Kullu Dreaming on NOWNESS ASIA
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The Kids Are All Right (2010)
Ragini MMS (2011)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Black Swan (2010)
Like I said before, Such a Brilliant movie after Such a Long time. A Beautiful Screenplay, Exquisite Visuals and Brilliant Acting makes this One of the Best Movies of 2010. While Mila Kunis was the much needed Spark in the movie, Deliciously Dark at times, the movie really rested on the shoulders of Natalie Portman. She’s one Star Actress who deserves more recognition. From playing a fragile girl to a malicious woman, she plays it all with such ease. Frenchman Vincent Cassel was great as the manipulating dance director. Barbara Hershey too was perfect as Portman's mother. The ballet was elegant and the use of special effects apt and justified. This is also the kind of a thriller movie which pretentious people can enjoy too without terming it ‘bourgeois’, as every other thriller gets branded otherwise. While some questions do remain unanswered, it’s a must watch for every other reason!
The Kids Are All Right (2010)
A Brother and a Sister born to a Lesbian Couple by Artificial Insemination try to find out their Biological Father. As the father gets more and more involved with the family, the dynamics of the happy house gets more and more disturbed. I liked this movie, even though *someone* seemed to hate it. Gah. Anyway, Superb Acting, no Stereotyped Lesbian Couple and a non-Hollywoody Ending. Even though Julianne Moore is great in her role as the Lesbian Counterpart of a Stay-At-Home-Mom-Wanting-To-Do-Something-More, she seems a bit uncomfortable in the kissing scenes. It was a Pleasant Surprise though at seeing Mia Wasikowska from Alice
Ragini MMS (2011)
You take The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, with a sprinkling of REC plus a bit of amateurish sex-scenes and you get Ragini MMS! Simple as that! It’s not that the movie was bad, but it was of a genre that has been Done to Death now elsewhere, even though it’s the Pioneer of its kind in Hindi cinema. The actor, Rajkumar Yadav, seems to’ve taken a Pledge to do only that kind of roles where he’s the Lusty Grey Character who has to make a sex-tape of some overtly trusting girl. In LSD, he succeeds to make one, here, the Bhootni-who-wasn’t-a-Chudail’s interference prevents him. The Bhootni isn’t the good kind, though. She bangs Miss Ragini left, right and centre. Also, she’s the kind that the Thackeray family’d approve of; she speaks shuddh Marathi only. Not a must watch, this is though the Perfect Date Movie, as the makers claim. It has plenty of silent moments which’d allow our daters to do exactly that only which our cinema halls’re popular for! :P
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Okay, I’m 60 years too late to see this classic, but in my defence, I began existing only 19 years ago. Cutting back to the movie, Vivien Leigh plays Blanche DuBois, a woman Too Primly Dressed for every occasion and who is haunted since and by the Suicide of her husband. She comes to live with her sister Stella and her working-class husband Stanley Kowalski, played by nonetheless Marlon Brando. The fact that Blanche and Stanley can't stand eachother is made apparent in the beginning only. Blanche is obsessed with the fear of Growing Old and is delusional more than half the time. Reality and Imagination mixes frequently for her as she tries to hide her Mucky Past from all. And then something Wrong happens to her in the end. This is one Psycho-Thriller that I’d recommend to everyone. Leigh over-acts with too much Frilly Movements but this is a character which well requires the Over The Top Mannerism. Kim Hunter is perfect as the loving sister and so is Brandon
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A Few Months from now, I’ll be in A New City. Hopefully in a one I like. And this move is not one that I’m upset about, though. New place, new people. Nice. What may ruin all of this is that I may also hate the city. As it happens, I’ve no control over which city I may actually move to.
For a Long, Long Time, it was granted that it’d be Bangalore
For an almost same amount of time, Delhi Bangalore
But then you ask why it’s second in the list? Well, it has some of the best monuments in the country, it is throat deep dipped inside History, the whole Old City
Third would be Kolkata, or as I prefer, Calcutta West Bengalis ’re quite snotty towards us, their Eastern Brethrens . But its Educational Institutions’re great. The whole Cultural thing is nice too. And also it’s the closest to Home, air-travel-wise. The least expensive too.
BUT, both Delhi Calcutta
While any new place’ll be exciting, I just don’t want to end up somewhere where I’d feel rotten the second the New-City-Honeymoon-Phase gets over.
That’d be Sad. And I don’t want 'Sad' again.
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It’s been more than 1 Year, 9 Months since I last Blogged. In Blopshere-talk, it means Suicide. It did cost me My Followers, all rest 2 whom I Suspect to be As Active As I Was until Now. In My Defence, Life has been more than Busy. Even then too, I was An Active Blog Reader, if Not An Active Blogger Myself.
When I look back at My Old Posts, I’m Proud, I wrote Such Long Blogposts! :D Which may not be Possible anymore. Anyway, I imported the Old Posts from the Old Blog into This New One and No, don’t ask me about The Name. A Long Summer Hat. That was some Random Phrase that went through My Head and became The Name for The New Blog.
Anyway, I Hope this one doesn’t get Killed like the Last One did!
Adios!
PS: The pic's just because A Pic-Less Post doesn't exist Here.
PS2: Yes, I Love putting Random French Words here and there. Merci Beaucoup! ;)
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This takes Mammoth Amount of Courage and Shameless-ness to confess that it was Only A Month or So Back that I Visited and Used a Public Library for the First Time, or any Library if you don’t count in The Horror of a Library that Our School (the Honourable K.V.) Library was. Coming to think of it, My First School's Library, a Private One, fared so much Better than the Centrally Backed One.
Coming back to The Point, I Never Before had to use any Library. I always Believed that you must Own the Books you Read or which you Thought you Would have Read, which has been The Case for Me Quite a Lot of Times. The Sight of Books does Wonder to My Body that even Mallika Sherawat fails to Do. The Breathing Increases so does The Heart Beat. The Brain Rejects to Process Any Other Stimuli. The Smell, Texture and the Sound of Turning a Page reign Supreme.
The Idea to Join The Library near My Place (Truth be Told, that’s The Only One in This Goddamned Place) occurred when I read that it was being 'Revived' again. Once it was One of The Best District Libraries of The Region, until Governmental Complacency became The Reason it turned into The Perfect Bollywood styled Bhoot Bangla. An Indoor Auditorium just Next to It kept It from being Totally Neglected and It got its Regular Painting Sessions. But it Was Rotting from Inside. Literally.
The Library is within 1 Minutes Distance from where I Haunt, and Since Curiosity had already Killed The Cat, I wasn't Left Out Too. A Short Visit there Insured Me a Form and Within a Week I got My Very Own Green Leather Looking Plastic Covered Tiny Library Card.
As I entered The Library, The Middle Aged Male Librarian looked up from Gossiping with His Female Counterpart.
"Card ase?"
"Hein."
As None of My Non-English Languages Reading Skills(read: Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit and to a little extent, Assamese) are Even Passable, I asked for The English Language Section. Without a Proper Answer or even a Crude Gesture towards the site, he began Inquiring Me of Exactly what Type of Book I wanted.
He Stared Me for A Second, and Then Rushed off Behind Some Shelf. I mentally Wished He Was Suffering from Some Bad Mid-Life Crisis.
"Here."
I followed His Voice, and there He was, Guarding a Whole Lot of Books. English Books.
Old English Books.
"Here."
He pointed towards Them.
For A While, I Dreaded The Thought That He was going to Stay and Ask me now Exactly Which Book I wanted (I even had An Answer Ready; Kama Sutra, just To Piss Him), Hand That To Me and Then Throw Me Out of His Long Forgotten Abode, Whose Tranquine Desertedness I had come to Disturb. But he Left. Thank You Very Much.
The Library allows Its Members to Borrow 2 Books At A Time for 15 Days. It was Build Decades Ago, When India Was Another Western-World-Perceived-About-To-Disintegrate-Huge-Socialist-State. It Reflected The Dead Ordinariness of the 60s and 70s Indian Socialism. Basic Wooden Shelves With Moth Eaten Leather Bound Books. And as Expected, I was The Only One Browsing through Them.
My Spying Skills (the Date Label stuck Inside to be More Precise) told me that Readers were/are Scare for This Library. How To Kill A Mockingbird had it Being Issued Last during The Later 80s. Umrao Jaan Adah in 1992. Wuthering Heights in 1999. And Twilight In Delhi in 2001.
Most to All Readers of This Sleepy Town buy Their Own Books. Or to a Lesser Degree, Borrow from Someone Else. But never from a Library. That The Local Library has Masterpieces Rotting inside Escapes Everyone's Attention. The Fact that Russia was once India’s Big Bro is Quiet Apparent. A Majority of The Books has been Penned by The Russian Masters. Tolstoy, Gogol et al. Second came The Native Indians, The Curry Eating Ones (Khushwant Singh, Mukul Kesavan), then the English (The Bronte Sisters, Austen) and then the rest.
The Collection It has is Vast. I didn’t Expect The Latest of The Books, and neither didn it Deserve the Expectation too, though, it did have the odd Jhumpa Lahiri, Aravind Adiga, William Dalrymple and more. Moreover, the Collection in The Reading Room was Much Better. Though it didn’t Allow those Books to be Issued, nevertheless, I found a New Corner to burn My Time going over TheArt of Vogue Covers 1909-1940 or The one on Mughal Architecture. Bliss.
To give The Library and The ‘Reviving Committee’ its due, Yes, Things are Looking Up. Books are Categorised, and Actually kept According to Genre! I wasn't even Allowed to enter the Reading Room when I First visited The Library as it was Experiencing Its First 'Maintenance Works' in Decades. A Trust from Calcutta named after Raja Ram Mohan Roy had Donated Several Books, both New and (mostly) Old Titles, to its Kitty too. The Library was to get A New Website soon too. And Every Thing has been Computerised.
Seeing such Marvels go to Waste, I contemplated to Nick a Few Away. Atleast They would be Read and Valued, kept Properly inside Glass Shelves. As My Immoral Plans were taking Shape, I gave the Female Mid-Aged Librarian My Selected Copy of Twilight In Delhi by Ahmed Ali(sudden remembrance of another Blogger's Blog had made me pick it up).
(since then, The Blogger has Nicked one.)
She took My Card away and gave Me the Ownership of The Book for The Next Half Month. As I left The Library, I opened The Book and The Smell, hinting it being Opened Again in A Long Time, hit My Olfactory Glands. My Eyes fell on A Random Verse in The Book( it's Filled with Them):
I’m the light of no one’s eye,
The rest of no one’s heart am I.
That which can be of use to none
-Just a handful of dust am I.
Bahadur Shah Zafar
The Library Seemed to Say The Same.
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One of My Wishes listed in My Previously Posted Bucket List came Partially True. The Delhi High Court, after Some Nudges from The Supreme Court, has Finally given Its Verdict that rules Homosexual Acts Between Two Consenting Adults in Private as Being Completely Legal. It’s just Not An Act of Giving A Repressed Minority Community its Basic Human Rights, but It also Denotes That Our Country Is Changing. And This Time for The Better.
It Proves that Our Judiciary is Not a Weak, Corrupted, Outdated Institution. Its One of The Few Times in The Very Recent Times, when I felt Obsessively Proud to be An Indian, and The Only Time when It regarded Withholding Human Rights.
The Claims of The Religious Groups that it is Against God, Nature and 'Indian Culture' are Extremely Funny at Their Best and Extremely Gut Pukingly Disgusting at Their Worst. A Baba Ramdev Admiring Friend of Mine recently Lost Her Admiration after The Baba made His 17thCentury Era Comments on Homosexuality. And No, She was Fully Straight.
How come Sex between Two Consenting Adults Harm God? Hey! If God weren’t So Imaginative in That Department, then Gays wouldn't have Existed in The First Place. They Really didn't Come Along with Jadoo, We All Know That.
And Nature is Still Largely Unexplored that Making Claims like XYZ is Against Nature is Not Only Whole-ly Wrong, but Expresses The Person's Pea-Sized Understanding about The Very Nature They seem To be are Guarding.
And those Godsend Protectors of Indian Culture should First take a Crash Course in Ancient Indian Culture, Starting with a Field Trip to Khajuraho and then a Quick Look through Kama Sutra. When Ancient Temples, Scriptures and Mythology are Filled with LGBT References, then Which 'Indian Culture' are They Defending?
Do We even have a Composite 'Indian Culture' to Begin with? Such Questions Always remain Unanswered by the Moral Police in This Nation, and People Continue to Oppress and Be Oppressed.
-:Finite:-
