Dhobi Ghat (the mumbai diaries)

It's funny writing this review after my last post, considering how this movie, in my opinion, is 'beautiful' in every sense of the word. From perfect screen shots to the delicately crafted characters... it is a movie in so many layers that one watch may not suffice. 

Four people. Four dreams. One busy city. It is a story that unveils four very strong characters who have come to accept their present reality. And among the many colorured threads that hold the movie together, the one thread that stood out to me the most, was that of inspiration. Four bold stories of inspiration. A lonely married woman, who sees happiness in the simple things in life. Notices the power of the natural beauty that surrounds her and who comes to accept her fate, not bitterly, but by reaching out ... hoping that someday a loved one will receive her messages. An artist, quite maturely understanding of the world and its ways... who finds his muse in these preserved recorded messages. He discovers a hidden world that inspires him to throw light on it... and he tries to re create what he understands of it... 

A banker, back in town to work on a project that requires her to take photographs of small businesses... she meets the everyday man... a dhobi... who inspires her and befriends her... And he himself who desires to be an actor someday. Now that I'm attempting to re write what I saw in the movie, I realise how difficult it really is on my part to do so! There were so many intertwined stories... and I've only tried to bring out the one on inspiration. How four individuals, from completely different strata of society come to play such an important part in each others lives... how they unleash creativity and subtly encourage the other to really reach out in whichever form... how we may never realise it, but we are what we see around us! We are a combination of the people we've met, and the company we've kept. 

But then again, all four individuals knew their place... the entire movie was like a brief two hour entry into a diary of how the lives of these four people changed, and how then... they moved on... there was no specific happily ever after (as there always seems to be in the filmy reality) but instead there was an intense show of passion  ... and the movie, redolent with innocent human emotion, also show cased some beautiful aspects of the busy city of Mumbai. All in all... I believe this was a film that exhibited so many different forms of simplistic love and emotion... stories of inspiration .... that the viewer would see things in the same angle that he would reflect on his life. That is what makes this movie so beautiful... true art in true art forms. A painter. A photographer. An aspirant actor. And the recording of a simple woman, with simple human wants. 

Art is Life is Art.

This was the tag line of an advertisement I'd recently seen on television. It stood out. Life is art, isn't it? At least it's meant to be. We're meant to live in an 'artful' way. Beautifully. Tastefully. We should be able to capture every passing moment in a picture frame. Bright colours and polka dots…flowing laughter and frills… there’s meant to be beauty in what we see and how we see it. It should all be pleasing to see and hear. Full of rhythm and life … and yet, is that how we live? The reality, drowned in black and white paint, seems more stagnant.

It’s money that we’re taught to sought after and not this beauty. Happiness is apparently waiting at the end. But is it? People spend years on end working , slogging hours day in and day out… earning. Where’s the beauty in all of that? It’s just a mere fulfilment of necessity. Where’s that tasteful element of pleasure? Where is that fleeting moment of bliss? All lost in this mad race to reach the top?

Is art life? Of course it is. It is what we see, that we portray. If one were to analyse art down the ages… you can see how the perspective of man has changed. I consciously refrain from calling it ‘evolution’ as I believe it is not progress but quite the opposite that has resulted. Previously, art was beauty. It was definite. Defined. Colourful and pleasing. And now, good art is when it is more abstract and yet, more blunt. It has to throw the message at a person’s face and leave you shocked. It would be a little too cynical on my part to completely deny modern day art of any beauty… but that element of sheer simplicity seems to be lacking.

Art today, is a blatant reflection of the modern human creative mind. We’re all changed beings, chasing ( in my opinion and in strictly my cynical opinion alone ) some very meaning less and valueless goals in life. The absence of that simplistic tasteful sense of art, be it in which ever form, leaves one sighing.

  

And I'm back!

Well, I'm back to writing again! Here are some of my previous posts that I had preserved ... Looking back, it sure does seem like I've grown! But more on that in my next post.

Oh... and here's wishing you and your family a peaceful new year.   :)

Goodbyes...

27.4.10

Goodbyes.

Most of the time I don't get to write as much or exactly what I'm thinking because I don't have access to the computer all the time. And more over, when I do have access, that inclination and urge to write seems to disappear. But this is one thing I've been thinking about for a while now. Goodbyes. I've come to detest them.

It's like I'm stuck, at the centre of an ever rotating merry go round, where people come , sit with me for a while when we rotate together. But that journey soon ends, and it's time for them to get off, until they visit again while I keep on rotating. People come, and people go. The world changes, but I remain there, at the very centre. Rotating.

The Muchness of Life...

The Muchness of life.

Yesterday was by far one of the most intriguing days ever... I spent the morning vomiting over-night-learnt-knowledge on a piece of paper. In the afternoon I learnt how I should think of 6 impossible things before breakfast everyday. And in the evening... the value of a family and loved ones and the monotonicity of everyday life.

Our imagination is most precious to us... and no movie could have portrayed this any better. Based on Lewis Carol's story... the world we create for our self is indeed in our minds alone. And no matter how much you might want to get away from what may seem like only a dream... it might just be where you belong. And thinking of those 6 impossible things? It might just be a little harder than you thought considering this dreary world has knocked the creative sense out of us. We think what we see. And we see what we think. The dragon and the rabbit seldom co exist in this world now, or do they? Aah, but that's the absurdity! Because they do! We just can't see them... we're too blinded to notice how our neighbour breathes fire or how the teacher is on a quest... or that the television anchor is a suitor and that the tailor indeed resembles a dress! There are trillions of them characters out there... but we see them all as one. Not to mention, how only those who see this might be considered a little mad... but the best of them are!... Bonkers and completely out of their minds!

But then you realise the burdens of life... and the reality of the love that surrounds you. Memories and much fondness... and that one table that brings the family together at dinner time. Everyone moves on someday... life is eternally changing .... and no one belongs to us for ever... and yet, we find happiness in the smaller things... the smaller achievements in life.

Yesterday really was an intriguing day... very intriguing.

Simply Pure...

19.6.09

Simply Pure

They're such simple people living such simple lives. In fact, it's this simplicity that really defines them. It makes them who they are. It makes them happy.
They don't need anyone else. They don't need anything else. Just themselves and their loving support for each other. That's all they need. That's all they need for this happiness.

This is a happiness that comes not from materialistic gains and neither from wishful fulfilment. You can see that it comes right from within them... from that unreachable place unknown to melancholic strangers.

And yet, all they have, are themselves. Two souls living together in a well kept home. Two fishes in a fish bowl.

They are not only simple, but genuine. Their love is true and their concerns real. They know how to care for you as they know how to care for each other. Their love, entwined in their deep friendship, seemed to have manifested itself in generosity and genuine affection. The two of them, were one, in being and existence. Unselfish, and united.

May be that's all we need in life, too? Trust and incorruptible attachment. Only one other individual who will be there, always, and who will give us reason for being there too. That one other person who will not only be indispensable, but also, irreplaceable. 

Expectations...

8.6.09

Futile Expectations

A new motto.

We must never expect anything. From anybody. It raises hopes, makes us dwell in momentary fantasies, and then ruins us with the bubble of imagination bursting into reality. It's unfair. Cruel. Ruthless. Pernicious.

And it affects our economy too. The spiral effect. As expectations rise, prices rise. As prices rise, in turn expectations rise even further. Vicious circle, yet again.

And so in life. Do not expect. Do not expect a sunny day, or a cold winter. Do not expect rewards or permanence. Do not look for gratitude or appreciation. If we do not expect anything... anything at all... we will be at ease with what comes our way. This is one small key to that bolted door of happiness. Do not expect anything.

But does that make us inanimate? Defunct? Emotionless? Pitiful?

No. Just indifferent.

We're ready to accept any path. The narrower path over the broader, the longer path over the shorter. We're aloof to either way. We acquire the wisdom to accept the things that we can not change and we move on. No regrets. No emotional breakdowns. No disappointments.

But the hard part is when we try to implement this. As after all we are humans? And it's an inbuilt feature in our human conscience to expect. It is our rationality that drives us to a crumbling collapse. No matter how hard we try to monitor ourselves, transforming into amateur robots, we still fall prey to hopes and dreams and ... expectations.

The consistent series of happenings seem to programme themselves in our minds so we may expect the same series of occurrences over and over and over.... Some expectations have so deeply penetrated our subconscious selves that we don't even realise it. And we don't even really need to. As until that bubble bursts, until night turns into day and day into night, and until humans stop giving birth to humans and until green leaves turn blue... and until the earth stops rotating and we stop breathing, we will continue to be the half robot we are. Trying desperately to administer our actions, thoughts and hopes and yet, feeling them the same... living with incessant expectations, curbing thoughts till they reach that turning into the lane of disappointment.

Preface

25.5.09

Preface

After much persuasion, here it is! I must confess though, that I have attempted this exercise once before but to no avail!

And so here goes again... my attempt to catch random floating thoughts and pen them down anxiously. Hence the name. Thought Camp. We're surrounded by thoughts. All kinds of them. Pleasant and unpleasant ones. At times they tend to cramp our minds and blur our subjective visions. And so it helps to catch them one by one, pin them to the paper and scrutinise them over and over till we're clear about exactly how we wish to interpret them. Painful exercise as it seems, it's our only escape!! And the strange part about this is ... no matter how many of these thoughts we take credit for analysing, there are still many more of them wandering about out there. Many more dozens of similar confounding thoughts just waiting to be caught. So then why the copyright? Aah! There comes the irony. We take privilege in inventing ideas that were out there anyway. We just find them. And claim to make them our own!! We take pride in having widened our horizons and looked beyond the ordinary, to see things that others may not have seen!


Strange.


But here would be many of these thoughts, caught and analysed to great depth constrained by my abilities and restricted to discussing not people, but beings. Not occurrences but situations. Not ideologies but beliefs.