Another film I greatly enjoyed (late-night show, very few people around, just the right environment) is Ritwik Pareek’s Dug Dug, wherein a “miracle-performing” motorcycle becomes a deity and is plied with offerings of liquor and cigarettes in honour of its late owner. (It was pretty funny to see the “tobacco and liquor harmful” caution on the corner of the screen almost throughout, considering that the film itself was treating these things as markers of piety.)
Right from a mesmeric opening sequence involving neon lights, a creepy billboard, acid music and an almost-deserted road, Dug Dug creates a distinct mood, largely through sound and set design that evoke the heydays of psychedelia (Hunter Thompson on a Rajasthani highway, if you will). An echoing effect accompanies some of the dialogue too, creating a sense of things heard and seen as if through glass, or underwater. (This also fits the narrative, since much of the talk involves people who are either drunk on hooch or seeing mirages and miracles in the desert – the kind of setting where religions do tend to take birth.)
I wasn’t sure that the film found the best balance between the two modes it operates in: on the one hand there are the abstract, minimal-dialogue passages driven by montage and numbing repetition (these portions felt more organic to me, well fitted to a story about zeal and delusion) – on the other hand, there were exposition scenes towards the end that felt a bit overdone. The creation of mood would have been enough, I felt. But this wasn’t a big issue. A very singular film. I dug it. Jai Shree Luna. #indiancinema #dugdugfilm #dugdugmotorcycles #satire #ritwikpareek
Have had a few solid movie-watching experiences in the hall recently – and with vastly different sorts of films too. The Drama (jet-black comedy that ends up, almost in spite of itself, as something akin to an aww-sho-shweet romance), followed by Patriot (a rare recent instance of a three-hour film that kept me gripped throughout; also I felt uncharacteristically patriotic when I saw Mammootty using the Delhi Metro)… and then came this wonderful little ovine whodunit, The Sheep Detectives, which somehow manages to be a feel-good film *despite* centring on the death of a very likable character, a shepherd (Hugh Jackman) who reads murder mysteries aloud to his flock. I’m ambivalent about many CGI-generated cute animals in movies, but this worked well for me. (And some of the humans are fun too, not least Nicholas Braun as an awkward village policeman and Emma Thompson as a waspish lawyer.) #thesheepdetectives #patriotmovie #mammootty #thedramamovie #whodunnit
Very good to hear Tanul Thakur @tanul.thakur42 discussing his just-published book Wild Wild East: Exiled Americans, Enslaved Indians and the Systemic Abuse of the H-1B Visa Programme. I know Tanul has spent many years working seriously and passionately on this book (and also raging, like King Lear or like any good writer, about the hurdles and self-doubts along the way), and I hope to read it soon. (Bonus: my long-time friend Ajitha, a woman of impeccable taste - but never tell her I said this - was one of the editors) #indiannonfiction #h1bvisa #immigration #indianwritinginenglish
Not a very clear pic, but one that might indicate the varied bird population just below my flat. My birder friend Satish Padmanabhan informs me that the small black-and-white one is the Oriental Pied Robin, and the one next to it is the Brahmini Starling - with a tuft at the back of its head if you look through binoculars.
For more context, see the short video which shows the Oriental Pied Robin hopping about, and my Lara heading towards the peahen for a chat.
(The peahen is a ghar ki murgi for us - we have at least a couple of dozen of them in the colony, pursuing two exhausted peacocks or otherwise looking for safe places to lay their eggs in.) #birdsofdelhi #dogsofsaket #orientalpiedrobin #brahministarling #peahen @dogs_of_saket
Watercolour-effect pic of @saniahashmi , @iameshansharma_ and @niksez at dinner after the @depot48 quiz by @whysoqriousofficial yesterday. (Team members missing from pic: @anantraina , @aayushsoni , yours truly.)
Mainly because of Nikhil, our team did respectably enough. I got the answer to one question, thanks to my profound and deeply academic knowledge of American daytime soaps. Another that we missed involved the identity of an entertainer who in his long-ago prime had dated Natalie Wood, Candice Bergen, Bianca Jagger and others. (The answer was Michael Caine, and just as I got home, Instagram saw fit to show me a photo of Caine with Bergen in the 1960s, both looking smoking hot.) #pubquiz #delhiquiz #depot48 #michaelcaine
Ensure your instrument is clear from all angles, and other weird and wonderful messages at a sub-registrar’s office somewhere in Delhi today. Also a forlorn pigeon perched in a ceiling vent next to exposed wires, like a death-row inmate awaiting electrocution (but also witnessing much human drama until then) @chhotahazri #pigeonsofdelhi #bureaucraticpigeons #crypticsigns
Good foods had in recent times include this sushi platter, a crispy corn cake (delectably soft on the inside), and a prawn and curry dimsum at Yum Yum Cha. Went there after a long time, and wondered why I had stayed away so long #sushiplatter #corncake #prawndimsum #delhidinner #yumyumcha @yumyumchaindia
When I entered the world of contemporary Malayalam cinema 7-8 years ago, the thrill of discovery - slowly making connections, gaining in understanding - was akin to what I had once felt as an adolescent watching films from other periods and cultures (from Old Hollywood to “world cinema”). Given this, SR Praveen’s new book Ticket to Kerala was a very welcome comfort read (when it came to the recent Malayalam films I knew well) *and* a well-researched primer (for context on the many things I didn’t know about Kerala’s film history). I reviewed the book for Mint Lounge. Link in profile (along with blog links to a few earlier pieces I have written about Malayalam films) #malayalamcinema #malayalamfilm #keralacinema #indiancinema
A beautiful Verditer flycatcher, spotted during a walk in Gagar, Kumaon a few days ago (during a short trip that included Bhimtal and Naukuchiatal). This excellent pic was taken by wildlife photographer @nehaparmarphotography , who was showing us around, but I did catch a quick glimpse of the bird before it flew away.
(Also here: a local dog who adeptly led us on a walk through the meadows. And a cow who licked me with its black tongue.) #uttarakhand #bhimtal #gagar #verditerflycatcher #himalayanbirds
A little girl whom I knew a few years ago – aged barely three, but bright, perceptive and sensitive to animals – gave me the nicest nickname I have had: “Lara-papa” or “Lara-daddy” she called out, whenever she saw me walking Lara in the park. It’s a badge I wear with distinction (though I insist that my feelings are maternal).
In these photos is my canine counterpart, Lara’s *biological* father – occasionally called Hunter or the generic Brownie - who resembled her both in appearance and in his high-strung, nervous personality. He was mainly being looked after by a family a few houses away, though I kept a watch on him when possible and contributed to his daily food. Hunter passed away today, a few days after being hit by a careless driver. Aged around 14, and with a recent history of bad health (I had taken him for an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago), he had become weak and slow and couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough when this car backed up.
Five years ago, something similar had happened with Lara’s mother (whom I have written about in the past, notably in the context of her returning to Saket by herself after running away from Friendicoes Jangpura in 2015) – very old and nearly blind, she was knocked down by a car that shouldn’t have been speeding in our narrow colony lane; I had to eventually take her to the vet to be euthanized.
I could write more about Hunter, but maybe some other time (like many other timid or nervous dogs, he didn’t show much of what Samuel L Jackson called “personality”). For now, here are these pics, including three that were taken nearly 10 years ago – Lara’s parents together, blissfully unaware that they had manufactured one of my greatest sources of joy.
(Also: at the cremation at Sai Ashram today) #dogsofsaket #indianstreetdogs #desidogs #indiedogs @dogs_of_saket@straybuddy.in
I have been dipping into Piyush Mishra’s autobiography on and off – the English translation, I mean, done by the tireless Shillpi Singh (@shillpiasingh ), which is very readable throughout. It’s the sort of book you can dip in and out of easily, once you have processed the underlying conceit: PM calls this a “fierce clash between imagination and reality”, an autobiography adapted into a novel, and refers to himself in the third person as Hamlet. The result is one of those tantalising memoirs where arrogance and self-importance move alongside humility and self-laceration. (I don’t mean this in a judgemental way – *any* memoir by its very nature is self-important in some way, regardless of the tone or intent of the writing. And sometimes honesty and arrogance must go together.)
I was a bit conflicted about Mishra’s use of cutesy pretend-names for some of his colleagues and associates (Aniket Kashyap for Anurag, Samar Bajpayee for Manoj, etc), but real names for some other people (Irrfan, Abhishek Chaubey, Tigmanshu Dhulia) – often on the same page. Shillpi provided a reasonable clarification – that the altered names were reserved for people with whom he had had a longer, deeper association (for good and for bad) – this made it easier for him to write about them candidly, without filters. And in some cases symbolic names were used as well.
All that aside, it’s an enjoyable book, intriguingly structured, with lots of fun stuff about his time at the NSD, and about the eventual shift towards film work. (Some wonderful photos too, which I appreciated all the more thanks to my recent visit to NSD.) #piyushmishra #indiantheatre #indiancinema #nationalschoolofdrama #memoir
