Romulus, My Father

A couple of days ago, they were showing Munich on HBO. Coming so close after the Mumbai attacks, a lot of the anger seemed familiar.

But this post is not about Munich or Mumbai, there's only so much you can discuss hate. Munich just reminded me of Eric Bana's other movie I recently watched: Romulus, My Father.

The movie explores the relationship between a father and son very intimately. It has speaking silences and spaces (something that I loved very much): the director, Richard Roxburgh, doesn't see the need for dialogue or narrative in some of the strongest moments of the movie. The movie had potential to be a very melodramatic one, yet it shies away from the overt expressions of melodrama.

This is perhaps Eric Bana's best performance till date. There is a natural, quiet way about him that suits this movie well. Kodi Smit-McPhee, Bana's son in the movie, is very lovable and shows very sensitive acting. There's a lot of joy in the movie, thanks to Kodi, despite the sadness that runs through it.

The movie is based on Raimond Gaita's memoir. Gaita grew up in rural Australia through his mother's painful absences and unstable behaviour and his father's resilience.

I would love to watch this movie again for its silences and the gaunt Australian landscape.

No explanations will do for little Moshe. He will cry for his mother for a long time to come.

Heart goes out to him.

Scribbled between 102 and 103 degrees

I wrote this down in my diary on 25 October in the throes of typhoid. For your reading pleasure/misery:

I am ill and looks like will continue to be ill for some more time. I sleep almost all day and then wake up abruptly in the middle of the night, fully alert and nothing to do. So I gaze at Linc's calm, sleeping face, listening to his little breathing sounds.

After a very long time - I really cant remember when was the last time I slept non-stop for 6 days - I have some quality time to myself :( And I have been thinking ...

I have been thinking of:

a) how illness/disability can wipe you off from the public scene. Not that I am being wiped off. Nah, not yet. It just made me think - of people who have been pushed behind the scene, who have to be 'lugged' in and out of their homes once in so many months for something absolutely unavoidable like a visit to the doctor's. They might be in their teens, but there's no movies for them, no eating out, no flirting, in short, no life.
It is all the more harder on those who have known a 'normal' life until the crippling event happened. Yet, people with real hard cores crawl and limp back to where you can see them once in a while. I had interviewed one such person - Mahesh of Mobility India. He wasn't very bitter about what he had been through, and I remember wondering why not.

b) Sir. His typical reaction on hearing that I was sick would be, "Oh Viju! That's horrible! You must do this ... and you mustn't do this..."
Linc often catches me talking of him in the present tense. For me, he refuses to be relegated to the past. I get a feeling I will miss him throughout my life. Some people just don't have the right to die. At least not him.

c) all the bedtime stories my father told us. He has amazing story-telling powers, complete with sound and visual effects, making the whole thing very dramatic. He dug out stories from - where else - the Mahabharata and Ramayana. He never repeated stories unless we requested for it, but he absolutely refused requests for more than one story at a time.
I wonder what stories today's parents are telling their children. Is it the TV that puts them to sleep? I dont know... how many stories do you think you could tell your children, day after day?

Working from home... and loving it!

A few months ago, I began working on my own as an editor and writer. And I must say that I like the experience, with all its accompanying risks. I had never realized that there is such a market out there for good freelance writers and editors in India. After working in all kinds of companies – MNCs, newspapers, proprietary firms, start-ups – I thought I had seen it all.

But working from home has its own rules, which, if followed, will work well for you. A few things I learnt from my short stint as a freelance writer and editor are:
a. Discipline. There’s no one to watch over you, which is good and bad. It’s up to you to keep your mind on track all the time, without giving in to tempting distractions like watching TV or chatting/talking to family and friends during work hours.

b. Clarity. The terms of work should be very clear between you and your client. If something is not getting through over e-mail or chat, call your client and discuss it thoroughly. Unless you completely understand your role, do not commit to anything. And if the client says the details can be worked out later, insist on doing it before you take on the task.

c. Do not compromise. You should know what your rock bottom price is and, however hard the client bargains, do not go below this. At the end of the day, after all the hard work, you want to be satisfied with what you earned. Otherwise, what’s the point? You might as well take up a regular job.

d. Be fair to yourself and your client. There is only so much humanly possible. Keep this in mind when taking on new assignments.

e. Take time off. You might end up working all the time and sometimes it may be necessary. But take at least an hour off each day in which you do only what you love to do.

f. Smile. Yes, handling clients can be tough, but relax: at least you don't have a boss to manage. How many people can afford such luxury?

Working on your own can be dicey, as you never know if a client will come back or not. But good work is noticed, and what the heck? No job is secure unless you are employed with the Government of India, is it?

My whirlwind Goa trip

We didnt have too much time, but still had fun. It was also a historical moment for me, because I have lived just 4 hours away from Goa for most of my life, but never could be there. Some beach pics here.

Yippee!!

I won an award. I dont have any acceptance speech ready, but will say this: thank you Vinod. Felt good.

Now, I know am supposed to pass it on, but that will take some time. Please bear with me.

Today, I got in touch with two long-lost friends. It felt as good as a fresh breeze from the Ganga on a damp, sweaty day In Kolkata. It was also very hilarious remembering what we were then and fitting it into our present life scenarios. One friend asked me if I still participated in debate competitions. I don’t know why but I almost fell off the chair laughing.

I thought of all of our lives. Our great little magnificent lives. And I thought of the things that we used to talk about – homework, boys in class, Shah Rukh Khan, periods and how evil they were... Aah, we talked a lot then. And sang and laughed like crazy.

I felt amused by the things my friends remembered about me - it was like looking at myself from the window of a time machine.

My friend said we couldn't keep in touch because of our changed priorities. Is that so, I thought. I'd give my right arm to talk away to glory to my friends on the terrace of my Hubli house. Have priorities changed? I don't know, I'd rather say we are too involved with our lives, any which way you look at it.

Few people have the presence of mind, the will, and the opportunity to step aside a moment and go after the thing they started out looking for. Praveen is such a person. He amazes me with the single-minded way in which he's trying to seek something that's close to his heart.

Whenever I think of him, I think of my life and what am doing with it. But then I realise that our lives cannot be compared. In fact, no one life can be compared to another, I'd say. Each to his or her own.

Very funny, I thought, and hence must share this.

Look within

Into the Wild is about a young man who wants to avenge himself by running away from his parents, their materialism (basically everything they stand for), home, and society in general. A lot of teenagers think about doing that, and some do it, too. But Christopher McCandless redefines running away by going to Alaska, because he wants to be absolutely sure he will never be found. And he never is, not alive at least.

He’s running away from a lot of childhood trauma brought on by his constantly fighting parents. His pain is so intense that he cannot think and act like mainstream people do. On his way to Alaska, he meets different and interesting people and some insightful experiences happen. I especially liked what Ron, the old man, tells Chris, “When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines upon you.”

Almost the entire movie is about is trying to wish away, nullify or deny some hurtful memories/people. His entire endeavour of running away is shaped or motivated by two people he desperately wants out of his life. When you do such a thing, you have not overcome it. It’s like you owe your entire existence to the pain. You are shaped by exactly the person or thing you hate or want to avoid. But then, what do you do when something bites inside you? Everything you do will naturally be driven by that pain, wont it? What do you do to overcome that pain? Hard questions, no easy answers.

When ‘rubber tramp’ Jan tells him that he should not be so hard on his parents, Chris says, “I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth.”

So, what is truth? Or, should I rather say, what is the truth for Mr McCandless?
“Happiness is real when shared.” (This is the last thing that he jots down in his diary.) Is that his truth? And does he realize this truth only because he forgave his parents? So, the thing he was running away from was right within…?

Certain things this movie made me think of: if, say, there are people in similar life-situations who cannot walk away and have to face pain each day. How do they realize their truths (if at all there’s one to be realized)? What are their truths? Are they vastly different from McCandless’?

A thoughtful movie, well made. I loved the background music, too.

New-age moneylenders

Over the last year or so, quite a few people who borrowed money from banks killed themselves. Reason: they missed an EMI or two and the collection agencies hounded them like crazy and humiliated them.

That made me think of the many calls we receive from banks, begging us to take loans. It doesn’t matter that you already have one and are on the verge of selling your furniture to pay back the loan. They’ll still try to shove another loan down your throat. I don’t understand how this works.

If 60-70% of a person’s income is already tied down in debt payments, on what basis do banks ask that person to take another loan? I know that loan begets loan if you have a good credit history. Am no finance guru, but isn’t it necessary, amidst all that hard selling, to think about the loan repayment capacity of the borrower?

I was wondering if this was happening only in India. But recently, I saw a documentary, The American Nightmare, with the same subject, that is, people falling for easy loans that quickly become traps. I think the documentary was set in Cleveland where houses in whole localities were boarded up and put up for auctions. Pretty scary.