They say life is what happens when you are making other plans but what if there are no plans?

In 2011 someone asked me 'How long have you been in the United States?' and I said '5 years' and she said 'only 5 years?'

Little did she know that in those 5 years there were enough activities that were filled into an already overflowing suitcase of memories.

Moving to United States, relocating from Indiana to Pennsylvania, finding a full-time job, moving into a teeny-apartment with sky-high rent, ruining a friend's car in a headlong collision with a tree , going through a divorce alone without friends, car and a new job (Ah!shit! moment of my life), putting up with 'what does she know?' looks at work, a new shining red car, acquiring good friends along the way, trip to Scotland, day trips to Atlantic city, parents visit and proud to see me do well, smart move to a better apartment, first long drive to new jersey, new boy friends, heartbreaks,beautiful snowfalls, discovering the joy of writing a book, digging deeper into movies,finding out that I have a green thumb, going to writers meets, trip to California, people at work saying 'she does know something', my promotion as Senior product manager, trips to India, rediscovering old friends, surviving management changes in the company, putting up with 'you shouldn't have gotten divorced', certified in product management, trips to New York, Broadway shows ,going to women's leadership course, discovering someone I love, getting better at long distance driving,discovering the fun of baking, cooking, partying, dancing besides many other unmentionables!
 
No, it wasn't only 5 years....

As I step into 2012, I hope I come a wee bit closer to discovering myself - who I am , what I want and hopefully know how to bring these two together.

'The chair is not gay, obviously' - Hal in 'Beginners'

There is a moment in ‘Beginners’ when I felt like shaking Oliver (Ewan McGregor) to pull him out of his reverie of depression but then death is a life-altering experience and I think everyone goes through this phase while in mourning. ‘Beginners’ is a story of life, death, childhood, irreverent love, vintage moments and gay relationships. But at the core of it is a story of a father and son. If you are over thirty then you would have experienced this already, if you are not yet thirty, you are yet to experience this –change in your relationship with your parents. Fathers who haven’t had time for you when you were a kid suddenly have all the time in the world to spend with you.

Oliver’s dad is no different. He is conspicuously absent when Oliver reminiscences over his childhood while during his final days of battling with cancer, it is Oliver who takes complete care of him. Gay relationships is no surprise these days but the father coming out of his closet after his mother’s death and dating someone the same age as his son, is indeed astonishing.

It is 2003 and Oliver is trying to get over his father’s death. His father (Christopher Plummer, as brilliant as ever) deals cancer with fun and fervor. Having come out of the closet, he visits clubs, has parties with his gay friends and like any other self-respecting gay person, he wears it on his sleeve. Cut to the present and Oliver has a new and mysterious girlfriend Anna. Anna is the perfect mystery woman lover that any man can ask for and that is my biggest grouse with her character. She is wooden caricature of a mysterious French lover.

The scenes of Oliver’s childhood with his mom are both nostalgic and sad. He seems to have only his mother as company and his mom him to accompany her to art galleries. Her whimsical behavior there is left unexplained. As with Anna, the mother is left an under-developed character.

The movie works as a good montage of Oliver’s relationship with his father and the past but fails in establishing the women’s characters. Nevertheless it is a good indie movie to watch on a lazy Saturday evening.

Think Before You Ink

The afternoon was bright but deceptive – it was windy and the chill bit into my skin; in a pair of casual jeans and black flats, I headed towards ‘Hot Shots’ along with my cynical friend, who exclaimed that I was getting a ‘tramp stamp’.

I reach the place at the appointed hour. John, the tattoo artist, was busy drawing someone else, so I had to wait. I had been warned by a maternally protective co-worker (who is almost the age of my mother) to be prepared to meet some horrible crowd out there. But it wasn’t the crowd that was horrible, instead those hundreds of tattoo design books held some really horrible stuff ‘infants with devilish looking eyes’ –really??. A woman there thought I was too polite to which I replied feebly ‘That is because I am a tattoo virgin’.

I had a couple of designs in mind – Scorpio (my zodiac sign), a Chimera (the pen name I use), a clover (feminine design) and a compass star (for direction). I ruled out the first two because of their elaborate designs, the clover because I did not completely relate to it, so I was left with the compass star. John showed me a few designs online with a compass star and I did not like most of them. I had seen a nautical purple star in one of the design books and I decided on going ahead with it, purple being my favorite color.

When I told John where I wanted it, he said that it would be the most painful part of the body and naïve as I am, I said ‘but would you not be using some painkiller?’ and he replied in the negative. I almost passed out, I mean how stupid can I be? Not only did I assume that they would use some sort of painkiller but I also did not bother to look it up online!

Now the question arose ‘To do or not to do?’ I would have run away from that place, had it not been for my friend who said ‘Turn back only if you really don’t want a tattoo but do not turn back because you are a chicken.’ That did the trick; I decided to go ahead with it.

My friend and I went inside the saloon or whatever it is they call the place filled with weird looking things where the dyes and the needles await your skin. John made a sketch of the nautical star on my left foot (yes that is the place I wanted the tattoo) and boy! When the needle touched my skin, I almost screamed ‘Mummy, please stop, it is too painful’ and that is when the teasing started. My friend and another man who worked at the place joined forces and started teasing me for being a wimp. But I was in pain and beyond the point of caring. I openly declared that it was painful and let out a whimper now and then. After 25 minutes, I emerged out victorious, my nautical star on my feet guiding me into my future.

Computer engineers are India's biggest export. - Lalit Verma in 'Monsoon Wedding'

I have a thing for old soulful Hindi songs playing in the background in any movie, like for example in ‘Ishqiya’ , Vidya Balan and Naseer argue about the music composer of ‘Kuch Dil Ne kaha’ (which happens to be one of my all time favorite songs) , but then I digress.

There is a scene in Monsoon Wedding where the soulful lyrics of ‘Aaj jaane ki zid na karo, youn hi pehlu mein baithe raho’ waltz through the rainy breeze while a would-be bride has a tryst with her married lover. And this is not the only thing I love about this movie.


Much like ‘Rachel getting married’ has a melancholic undertone in an otherwise happy wedding; ‘Monsoon Wedding’ has its mix of gloom among the colorful and vibrant Punjabi wedding. This movie works for me on many levels especially the portrayal of urban Indian families. It captures the exact mix of westernized yet traditional Indians, the cigarette smoking mother, the father who wants to have an extravagant wedding for his daughter but at the same time is concerned about the spiraling costs, the Australian visiting cousin who tries to make out with another girl and the bride’s younger brother who dreams of becoming a chef.

It also shows the realism of arranged marriages, just like that of the Vermas, who may have separate beds but when it comes to a common problem do not fail to come together in a passionate embrace.
There is also the simple love story of the maid with the wedding planner, who lives in a single room with his old mother.
While the story does focus on the rich family, the camera also zooms over the narrow by lanes of Delhi, showcasing the shops, the streets and the one bedroom tenements. A darker story is also revealed in the form of a pedophile uncle whom Mr.Verma boycotts from the wedding once the truth is out.

A wedding is always a melting pot for immediate and extended families and there are a lot of traditional ceremonies in the Indian wedding – like sangeet (where henna tattoo is applied to the bride’s hands amidst singing and dancing by women), the actual baraat (the arrival of the groom) and finally the marriage itself.

An American friend recently asked me ‘Don’t Indians marry the partners picked by their parents?’ and I replied saying ‘The difference is that the partner then is an unknown devil instead of a known devil!’
While most young people in India today go for love marriages, there is still a vast populace who go the ‘arranged marriage’ route.

This movie touches on this topic so subtly when the would-be-bride realizes how futile her affair with a married man is and confesses the truth to her fiancé. And after sleeping over the matter, the groom is able to accept the bride including her past, which is a giant leap from the notion of virginal brides going the arranged marriage route!

All in all, a joyful ride of a good old Indian wedding set in urban India and includes music, dance and not to mention drama.

I love robbing the English, they're so polite. - Otto in 'A Fish Called Wanda'

Who recently said ‘Life does not imitate art, Life imitates bad television!’ (Woody Allen, of course). Imagine if the eccentricities of a single person are to be the focal point of a movie, then it would be nothing but hilarious and ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ has heightened focus on the eccentricities of several individuals – an animal lover with a stutter – Ken(Michael Palin), a Nietzsche loving stupid American – Otto(Kevin Kline in his Oscar winning performance), a woman who would seduce the pope for money –Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and lastly a stiff upper lip English lawyer, Archie (John Cleese).

And the eccentricities do not stop there, Otto hates being called ‘Stupid’, Wanda gets into a passionate tumble whenever a man speaks Italian and Ken loves his fish so much that he names one of them as ‘Wanda’.

There are many things in ‘A Fish called Wanda’ that makes you laugh, and the thing that most tickled my funny bone was a character named ‘Otto’.
I was so smitten by him that I wished that he was the one sitting next to Wanda on their final flight to Rio instead of Archie.

Otto and Wanda, two American petty thieves, are engaged by British henchmen George and Ken to help in robbing a bank. After the heist, Otto and Wanda rat on George to the police. But George has his tracks covered by hiding the loot. Wanda attempts to seduce George’s English barrister, Archie in an attempt to discover the hidden loot.
What follows is a series of goofy events involving Archie and Wanda and her possessive lover, Otto.

Some of the best jokes are Wanda’s takes on Otto’s stupidity,

Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape? Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

Otto makes fun of Ken and his love for animals, he says

“Nice fish, Ken. You know what Nietzsche said about animals? "They were God's second blunder."

and Archie for being so ‘snotty, stuck up, intellectual British faggots’

The screenplay by John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) makes it one helluva laugh riot without it being on the face slapstick.

Here I would like to stop and pose a question: ‘There is a link between this movie and two of my other movie posts’ Can you take a shot at what they are? I promise to give away virtual prizes :)