An Interview by Rushati Mukherjee - One of the Few I Really Liked

Young Rushati Mukherjee is a writer-blogger-poet-student at Jadavpur University. She came to attend the book launch at Kolkata in July and did an interview of mine. I read her blog - she writes so well. Even the interview - very well done. Thanks Rushati.

https://spiktinot.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/interview-blogger-author-harimohan-paruvu/

Normally with most interviews you feel like changing something after it gets published - you haven't expressed the idea properly or the other person has not. Here all goes well and like they say 'it all fits perfectly'. 

Thought for the Day - The Art of Gratitude and How it Unfolds

While doing a month-long gratitude program that Shobha has started, I had the following realisation. That if we look deep enough we have the entire universe to thank for its efforts to sustain us. In fact this is the closest I felt to the concept of being one because everything seemed interconnected completely.

If I look at the screen of he computer now I can see the people I am grateful to - the makers of the screen, the thought that went into it, the actual making, the ones who sold it, the ones who distributed it, the ones who helped me buy it (Sagar or Vasu), the ones who helped me finance it (Shobhs or some timely clients), the comfort it gives and helps me to write, to see what I wrote, and by extension I see the key board, the computer itself and I remember the people who keep it going (the repair men), the CPU, the storage which allows me to do some many things, movies, music, all other stuff I have and use, the table, the chair, the power company, the many people who work for the power company to supply me the same, the lights at home, the glasses of mine, doctors, opticians, money to buy all this, vision, health, those who sustain my health, doctors, life itself, parents who have gifted me this life, money in my pocket, home I live in, comfort I experience, support I have....the chair I sit in, the time I have, the choice I have, the leisure I have...its immense. More than anything, I found that its endless, this story, that nothing I experience comes by itself, and is sustained by so many people now and in the past. How can I even think I can survive this life by myself, that I am separate.

Nothing is separate. Every moment I am alive I am sustained by a million things, people. It's an endless ocean - and I wonder how ungrateful I have been by not recognising this. All I can say now is - thank you, thank you, thank you.  

Where is The Friend's Home - Movie Review

1987. Abbas Kiorastami. A village school has some discipline issues. Boys come late or do not do homework in their notebook. The teacher asks them to do their homework in their notebook or they will be punished - if they continue making the same mistake they will get expelled. One boy is given a final warning.

That evening the boy's close friend Ahmed realises that he has taken that boy's book home by mistake. He also realises that his friend could get expelled if the notebook is not returned to him. So the ten year old sets off without telling his parents to the next village to return the book. The young boy has no idea where his friend lives and has nothing to ask for except his name. No one helps him and in the end he finds an old man - perhaps the only person who listens to him properly - and tries to help him. However despite all efforts, the boy does not find his friend and returns home after a heroic effort.

The next day the boy who has misplaced his book realises he does not have his book. All other boys have come to school except for Ahmed who may be tired after his exertions while he tried to return the book. The teacher starts checking the homework and once again threatens to expel anyone who makes the same mistaken more than three times. Just as he reaches the boy who has lost his book, the young hero comes, a little late. He slips the note book to the owner and tells him he has done his homework as well. The teacher checks the notebooks and finds a dried flower - gifted by the old man.

Heroes are made of such stuff. Irani movies are brilliant in the use of metaphors.   

Point Blank - Movie review

Man is wounded and is being chased by two people intent on killing him. But before he can get killed by these two, he is hit by a motorbike and taken to a hospital. He survives. Another attempt is made on his life and he is saved by an alert nursing aide. Before the aide can tell the story of his heroics story to his pregnant wife at home, he is attacked and the wife kidnapped. The ransom - deliver the injured man.

Meanwhile the police find out that the injured man is a criminal, a safe breaker. Even as they zero in on him there is news that the murder of a prominent man in the city is perhaps linked to this injured criminal. Now, both the injured criminal and the nursing aide become fugitives as they escape the cops. The action is relentless as they try to find the one piece of evidence that can save them and expose the truth. Can they save themselves again cops who are not willing to listen to their story?

Edge of the seat stuff. So much happening that you miss some angles but that's ok. It's worth the exhilaration.

Tell No One - Movie Review

A doctor-social worker couple is at a lake enjoying a midnight swim when the lady is attacked and abducted. The doctor is also attacked and thrown back into the lake but miraculously survives and ends up in the hospital. The wife's body is found and identified and buried.

8 years later the doctor gets a hint that perhaps she may not be dead. And thus begins his search to uncover why his childhood love has gone missing for 8 years. Also the connection between her disappearance and the death of the son of a powerful man in the city. Superb chases, action sequences and twists and turns and we find there is more to the story than meets the eye. And there are heroes and villains most unexpected.

I like the French movies. They go at break neck speed with little action (as in exaggerated beating up of a 100 people kinds). Normal people in extraordinary situations and how they emerge from it. Very nice indeed.

Arjun Reddy - Movie Review

Arjun Reddy is a man with his own rules. He lives life like Virat Kohli lives his cricket - full blown intensity that does not diminish ever. He has anger management issues they say but I feel he probably has very firm ideas on what is good or bad and mostly cannot understand that there are other people around who also seem to have their opinion of good and bad. He is also very organised in his mind in one way, like topping exams, and very disorganised as in not understanding simple connections which gets him into trouble most times.

The doctor to be falls in love with a new student in his medical college. He likes her, so no one else can claim her else...No one has a say in the process, including the girl. She seems quite happy to be saved from ragging thanks to the rather influential Arjun Reddy Deshmukh. Of course there is a price to pay like being kissed by him, manhandled by him (he loves her and she is his) and stuff like that. He takes her along on his bike everyday and it develops into what would naturally develop between young people. Anyway they are in a relationship in every sense of the word. Except for another equally deranged character called Amit, all else is fine.

In a rather complicated series of events, the girl gets married in the space of one day (she cannot say no to her parents), the boy gets hooked to morphine and also manages to get himself kicked out of his home. He sinks into alcohol and all kinds of stuff to escape the pain. And in the end he finds her and they get married - she is pure after all. Left her husband and is actually pregnant by Arjun who was her only one. So the family gets together.

Vijay Devarakonda is intense, good looking and complete hero material in a superstar sense, and takes the film to where it gets. His friend Dr. Shiva is an able foil as the perfect friend. Well crafted and written and made with a lot of care and love. For the effort and the honesty, Arjun Reddy worked for me. Would I see it again - no. It's too intense. 

Gaslight - Movie Review

A 1944 thriller about a new husband slowly leading his new wife to believe that she is going insane - all to get to the prize jewels of her aunt's which have been well hidden by the aunt. Turns out the aunt was also murdered by the same man and he was stopped before making off with the jewels by the coming of the young niece, then a child. Slow but gripping.

Ingrid Bergman is wonderful as the wife who almost believes she is going insane and won Best Actress award at the Academy Awards. Charles Boyer is brilliant as the controlling husband.