which had her pic from an article in it. Off we went from there to the Bidar fort which is quite large. The Barid Shah dynasty which had spun off from the Bijapur sultanate ruled here. We walked around the fort for no charge and saw the gardens, the old monuments, the remnants of the palaces and then returned to the canteen for some soft drinks. Onward to the gurdwara which was to me a first. Then back to the good old resort and some lunch.

Bidar fort

Barid Shah tombs

I took a walk along the bund that evening by myself and returned in time for tea and snacks. Some telescoping where we saw the moon and its craters and the rings around saturn, a peep at the bonfire and off to crash after a hectic day.

The next morning we had a chilled out morning and left at 10ish. Pretty nice trip. Idyllic. Definitely recommend.

Namak Haraam - Movie

 1973. Came after 'Anand' and has the same stars - Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh playing key roles. Its loosely based on Becket, a 1964 English film which was remade into a Telugu film called 'Prana Mithrulu' and then a Tamil film. Gulzar wrote the screenplay and Hrishikesh Mukherjee directed it. Kishore Kumar sang the memorable 'Nadiya se dariya', 'Main Shaayar badnaam' and 'Diye jalte hain', Raza Murad played the role of his lifetime and what else can one ask for.

Seen it many times and it still does not fail to fascinate me - two friends, one rich and one poor, thick as thieves, the poor one helps the rich friend avenge a perceived insult by infiltrating the workers union in his rich pal's factory and soon gets overwhelmed by the poverty and hardships and takes the side of the workers which is why he is called the 'namak haram'. The ending is poetic justice. Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh, Raza Murad, Asrani, Hangal...just perfect.