Puddles of Memories

 

It came like a sudden summer rain.

UNEXPECTED.

He and she.

Just like children.

They soaked up every drop of the rain.

IGNORING Mum’s warning.

“Summer rain is no good at all!”

They loved, laughed, lived.

As if for the first time ever.

They played, praying it would never stop, but

KNOWING all the time that it would.

Summer rain it was, after all.

***

He and She.

They slid back to their jejune lives.

REMEMBERING.

How as children, they trudged back to school

After a bout of cold. Strangely

SAD that they were cured.

The puddles remained.

GLAD.

To float their paper boats, to watch their reflection.

It made them happy. It brought no storms.

Summer rain it was, after all.

All that Jazz

I've always been enamoured by Jazz music. 

To start from home, I've loved  A R Rahman's lovely jazz numbers.

• Vennila Vennila & Hello Mr Edhikatchi  both from Iruvar 
• Jillendru Oru Kaadhal - Just love this one!
• Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na  - I think this is the song where I realised that ARR has a unique talent for Jazz  
• The latest addition  Mera Naam Kizie ...an earworm I wouldn't mind.

And it's a blessing when he chooses to sing them himself with his accordion or piano.  (Side note: I'm making a list of songs where he's played the accordion.)  

Coming back to Jazz, I've heard this genre as the BG score in so many films. Recently, Marvellous Mrs. Maisel and La La Land. I always listen to Jazz on the site, AccuRadio when I'm working. I'm familiar with Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra (his music is also a kind of jazz, I understand). I've loved Madonna do her Jazz in the album Dick Tracy. If I remember right, Indian fusion artistes have also touched upon Jazz (L Shankar, Zakir Hussain with John McLaughlin?). I want to learn more about it.

I've always wondered why I'm so attracted to Jazz music. It evokes a sense of freedom, leisure (not just of hotel lounges), happiness, a sense of living the moment and pleasure (not just of bedrooms, though Jazz cringingly features as a BG for so many seduction scenes [eyeoll] in films.)

So while working today, as always I was listening to music and this playlist popped up. It has some lovely jazzy numbers. Interesting, it's called Wandering around the Parisian Streets! This playlist evokes so many thoughts, dreams and memories...thoughts of lengthy meaningful conversations, dreams of sitting in a nightclub and listening to live jazz, memories of my trip to Paris - one of the best memories of my life. I still can't put my finger down on one thing that made me fall in love with the city. Sometimes, you just fall in love without knowing why - Paris and Jazz are just a few examples. 

And this is the playlist that popped up on YouTube, unasked. 

https://youtu.be/4WLiUSqNcak

While I'm still halfway through, I like Music Of The Sea - Fishing Secrets Jeremy Moyer and Je Ne T'aime Plus.

Tell me about your love story with jazz or a genre you are inexplicably attracted to. 

A little time off

Just stole a glance, though I wished to linger.
The lake and the moon need their time together too.

Labels

 

Adventurers

We are always warned about "thin lines" between this and that.

But some people always like balancing on those lines. Adventurers.

pc: kolyan.net

A Suitable Boy TV Series - Almost there

A Suitable Boy - a book that I loved immensely. And so was looking forward to catching the series. Two episodes down and I had mixed feelings about it before Meera Nair's hand appeared to save the series.

The first thing that struck me was that the setting, language and body-language didn't quite look like the 1950s. A lot of it felt more contemporary, at least in the initial episodes. Well, there might have been a set of highly educated, affluent families trying to fill the vacuum of the British snobbery. I need to do my research, though.

Coming back to language, you find certain characters easily shifting between Urdu/Hindi and English, which sounded a little unnatural. Maybe they should have stuck to English all through. A very difficult decision I'd say. Also, the diction in the initial episodes felt like a college-play and it did get smoothed out later.

The series takes off somewhere around episode 3. That is when we feel Mira Nair's presence perhaps for the first time. The visualisation of Lata's dilemma and agony was beautiful.

I guess that is where one has to appreciate the writers of the series. It is extremely difficult to encapsulate a novel of these proportions into 6 episodes of about an hour each. You need to pick and choose very carefully between what is absolutely essential and what is not, how to throw in a reference, how to weave in sub-texts and so on. What intrigues me every time I watch the adaptation of a book is how the director visualises the unspoken. I guess there lies their strength. However, I felt certain subtleties that Vikram Seth used in the book should have just been left as such. For having skipped the character of Veena Kapoor entirely, I felt Meenakshi's character was unnecessarily detailed only to be dropped off suddenly.

One thing that helped in piecing together all of this is the brilliant casting. I think this was one reason that kept me hooked on to the series. Right through, I kept sitting up and exclaiming "Hey him... hey..it's her!" Even the actors I haven't seen before are quite nicely cast and are have done a great job. The lady who played Mrs Kapoor is a natural. Okay, I had imagined Adil Hussain for Mahesh Kapoor's character but I love Ram Kapoor. So, I'm happy either way. Oh! Danesh Razvi as Kabir Durrani is so charming! Would love to see him more often in films. And Namit Das as Haresh! Maybe I like the character better now. He played the character to perfection (You are caught with mixed feelings between the actor that you like and the character that you, well...!)

I really can't say if I'd like to recommend this series to those who have not yet read the book because the series undoubtedly lacks the depth and the entire intent of the book. It has captured Lata Mehra's story to the fullest. It has tried its best to get the mood of the political strife, sadly there isn't much time. Like I have said in my review of the book, the phrase "Suitable Boy" is much more than just a marriage match. Here's my review of the book.

 

Surgical Strike

"Just imagine", they said, "how free you are going to be." Everybody pep-talked me. "You are not sick. You are only going to get better. You are not a patient," they said. So I went and got an expensive mani-pedi, finished it off with red nail polish.

The first thing as soon as I check-in: (note: my usage of the term check-in shows my state of mind at that time) "Madam, please cut nails and remove nail polish." The earth shattered around me. There were thunder and lightning. I turned around three times in slow-mo "Aakhir kyon?"

The angel in white boomed amidst the thunder, "Patient-ku, no nail polish allowed meydem." Disillusionment #374 of my life. I tried to make a joke out of it, "Patient-aa? Naana? Chey" etc. "You only meydem patient"

I begged. I tried reasoning. Nothing worked. Finally, making impatient clucking noises, I obeyed the nurse's orders. And she sweetly patted me and said "Thank you for being patient with us" (Don't you pun on me, woman!)

The surgery: I was lying there, watching the (literally) cold operation theatre being prepared for the surgery. I don't know if they were preparing to fell a tree or work on a human body. Such was the size of the tools they were laying out.

I meekly asked them, "Do you have to really do this in front of me?" Here I was, going through the most unattractive and unattracted day and there was this anaesthetist trying to make flirtatious small talk, comparing the nightlife of Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. The conversation did put me to ease but I was too proud to accept that Chennai has a boring nightlife. Hmpfff...

Soon they bundled up my spine like an old, unstarched Bengal cotton saree and punctured several times. The nurses were so excited as if they were pinning sequins on the old Bengal cotton saree.

I could hear exclamations of "Ah! Now it's good. Ah! Super." In a few moments, I was in a daze. The anaesthetist came close and asked me, "How do you feel?" I could hear myself drawl, "As if I have downed six pegs of whiskey neat" Hangover of all that nightlife banter I guess.

I was wheeled out of the OT, grinning like a Cheshire cat, waving like a gallant Olympic medallist, all thanks to the whiskey..err.. the anaesthesia. Unsavoury display of discarded body parts almost made visiting relatives faint in fright. Thank God, nothing untoward happened, else I would have ended up paying the room rent x 2.

Post-Op: Anyway, I managed to sneak home within a few days and then started the trouble. Sat up all night because of heartburn (arrey, I mean the real physical heartburn yaar), sprained my neck because of that. So for the next few days, I was a robotic Frankenstein who had to do a complete turn around when the peripheral vision gave up. Then there was this no-bending rule. Being a rebel, I always like to bend the rules. But when they ask the rebel herself not to bend, that's when you realise life has its way of taking its revenge. That's when your brat will toss her jeans on the floor; your cook will leave onion peels on the floor. And you must refrain yourself from bending down, just like Bhagyashree in the final act of the Dil Deewana song. Label me a control freak if you want to. Fine, but what will you do when the bar of soap slips off your hand in the middle of a bath? You get creative and resourceful. You learn to use your toes to pick up anything ranging from clothes to hair to bottle caps, you name it (remind me to enlist myself for the next season of India's Got Talent). If the toes fail you, you learn to use shampoo instead of soap.

While I was recovering, people pampered me with cinnamon rolls and baadhushaas. The goodies have now neatly arranged themselves like a kid's stacking rings around my waist. I don't know how many more months I will have to walk around with this jiggly-jelly-belly. (Why the hell do good things have to be so fattening?)

When I rapidly lost a lot of weight soon after the surgery, I was thrilled. The lady at the hospital knowingly nodded her head and gave out the dark prophecy "You will gain as quickly as you have lost" Oh Oracle, how I ignored your warning!

Now after two months, the stacking rings follow with me to the office desk, threatening to get larger, but that's okay. I am happy that it's all behind me now or on my behind.

Reference material for the uninitiated

* Stacking rings: Illustrated above

* Bhagyashree's urges: https://youtu.be/7IHTdSc3WTw?t=239