Why Dark Night Fails
July 29, 2008 | Filed Under Theatre & Movies | 4 Comments
(spoiler alert)
I have always admired Batman for apparent lack of super-powers. But the movie - Dark Knight - reduced him to really a vain super hero. In this movie, he still has a nice bike and the best car ever made, a great utility belt and you almost feel he is a James Bond sans the women. What he completely lacks in the movie is good judgement. He is a reluctant super hero and almost pathetic at times. He would really be nothing if he didn’t have the butler or the gadget expert - Morgan Freeman with him. Even the letter that needs to be given to Batman, the butler decides to not give it to him and it is not his judgement call to know that it does not relate to him. No one seems to trust him with decisions. His ex-girlfriend seems to have seen the spiderman series and knows all about a super heroes fallibility. She forgets that spiderman has real powers. I hate how Batman is made to look in this movie, more like someone who takes orders, doesn’t even come out as a strategist.
The movies hero is undoubtedly the Joker character. It just seems that the movie is made around him and he is just playing with Batman, like a cat plays with a mouse. He creates so much mess and it seems without too much of trouble. And he still has the last laugh.
The movie is well made, but that is the least you can expect from a Batman movie. It fails at being a Batman’s movie.
In retrospect - Writers’ Game Garage Sale
July 23, 2008 | Filed Under Poetry, Theatre & Movies, writers game | 3 Comments
Writers’ Game was born on 6th March 2005 as an offshoot of Open Theatre, which is not around anymore.
It doesn’t seem like 3 years and the group in a way has experienced everything that a group of people does. But it’s still alive. 9 almost strangers came together and the only thing that bonded them together was writing.
Amongst us we cover the four corners of India and amongst us we have traveled to various parts of the world. We are largely an underground group but surface once in a while. Last weekend we surfaced at the Prithvi Cafe, showcasing some of our writings in an interesting manner.
Personally for me, it was a great privilege to be in the lap of Prithvi Theatre, not as an audience but as an artist. To talk to people about writing, share my writing, and try to sell it. I met a number of interesting people - from beautiful women who asked me to write poems for them to playwrights who expressed the possibility of working together. I discussed my fascination with the moon with a girl whose folks could never understand her fascination for the moon. Yes, one waits for conversations like that. I spoke to Dharini about how we could do this for a living. It didn’t feel real.
I am someone who procastinates till the last moment. I was rescued by my friends - Dahlia, Haribabu, Boy, Chandni & Neha, who not only helped me get my stuff ready by working all through Friday till early Saturday but stood like pillars when we faced a mini crisis. And amidst all this they would push me to do interesting things. The standards were raised and I for a while felt like the protagonist of a Hollywood sports movie, who literally rises from nowhere.
The days of the sale I felt numb. I wanted to feel happy and elated but I knew I had to wait for the event to get over to truly experience the elation at peace. It’s almost 3 days post the event and I am finally writing this post. I do feel the elation and a sense of achievement. But more than that I feel fulfilled that I was at Prithvi and I called myself a writer. It needs guts to stand in that mosque and call yourself a believer. Saturday morning I spoke to Sanjana Kapoor as some things needed to be sorted out and I was curbing my excitement of talking to a lady that I have admired for a long time. She is a wonderful person - exceptionally wise and reasonable. I have seen Shashi Kapoor many a times at Prithvi and have whenever I smiled at him have always got one in return. It’s easy to fall in love with such people.
For the garage sale, we had put up many interesting pieces for sale. One of the things we had come up with was a poetry jhola, which consisted of poetry written by us. It was only thing that people could not pay and take away with them. For people to draw out a poem, they had to drop a 5 Rs coin in a jar. If they didn’t like the poem they could have the coin back. I would love it when people would draw out poems again and again.
The poetry jhola is still with me. I have kidnapped Dharini’s bag which is serving as the jhola. But I didn’t have the heart to separate the poems from it. I think they are comfortable in there. On an idle evening, it will be great to sit with a glass of wine and draw random poetry from it and read.
Are you being watched?
June 20, 2008 | Filed Under confessions | 8 Comments
Something exciting happened in my life today. I came out of my house and was locking the door - when I noticed that there is a cross marked above the doorbell button. I don’t think it was there yesterday.
I immediately thought it was the newspaper guy - he has been giving me newspapers for the last 2 months but hasn’t taken money yet. I haven’t been avoiding or anything - he probably has come around the time when I haven’t been around.
I decided that I should see if anyone else has this marking. Gautam, one of my friends who was over - immediately recommended erasing it. It seemed like some weird shit to him. There are 6 flats on my floor, and only two had the crossed marking. One more had a tick - like the Nike swoosh. So there is something on for sure. The other crossed mark house is of a muslim. I guess all the muslims on the floor are marked with crosses. I wonder what the tick is about though.
Maybe it is coincidental, but I am planning to check markings on all the floors to see if there is some pattern. I hope there isn’t. It does not do justice to a city, I am beginning to love.
I have half a thot and marking all the houses with crosses - like Marjina did in Alibaba and Chaalis Chor.