Ship of Theseus - Movie Review

Watched the 'Ship of Theseus', Anand Gandhi's much acclaimed film which deals with organ donation among other things. It took me some research to find out about Theseus and his ship - a question that arises when a ship has been repaired and each plank has been changed for a new plank - would the ship remain the same or is it a new ship. The allusion is to human organs and their identity once they pass into a new body.

So we have an Iranian photographer and her boyfriend. She has a corneal transplant to get her vision rectified. But she is not happy with the new vision, clear as it is. We have a Jain monk who is fighting court cases against cosmetic and pharma companies that use animals for drug testing in a cruel manner and suddenly finds himself in a situation where he has to take the same medicines to counter his liver cirhossis. Then we have a kidney tranplant patient who is a businessman with little regard to finer sentiments or so we think until he realises that a poor man has been cheated out of his kidney in a racket. In the end the beneficiaries of the organs of the donor meet, each perpetuating a life or a function of life thanks to the donor.

The movie runs slowly at its own pace. Though based on the organ donation theme it explores larger ideas through the characters. Apparently Sohum Shah who acted in the role of the kidney transplant patient, stepped in to produce the film and protect its integrity. I am glad he did. Its well made, precise and leaves an impact.

Nice article on letting go of the need for approval

Let go of the need for approval. "I don't need your approval'. Freeing. Nice article.

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-let-go-of-the-need-for-approval-to-start-thriving/

Launch of Rajan Bala's Book 'Days Well Spent' - A Cherished Event

There was something about this incident and the way it happened. I think it deserves a mention for many reasons, one of which being the way it turned out.

Rajan Bala had been ailing I knew, but he was also writing his book 'Days Well Spent'. He was planning its launch in Bangalore and in Mumbai. I planned to attend both. But two months before the launch, Rajan Bala passed away suddenly.

Satya, Me, Sanjay Rajan, Chokappan and Aditya

The launch at Mumbai was still on. The date was fixed - November 30, 2009. I had decided to go to the launch come what may. So I booked my ticket and went to participate and show my gratitude to Mr. Bala.

I met Sanjay Rajan and some of the other friends, Chokappan and Aditya, on the morning of the launch at the CCI. They told me that Sanjay Manjrekar was to be the chief guest, Rahul Dravid had agreed to come and many friends of Rajan Bala would be present.

I went home and got a thought - why don't I prepare a speech in case I get an opportunity so I can share my perspective of his life and writing. So I sat down and wrote down my speech and prepared just as if I were to speak on the dais for a good two hours.

Satya, Sanjay Manjrekar and me

Imagine my surprise when Sanjay Rajan asked me, as I walked into CCI that evening, if I would share the dais with Sanjay Manjrekar and the others, and speak about the Rajan Bala I knew. I knew Sanjay Manjrekar as a person who had been kind enough to humour me to be my chief guest when I launched 'The Men Within' in Mumbai in 2007 and one of the best batsmen I had bowled to so I was glad to be on the dais with him again. I had met Rahul at Hyderabad a while ago and he was one of the most pleasing and down-to-earth people I ever met.

As the event started I could see Cyrus Broacha seated upfront, Harsha Bhogle standing at a distant door listening in and paying his respects to the great writer quietly, many journalist friends and cricketers. Rahul Dravid came in from the nets (the Indian team was practising out there) and politely indicated that he would participate in the proceedings from the front row.

Satya spoke emotionally. The publisher Theo Braganza of Marine Sports spoke. My turn came. I informed the audience that I had written it down for a specific purpose - to put his writing in context - and hence would read my speech out. I did not want to miss a thing.

Reading out my speech

And I read it out.

Chief Guest Sanjay Manjrekar speaking

Book release

To this day I wonder what made me prepare that speech when I was not even sure of being present in the hall. There's something to the power of thinking ahead, of living life as if it has already granted you your wish. Anyway, the text of the speech.

Rajan Bala – Book Launch 
‘Days Well Spent’ 
November 30, 2009, Cooch Behar Hall, CCI, Brabourne Stadium. 5 00 p m

Speech by Harimohan Paruvu

"Calling Rajan Bala a cricket writer would be as foolish as calling a warrior king like Bheeshma a sharpshooter. His knowledge, his understanding and most importantly the application of this understanding to life was effortless.

Personally, I am glad he chose to express himself through cricket because it made a difference to me. I will tell you the story of how Rajan Bala made an impact in the life of a young boy from Andhra far removed from these high temples of cricket.

I was born in the late 60s in an ordinary, middle-class family and grew up on all kinds of games and stories and literature. As I grew older and I started looking for heroes to emulate, my confused mind noticed the pages in the Hindu filling up with a delightful copy of the game of cricket. Exquisitely crafted phrases, heart-stopping descriptions of the game, the sheer poetry made me put the paper down and dance away practising the straight drive or a cover drive. Dreams were stoked, desire fuelled. Purely on the power of the pen, of the print media, I got drawn into this love affair completely that I could never get out of it. I was inspired to play the game to the first-class level. More importantly, the thought and scale it could soar to never left me.

Something, someone up there?

What he did was that he set it up beautifully for ordinary people like me to understand the game through words, emotions and feelings that not just described the game but also set it in context. How a strategy could make sense not just in the game but in war, how a player represents not himself as one isolated incident but as a soul of another warrior of another time from the clutches of history, war, religion, movies, literature, sports and even poetry. Those words, those descriptions made heroes larger than life for people like me, inspired me in days when it was dark...gave me a framework of excellence to aspire to because cricket was something I could relate to as a youngster. If I was to pick one humongous contribution Rajan Bala made, this would be it, that he made a difference to ordinary people like me, by setting up this wonderful game bare in all its complexities and textures and showed it for what it was worth – that it represents life itself. From the hunger on the street to the high life. In my mind today there is no doubt that it is this difference that propelled the game through ahead of the other games and sports – I never remember reading too much of such other sports news in the sports columns.

The second thing about Rajan’s contribution was that he executed his job with great responsibility that he assumed all by himself. To classify his writings as cricket writing would be another great folly. If you notice his body of work he has with great care chronicled the history of Indian cricket in ‘The covers off’, an incredibly racy reading with such definite analysis on how the game grew in India and why. ‘No one need to document Indian cricket till 2004 son,’ he declared to me. ‘I have done it. Now, whoever does it can begin from there. I have documented all my thoughts, notes and interviews in that book.’ He said it with absolute relish.

Then he put his neck on the line by penning a book on technique – Glances of perfection - I cannot imagine what courage someone could have to write about the high technique and challenge and destroy one’s own stature by opening oneself up to the public on such a precise area. In India when everything is questioned about the game, surprisingly little discussion was noticed on that book where he stirred up sufficient thought, obviously because it was in the realm of the perfectionists, the experts.

Post-launch

Sanjay, Rahul are thought leaders - responsible and insightful and it is on them that this responsibility also falls to discuss, dissect and throw open what he started. In fact, Rahul does not appear in the book and I was shocked when I first read it – now I understand how deliberate a ploy it could have been, how only a Rajan Bala could conceive such a scandalous gap. It is obvious now that that the ball now lies in the court of the exponents to explain why Rajan was right or wrong, and we all know that there is no one better than Rahul to take up the job and explain. Rajan would love to be corrected and the game must benefit.

When technology came in he chose to work from behind the scenes. The current book ‘Days well spent’ is an example of that. I know he wrote it in three months. I am the proud owner of the manuscript of ‘The days well spent’ which he signed for me and wrote ‘perhaps the only copy of the manuscript after I am gone’. It is as racy as a bestselling fiction book to me. Read it and you will know how well he has integrated the game with literature, history, culture, society, people, nations and even the world. Which is why I say, that to call him a cricket writer alone would be a great folly – he was a thought leader of the highest quality.

I see some wonderful cricket writing talent in this country, I urge them to take up what he left unfinished and elevate thought levels higher. Cricket can unify and can make a much larger and more impactful difference to lives in our country in ways we cannot conceive. Today the boy from Andhra is consumed with the idea of using cricket as a metaphor to increase productivity across India by a mere 5%. If I achieve 1% my job is done. Thanks to Rajan and the fantasies he fuelled.

The game will always be bigger and he knew it in his infinite wisdom. We can only express it through ourselves to the extent we can and that is our limitation as mortals. For those who understood it, he was gentle. For those who did not, he had no patience. He never suffered fools. The controversies, the mischievous questions, the outrageous comments or statements were required to prod thought and he took that responsibility. It not only requires clarity, it requires great love.

My association with him was brief, in the past two years only. When I launched my cricket novel in 2007, I hesitantly I approached Rajan Bala. He gave me a wonderful review and let me enter his heart and his house.

Cyrus and me

Two things stay with me. His delight at a discussion on cricket, the intensity with which he spoke about it late into the night to a strange young man with a modest achievement in both cricket and writing frightened me sometimes. Is it possible to love something so much I thought, especially when it has given him so little in terms of material benefit. He answered that to me one day, I love talking cricket son, any day. Come.

Another thing was that all through his dark days with his illness during which I spoke and met him often, he never resented anything, never uttered a word against anyone and marched on sending article after article, week after week, till the last day.

Last I spoke to him in September, he said, we’ll meet at the book launch son and we’ll celebrate. I am here Rajan Bala. Let us celebrate with all these wonderful people who love you. Cheers. And thank you for everything."

The Front - Movie Review

Apparently Hollywood had a blacklist in the 1950s. Those with communist leanings - attending parades, subscriptions to communist literature etc - were all identified and laid off work subtly. The movie is based entirely on the infamous blacklist and has been produced by some of the blacklisted. We live and learn.

Howard Prince (Woody Allen) is a cashier who is hired by his friend, a blacklisted writer, to act as a front for him. The perpetually broke Prince works out a deal with his friend and acts as his front (as a new writer) with the production house. His stuff is accepted and he soon becomes the front for many writers, in the process making much money and earning himself an admiring girl friend who thinks he is the brains behind those stories. For a while Howard starts behaving like the star he has become but he realises the gravity of the situation when one of the blacklisted actors, Hecky Brown commits suicide. He tells the committee exactly what he thinks of it and we in the audience agree.

Zero Mostel is a revelation as Hecky Brown. Fantastic. Woody Allen is young and himself. It's a fine movie and I am glad they made it. Now we know of the stuff that went on. Whew!

Story idea - First Strike

This is inspired by the gold heist in Hyderabad when the two young thieves returned everything and turned themselves in. They said they did it to expose corruption.

Hook:
Unknown thieves strike in huge and daring heists. Even as everyone is watching the loot is returned or found in the unlikeliest places - at the corrupt police station, at the corrupt official's house with a note. This is the loot he would have looted anyway - he can as well keep it and do some good work in public service.

Or a variant.

Have the thieves steal all the big bribe moneys and have it found at the recipient's house. Once public the money has to come back into the system anyway. Need to figure out a way of climaxing it all though.

12 Years a Slave - Movie Review

Watched this movie more so because I heard good reviews of it. It is based on a  memoir written in 1953 by Solomon Northup based on his experiences. A free man, and a musician living with his family in New York, Solomon Northup is drugged and kidnapped by two men who offer him work in Washington. When he comes to he is chained and soon he realises that his identity has been changed to one of Platt, a slave. With no one to believe him, Solomon becomes Platt and endures the horrors reserved for slaves in those days.

The white masters and their workmen had the law on their side and ill treated, beat, lynched, raped black slaves at their whims. It is almost perverse to know that you have that kind of a power over another human and to see the extent to which one can push it. So they do, the white masters, treating black slaves like cattle and nothing more. The scene where the slaves are sold is brilliantly shown. Northup tries to escape once but is betrayed by a white man he trusts, and the second time succeeds in getting information cross to his family in New York. The sheriff secures his release after twelve years of his life among the slaves, away from his family. Northup meets his family finally.

Apparently the real Northup tried to get the kidnappers to trial but they managed to escape. The movie is directed by Steve McQueen, a black director, whom I confused with the Steve McQueen, the actor. The movie won great acclaim, three Academy Awards - best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actress. Worth a watch certainly as it shows what could be a conveniently forgotten part of our history. That perverse streak resides in us and it will only change form. Don't ever fool yourself into thinking the world is a better place.

The Sanjeeva Reddy Nagar Junction - Cost of Change

One remembers the sleepy Sanjeeva Reddy Nagar junction from thirty years ago. The road leading out of Ameerpet to BHEL, Ramachandrapuram, which was a distant village and a separate township, was a single road. The traffic signals came much later. In those days the colonies on either side, Sanjeeva Reddy Nagar on one side and Vengala Rao Nagar on the other offered a nice, quiet, peaceful, middle class life. MIGH houses or LIGH houses as they were called (middle income group and lower income group for the uninitiated) dotted the road on either side in a well-organised manner, depicting life at its most peaceful, most content.

SR Nagar Junction - The Cost of Change

The roads were almost deserted. I remember the Colony's Best Library chap, a curly haired gentleman with a young wife and small children, who had a tin stall on the road, something like a pan shop in those days (in the picture, somewhere close to where the mobile tow truck of the police is parked). Now this gentleman is owed much because he made accessible to us, many wonderful books - from Famous Fives, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drews to great comics. I cannot imagine where he got so many titles from, why he had such interest in books but he was a boon to me. I'd cycle from home, pick up books and curl up an dread.

Further up on the street one can see the old mosque like structure. It was a beautiful structure and still is - only it is now almost hidden by these monstrous structures all around it. Beside that mosque was the butcher with his pictures - of him and his brother in their younger days and some film stars. Beside the butcher was this chap who made cotton mattresses - he is still there - and old man and his family. Beside that was the small Jagan Book Store who would have some rare stationery items and who also had the odd cork ball for cricket matches.

The SR Nagar bus stop was a pretty sight at school times with many pretty girls gathering at the right hand corner. The boys would gather somewhere close by and do all the stupid things they normally tend to do when they want to attract female attention. It grew into a crowded bus stop.

In some years, the Colony Best library moved from the main road into the SR Nagar colony, the bus stop became bigger and most importantly, Almas cafe was started offering a place to hang out for the broke teenagers.

The other day I saw the scene from my car and wondered at the change. Buildings growing in a greedy rush, the metro snaking away in its ugly form, a hoarding over the mosque which still retains its stately nature. Nothing compares to what it was. Most old landmarks are gone save the mosque like structure.