A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees - Kenko

Yoshida Kenko (1283-1352) was a Japanese monk whose 'Essays in Idleness' is one of the most studied works in medieval literature. In this little Penguin classic we get a peep into his mind and thoughts - the essays are taken from his Essays in Idleness. Kenko speaks a universal language of peace, love, kindness. And wonder.

He wonders about human nature. He thinks about how people gives themselves away by the manner in which they treat birds and animals. He talks of sexual desire and ponders of how it distracts the human heart. Of women and how they snare men. How a home gives a person away. How it is not always nice to have someone who agrees with you. How not having anything is a boon. How to be present. The transient and unpredictable nature of lives. The ugliness of excess. The virtue of idleness. The dangers of having backups and not trying hard enough. Dangers of relaxing in the last steps.

He says there are 7 types of friends one should not have - A high ranking person, a young person, anyone strong and in perfect health, a man who loves to drink, a brave and daring warrior, a liar and a greedy man. If you have to choose your friends pick a doctor, someone who gives gifts and a wise man.

He also ponders wisely that illnesses are first caused in the mind - that there is a mind-body connection. He gives an example of the man who was sent to a great height to paint a sign board and how his hair turned white with shock.

Kenko feels a sensible man will not leave any valuables behind. He also advocates a state of no marriage - do not have a wife he says because you will get bored of one another. Instead live separately he says and meet once in a while. It keeps the relationship fresh.

Interesting. 

Ricki and the Flash - Movie Review

There was a time in the 80s when we thought we were cool if we pasted posters all over our rooms. Those were also the times when magazines like Sun and Jetset sold posters of rock stars and celebrities and we bought them for those posters. Archies too made a fortune by selling us posters. I bought several - a lovely Brooke Shields poster that had her staring at me lovingly from the back of the door (strategic placement), Marilyn Monroe pouting away, Madhubala in black and white, and a few cricketers before the rock bug caught on. Kiss was one of the first, painted and all, Bruce Springsteen, YES, The Police - and one rather unknown singer but one of the most handsome chaps - Rick Springfield. I remember I had the poster on the wall (over Brooke Shield's left shoulder) before I bought his album 'Living in Oz'. 'Alison' was a number I remember very well, 'Human Touch' was another (I saw the video last night and Rick speaks into a futuristic computer in year 2016!) and many other numbers. It was a nice, rocky, tangy album and one of those few where you could listen to all songs. I did listen to a lot of Rick those days.

When the posters came down (why did they come down?), Rick Springfield went away from my life because he did not make too many other albums after I think. 'Living in Oz' is still in one of the boxes with the other cassettes and will come down from the loft soon when I chronicle my life with my music. Until this movie came. And I see Rick again, now 65 or so playing the romantic interest to Meryl Streep in a dream-about-living-a-rock band-life movie.

I haven't missed many Meryl Streep's movies so there was not much chance I'd miss this. Listening to a few 80s songs was not too bad too. 'Everybody have fun tonight' by Wang Chung was one I remember apart from the Bruce Springsteen song in the end. Couple more songs I can't remember now. Meryl Streep plays the broke singer of the band 'Ricki and the Flash' - a bunch of old musicians playing for a bunch of oldies in an old pub. Ricki had left her family to pursue her dream - broke and all but she does live her dream. Her ex-husband, now rich and successful, calls her to help her daughter who has just separated from her husband. And she meets her gay son and the other son who kept his engagement hidden from her. Clearly Ricki is not the favorite but she does have something and it turns out ok in the end. I like the part when she says she has no money to buy a gift and will do the only thing she knows how to do - sing. And sing she does with her band and whips up a nice party. Nothing much in terms of a story - it's a bit sweet and sour - and reminds you of watching movies in Sterling - one of those vague movies that somehow sticks in bits and pieces. There were a few tense moments when Meryl Streep walks about with a towel around her - and you hope it doesn't fall off. It doesn't.

And I enjoyed seeing the crowd that came - fiftyish, give or take some (like me and my two pals) - two ladies, grey haired, came by themselves in a car. It surely whipped up a lot of memories and made all of us feel older than what we are. It's that same Meryl Streep we watched in 'Falling in love' and the same Rick Springfield. You could excuse yourself for being transported for a while and wondering what happened after. But thanks Rick and Meryl for growing up with us.

Anjali - And the Dogs

Two strays were pulling at the garbage can and making a mess. I went to shoo them away.

Anjali came running and held my hand.
'No nanna, don't. What did they do to you?'

I was not meaning to hit them or anything but I played along.
'But they are messing it up aren't they?'

'Let them. Someone will clean it up. Don't hit them.'
She did not let go of my hand and led me away. Nice. Though I felt like I was some animal-torturing monster being led away gently by someone who sees it all differently.

I didn't see this side of her before. But I am glad she has that. I am not a great animal lover and wish them well in their space but I do admire people who have the capacity to love other creatures (and people too).

Mission:Impossible - Rogue Nation - Movie Review

Tom Cruise looks old. He would, considering that I first watched him in the 1980s in Top Gun. That's a good 25+ years gone by. But we somehow hope they remain as they were when we first saw them - I remember how my illusions came crashing down when I saw Axl Rose in a concert a few years ago. I was searching for the real one when the truth hit me - there is no real one - this is he. Tom Cruise however is not that bad because we recognise him and are not searching in the crowd behind - despite the lack of his charming smiles. He instead gives us a serious, clenched jaw look and some fine action scenes for which i shall be eternally grateful.

The first scene is an impossible one where he gets on a flying plane and hangs on as it flies off - and then jumps off safely with a load of nerve gas. Soon after he finds himself in a record shop where he is almost gassed to death (he is getting old I told you) while showing off his knowledge about some old music from the 80s. Then he is almost killed by a chap called the bone doctor (what does he do? the q is never answered). Why not gas Cruise in the first place if you had to kill him was my q when bone doctor starts to beat him? Anyway we have good looking Ilsa Faust at hand to save the oldish Cruise - she looks fortyish too - but can she fight! Bone doctor, instead of killing this chap by breaking his bones or deboning him or whatever he does, starts punching him in the stomach - what is that? Anyway, we are now on the trail of the syndicate, a dangerous enemy which has people like the mysterious gasser, the bone doctor and also the very agreeable Ms. Faust who looked a bit like Hepburn and Zellweiger.

The next impossible stunt comes in an opera where a number of people with highly sophisticated guns have been allowed into the opera which is being watched by the Austrian premier. Its like all the gunmen in town have been invited to kill the premier. They could have simply put the poor premier in front of the firing squad really. Hunt (Cruise) is the guy who actually shoots the premier - to save him of course. (Sadly he is not to be saved because the security forgets to check the premier's car for bombs!) One of the shooters on duty is our pretty lady - one more shooter is there but he is killed - he is not pretty obviously. Hunt and Faust escape together. Next scene is Morocco where there is an underwater stunt to switch data cards and get some data which transfers money. What? The syndicate is just a bunch of ordinary thieves? Hunt almost gets killed but hey, Faust is at hand and she jumps in and rescues the man.

Next impossible stunt is on bikes. A set of bikers come and give Faust a bike. Why? Because she can then use the bike to whip them all into shape in two minutes and run off with the data. What is this? One thing about the syndicate is that it has a bad recruitment and training policy. Anyway Ilsa is soon back in London. The big bad boy now emerges with glasses and a squeaky voice and wants the files in the USB opened. But hey, the files can only be opened by the British Prime Minister. Really! If you get the files opened by the PM, I will let your geeky friend go says bad man to Hunt (he is like destiny!). Anything for friends says Hunt and gets the PM to open the files. If you can get the PM to do stuff like that, I was pretty sure you could catch the idiots at the Syndicate but that's another story. Ilsa and geeky friend are finally found tied to tons of RDX with a fast moving timer on geek. But Hunt knows how to make the bad man stop the device in the last second. He has memorised the entire data on the USB. He is now the USB himself!

Just as we start getting uneasy at this revelation and want to go home the final job is done - bone doctor is killed by Faust who has a signature style of choking adversaries between her legs after quickly climbing on top of them. For good measure she stabs the bone doctor who dies without revealing why he is called the bone doctor. This is singularly the most disappointing part of the movie when they give out suggestive names and do not tell us the back story. Poor bone doctor goes to his grave without the world knowing of his expertise.

Soon the big bad guy walks into a ready made gas chamber full of nerve gas which is instantly set up by the guys from IMF - he is actually introduced to the other guys by Hunt - meet the IMF he says. I thought they would all lock hands and watch the fellow die while they crack some jokes about gas. But they did not. But in a bad move, Hunt kills this chap, the same chap who let him live in the earlier gas incident. Considering all this happened under the nose of the CIA chief Alec Baldwin (who has a different name in the movie of course), IMF is reinstated (it was disbanded in the beginning in case I forgot to tell by a high powered committee based on Baldwin's plea - but that's not important because Hunt will go on irrespective). Faust and Hunt share longing looks and this is where Moore was so good - he never let a single woman slip through and always got busy in the end scenes. Never got sentimental either. Must be age you think? Maybe, but the stunts are brilliant as always. Also all the British guys come out looking bad and the Americans come out shining. Including the British PM. Why?

Must watch. Obviously. Great fun. This movie will also be remembered for the fact that it was here that I ate a huge tub of caramel pop corn!

A Pair of Silk Stockings - Kate Chopin

I am enjoying my little Penguins. They are about 50 pages long and most of them have more than one story. This one for example has five stories. One can fit them into small 20 minute slots while waiting etc.

'Desiree's Baby' is about a young couple who appear white for all purposes but who have a colored child. The suspicions are cast on the lady and she is driven away with the baby for having hidden her birth secret. While burning away the baby's belongings, cradle etc, the husband does not burn one letter. It is written by his mother to his father and she is happy that her son (who is born white) will never know that he belongs to a colored family. I would not have understood this story if I had not read 'Roots' and from there figured out the varying shades of people.

'Miss McEnders' is all moralistic and takes back work given to a lady whom she considers amoral. Miss McEnders wants to set the world right. The lady in question comes by and points a few truths to Miss McEnders who soon realises that the whole world knows of her father's treachery and her fiance's debauchery.

'The Story of an Hour' begins with the feeling of ecstasy that sweeps over a long suffering wife (who has a heart ailment) when she hears that her husband of many years died in an accident. She feels incredible relief. But within an hour comes the husband who has been mistakenly identified. Her happy heart breaks. Death by uncontrollable happiness says the doctor. Lovely.

I didn't get what Neg Creole was about.

'A Pair of Silk Stockings' is about poor Mrs Sommers who sets out with fifteen dollars and a host of good intentions of buying stuff for her children. She never buys anything for herself, nor eats because she just about makes ends meet. But when her hand falls on a pair of fine silk stockings at the shop she cannot resist and buys them for 2 dollars. Then she gives in and buys a fine pair of gloves, then has a fine lunch in a fine restaurant and then treats herself to a matinee. On the cable car home, she wonders if she cannot just go away forever on the cable car. Beautiful.

Kate Chopin tells fine stories.

A New Writer's Dilemma - Some Pointers

Recently I got a call from a friend of mine - after many years. While in the US he met another successful professional who had written a book based on her life experiences and was looking to get published. My friend said that he hoped I could guide her on how to get published because she had tried and given up. I told him I could share what I knew - not that I was an expert at getting published - but I'd had a few knocks along the way which could come in use.

When she called, I heard an interesting story from her. Her friend, a published author himself, had asked her to contact an agent. She did. The agent got back within an hour and told her that the entire book has to be rewritten. If it has to be rewritten at the level of writing for a top notch publisher, it would cost her 18 lakhs (one could buy a house for that). If it had to be rewritten at a normal level it would cost 3 lakhs. Take your pick. In both cases no guarantees of getting published. Your book will be taken out of your hands, your bank account dented seriously and someone will rewrite your book and go home laughing. The writer gave up on her dream of getting the book published and went back to her life. I would have if this would have been my experience too. After all publishing in India is vague and difficult to make a dent - if you do not have the right profile or are not persistent enough.

It's not about the 18 lakhs really though it was a jaw dropping amount for me. Many medium publishers would queue up outside to publish the book for half the amount! What anyone charges for their services is their own business and I have no problem with that really. But what reeked of mischief here in the agent's response was this. There is no real need for having someone rewrite the entire manuscript. (I saw it and I can pretty much say that there's no need to rewrite at all - just develop it some more.) It's not that she does not know how to communicate, or write. She's from India's top management institute, a senior Vice President in a large IT company and a Fulbright scholar. And anyway people write to express themselves, to feel good about what they have written, not have someone ghost write their stuff.

Any decent advise would have focussed on the improvements that the book might need and the time involved and costs involved. Not rewriting which is rather presumptuous. (Self publishing a book won't cost more than a lakh of rupees, for say a thousand copies.) Even if I get an expert editor to work through the book development process and pay another lakh to the editor (a decent amount) to help develop the book, we still have our book written by ourselves, which has a fair chance of getting published.

I suggested to her that since she was a first time author her work may need some work. Hiring the services of a good editor can help bring out the potential of the book. All it requires is patience (and and this is one thing one must have in this business, many rewrites and persistence). Let's say after a year, the book comes to some shape, she can then approach publishers or agents and try it out again. Worst case scenario, the self publishing route is always available as is the e-publishing route. My only word of caution for new writers before they jump on that route of sp and ep is that those are easier routes to take - which means one could compromise heavily on the quality of writing. One could instead spend time going through the grind because it will help better the craft.

Writing is a wonderful way to express oneself and it is a process that makes an honest person out of you. For good or bad, it is best if the writer writes his or her story herself because it is after all her story. More so when it is filled with such experiences of an intense nature. Agents and editors must encourage people to write, to go through the process and better themselves, perhaps give assistance there. Not merely take over the book, rewrite it and get it published under this person's name which would be a dishonest way to arrive at the result. (Rewriting is understandable when the person has no time, has language issues - not in these cases.)

I saw two more books recently written by first time writers. One who has written three full fledged novels and novellas - and a fine writer to boot with good command over the language and good story telling abilities. Another a young college goer. I feel it's the best time to write, so everyone who feels like it should write.

For all new writers then, go ahead and write. Work as hard as you can before you head to the publishers. Approach the agents and publishers. Face the feedback and the rejections. If it is not good enough, find a good editor who can help with the manuscript. It is your first after all so there could be some issues. There are plenty of good editors and you can find them if you search. Pay them well, work closely with them and develop the manuscript to satisfaction. Be patient. Then seek the agent and publisher again. If you still do not find success go the self publishing/ e publishing route. No harm. Your book is in good shape and you have worked at it hard enough to deserve this. Now with the Internet everyone has a space to express, to publish and get a fair chance. If it's good, it could just take off. If it does not, it's still okay, the journey would have grown you anyway.

The shortcuts are tempting. But they may not add to the development of the craft. Nor will you enjoy such fame - when you have not written your story. Enjoy the process, be true. If writing is about anything, its about honesty. So stay honest.

And keep writing!

Nice Link - 10 Most Beautiful Movies of All Time

Having Senthil as a friend on facebook is a huge boon. He comes up with these wonderful links. Here's one about 10 most beautiful movies of all time.
http://www.jamuura.com/blog/10-most-beautiful-movies-of-all-time/

I have seen two - Manhattan and Citizen Kane and have three more that I can access now. But something tells me I need to watch the other two again - Manhattan surely.