chaotic order

Jottings - Slice of life - 443 ( Nomadland - Director Chloe Zhao’s rich, meaningful, and visually beautiful meditation on life. Nominated in six categories for the 2021 Academy awards) ( Note - Keeping in mind the possibility that readers may not have seen this movie yet, I have deliberately avoided writing too much about the story, except for laying out the bare contours required to set the context of this essay) The word Nomad is derived from the Greek root “Nomas” — a wandering shepherd, someone who lives their life in seasonal patterns, never grazing the same pasture, but moving on in search of fresh verdure, meaning, and sustenance. To a nomad, life is not a destination, but a ceaseless journey without any permanent possessions, except the bare minimum to live. In Indian religious literature, there is an equivalent, and more beautiful sounding word, to describe this fluid state of living. It is “Parivrajaka” — the wandering ascetic mendicant; the bird that is ever on the mo

Jottings - Slice of life - 440 ( The sublime art of Sunil Gavaskar - A celebration of fifty years in Cricket) If the cricketing bat was a painting brush, then Sunil Gavaskar was its Rembrandt - a master of technique and discipline. If Cricket itself was a philosophy, then he was its Buddha - a combination of stoic serenity and unparalleled fluidity. It is fifty years since the great cricketing master strode to the field for his first game, a game he was born to play, a game upon which he would leave such an indelible mark that ( paraphrasing Einstein’s eulogy to Gandhi) “generations to come will scarcely believe that such a man in flesh and blood ever played the game of cricket”. In my opinion, there is no greater cricketing spectacle in history than watching the short, young Gavaskar, with no head protection, bat and gloves in hand, confidently stride to the middle, nonchalantly signaling to the umpire to validate his guard of the leg stump and doing so in a single attempt; and

In 1950, Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” created a sensation in world cinema. It still remains one of the most powerful movies ever made. The movie is about a rape and a murder in a wooded garden, and four different eye-witness accounts of it. Each of the accounts seems equally plausible and true. So, what is the truth? In an attempt to answer this question, Kurosawa cinematically presents different slices of what could be true and asks the viewer to arrive at their own judgments. The movie is at once a dazzling act of cinematic brilliance in its composition and style, and at the same, at a more profound level, a philosophical investigation into the nature of truth, evidence, and interpretation. In the opening shot, with torrential rain beating down on a dilapidated temple, one of the witnesses, a wood-cutter huddling together with a priest, begins the tale with the mysterious statement “ I don’t understand…”. The rest of the movie is an exploration of this question. In his autobiography

Arvind Adiga’s 2008 Booker prize-winning book “The white tiger” may not be remembered in the long run for its flowery prose or style, but it will certainly be appreciated for its hard-hitting tale about Indian society in the twenty-first century. When I read the book many years ago, I remember finishing it in less than five hours — a rarity for a Booker prize-winning work, which is usually dense and multi-layered. But “The White Tiger” in contrast was a breezy read. The pages turned with effortless ease, the language was uncomplicated, and the voice of Balram Halwai, the first-person narrator and the hero of the tale floats through the book, hypnotically recounting his life’s journey from a poverty-stricken, slavery ridden rural India, to an Indian metropolis, and becoming an entrepreneur and a master of his destiny. One would find the story surreal in certain places, exaggerated in a few episodes, but the overall narrative flows with rapid pace, a sure pen, and tremendous convictio

It is one hundred and thirty years since Oscar Wilde’s enigmatic, mysterious, and beautifully written novella, (the only full-length work he ever wrote) “The picture of Dorian Gray” hit the English book stands after much controversy and criticism. In 1889, The editor of the Lippincotts monthly magazine, J.M Stoddart, met and requested two authors - Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, to write a novel each for his magazine. Conan Doyle was quick to oblige, and within months submitted the now famous “ The Sign of Four” — the first of the great Sherlock Holmes adventures, but Wilde dilly-dallied. When Wilde finally gave the manuscript of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” to Stoddart in early 1890, the editor loved the writing but was appalled at the story and its implications. He begged Wilde to edit and rewrite some of its chapters. But Wilde refused to budge. The book was finally published in the June edition of the magazine, with an edit of only five hundred words, and nothing more. T

Jottings - Slice of life - 435 ( Awaara - vintage Raj Kapoor and Nargis) Growing up in India, Raj Kapoor’s 1951 social drama “Awaara” was always in the background of our cultural lives. If not anything else, the lilting Shankar-Jai Kishan Mukesh number “Me Awaara Hoon” with Raj Kapoor tramping about the city expounding the virtues of socialism in his Chaplinesque stride, was always on the radio or the television in some show or the other. We were constantly made aware by avid cinema lovers and people around, that the movie was widely acclaimed as a classic not only in India but across the world, especially in the erstwhile soviet union, where the virtues of a nobody-man, an Awaara, blended well the communistic philosophy prevalent at that time. It was secretly whispered into our ears that the sizzling nine-year romance between the talented and beautiful Nargis, the heroine of “Awaara” and the married Raj Kapoor, began on the sets of “Awaara” and continued surreptitiously until Nar

Jottings - Slice of life - 441 ( Sir - is love enough? a sensitive and beautiful cinematic masterpiece By Rohena Gera. A must watch!!) It is not often in Indian cinema, do we see films that reflect the best qualities of the cinematic art form. Most of our movies slide down the slippery slope of commercialism, and even good stories, which can be told without any commercial ornamentation, are timidly told with an eye on the cash register only. This is tragic but true. How many times have we not seen a good and socially meaningful story lose its meaning halfway through the movie, and the director lets the story meander aimlessly for lack of conviction or unsure of purpose? How many times have we not painfully seen a film that begins in right earnest to expose the oppressive social stratification in India, and only ends up creating larger than life heroes of ordinary characters and impossible endings? How many times has a film purporting to be a true commentary on the dignity of labor,

Jottings - Slice of life - 442 ( Adolf Eichmann, The trial of the century, Hannah Arendt’s bold hypotheses and its resonance in modern times) ( Note to readers: Even by my own standards, this is a lengthy essay. I wrote the draft of it yesterday night and added a few more paragraphs today morning. Hannah Arendt is one of my favorite thinkers. The events of the last few months, since the general election in the US, led to me read and think again about Arendt’s views on democracy, totalitarianism, and the role of the individual in it. I apologize for the length, but I do hope, you will find the story and the subject interesting enough to pursue your own analysis of these ideas, if you wish to. ) The eleventh of May 1960 was a pleasant fall evening in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The jacaranda flowers were beginning to bloom, and the air fragrant with the sweetness of the season. A Middle-aged man who called himself Ricardo Klement - bald, thin, a pointed nose, with a slight stoop, got