I revisited Jump Cut after 2013. Krishna magnanimously gifted me both his books (which i owned but which were taken off by someone who liked them looks like). Reading it this time was different - I realised I was different form the person who had read it then. I guess I probably looked at it more from an entertainment angle or rather superficially. This time I think I got more of what Krishna was attempting to say - the story, the message, the plot, the fun - and got more insights into him as a writer and a person.
Jump Cut is a revenge story and he dedicates it to all the people from Chase to Raghavendra Rao who were instrumental in his growing up with such stories. But here, Ray, named after Satyajit, by his film buff, script writer father who always got ripped off for his niceness by crooks in the film industry, decides that justice must be done. His father had not dies of a heart attack but a broken heart and so he ups from the US and gets to Madras and plans an elaborate plan to get the villainous RR and his bunch of cohorts who pass off others original work as their own and never pay them nor even credit them. Ray, with his friend Abie and his wife, and his girl friend Padmini, and the reliable Selva, 'take RR's treasure away from him' - the film industry.
It's different from 'Ice Boys and Bell Bottoms' simply because it is a serious revenge story that rips into the film industry and its ways. Krishna also mentions how the bookie at the race course would rip off his gullible father every weekend. But it is filled with hilarious lines and scenes, fantastic characters you will not forget easily, and once again I found that Krishna practices the light touch, the bittersweet flavour throughout. Once again a real pleasure reading it and I am even more impressed with KSD's control over the craft of storytelling in his own inimitable style.
No comments:
Post a Comment