Apu’s World

The DVD of Love, Sex aur Dhokha has been lying around at home for some time, but it was only over this weekend that I got around to watching it. Directed by Dibakar Banerjee (of Khosla ka Ghosla fame), LSD is actually three stories in one, with peripheral links to each other.

The first one is a mushy love story, the second an MMS sex scandal and the third, about the media’s voracious appetite for ’stings’. It is the second and third stories that really hold your attention; the first one is slow to heat up and I almost forwarded a little of the first 10-15 minutes. Yet, my mind keeps going back to it. (This post isn’t a movie review though.)

*Spoilers here, beware!*

When the love story of Rahul, aspiring director at a film institute and Shruti, the “Simran” of his film begins, it is hard not to think of this love story as more a paean to DDLJ than anything else. Cheesy like the film they are making, it is hard to imagine that Rahul and Shruti really love anything beyond the feeling of being in love.

And yet, given the conservative family Shruti comes from, there is no possibility of their dating or getting to know each other. Love must lead to an elopement and marriage almost immediately. Rahul’s blithe confidence that after marriage, the family will “come around”, is almost revolting to watch in its stupidity. The end, when it comes, is gruesome, even though nothing of this honour killing is really shown.

Just yesterday, the Supreme Court has issued a notice asking the Central Government (and a few states), why they are doing nothing to combat the recent spate of honour killings.

The thing about us Indians is that we pride ourselves on our superior ‘Indian values’; we lose no chance to deride Western societies for their (alleged) lack of affection, ‘family values’ and morality. Nowhere is this more evident than in our smug attitude to the upbringing of children. It is so common to hear people talking as though Indians are the only people that know how to bring up children well - everywhere else, children are neglected, spoilt, abused and grow up to have no love for their parents.

And yet, this is the country where a good chunk of people are all too ready to sacrifice their children in the name of honour, society, family name and blah blah. Honour killing is one extreme end of the spectrum, but the unwillingness to accept children’s choices and their happiness as a primary consideration exists in many other forms, ranging from emotional blackmail to being ‘cast out of the family’.

Gajar-ka-halwa aside, we need to stop kidding ourselves. I suppose we have good and bad parents like everywhere else, but no magic beans that qualify us as the best parents on earth.

apu Media-Movies-Ads, Women & Feminism

To be a mother is to feel guilty. If it’s not for the big things, it’s for the small things. If it’s not others making you feel guilty, you do it to yourself.

All mothers know this, which is probably why over at Women’s Web, this feature, ‘Fight that Mommy Guilt’ got such a tremendous response from readers.

Which is why, we’ve decided to go ahead and use it as the theme for our first contest on Women’s Web.

The rules are simple 1-2-3:

1. Write your own post on ‘Mommy Guilt‘ - it can be funny, sad, touching, angry, thoughtful - anything you choose. And you don’t HAVE to be a parent - anyone with a story to share can participate.

2. Make sure you include a link to our feature, ‘Fight that Mommy Guilt’ somewhere in your post.

3. Let us know of your entry - on the comments section of the contest entry post, at our Facebook group, at our twitter ID, or by emailing us at contests@womensweb.in with the words ‘Mommy Guilt’ in your subject line.

(If you don’t have a blog but really want to participate, you can still send it to us as an attached document at the e-mail ID mentioned above, and if it wins, we’ll publish it here. For these entries, obviously, step 2 doesn’t apply)

And the Prizes?

The 3 best entries EACH get a Rs. 500 voucher that you can use to shop for books, music or other goodies at Flipkart. (Anyone in the world with a valid e-mail address can receive these vouchers, but Flipkart currently ships only to addresses in India).

This contest kicks off  NOW - which means entries dated from 17th June to 28th June will be valid, when we close for entries and start judging.

The Judges? Yours truly, and Nita Deb, the writer of the original piece that started it all.

Go ahead and give it a shot!

apu In General

For a long time, it seemed to me as if all Indian writers in English wrote “serious” things - complicated stories, language that needed some getting through, “big” themes, weighty tomes. And then came Chetan Bhagat and the many followers in his footsteps, who unleashed upon us a spate of poorly-written novels, mostly to do with engineering institutes and adolescent angst. It seemed as if one could either have 5-star hotel caviar or roadside vada pav; if you weren’t in the mood for the first and couldn’t stomach the second, poor you!

Luckily, times are changing. In the last couple of years, Indian writers in English are attempting every possible genre, including murder mysteries and graphic novels. There is a growing market for well-written, yet easy-to-read fiction, which is probably why Penguin has brought out a new series, Metro Reads, dubbing them “fun, feisty, fast reads.”

One of this series, Paritosh Uttam’s Dreams in Prussian Blue, would probably not qualify for the ‘fun’ bit, given its somewhat serious story, but it fulfils the rest of the criteria. Dreams in Prussian Blue is the unconventional love story of art college dropouts, Naina and Michael. The novel sticks to a small group of characters and does that well - while Michael is the anti-hero, Uttam takes the reader to the darkness behind seemingly ‘nice’ and bland characters as well.

The bonus is that while the story is novel and the characters real, the language is simple enough for the average reader. A live-in relationship, a selfish artist, a naive young woman who realizes that love and fresh air may not be enough, the Indian art world, nosy neighbours and traditional parents who can no longer hold on to their children -  the plot moves forward quickly, and kept me engrossed wanting to know what happens (and plenty does!) The dialogue works too, with the lingo of the 20-something crowd captured well.

It so happened that the last few weeks, I’ve been snowed under work and reluctant to take on anything too complicated. Dreams in Prussian Blue fits perfectly into that sort of mood - when all you want is a good story.

Publisher: Penguin India

Price: Rs. 150

apu The Literary life

A week or so ago, through a Facebook group, Amazing Passages from Favourite Books (totally worth checking out, btw), I revisited Tonight I can write the saddest lines, one of Chilean writer Pablo Neruda’s best known poems.

In the Youtube video above, it is being read beautifully by actor Andy Garcia. (Isn’t it amazing how sometimes, less is more when it comes to a performance?)

From the poem, these lines stayed with me, Love is so short, Forgetting is so long. Indeed, in that one line, it can be said that Neruda has summed up all of human existence, or at least a big part of it.

Love is short. Many things break it up, and I’m not just talking of romantic love. Blood relationships break less easily, but even there, there is plenty of scope for complexity. While we like to eulogise the unconditional love between parent and child, even there, there is and can be jealousy, anger, sometimes even apathy. (We need to talk about Kevin is a book that looks at one very dark parent-child relationship - it’s a book that sent shivers down my spine when I read it).

So yes, love is short - people change, things change and worst of all, death happens. Inspite of this, we invest of ourselves in many relationships. Sometimes, I feel as though our love and passion for certain people makes us impervious to the fact that there is no such thing as forever.

Logically speaking, we know that heartache will find us, sooner or later, but we prefer not to think about it. Is this bravery or foolishness, I am unable to say. All I can say is that forgetting is so hard.

apu In General, The Literary life