Home Again

The movie caught my eye because it was a Nancy Meyers direction. She's done some movies I simply love, for instance.....The Holiday, It's Complicated, Somethings Gotta Give, What Women Want, each on my rewatchable list.

This one's directed by Hallie Meyers, Nancy Meyers daughter, of similar genre.... female led rom com.......pleasant, fun, little bit of drama...nice enough.

Alice (Reese Witherspoon) 40, and recently divorced moves to LA with her two little daughters. She's inherited this beautiful hollywood home from her famous filmmaker dad.  

She's on a drinking binge with three young, cute wannabe film maker guys. Call it serendipity, but they're looking for a house, and her poolside outhouse seems perfect for both. While she was yet struggling to restart life single, suddenly all her needs are met.

One of the guys is chocolate candy cute, so yes, the predictable hook up happens.....and more......childcare, cabinet fixing, website launching and the like. 

It's soon looking too good to be true, and the twist.....her estranged husband, (Michael Sheen) shows up. He still cares, he wants her back, and he definitely does not want the boys around her, and there's some crazy dynamics and drama there.

It's decision time for her. I like that, while she's getting tugged from all sides, she finally chooses out of it all... the clingy husband, the chocolate candy boyfriend, her first awful work contract ....out of it all. 

Crazily contrived, set in bedazzling hollywood, it actually reeks money....the sprawling mansion, inner courtyard swimming pool, the super cute outhouse, a swanky porche...all this notwithstanding, it's still chilled out fun.  Single watch fun. 

Maahi Ve

There's some kind of magic in this rendition.......like Rehman, the music, the rhythm, the feel, the flow, and the audience all became part of this one beautiful experience. Can only imagine how it must have felt live.

Bhogi mantalu

So happened that on Bhogi, the day before Sankranthi, I was on a different early morning walk. It fell on a Sunday, so no park walk, I was walking through the colonies to my parents place.(that's an in process of getting built Sunday ritual :)

I was nicely surprised to see that the tradition of bhogi mantalu still very much on. I must have seen atleast twenty such little fires on.

This guy seemed to be one who was illustrating the essence of the fire, burning up useless stuff (he was burning boxes )

The lane had so many fires right through

It also brought in a flush of memories. Childhood memories when we would do the bhogi manta at Barkatpura. It used to be like a mela, with the whole family there, and kushalma uncle would lead. He'd allow the kids to find anything in the house, anything that was old and ready to go, to be put into the bonfire. Old chairs, modas, rugs, broomsticks, chataas, anything.......it was so much fun. 

And the essence of the ritual is so beautiful. Junk the old, and create space for the new. What is today more familiar as 'declutter'. We seem to be left holding just the ritual of the bonfire, without doing the actual declutter.

A wonderful and powerful concept. How much of the old do we hold onto. How much (even without being aware) do we let it influence.... be it in our external world, or the internal. Good time to pause and look :)

The Vine of Desire

Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni is at her best, exploring facets of intimate relationships.... through introspection, self analysis, assimilation and self discovery..... especially so of women. The Vine of Desire is a powerful narrative, delving deep into the minds and emotions of it's principal characters.

Anju and Sudha would be familiar to those who've read her earlier book 'sister of my heart', and would know how close, and almost psychic a connection the two cousins share.

Anju gets married and moved to America. A miscarriage leaves her depressed and lonely and when she feels her marriage won't survive it, she invites Sudha to come and live with her. Sudha readily agrees, in the hope that life in America will find her freedom from a painful divorce, from an earlier boyfriend, and from her own deep conditioning. 

Complications start when Anju's husband, Sunil, gets dangerously attracted to Sudha, and then there are the complications of it's impact on a marriage already heading downhill. 

Each of them try to distract themselves by focusing on Sudha's little daughter Dayita, but there's no getting away from the inevitable moment of truth, when all lines heading inward get caught in a vortex of emotions....the clash of reality....then deflect, to each goes it's own way, away from the other,  as far away as they think they can.

Chitra's women are, as always, women of substance, seeking and finding identity and freedom... from relational controls, cultural bindings and their own conditioning. They are women you want to know.

Her style of writing in this book was so innovative and interesting. She uses letters. Each writing letters to different people....their mothers, aunts, friends, college submissions and even dead people . And it's through these letters that you see the stark differences between reality within, and reality without. Where the 'authentic' is either getting left behind or is in process of growth.

Her narrative is typically from each persons point of view which is such a refreshing take on perspectives. She also used  a style for a whole chapter of 'what I said was this' and 'what I wanted to say was this'. Again the tug of war between authentic and reality evident. Fascinating.

I enjoyed the reading, each moment getting more and more caught in the entangled vines she wove.... (Asha Latha ) Vine of Desire.... and it's left me hoping for more from Chitra.

Revolutionary Road

Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio, yet again creating something as powerful as the Titanic, this time maybe not as flamboyant or beautiful, but more intense and hard hitting.

It is set is the early 1950's of America, and starts beautifully enough with the two falling in love almost at their first meet, and what connects them seems to be this dream of a bohemian life, one of choice and passion. (unrealistic? idealistic?)

The movie quickly fast forwards eight years.. married, a middle class suburban life, a decent job, a fixed routine, a neat home, two children, good neighbors, friendly dinners. While it all seems a perfectly settled space, April is holding onto their dream, unhappy and afraid of the path she sees ahead, one that looks set to go through to the end of life. 

Still very much in love with each other, her unhappiness and suffocation evident, Frank cares enough to buy into a restart of their dream. She has the plan...to up life as they have it, and move to Paris, where she will get a job as receptionist and he will be able to follow his passion. 

Energy and laughter comes back into the little household. 

For a while. Until life throws a curved ball at them. A nicely disguised one. He gets a promotion and a raise, and she gets pregnant. He bows to both. She doesn't. Her dream is her life...she's willing to give it all she has, but there's only so much she can do alone.

The story is pretty timeless, about how men and women turn into what they did not want, and life gets them.

A line from Roger Ebert, one of my favorite, whose review I will typically browse before watching a movie  -  "The film is so good that it's devastating" 

Experiences and your fear of engagement

From Seth

Want to go visit a nudist colony?

I don't know, what's it like?

You know, a lot of people not wearing clothes.

Show me some pictures, then I'll know.

Well, actually, you won't.

You won't know what it's like merely by looking at a picture of a bunch of naked people.

The only way you'll know what it's like is if you get seen by a bunch of naked people. The only way to have the experience is to have the experience.

Not by looking at the experience.

By having it.

But having an experience for the first time is frightening. So we try to avoid the fear by simulating it, putting the experience into a box that makes it like something else we've done, something that's safe. 

Of course, if you put a new experience in the box of an old experience, it's not a new experience, is it? Problem solved.

But you've also just cut yourself off from what that new experience could deliver. A new box. The entire point.

The Gift Of Words

Who better to speak about words than Javed Akhtar. I simply loved the talk (after all I'm a big believer in the power of words too)