Thinking Allowed (Aloud) - Movie review

In 54 minutes, this movie can potentially change your opinion about Kolkata, Mother Teresa and poverty in India in general.
The movie is set in Kolkata, which, unfortunately (as you will realise within minutes into the movie) is known for abject poverty, the gutters, and then that famous Saint of the Gutters, Mother Teresa.
As is highlighted in the movie, Bengalis worship many women, most of its celebrated festivals happen to be related to the Godesses, and this white woman, Mother Teresa brings out that often unadmitted yet obvious Indian fascination for white skin.

The movie raises many questions like -

If Mother Teresa were to be a black woman, would her stature and image be as huge as it became?
And then, Bangladesh had many more poor and suffering ; so is this the Hindu obsession ? In a non Hindu nation, would someone like Mother Teresa, a Catholic be even allowed to do anything in the name of social work?

And then, the movie goes on to reveal more relevant facts and make you think - think really hard.

During the last 20 years of her life, Mother Teresa spent about 6-7 months each year abroad. So, what was it that she did in the remaining months, that the other sisters of the Missionaries of Charity not do?
Missionaries of Charity is estimated to have received a 100 million USD in donations from all over the world. Mother Teresa's charm and charisma was such.
But, the collections themselves total a mammoth 2 billion US dollars, and this is not taking into account any income from investment returns.
So, just how many poor people did MC "uplift" with those 2 billion dollars?
Just how many lepers did Kolkata have? And just how many lepers did MC save each year?

Yes. At this point, I did think of the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams for a moment. BUt, the TTD, although it does some charity in its own way, it does not profess to be dedicated to the cause of the poor and the suffering, in the manner MC does.

As correctly pointed out by an ex-MC spokesperson herself, Mother Teresa was one of the most successful fund raisers and businessman the world had ever seen.
And as you shall realise, she was in the business of conversion.

It is quite shameful that Mother Teresa actually helped create negative publicity about Kolkata. The western image of Kolkata is one of poverty, leprosy, hand pulled rickshaws, suffering, death, gutters and then Mother Teresa.
I am also forced to recollect the systematic beggarisation of Bengal during the colonial days, when Britain dumped its own textiles in India, in an effort to artificially be in business. Nick Robin's "The Corporation that Changed the World" goes on to talk about how weavers in Bengal cut off their fingers in a bid to avoid weaving; for they were paid less what they needed to subsist and survive. Artifcial economic environments were in large part the cause of such poverty in Bengal.

Yes, Communism exacerbated the already existing poverty, and as the movie highlights, processions, strikes and Bandhs are often organised for no reason, and people take out processions from nowhere to nowhere, bringing down business everywhere.


As the movie further points out, if Mother Teresa were not a white Catholic, the international press would not be as kind as it was to her.
Mother Teresa drew support from The Vatican. In her Nobel acceptance speech, Mother Teresa says that the greatest damage is done in the world by Abortion.
By shunning abortion, apparently, there shall be world peace. But isnt poverty itself quite often due to the avoiding of abortion.
I do not want to hurt anyone's religious beliefs here, but for someone like Mother Teresa to make such a statement during a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech is - shameful to say the least!
The movie makes you wonder further about how Gandhi was never awarded the Nobel Peace prize, although he was nominated not once or twice, but 5 times!

This is a documentary really, and the people to watch out for are - Aroup Chatterjee, the author of "The Final Verdict". A doctor based out of London, he has carried out 8 years of research on Mother Teresa.
And then, Subir Bhoumik, an ex-BBC correspondent is another man who doesnt hesitate to point out the Indian obsession for white skin as well as the Western obsession with the dark and gloomy image of India.
There is another man, an ex-railway officer, whose name I forget, who reserves the choicest of abuses for Mother Teresa, and he is quite entertaining :)

Made in 2005, by Judhajit Sarkar and running into 54 minutes, the movie is nothing short of education - an eye opener to use a cliche.
And definitely a must watch for a Bengali or - for that matter anyone who has spent even a few hours in Kolkata - the airport and Salt Lake City dont count :P

4 Women - Movie Review

Having only heard and read about Adoor Gopalakrishnan, I had never gotten around to actually watchin any of his movies, and I must really thank Lady Luck for this, and the other movies being shown at the India Habitat Centre. Organised by the Public Service Broadcast Trust - a Not-for-profit trust in partnership with the Prasar Bharati Coporation affiliated to the United Nations, there were movies from Russia, South Africa, Canada and Switzerland as well, all of which I missed out on!
Coming back to the movie - 4 women, originally Naal Pennungal and in Malayalam, this movie was made in 2007 and stars Nandita Das among others.
You must try and watch this movie, so I will strictly speak tangentially (comes quite naturally to me!) in an effort to avoid giving the entire movie away!
The movie has 4 separate stories, and explores the emotional, mental, social and physical lives of 4 different women, one at a time.
The movie starts off with a prostitute, and then later deals with the lives of a married woman, a housewife and a spinster.
Each of the stories is very well picturised, and what one will appreciate in the movie, is that the subtle elements of a typical village in Kerala is very, very well captured.
There is very little background music, and even the very little, is a Carnatic Classical "mood", very well chosen and with perfect timing.
The use of natural sounds stands out, and the feel of Kerala is served to you, to the extent possible, in all its natural purity.
If only Stein Auditorium in the India Habitat Centre had Dolby Stereo! It could have been so much more pleasant to experience natural sounds reproduced in a movie! The main/central speaker behind the screen is not too bad, so movie viewing on a big screen continues to have its own charm :)
Atleast 2 of the four stories are open ended, and the questions they pose are only to be answered, if at all, by the viewer herself or himself.
3 of the 4 stories are about the turn of events, the "swinging"of destinies destinies of the women (if I may say) from happiness, to helplessness.
Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Nandita Das were present for the screening, and Adoor, the humble man he is, refused to be addressed as "Guruji" by another artist/director, saying that he wasn't knowledgeable enough to be a teacher.
Adoor took on questions from the audience, and I could stay around to hear him for only 2 of those questions.
One was about the choice of stories, and open endedness - Adoor had chosen short stories, since they have a lot of scope for creative direction and development of the plot, picturisation etc.,
And then, Adoor also spoke about his motive and idea behind the "threading" of the four stories together.
Adoor was explaining about how each of the stories stands for a "Bhoga" as understood in Hindu philosophy...He had jst about completed mentioning the Bhogas when it was time to go!

Movie: The Inner Tour

The Inner Tour


Well, this movie has already been reviewed by The New York Times, and assuming you will read it, I am only going to tell you about those parts of the movie which caught my attention.

Link to The New York Times review : http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9507E4DB143AF932A35757C0A9649C8B63&ex=1332475200&en=709faf668585ee66&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

But yes, before I move on, let me point to you something I happened to notice on the movie's IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277039/

You will find that the Germany (Berlin film festival) version of the movie is only 85 minutes, down by 12 minutes, and having seen the movie I am sure that a large part of those 12 minutes are from a chapter of the movie which deals with a parallel being drawn between the sufferings of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the Palestinians sufferings due in large part to the Israeli's "Defence force"

The movie has been broken down to 7 chapters and even the chapters are very, very well chosen. There are points in each of the chapter which underline the choice of the chapter title, and this in fact builds gradually to the overall effect the movie has on the viewer.

I am too tempted to reveal the plot, but I am going to resist the temptation and will now tell you what I consider the best portions of each of the chapters.

As the review itself will tell you, the movie(documentary, really) is mostly about Palestinian families, about 5 to 10 of them, touring Israel. They are all visiting Israel for the first time in their lives, and carry baggages of memories of their the pre-partition lives of their own or their families.

1. Very Nice Israel

There is this young man, whose mother is in Lebanon and since he has a Palestinean passport, he cannot visit her. He also has a sister whom he cant meet. On the first day of the tour, he meets these Asians who tell him that they find Israel very nice.
He asks them if they like all of Israel, and then asks them if they like Israel or Palestine.
They tell him that they have never had a chance to "be on the other side"

2. Years pass by and for us time stands for still:

There are various scenes in this chapter, all of which together seem to say this one thing: It is only the burden of time, the baggage that we carry voluntarily on our backs that pull us down. While Israel has become this powerful country, technologically and economically developed, average Palestineans continue to lead a life less ordinary, for, unfortunately, and quite often, unadmittedly, they are caught in a time warp.
They fell down, but instead of choosing to get up, dust themselves and move on, they chose to lie down and wail. ( I know that I am being rather opinionated here, but I am somehow in the mood for strong opinions after having seen the contrast between the lives, as shown in the movie, and as understood otherwise!)

Yes, one needs to sympathise with the cause of the Palestinians. There is no doubt about that. But, just who is to be blamed? The people who wronged the Palestinians have long been dead (disregarding the ongoing violence and international socio-economic-political damage caused by the Israelis).
But, you watch this movie, and you realise that the man on the street in Israel cannot be blamed for your woes. The average Israeli is leading a happy life, and the average Palestinian is still stuck in a time warp! (If at all the problem was not as complex as it really is, the armchair blogger like me could have offered a solution, but, it is indeed a complex problem, and I am only saying what I felt while watching the movie!)


3. I dont want to see; I dont want to see;

Nothing much here really, except for... well, let me not bust the entire movie for you!
Yeah, one of the things that moves you here is the fact that there is this old man, who likens himself to an ostrich burying its head in the sand when in danger. He is drawing a parallel with himself and how he is pained to see many things as part of the tour, and just closes his eye saying "I dont want to see, I dont want to see" to himself...This again makes one think about how, refusing to acknowledge the existence of a problem takes one away from the reality of having to find a solution!

4. I am not even going to tell you the title :P ( I really want you to watch the movie!)

5. Do you like your life?

Imagine this conversation between an Israeli and a Palestinian:

Palestinian: Do you like your life?
Israeli: Yes, I like your life. Why?
Palestinian : Because some people. They dont like their life.
Israeli: Why dont they like their life? Then they should do what they like!
Palestinian :.......
Israeli: It takes time..It takes time..

6 and 7. Well, I have already revealed quite a lot, although I have tried my best to strike a balance between revealing enough to make you want to watch this movie while at the same time not revealing more than what would you put you off!

But, let me just close this review of sorts with one last memory..There is this blind man in the movie who had done exceedingly well for himself in life, despite whatever happened to him as a Palestinian. He is quite well off, and during one of the conversations with a fellow passenger, he recollects an old village saying

"A lot of beating makes a weak man strong"

I just wanted to stand up and clap in full agreement :)


The movie is mostly in Hebrew and Arabic, and the English sub titles do help, but somehow, I felt that it could have been even more impactful and thought provoking had it been in English..
There are obviously atleast some characters I have not even mentioned about, and some aspects to the characters I have left about, just so that you dont accuse me of being a killjoy!
I would rate this movie as a must watch. If you get to watch it, you must watch it..Really!

Worshipper - Of (not just) paintings; Final Solutions (not really; only a play!)

"I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 1

Certain thoughts, patterns and thought patterns are so absorbing that one begins to fear being completely absorbed, leaving behind very little, if at all of the “Self”.
To describe such situations, TheLoneWolf often uses quotes, and Oscar Wilde very often, does the trick.

Another Saturday evening visit to the India Habitat Centre although for another play, will be remembered more for the painting at the gallery than the play itself.

Final Solutions

Mahesh Dattani’s “Final Solution”, performed in Hindi by the Asmita Group was brilliant only in bursts, with the overall effect not being intense enough to provoke thoughts or force one to reflect upon the thoughts that pass by as a side effect.

The play (script) itself was very well thought through, especially in the way the story moves between the past and the present, with a diary written by a young girl before the partition being the window between the past and the present. The two times have not been very different, with communal violence still being a reality, often finding its justification in the unfortunate reality of the Partition.

But, somehow, the overall effect the play had on Him was not something He would describe as being “thought provoking”. Yes, we, as a society still do not easily accept Hindu-Muslim marriages. Inter caste marriages are only beginning to be accepted, and even this, only among the sophisticated, elite classes who are somehow, more often than not, more broad minded than the economically backward masses.

The audience for plays tends to be more often than not, the social elite and people from what are called “the upper middle classes”. So, it may just be that the context of the play is quite lost on the audience, in that, no one in the audience would have indulged in violence anyway!

But then, He does think, that as a society, and as a nation, we still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves truly secular, and there were a few acts in the play which brought back such thoughts to the fore.

The point where Babban ( a Muslim) takes a Hindu idol and places it on his hand, with all due respect and watches it in awe, only to demonstrate that the idol was not revolting or reducing him to ashes was well portrayed.

Bajrang Bali Singh, who played Babban continues to impress, and He can only recollect how he (the actor) had been brilliant indeed as Basavanna in Rakt Kalyan (a previous weekend).

Javed, a character one would love to hate at certain points of time during the play, and at other times would sympathise with, was very, very well portrayed by Susan Brar, and he is one man to watch out for. With a movie release in the pipeline, he had come down from Mumbai only to perform in the play, and as TheLoneWolf finds out later, most artistes have such dreams to help them survive and sustain. For, they don’t get paid anything at all, and not all shows even cover the costs of the stage.

In all, a watchable play, no doubt, and definitely an evening well spent. Only that, if you were expecting to be moved and provoked, you may be in for some disappointment.

Worshipper: – Of Paintings and Off Paintings alike. (Coming soon!)

Reviews: Rakt Kalyan (Hindi play), "Little Does Matter" - a painting exhibition, Karnataka Restaurant.

India Habitat Centre on Lodhi Road is a convention centre with facilities for the simultaneous conduct of 20 odd meetings or conventions, and the marathon reading of newspapers the other day had lead to planning for various possible ways to kill time on a weekend.
I had initially set out that evening to watch the play "Me, Kash and Cruise", a play about three men and their years between 1984 and 2008 in Mumbai.
As my luck/fate would have it, the tickets for both Saturday and Sunday were sold out completely.
I am not sure if part of the reason for the sell out was the delay in my attempt at being calculative and thrifty.
I was waiting for the DTC buses for 15 minutes before I realised that even 50 bucks for an autorickshaw was not bad compared to what I would have spent in Bangalore. When one uses ones own transport, apart from the money one spends on petrol, one also has to shell out a lot of money for parking if one were to frequent malls. So, if I was in Bangalore, meeting up with old friends in a mall, I would have spent a lot of money on parking too, I thought and finally took an autorickshaw.
Lodhi Gardens and the monument ( I later found out that its called the Shish Gumbad) are probably for another day!
The India Habitat Centre near Lodhi Gardens, luckily that day also had an art exhibition and a Hindi play on. Luck, apparently is what people call this. Nothing really bad happens, unless one wants to feel victimised.
So, after a real long time, I guess I had a near ideal weekend, nearly as ideal as idle could be ;-)


Little Does Matter.

On going into the gallery, the first thing a visitor finds is the description of the idea behind "Little Does Matter". While I cannot recall all of it, and trying to type it into my cellphone would be nowhere close to covert, subtle or suppressed, I made a note of only this :

Sanjeev Verma, (http://www.sanjeevverma.com/) says:

For me, Art is a world in itself. A world in which an artist chooses to live with his creations; himself not ruling over it, but merely standing in the middle of this circle of a created beautiful life within the life, enjoying this potent gift that he inherits from the universe.


While I did make a note of the names of a select few of his works, I was badly missing Darshana (my camera), who, in keeping with the dual meanings of her name, would have helped both see and visualize at the same time ;-)

I do not really want to comment on any of Sanjeev Verma's works, especially since a novice is hardly ever a great critic. I did wonder about how much any or all of of the works on display would cost, and then, how they would appreciate in value over time. Investment in art is after all, an area that has recently been receiving attention from an investment perspective.

I must say, I could barely say what each of the paintings was trying to say at first glance; but on reading the title displayed alongside, I could reverse fit the theme onto the painting. I hope this a first step well taken, although appreciating and understanding art is a science in itself!

So...here are some of the names....Self descriptive only to an extent, because the painting cannot really be imagined only given the names...

Blue Streak, Little Does Matter (at the least, 7 variants on display), In between black and white, Beginning of the end, Dreamscape, Green patches, Regress in Progress, Even the mirage is vanishing.

I did like all of the Little Does Matter variants, but Dreamscape was easily my most favourite :-)


Finally, in defense of all artists, here is what I close this review with - An extract from one of Oscar Wilde's works -

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he
does not admire it.  The only excuse for making a useless
thing is that one admires it intensely.
     All art is quite useless.

Rakt Kalyan - Asmita Group

The play is based on Dr. Girish Karnad's Tale Danda, and is set in the days of the Bhakti movement, largely lead by Basavanna in the southern geographies of India during the 12th century. The play has been translated to Hindi by Ramgopal Bajaj, and has been directed by one Mr. Arvind Gaur, who heads the Delhi based Asmita group.

Having paid only Rs. 50 for a ticket, I had found that the play was going to be staged at the amphitheatre, and to my continuing good luck of the evening, there were no mosquitoes to play spoil sport!

The play was absorbing, to say the least, and 2 hours went with less than 2 glances at the watch. The theme and backdrop were something I could associate with, but were really thought provoking, when portraying moral dilemmas, Basavanna's growing popularity and how he was uncomfortable being thought of as an incarnation of God, or being a Godman. The issues of religious faith and belief as against tradition and religious orthodoxy of the Brahmins driven laregely by self-interest, and the issues of inter-caste marriage - something that wouldn't be short of earthshaking in those days.

The acting, and portrayal in the case of a few actors was nothing short of brilliant, and Bajrag Bali Singh (Basavanna), Deepak Ochani (King Bijjala) and Viren Basoya (Jagdeva) easily stood out. The other characters were well enacted too, save for a few peripheral characters failing to recollect dialogues on a few occasions.

The sound and light were reasonably well co-ordinated, but I did think that the music could have been composed or compiled better.

On the whole, watching the play could easily be passed as an evening well spent, and even if it were a small way of promoting theatre, the entertainment and enlightenment angles to socially relevant theatre can never be ignored.

I hope to go back to more of Asmita's plays in the future.



Karnataka Restaurant

On not being able to find buses around 10 pm, time was running out and in about 10 minutes, my patience would give way and the autorickshaw would again come to the rescue of this "LoneWolf" in TheCapital.
Just when I was thinking of dinner, and how back in Bangalore, it would have been as easy as going to a Darshini and quickly downing either a Dosa or any thing North Indian and South Indian quickly and cheaply so what if a bit dirtily, I thought that one of the conveniences and "homely" feel Bangalore had for me was its food and eating out options.
Soon enough, at Yusuf Sarai near AIIMS, I saw this "Karnataka Restaurant" and almost jumped out of the auto ;-)

One of the hazards to running an affordable speciality cuisine restaurant in a city is I guess, having to cater to the local tastes as well. So, I think, when I excuse people around eating Rotis and Paneer curry in a Karnataka Restaurant!

The look and feel of the restaurant resembles that of a typical Karnataka restaurant one can find in some parts of Bangalore (untouched by the glitz and glam of malls) and tier-2 cities like Tumkur, Maddur, etc., Those wooden furniture with laminated plywood table tops are things that remind a Kannadiga of his homeland. The menu of course, is quite important!
The menu lists all that you can possibly imagine eating in a typical restaurant in Karnataka - except for the BisiBeleBath.

The Masala Dosa is TheLoneWolf's all time favourite anyway; so the missing BisiBeleBath doesn't bother him too much. But, if you have been badly missing Karnataka, you might want to have the Karnataka Platter.
At Rs. 60, you can have an Idli, a Vada, with authentic Sambar and Chutney, and a serving each of Kesari Bath and Upittu/Upma. Finally, you have a choice of Dosa between the Masala Dosa and the Uttapam.

Easily, the most authentic and yet affordable Karnataka Restaurant I have ever seen or heard of in Delhi.

Jai Kannada! (So much that I was listening to Kannada songs while walking back!)