New Delhi Book Fair 2014

I love being with books. This is one of the reasons I love book fairs. The recent, New Delhi Book Fair, was not as big as the one held in February, New Delhi World Book Fair. It doesn’t matter, as long as there are all those small stalls selling books at a discounted price of Rs 100 and Rs 50, and as long as I have some cash in my pocket, I am happy. At the recent book fair, which concluded on August 31, both were there. There were stalls which were selling three books for Rs 100. Can you imagine getting The Hobbit, The Remains of the Day and an Ian Rankin novel together for Rs 100? I did. I actually got so many other books, total 169, during my trip to the fair almost every day of the week.

It’s mighty fun, and it’s chore too. First, the books are not arranged, they are just dumped, like cheap vegetables during the season. You have to really get close, leaf through each and every copy, and find your treasure, and what treasures, Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum for Rs 100. Ditto Will Self’s hard cover edition of Umbrella. Did I mention, books with author’s signature? I got a copy of The Tiger Claw (2004) by Shauna Singh Baldwin, with her signature, dedicated to some woman, who must have thoughtlessly sold it to raddi. Sad.

And there were so many books with so many authors I have never heard about, no, not the authors like Mayer and the authors of that Gray book, but authors who were not in my horizon at all, like Jodi Picoult. I had to run a Wikipedia search to find out who she was, and apparently she is very popular.

I wonder from where these books come. They are not just books left unsold in a bookshop. I picked up book signed by some reader in England, books with Oxfam sticker, a book with a used British Airways ticket from Manchester to Landon. The traveller was reading Ian Rankin’s Hide & Seek. Mind you, all those books selling for Rs 50 or Rs 100 are foreign imprints, not India, except when they are Indian books.

I wonder where they get the books. I asked the boy in one of the stores. He does not know. He was hired to man the store for the duration of the fair. Why am I so concerned? Perhaps I want to go to the source, and find more books. When it comes to books, enough is never enough.

The Hours

Michael Cunningham. The Hours. 1999. London: Fourth Estate, 2003

There is a delicious irony of future projection, which, I am sure must have made the author very happy. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and then made into an award-winning film, with Nicole Kidman getting an Oscar for her role as Virginia Woolf, false nose and all.

In the first Mrs Dalloway chapter, we see projections of both. In the flower shop, the shopgirl, Barbara, asks if Richard has won a Pulitzer. Later, at the same place, from the window, Clarissa gets a glimpse of a movie star shooting a scene in the New York street. She wonders if it was Maryl Streep or Vanessa Redgrave. She is almost sure it was Maryl Streep. Maryl Streep, of course, went on to play the role of Clarissa Dalloway in the ensuing movie.

We are sure the author is partial to Streep. A little while later Clarissa hears two girls talking about the said movie star. One says it was Susan Sarandon and the other says it was Streep. Clarissa supports the Streep argument.

Virginia

Grondahl, Jens Christian. Virginia. trans Anne Born. Great Britain: Cannongate, 2003

This small work of fiction by the Danish author tells the story of a lingering guilt by a middle-aged man, about the time when he was 18, and about the girl he was infatuated with.

The narrative moves between past and present within sentences as the narrator tries to reconstruct the story, by his own admission unreliable, not only from his point of view but also from the point of view of the girl, as she was, when she came to spend a summer near the sea, during the war. This is where she rescued an English airman fallen out of the sky, and eventually fell in love, in a span of two days, in the darkness of the night, before the Germans found him, no thanks to the boy.

The Virginia of the title is not the name of the girl, not that she remained virgin. She got married and moved to Paris. But that’s not the story here. In the story, she goes nameless, so does the narrator, or everyone else. The name refers to the Virginia tobacco that came from the solitary cigarette from the silver cigarette case that the English airman had given to the girl, and which the girl, after many years, gave away to the narrator.

The story is strange and is filled with a sense of worldly melancholia that only, perhaps, Scandinavian authors can manage to evoke. It is something to do with atmosphere in those countries, I guess.

It is a brave story, told with brevity. Even in the spacious page design, it doesn’t exceed more than 120 pages. You can finish reading the book in one sitting, and once you have finished it, what a feeling!

The rock band Scorpions once crooned, “…When we are hungry, love will keep us alive…” But, we know that that’s not true, and the undead lovers of Jim Jarmusch’s meditative twist to the vampire sub-genre, Adam and Eve, in Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), learn it to their despair, who are forced to leave their intellectual pursuits and their romantic melancholia to hunt during the night, for ultimately, everyone needs sustenance, raw and primal… Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston in Only Lovers Left Alive…

The updated battle between the monsters vs aliens, as usual on the streets of an American city, this time in San Francisco, where the hapless humans are just terrified witnesses and innocent casualties, who can only hide behind half-open windows… in Gareth Edwards’ reboot of Godzilla (2014)

Chandni Chowk in Purani Dilli, the centerpiece of Shahjehan’s beloved Shajehanabad, now a living ruin, where past and present jostle together for space, where the air is filled with the odour of memory, where several Indias merge into something indecipherable, something utterly terrible and beguilingly beautiful…

A pair of mannequins on the window of a swanky foreign retail brand in Connaught Place. There is story here, between these smartly dressed dolls imitating humans, perhaps a pair of lovers… He is smug and determined, she is upset about something and she says, enough is enough… I cannot fathom their argument, and they carry on with their little drama and I carry on with my life... I like that shirt he is wearing, but I cannot afford it…

Paani

I saw the film in May at a film festival at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. I was meaning to write about it, but always kept postponing it. Now that the movie is being released in Asom, I thought, I would contribute my two bits.

I was actually dreading to go to the screening. Since the film was being showed at a festival, I expected it to be an arty-type serious drama on the social issue of water. Not that I have problems with those arty-type movies, but at times they can be very slow, and very boring, even if they are making some interesting points. I went to the film expecting to be bored.

Happily, the film was short, by the standards of regular Asomiya films at least, and happily, it was not slow. The action moved at a decent pace, there was no unnecessary rona-dhona and stuff. But did I like the film? I don’t know.

In short, the film is a biting satire not only how the government machinery works, but also the mentality of the people, and also on elections. (I watched the film when this brouhaha about the general elections was going on and it felt really relevant), but the film attempts to present its satire in a heap of comedy, of the bawdy variety that Assamese films are tend to do (like the hand-pecked husband, for example). I am not sure the concoction works. I was not really bored, but I was not really satisfied either.

Paani tells the story of a village in Upper Asom and how the villagers react when the local MLA decides to offers the village free water supply. Before the screening, director Jadumoni Dutta had mentioned how the film is about how best intentioned public service initiatives not always reach the common people due to intervention of various factors in the chain, both public servants and the common men as well.

So, it is. Thus, as one may have expected, the MLA and the irrigation department guys are not identifiably bad people, whereas the poor villagers are not all victims.

The minister wants the water supply to win the elections. The villagers want the water supply because the river, who had offered them drinking water, is now polluted. There is a feisty girl who fights for the rights and helps the minister win for water. There is a mute boy who loves the girl. There is another comic foil to this love story. There is a local boy who is miffed for not getting the contract for the work. There are other assorted villagers.

Then there is the character played by Bishnu Khargharia. Khargharia is a great actor, but I think, in the recent times, he has been type-cast to a degree which is almost unbearable, where he is reduced to playing a cranky old man with a person agenda. Here, is a rich man, who feels slighted by the fact that the authorities decided to install the water tap in the public field outside the village school, instead of outside his house. So, he takes the matter on his own hands, steals some of pipes and builds another tap outside his house. The way these scenes are depicted, it has an obvious comic undertone, and we do not realise the far-reaching consequences of his action until it is too late. The film ends where it begins, of course. The status quo prevails.

The best part is how the director refuses to hammer this story of ineffectiveness of public services on the audience. Instead, he is more interested in showing the villagers react to the event. This, of course, bodes well for the film. There is a slice of life of the village, where nothing is conclusive, not even the love stories, which are just hinted at. This is one of the reasons why I liked the film.

Pause Rewind Play

Mazumdar, Priyanuj, Pause Rewind Play (Chennai: Notion Press, 2013)

There was a time when books had two distinct target audiences – children and adults. Since then, especially after the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series, there has emerged a new breed of readers – young adults, referred to the people from pre-teen to post-teen years, before they realise that love, dreams and ideologies are not enough, you also need to do a job at some point of your life (sorry for being the cynic!).

There are no rules, however. These readers could be either young or old. The young adult readers are not confined to a particular genre or a kind of writing. They may like anyone from J K Rowlings to Susanne Collins to our own Chetan Bhagat and Ravindra Singh. What young adults readers want is a young hero they can identify with, a more tortured, idealised version of themselves, somebody with extraordinary problems, real issues; the story must narrate how the hero or the heroine overcomes these hurdles.

Interestingly, however, most authors of these young adult fictions are adults themselves, grown men and women, with experience of life and with skill and facilities for narrative structure and language.

This is what makes me ponder over as I finish reading Priyanuj Mazumdar’s novel ‘Pause, Rewind, Play’. Priyanuj is a teen-ager himself, a student of Class 12 and he has written the novel in first person, about a group of friends in a school very much like his, complete his classroom antics, the ups and downs of friendship, the pangs of first love, those youngsters’ love for hard rock, especially, the band Lamb of God, and the whole nine yards of being a teen-ager in a modern Indian city.

I am tempted to assume that the story is autobiographical. It may be. What surprised me are other socio-political issues that the teen-age author brings to the mix, from describing the natural beauty of the state of Assam, to highlight the issues of insurgency in the North East (the narrator’s younger brother was killed in a bomb blast.). More surprising for me is how sensitively the author handles these issues.

And, I am surprised by the last chapter of the book, which is set seven years later after the events narrated in the novel, when the group of five friends meet again, after spending years apart, as they went on their separate ways to pursue higher studies. In this, the author narrates the lives of those friends in the last seven years with succinct detail, their achievements and their regrets. As a critic, I found the chapter superfluous. It had not business to be part of the book. Yet, it is the most skillfully written portion of the book; a testament that Priyanuj has it in him what it takes to be a successful writer.

Another aspect that sets the book apart among the clutter of popular fiction being published in India today, whether by teen-agers or adults, is that the book is set in the North East, Guwahati to be precise, and the book makes it a happy place, unlike what the rest of India makes of it, despite an occasional bomb blast. Priyanuj’s Guwahati is not a rudimentary city ravaged by years of insurgency and corruption, but a place thriving with music and hope, with all the trappings of a multicultural identity, from multiplexes to Pizza Huts. His description of the city has the beguiling simplicity of first love, which cannot be dissected or judged, but has to be experienced with a sense of giddiness.

And then there’s music. In the Indian context, North East is known to be a haven of Western music, especially Shillong. Now, the novel establishes that there is a sizeable fan of hard rock in Guwahati as well, where it is quite plausible to take a trip all the way to Bangalore just to attend the show of the band, Lamb of God.

Krish, student of a posh city school, has a dream, to start his own band and win the school competition. The problem is solved when Annie joins their class. She sings well. Now, Krish and his cronies, Adi and Ria, make up with another friend, Joe, the best guitarist in the school. They have the band ready in no time and despite the pressure of studies, they start to practice and generally have fun, -- the glory of being a teen-ager. Krish even gets a girlfriend for a while. The school band competition, unlike a cheap Hollywood script, is not even the climax of the story Krish narrates here. The story is his life itself, how he must grow up and go to the next level, even if it breaks his heart to do so. So, they win the band competition and even gets a contract to play outside the school. (All fiction is an act of wish fulfillment and I am all for giving the young author a chance.)

Then there are other things, including a terrorist attack. Krish is heartbroken as his girlfriend dumps him for not sending him enough SMSes, his friends experiment with narcotics, and so on. And, the year ends. School is over and friendship must pause.

Frankly, there is no plot as such. The action moves from one event to another in a linear structure, in the course of one year. There is no beginning, middle and end, as required by a classic story structure. Yet, when Priyanuj describes a situation, he can hold the reader’s attention. He makes the readers care about these teen-age issues, which frankly, are no big deal. Another thing where he excels is the dialogues. They are crisp and age-specific.

Understandably, the author is young and he will need some more experience in writing to muster the structure of a novel form. There are occasions where his descriptive passages sound the extracts from a school essay. This is more of an observation than a criticism, because whatever he writes, his language is impeccable. He has good command over the language, including vocabulary. I really wanted to find some mistakes in his sentence construction, but I found none. This is indeed a high praise considering how so many popular English language writers in India write such atrocious English. Even Priyanuj uses Hinglish, and other popular colloquial usages, but he uses them judiciously.

I am not saying this is a great book, despite the fact that it won the best novel award in Guwahati Literary Festival and Book Fair 2012. However, the book is a pacey, interesting read. And, for the readers outside the North East, who still know very little about Assam, the book can give you a sneak-peak into the lives of teen-agers in Assam, who essentially are the same everywhere, though some of them may have lost their kin in a bomb blast.

Santa Sangre

The defining moment in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1989 Mexican-Italian avant-garde romp Santa Sangre (Holy Blood), where the proponent of the Santa Sangre cult, who worships a young school girl, a rape-victim whose both hands were chopped off by the perpetrators of the crime, gets her hands chopped off by her philandering husband, and a life is doomed. Several lives in fact, as years later, her insane son comes back to be her hands, and more than that, in a perverse reimagining of a oedipal complex plot, the way only Jodorowsky can achieve…

The First Date

A short story after a long time. And, the fact that it’s in Open Road Review is a happy bonus. In August 2014 issue. Thank you, the good people of Open Road Review.

Read the Story Here. http://www.openroadreview.in/first-date-dibyajyoti-sarma/

Connaught Place in New Delhi at midnight, deserted. It has almost a supernatural atmosphere as the revellers retire for the day, as the pavement-sellers and the boys selling t-shirts outside Palika Bazaar shut shops for the night, as the parked cars surrounding the circle of the white-washed colonial edifice disappear… The night is for drunk men, for seekers of clandestine sex, for stray autorickshaw drivers and the beggars… The empty streetlights that utterly fail to illuminate the night soaked in memory and nostalgia, which cannot maintain the balance sheet of loss and gain…

Jayadol

It was a surprise. A happy surprise. I had this book with me for a long time – The Dragonfly: Stories (2006). I had never got around reading it. Today morning, I picked up the book in random, to read on the Metro while going to office. There is the first story, by Agyeya titled ‘Jayadol’, translated by Kaveri Rastogi from original Hindi. I wondered what the title meant and dived into the story, suddenly the names of Dibrugarh and Sibasagar cropped up, and I perked up.

As I read on, I am unreasonably happy, almost teary-eyed.

Here is one Hindi author, who decided to tell a particular story from the pages of Asomiya history, with such understanding and with such nuance and such drama…

The story is narrated from the point of view of Lieutenant Sagar, posted in Asom, who wants to visit the historical temple in Sibsagar district called Jayadol and the lake in front of it, called Jaysagar, both dedicated to Jayamati, the legendary heroine of Assamese history, wife of a great Ahom king and mother of the greatest of them all, Swargadeo Rudra Simha.

On the way, there is rain. Lt Sagar loses his way and enters into an old structure, where he has an epiphany, a fever-dream about this particular chapter of Jayamati’s life when the cruel king Chulik-Pha was hunting the Ahom princes, including Jayamati’s husband, Gadapani.

Agyeya dramatizes the story to a large extent, but whatever. I am so damn happy, so damn proud that a page from Asomiya history fueled the imagination of a great Hindi author.

On the eve of 66th Independence Day, if this is not an example of national integration, nothing is.

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PS. I saw copy of the original collection where Jayadol first appeared, and I had to take a picture. Now, I regret not picking up the copy at the New Delhi Book Fair, which concluded on August 31, 2014.

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Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya' (सच्चिदानन्द हीरानन्द वात्स्यायन 'अज्ञेय') (7 March 1911 – 4 April 1987), popularly known by his pen-name Ajneya ("Beyond comprehension"), was a pioneer of modern trends not only in the realm of Hindi poetry, but also fiction, criticism and journalism. He was one of the most prominent exponents of the Nayi Kavita (New Poetry) and Prayog (Experiments) in Modern Hindi literature, edited the 'Saptaks', a literary series, and started Hindi newsweekly, Dinaman.

Agyeya also translated some of his own works, as well as works of some other Indian authors to English. He also translated some books of world literature into Hindi.
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On this day eight years ago, I joined The Times of India, Pune Edition. And, for five-and-a-half-years, I had the time of my life. And, it was not the job; a job is just a job – but for my wonderful colleagues, and my invaluable seniors. Thank you guys, each one of you. You know who you are and I remember each one of you. We had such a marvellous time, and not just the drinks…

I wonder why I did I leave. Perhaps I could contain on this much love, or perhaps I had to go away to treasure what I had been given…

Delhi By Heart

It’s an important book with an interesting point of view. A Pakistani Muslim travels to so-called secular India and is enamored by Mughal India, among other things. And perhaps, it is a timely book. Yet, I wish the author was not so influenced by William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns. That book is a clear model for Delhi By Heart and it proves to be its undoing. Granted, the book talks more about the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah than Dalrymple ever did, and that too brlliantly (When he discuses Sufi saints, like Sarmad, Rumi is at his best), yet, the book cannot rise above being derivative.

I think the book needed some massive editing. The language is stilted and the movement between past and present tense doesn’t quite work. What’s more, there are repetitions, which a good editor should have noticed.

Yet, I would recommend the book for its unique point of view.

The Secret Gardener

Swaminathan, Kalpana. The Secret Gardener. New Delhi: Penguin, 2013

I had the book with me for a long time. I even tried to read it once. But couldn’t just enter into the world of Sita and her ageing aunt, Lalli, the famous Tamil detective in Mumbai, and her ragtag group of allies, policemen Savio and Shukla and police doctor Q. I had not read the first two books, part of an apparent series.

Then yesterday, I picked up the book again, read the first few pages and I was on. Literally. By midnight, I was halfway through and I could not stop. I had a faint idea who may be the perpetrators of the crime, and I had to finish the book. I did. And now, I am a fan of Kalpana Swaminathan.

This is a detective novel, and I am sure the book will disappoint many for not being ‘detective’ enough. There are plot holes. There are co-incidents (even the major turning point of the novel, of Jai finding his way to Lalli’s house is a co-incidence) and there are not enough action.

But then, this is not just a detective novel, it’s an Indian detective novel. Now, this is important. Especially, Swaminathan considers it important. She takes the model of a classic detective tale (complete with the final ‘parlour scene’ where the detective unravels the mysteries), and makes it very Indian. In the parlour scene for example, they have a South Indian dessert, which is described with delectable detail. Even her images are Indian. And she is not just interested in the crime and the criminal, she is interested in other things, marital rape, for instance, or child welfare, or horticulture, or food. And her comic timing is seriously judicious. She does it sparingly, but with such panache, I was smiling.

Since this is a detective novel, I cannot give away the plot, but I can only tell my friends, fans of the detective novels of a certain JK Rowling, please, please, read The Secret Gardener.

Robin Williams

Robin Williams, the US actor and comedian who has been found dead in an apparent suicide at the age of 63, won legions of fans with his frenetic energy, quick-fire improvisations and ability to mimic other famous people.

Those skills enabled him to create such delightful comic characters as Mrs Doubtfire, the faux Scottish nanny he disguised himself as in the 1993 hit, and the shape-shifting genie in Disney's Aladdin - a free-wheeling force no bottle could contain.

Yet Williams was also capable of more nuanced work, receiving a best supporting actor Oscar for playing a sympathetic yet troubled psychologist who comes to Matt Damon's aid in 1997's Good Will Hunting.

He could also play against his ebullient persona and the affection audiences had for him by bringing chilling psychotic villains to life in films such as Insomnia and One Hour Photo.

Born on 21 July 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, the young Williams developed a quick wit as a means of overcoming shyness and boosted his confidence further by joining his school's drama club.
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Robin Williams was a superb, mercurial standup comic with a staggering talent for improv and verbal riffing, though his movie career finally evolved into an intriguing split – sugary sentimentality or an ambiguous, menacing darkness. Something similar happened with Steve Martin and Jerry Lewis. The “Mr Hyde” in Robin Williams’s movie persona was well known.

So the news of his death, and the indication he has taken his own life, is deeply shocking. He clearly suffered from depression – these were symptoms hiding in plain sight – and his brilliance assumes a deeply sad aspect.

Williams could suspend his merciless, crazy irony almost entirely for glutinous family movies like Patch Adams, in which he played a doctor who treated sick kids using his irrepressible sense of humour, or the solemn fantasies like Bicentennial Man, or even his second world war drama Jakob the Liar. Or he could be chilling and sinister, as he was in One Hour Photo, a disturbing drama from 2002 in which he played the drugstore photo lab employee (in the days before digital cameras) who becomes obsessed with the pictures he develops showing a suburban family. Then there was his performance in the ice-cold, ultra-black comedy World’s Greatest Dad, in 2009, in which he plays another creepy yet tragic character, a high-school teacher whose son dies in a grisly accident, and who then concocts a bogus suicide note and rides a wave of celebrity and sympathy.

Williams had a big-hearted side, a love of broad comedy and a muscular, intensely physical talent for it, which he showed off in his smash-hit drag act Mrs Doubtfire from 1993. He played a divorced guy who disguises himself as a housekeeper with a bizarre Scottish accent, employed by his unsuspecting ex-wife, so that he can keep an eye on the children. It was a role that showed off Williams’s talents – the zaniness, the dressing up, the bizarrely transparent absurdity, combined with his big-hearted, faintly lachrymose vulnerability and sentimental concern for children.
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Robin Williams apparently killed himself by hanging, according to a preliminary coroner's report released today. Marin County sheriff's spokesman Lt Keith Boyd told reporters that the actor and comedian, who was 63, had hanged himself in his bedroom at his home in Tiburon, in northern California.

The Oscar-winner was last seen alive by his wife, Susan Schneider, at home late on Sunday evening. Believing he was still asleep, Schneider left the house at around 10.30am on Monday. When Williams's personal assistant arrived just over an hour later, police said, she became worried when he failed to answer the door. She gained entry, only to find him dead.
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Robin Williams, the comedian who evolved into the surprisingly nuanced, Academy Award-winning actor, imbuing his performances with wild inventiveness and a kind of manic energy, died on Monday at his home in Tiburon, Calif., north of San Francisco. He was 63.

The Marin County sheriff’s office said in a statement that it “suspects the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia.” An investigation was underway.

The statement said that the office received a 911 call at 11:55 a.m. Pacific time, saying that a man had been found “unconscious and not breathing inside his residence.” Emergency personnel sent to the scene identified him as Mr. Williams and pronounced him dead at 12:02 p.m.

Mr. Williams’s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement that Mr. Williams “has been battling severe depression.”
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When Robin Williams graduated from Redwood High School in Marin County, his classmates couldn't help themselves: They voted him both "most humorous" and "least likely to succeed."

He topped them.

Williams became one of the world's most successful entertainers, an actor and comedian whose energy animated characters who, like himself, seemed to be spinning hilariously out of control — sometimes into dark places that only the "most humorous" can understand.

Williams, whose first major role was as a lovable alien in the TV series "Mork & Mindy" but who soon graduated to films such as "Good Will Hunting," "Dead Poets Society," "Mrs. Doubtfire," and "Good Morning, Vietnam," died Monday in what appears to be a suicide from asphyxiation, Marin County authorities said.
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Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, film producer, and screenwriter.

Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy (1978–82), Williams went on to establish a successful career in both stand-up comedy and feature film acting. His film career included such acclaimed films as The World According to Garp (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), The Fisher King (1991), and Good Will Hunting (1997), as well as financial successes such as Popeye (1980), Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Night at the Museum (2006), and Happy Feet (2006). He also appeared in the video "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, Williams received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Good Will Hunting. He also received two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.

Williams suffered from depression throughout his life, and also struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. On August 11, 2014, he was found dead after apparently committing suicide by hanging himself at his home in Paradise Cay near the town of Tiburon, California.
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Robin Williams in Movies

1980 Popeye
1982 The World According to Garp
1984 Moscow on the Hudson
1987 Good Morning, Vietnam
1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
1989 Dead Poets Society
1990 Awakenings
1991 The Fisher King
1991 Hook
1992 Aladdin
1992 The Timekeeper
1993 Mrs. Doubtfire
1994 Being Human
1994 In Search of Dr. Seuss
1995 Jumanji
1996 The Birdcage
1997 Good Will Hunting
1997 Flubber
1997 Deconstructing Harry
1998 What Dreams May Come
1999 Bicentennial Man
2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2002 Insomnia
2002 One Hour Photo
2006 Night at the Museum
2006 Happy Feet
2006 RV
2009 Shrink
2009 World's Greatest Dad
2009 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall, the actress whose provocative glamour elevated her to stardom in Hollywood’s golden age and whose lasting mystique put her on a plateau in American culture that few stars reach, died on Tuesday in New York. She was 89.

Her death was confirmed by her son Stephen Bogart. “Her life speaks for itself,” Mr. Bogart said. “She lived a wonderful life, a magical life.”

With an insinuating pose and a seductive, throaty voice — her simplest remark sounded like a jungle mating call, one critic said — Ms. Bacall shot to fame in 1944 with her first movie, Howard Hawks’s adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel “To Have and Have Not,” playing opposite Humphrey Bogart, who became her lover on the set and later her husband.

It was a smashing debut sealed with a handful of lines now engraved in Hollywood history.

“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve,” her character says to Bogart’s in the movie’s most memorable scene. “You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

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She also expressed impatience, especially in her later years, with the public’s continuing fascination with her romance with Bogart, even though she frequently said that their 12-year marriage was the happiest period of her life.

“I think I’ve damn well earned the right to be judged on my own,” she said in a 1970 interview with The New York Times. “It’s time I was allowed a life of my own, to be judged and thought of as a person, as me.”

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Years later, however, she seemed resigned to being forever tied to Bogart and expressed annoyance that her later marriage to another leading actor, Jason Robards Jr., was often overlooked.

“My obit is going to be full of Bogart, I’m sure,” she told Vanity Fair magazine in a profile of her in March 2011, adding: “I’ll never know if that’s true. If that’s the way, that’s the way it is.”

Ms. Bacall was an 18-year-old model in New York when her face on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar caught the eye of Slim Hawks, Howard Hawks’s wife. Brought to Hollywood and taken under the Hawkses’ wing, she won the role in “To Have and Have Not,” loosely based on the novel of the same name.

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She was a nice Jewish girl brought up right by mother in two rooms on the wrong side of the tracks in Manhattan, her father long fled from their lives. She was so nervous in her first film role, at all of 19 years old, that her head shook; so she tilted her chin down to steady herself, and had to look up from under at the camera. She stood at the bedroom door of "a hotel in Martinique in the French West Indies" – the Warner Bros lot in Hollywood – looked up, and asked Humphrey Bogart for a match. And defined her life.

At that incendiary moment in 1944, Lauren Bacall, who has died aged 89, was still Betty Bacall, and had been recently Betty Perske; a stagestruck teenager whose poor family finances bought her a bare year at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (fellow pupil and first crush, Kirk Douglas), and whose fought-for debut parts were in flops. She had to pay her way as an usherette and model, an unglam garment trade live dummy, until her photogenic potential was spotted by Diana Vreeland, fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar. Vreeland had an instinct for the face of the times, for a movie in a single still; and the shot that begat Bacall was a Bazaar cover, Betty besuited before a Red Cross office door. It's lit noirishly, and she is acting independent – a frank, clever gal caught up in the war effort.

It was seen in Hollywood by David O Selznick, and Columbia pictures; both inquired after her. But the real connection was made by Nancy "Slim" Hawks, wife to director Howard Hawks, who seems to have recognised in Betty's stance a style much like her own, plus the physical substance of her husband's dreams. She alerted Hawks, and Bacall was invited to entrain across America on the 20th Century Limited to be screen-tested; Hawks offered her a personal contract. Bacall treated him as a surrogate father, and understood only later that he always wanted to be Svengali, making over a kid from nowhere into his desirable girl. His fantasy woman was sexually experienced and insolent; Hawks had hung out with Ernest Hemingway and co, who (as Slim complained after the marriage was over) wanted females who did not wimp out or whinge about the big game hunting, the hard drinking and harder bullshitting – but who were young enough not to be equals, so that they were never a threat.
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She slouched on to screens in the 1940s, a new kind of female star: sexy, smart, able to give as good as she got. Sixty years on, Lauren Bacall is still making films - but it is those early lines and angled looks that cast her for ever as an icon. Susie Mackenzie meets her. Read the interview Here.


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Lauren Bacall (/ˌlɔrən bəˈkɔːl/, born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.

She first emerged as a leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have and Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), as well as comedic roles in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall worked on Broadway in musicals, gaining Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.

In 1999, Bacall was ranked #20 of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
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Witnessed the day break after a long time, and it was not even one of those booze nights when you cannot even remember the way to your home, let along appreciate your surroundings. There were some drinking, sure, but it was mostly nonsense chatting with a friend, after a long time, outside, because it was hot and claustrophobic inside. The birds on a wire were a bonus. I especially cherish the photo as it was one of the last pictures taken from my camera before it was stolen. I was little upset and then got over it. I got a new one, similar. Pandav Nagar, Mayur Vihar I, New Delhi. April 2014

Singham Returns

Singham Returns (returns) on August 15. I am sure people are looking forward to it, and the market is watching closely; especially after Chennai Express. Meanwhile, director Rohit Shetty says the film has an anti-corruption message. Very good! But I wonder if people go to a Rohit Shetty film for messages, or just for inane spectacle? As it happens with sequels, this one also looks like (from the trailers at least) a drugged-up version of the first film. This one is set in Mumbai, so we will have more people, bigger villains, more cars, in short everything enlarged. Oh, it also has Kareena Kapoor, compared to the forgettable heroine the last time around. Wow! However, I was thinking, some hosiery company can cash in on the film to sell baniyans, I means, most of the actors are in their baniyans most of the time in the film. Just saying…

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never
forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

Gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown

And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
Keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again

Don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'

For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they, they are a-changin'

Come senators, Congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand at the doorway
Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it's ragin'

It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
Don't criticize
What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend a hand
For your times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn
And the curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast

As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

The Times They Are A-changin' by Bob Dylan

Studio Ghibli

Screenshots from two early Studio Ghibli films, Kiki's Delivery Service and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, in the wake of the news that the beloved Japanese animation studio may actually shut down. Anyway, Miyazaki has retired.

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For the past week or so, speculation has been building that Studio Ghibli is to cease making animated movies. And overnight, the news was lent credibility by a television appearance from Ghibli's general manager Toshio Suzuki.

Suzuki, appearing on Japanese television, at first seemed to confirm that Studio Ghibli's production studio was effectively set to be shut down, with no plans for any further features. Instead, the remaining Studio Ghibli company would be in place to manage trademarks. However, Anime News Network has clarified things a little, reporting that "great changes" are taking place, and "that these changes may include dismantling the production department". However, "while there has been talk among some about dissolving the studio outright", what's actually taking place right now is "the studio is considering housecleaning or restructuring for now".

Suzuki noted that it's not out of the question to carry on producing films forever, but said that "we will take a brief pause to consider where to go from here".

Whichever way you read it, there's a sadness at the heart of this. Studio Ghibli's output, even with its weaker films, is distinctive, full of heart and quite special. Unfortunately, its recent productions, including The Tale of Princess Kaguya and The Wind Rises, have struggled to recoup their investment.

And then there's the retirement of studio founder Hayao Miyazaki, who signed off with his final movie, The Wind Rises, last year. Inevitably, losing such a huge and important figure has left Studio Ghibli facing some tough questions.
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Studio Ghibli, Inc. (株式会社スタジオジブリ) is a Japanese animation film studio based in Koganei, Tokyo, Japan. The studio is best known for its anime feature films in addition to producing several short films, television commercials, and one television film. The company began in June 1985 after the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) with funding by Tokuma Shoten. Its logo features the character Totoro (a large forest spirit) from Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro produced by Ghibli.

Eight of Studio Ghibli's films are among the 15 highest-grossing anime films made in Japan, with Spirited Away (2001) being the highest, grossing over $274 million worldwide. Many of their works have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award, and four have won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. In 2002, Spirited Away won a Golden Bear and an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
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Random Film Titles

The movies that are vying for my attention right now, and are occupying space on my computer. Some of them I really love, some I admire, and some I am yet to watch.