This is..

Interesting.

Updating Content

From last year until today, the official list of all the books I could manage to read until their last page:

1. The Savage Detectives (Roberto Bolaño)
2. Ek Gadhe Ki Aatmakatha (Krishna Chandar)
3. Diary (Chuck Palahniuk)*
4. Love Creeps (Amanda Filipacchi)
5. Thérèse Raquin (Emile Zola)
6. Girl With Curious Hair (David Foster Wallace)
7. Sputnik Sweetheart (Haruki Murakami)
8. Kafka On The Shore (Haruki Murakami)
9. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami)
10. Best American Short Stories
11. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men ( David Foster Wallace)*
12. Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
13. Maximum City (Suketu Mehta)
14. White Noise (Don Delillo)
15. Once Upon A Time In Scandinavistan (Zac O'Yeah)


Apart from the above mentioned, there were several fail attempts at reading many a Hindi books notably Nirmal Verma's Laal Teen Ki Cchat and Manohar Shyam Joshi's Kuru Kuru Swaaha. The latter is slowly coming to a victorious end as these days rapidly fly by.
Speaking of fail attempts, yet another one was made when I tried reading Dostoevky's The Idiot which was impulsively borrowed by a senior and returned at the end of the semester without reading even a page of it. That sucked but I shall resume with The Idiot once I am in Bombay. Another fail attempt was at reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami but this time the fail lied in the fact that I tried reading it in the bookstore itself because I did not have the money. Yeah.
Now that we are at the topic, I thought of reading Bolaño's 2666 but having learned from the most reliable source, N.F., its a thousand page read, I think I'd pass but I do think I will first buy and then read Hariya Hercules Ki Hairani. The alliteration makes me interested enough to give it a try leave alone the fact that it is written by the sassy dude of Hindi Literature, Manohar Shyam Joshi. In case of 2666, it was the numbers.
God I am simple-minded!



Regarding movies, well, I watched a lot of them. So many in fact that I wouldn't be able to recollect all the names and list them down. Point to be noted is that I was never the kind of kid who'd go to the cinema halls and witness the movies on that large screen but times change! Friends bring about such changes.
If you'd ask me what's up!?.. I might actually have an answer to it unlike always.
My friends crash at my place nearly everyday and since we don't have much to do, we usually go out for a movie. In this process, I have already watched a decent number of movies to brag about. In this list would be Salman Khan's "ready-made blockbuster" Ready, Green Lantern, X-Men First Class and the Hindi thriller Shaitan.
I give up but my friends don't so we are yet to watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon, animated film Cars-2 and Delhi Belly's D.K. Bose.

I am struck with this unusual sense of mild but affirmative grief knowing I couldn't watch Kung Fu Panda 2. Not cool. Oh, and I watched this one movie I wanted to watch for the longest time, Blue Valentine.

Jumping right on with my previously awesome superpower, otakuism, I am sad to say, I have nothing impressive to offer. Back in Bombay I rarely had the time to sleep and with no internet connection, all I could do in my spare time was read so no accomplishments in this section. Still, I finished reading the previously on-going and now completed manga Oishii Kankei. Updates from Nanga Fakir made me feel I was handling his department while he handled mine. I mean, I was reading and he watched anime. Anyway, I watched this one series he casually mentioned to me. I am not giving out the name but I will make a detailed post of the same in the next few days.
Oh.. and I watched Death Note.
Plop.




........



Key:
* Revised Data

ISHQIYA

What started as a plan to enjoy sometime with a friend turned into an experience that offered great cinematic bliss to the great Hakumei-Sama. She always regretted how she missed watching Omkara in the cinema hall and she was more than willing to repent. Ishqiya was it!
Pretty sure she was, of the fact that the movie would be a good watch but this good!?

The moment she saw it was a Vishal Bhardwaj production, Bejin set herself comfortably in her seat. Apprehensions took over her within the first few seconds for she was just not willing to be disappointed. 'Not in the mood for another Kaminey', she thought.
'And sometimes, just sometimes, your prayer is answered' were her thoughts after she was done.



Now the catch here is that you don't have to be a member of the Eastern U.P. circuit to acknowledge this movie but you surely have to be a Bhojpuriya baalak to know how truly well made this movie is! No, this movie is not in Bhojpuri. It follows a more Khariboli style (probably for mass appeal). It's just that the movie's environment is brilliantly desi! The language, characters, their involvement with each other, music everything only adds to it. Good thing is that nothing is overdone.

Naseeruddin Shah was brilliant like always. It's weird how it's so easy to fall in love with Naseer after watching each of his movies but the thing about Ishqiya is that it's one movie which makes you fall in love with Naseer's character. You sympathise with him and can almost feel what it's like to be Khalu-Jaan, the old romantic full of anxiousness.

['Koi to roke, koi to toke. Is umar mein ab khaoge dhokhe. Dar lagta hai ishq karne mein ji. Dil to bachcha hai ji, thoda kaccha hai ji.']

Arshad Warsi is good to watch as the roadside rustic, Babban. His hormonally driven youth is characterised by kaajal eyes and Soorma Bhopali style of talking. His evident transformation from a player into a man helplessly in love is cute.

[Babban to Khalu-Jaan: "Aapka ishq, ishq. Aur hamara ishq, sex?!"]

Vidya Balan's character Krishna, is dark! Both visually and otherwise. A classic case of femme fatale, Krishna gives both these men the kind of romantic pleasure they seek and why? Well, that forms the main plot of the movie. A woman of stark contrasts, Krishna is driven, desperate, innocent looking, simple yet sexy. Negative? I wouldn't call her that.
A woman with a voice to die for, Krishna doesn't even have to work to appeal to Khalu-Jaan's refined self.


Apart from the leads, the side characters do justice to what they are supposed to do. Bejin particularly liked the cocky kid who played Nandu.

[Nandu to Babban: "Hamare wahaan chuttad dhone se pehle tabancha chalana sikhaate hain."]

Look out for this movie to know Gorakhpur, for the music, to feel for two friends who fight for a woman who loves neither of them, for tabancha and a script that's written well and delivered even better!

And before you sad-ass losers go on about how the great Hakumei-Sama makes for a nearly idiotic film critic, check out the following links.



Download music


Happy watching, suckers!

Mic Testing

I am here to formally announce that I am fairly happy and contented for the time being.
The past few days have been a good (apart from random mood swings which keep happening to me) cause I completed a lot of manga(s), anime series, books and movies.

Here's the list of what is done:

Anime Series:
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Baccano

(A fellow anime lover suggested this awesome site called AnimeStash)

Anime Movies:
Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind
Paprika
Spirited Away
My Neighbor Totoro
Perfect Blue
Tokyo Godfathers
Mind Game
Whisper Of The Heart

(AnimeStash is the site for this. Trust me!)

Books:
Watchmen (Graphic novel-revised)
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Graphic novel-revised)
Persepolis (Graphic novel)
Diary (Novel by chuck Palahniuk)
Survivor (Novel by chuck Palahniuk)
The Depressed Person (Short Story by David Foster Wallace)
Love In The Time Of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez)
Neuromancer (William Gibson)

(From the Fakir dude's collection except for Persepolis, which in turn, I read in Landmark itself)

Movies:
The Bow
Amelie
Takeshis'
Bombay
A Tale Of Two Sisters
Dil Se...
House Of Flying Daggers
Irreversible
My Girl
Peace Hotel
Search For One Eye Jimmy

(Watched all these on T.V. except Irreversible, for obvious reasons)

Manga:
Angel Sanctuary
Appare Jipangu!
As The Death God Dictates
Binbou Shimai Monogatari
Himegimi No Tsukurikata
Living Game
Parallel
DNA2
One Piece
To-LOVE-ru
Alive
Camelot Garden

(OneManga has always been my favorite manga site)

...

Apparently, there's a lot more that I plan to do in the coming few days. Not to forget, I am churning out pages of shitty doodles everyday too.

Let's just say that I am busy out of my joblessness.
XD



PS: A new list of accomplishments... Coming Soon!
PPS: Perhaps.

The Bow

I have always been a T.V. person and owing to the fact I have the worst scheme from Tata Sky Dish Services, I am only left to watch UTV World Movies and Phineas and Ferb these days.

While the latter happens to be a big hit in my daily scenario, UTV World Movies on the other hand is a once in a while deal for me, given to the fact that they air movies in languages I have never even heard of.

The other day while I was surfing the T.V. scene, I happened to have a brief look at this movie channel randomly. It had chinki looking characters, water, boats, an old man and a 16 year of girl and then I knew that it had to be Kim-Ki-Duk!


It's summary read as follows:

A 60 year old fisherman has been bringing up a girl since she was a baby. Now she is 16 years old and the fisherman has other intentions. But the arrival of a male student changes all their lives.


The intentions about which the summary speaks of is the kinds that would freak out fifty year old Indian house wives.
Ah, nothing extreme.. but you know how Indian home makers are!

The sixty year old man brings up a girl he found when she was six. It's been 10 years since and the old man plans on marrying her on her 17th birthday. He lives on the dough he makes by allowing people from the nearby areas to come for fishing. The old guy would be often misinterpreted as the girl's grandpa by anyone who is clueless about the plot as such. Not to mention, the characters in the movie who come for fishing assume very much the same.
Like all of Duk's movies, The Bow contains very little dialogues. The story proceeds casually, often describing the monotony of the protagonists' lives with great intricacies like how the old man gives the girl her daily bath, does her hair, sets up her bed at night, gets the daily groceries and cancels out each coming day in his calender and then flip a few months off to see and smile at a particular date marked with a red heart shaped design filled with some Korean calligraphy indicating the young girl's birthday and hence, their marriage day.
The days are mostly repetitive with a little everyday humdrum like the fishermen trying to have their way with the young female only to be aimed at by the old man with a bow and arrow.
The Bow's title is based on how the old man tells people's fortunes. The process is rather peculiar. Unlike how usually fortunes are told, the old man has his own style which involves tying of a colorful ribbon around the young girl's wrist, her sitting on a swing tied outside their main boat and the old man aiming at an old Buddha like figure painted on the outer wooden walls of the boat. The girl smiles as she swings, her gaze constantly set on the old man. It has no fear and while she keeps swinging at a constant pace, the oldie aims and shoots three times after which the girl whispers something in his ears and the oldie whispers the same in the client's ear.
Life runs smoothly for the both of them until one day a group of young male students come to their ship for fishing (probably on a group tour). The girl is attracted by a youthful boy and gradually they come closer to each other. The oldie grows overly protective of her and hates it when she goes to him. Suddenly, the girl starts hating the old man for keeping her caged for so many years and starts to get irritated at the very same actions which were earlier liked by her.

(Scenes when she can't allow the old man to give her a bath while she's sitting naked in a tub just like before and when she tries to get away the old man's grip from her wrist while she sleeps, the desperate old man's efforts to win her back and consequences that lead him to make a new double bed to keep her close to himself and how he cancels off a whole week and later rips off two pages (two whole months actually) from his calender to get married to her before it is too late, are brilliantly done!)

The young girl's attraction for the youth grows each coming day and one day she slips from her bed at night and sinks into the young boy's mattress to touch his lips and rub his cheeks. It is when the guy comes closer to her in order to kiss her, that the old man sees them together and with no pause he immediately takes away the boy from his boat. The boy promises to come back after he finds the girl's parents.
And while the boy is gone, the oldie's relationship with the girl remains strained.

Soon enough, the young boy returns with a note from her parents who claim their child. The old man is adamant and doesn't let him take her away. It is then that the guy challenges the old man to read his fortune too and predict as to whether or not he'd be able to take her away with himself or would the old man marry her off and live happily ever after.
The fortune telling process comes into play and the girl smiles at the old man. Her smile revealing a sense of confidence and pride which makes the old man very nervous. Two bows are shot and when he's about to shoot the final bow, the young boy pulls back the ropes of the swing and the girl falls into the water and the bow hits the Buddha in the head.
She whispers something which is passed onto the visitor by the old man.

The next day, the young boy politely asks the old man to let go off the girl because she has to see what the world outside is like, hearing which the old man gets really annoyed and he opens his cupboard and throws off the dresses he got for the girl and himself for their marriage.
The girl leaves and the boy follows and they finally leave the old man's boat. On the other hand, the old man cries his eyes off for the girl meant everything to him. He sees them going away in another boat and it is then that he takes a looped rope and puts it around his neck (ah, typical of Kim-Ki-Duk). The rope is in turn tied to the boat in which the boy and the girl are traveling and as they keep moving ahead, the rope tightens it's grip around the old man's neck. The pain gets unbearable for the man and he grabs hold of a knife kept nearby and tries to cut the rope, while on the other hand the girl realises something and rushes back to the oldie.

The old bastard on seeing her coming back to him hides the knife and continues to cough. The girl pities the old man, hugs him and you see them dressing up each other for their marriage in the next scene (the young boy has a stupefied look on his face all the while).
Finally they get married and sail off in another boat where the old man takes off the young bride's clothes revealing her in a long, white slip. He plants a gentle kiss on her cheek and plays some soothing music for her and the girl soon falls asleep and while she's still asleep, the old man aims his bow at the girl, then shoots it into the air and jumps into the water committing suicide.
This small boat moves back to the original boat where the dumb struck young boy is still there. He goes to check what's wrong and he sees the girl masturbating in her sleep. The very same arrow which the oldie had shot sometime back hits the boat's deck close to the girl who finally wakes up, smiles and they leave the boat for the 'real' world.

...


Though the movie is neat enough, it is not even close to what I have already seen of Kim-Ki-Duk's but I would appreciate the movie on the following grounds:

1. It was on T.V. and I didn't have to go through the pains of downloading or buying it.
2. The music was cool enough.
3. The young Korean boy was cute.
4. KIM-KI-DUK!
5. I was jobless.

Perfect Blue

Perfect Blue is one of the most well received anime movies of all times. Having been appreciated world wide it is a must watch for all anime fans and cinema goers.
It's a film by the famous Japanese director of anime films, Satoshi Kon and is a psychological thriller based on the life of an aspiring pop singer Mima Kirigoe.


The movie opens in a rather strange way with otakus gathered to see Mima's last performance as a pop-idol. On one hand where some fans hope for a bright future for Mima who is going to establish herself as an actress, some are rather disappointed in her especially a stalker who goes by the name Me-Mania.
The story unfolds in a predictable way from thereon where Mima experiences extreme pressure, both physical and mental. In order to establish herself as a competent actress Mima has to undergo many a situation which are mentally bothersome. For example, a rape sequence shot by Mima in the drama series called Double Bind [which in turn is also a mental state in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one message negating the other]
Mima's dedicated and skillful acting leads her to secure a larger part in the drama series. Meanwhile, Mima finds an online website called "Mima's Room" full of entries discussing her day. Mima who initially likes it as humble attempt by a fan is later taken aback to see how her life is discussed in such great detail. She discusses this with her manager cum friend, Rumi who assures her that it'd mean her no harm and that it's plausibly a prank.

In the later parts of the movie Mima is shown to have a trouble life born out of the rape sequence she shot in Double Bind to such an extent that she is unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. The story takes a new turn when all the people behind her pitiable mental state are gruesomely murdered one after the other. Mima begins to realise it's her doing cause there is ample amount of evidence against her and yet she is not sure cause she is no longer able to distinguish reality from fantasy.

Having been in a struggle to find out what's real and what's not Mima encounters Me-Mania who attempts to rape her. Mima is convinced it's he whose the diarist of the online website "Mima's Room" . She hits Me-Mania and runs off to Rumi, her sole comfort only to find her as the person behind the online website. Rumi is disillusioned and believes Mima, the pop-idol is the real Mima.
In the end it is shown that Mima goes to pay Rumi a visit in a mental hospital. On one hand where Rumi remains disillusioned, Mima gets out of the intense folie a deux situation and moves on with her now successful life.

The movie has a surreal plot often reminding one about David Lynch's works. It's a critically well received movie and one has to appreciate Kon's work of manipulation of psychological elements to achieve a level of intensity that many likened to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Darren Aronofsky allegedly paid for the remake rights to Perfect Blue, so he could use one of the scenes for Requiem For A Dream.


Ultimately, WHAT A MOVIE..! is all I am left to say.
I rate it a fine 7/10 [I know my opinion hardly matters but still..]