The Violin Player, a film by Bauddhayan Mukherji

... Sometimes it hurts. It hurts beyond measure. Beyond belief. It hurts enough that you realise that you are alive. That life has finally claimed you for itself. You are deep in its clutches and there is no escape. No window, no crack in the wall, no trapdoors leading into the soul of a John Malkovich and his rich life, no. nothing. Only  the now. The unending, dark, dank, empty now.

 These 70 minutes crafted by #BauddhayanMukherji are for those of us who are trapped in the now. It is for us to comprehend the lack of levity that life allows us, to cope with the copious amounts of crap that time throws at us and to smile through it all as if in deliverance, a smile that only the strumming of a forgotten stradivarius can bring to a tired face. 

 And to soar above this filth, there must be music, there must be Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Verdi, Ravel, Strauss, Rossini....and some Tagore perhaps, to keep things closer home.

Do not for a minute mistake these 70 minutes for a film. The Violin player is not a film. It is a study of the human spirit...because never can one have said so much in so little time and in such few frames.

#RitwickChakraborty. Now, I have often foung this man lacking, too arrogant to be taken seriously, too shallow in his portrayal that he has been typecast in thus far(his director's folly no doubt). Perhaps he didn't care about these roles, simply because he was waiting to Be #the Violin Player*. Because here, he ceases to be anyone but the violin player. Every crease on his face, every molecule of sweat, ever arch of his brow, the  twitch of his sardonic lips, every single breath drawn, belongs to his character and no one else, not even to himself. He becomes despondency, hope, success, disdain, disgust and pure genius ...all of that and then some. He is music. In skin. In pain. In ebuliant child-like desire, naked, in decripit form, a low life, stuck in reality and unable to shed the banality it brings and everything that comes with it, in our tiny, tiny insignificant, inelegant lives. 

You have made us all strip down and see our own selves for who we are... our souls needed this beautiful melody to sink into, to find the abyss and then rise and rise to the crescendo that is the sheer brilliance of #Bhaskar Dutta - you, my boy are a find and may success find you soon enough. 

#AdilHussain, A man of few words. Your eyes do all your talking. Your dark frame in its luminous white, leaves the human mind exposed, in all its nudity. You are sublime in the character you have been given and you assay it with the ease of a child playing with a toy. You are such a beautiful dark soul that you pervade the essence of the pain the violonist echoes...like a silent unrelenting chant, a nebula of dark matter, uncompromising in what you seek, thick, viscous opaque and your eyes, oh your all seeing eyes, they belong to the devil in this film.

#NayaniDixit, you sweet, unassuming invisible thing you. You make me sit up and take notice of you; You insist i do and I do! In your fullsome wonderfully terrible avatar that makes me gape at the futility of my being, the crude that comes to life and the careful that comes to a halt. You are beautiful in your ugliness and grotesgue in your salvation. You were my rewind, my pause, my encore, my oh-my-god moment. So thank you.

Here, in this film, you surrender your soul to pain. Bauddhayan Mukherji makes you  submit to melancholy, to delve in modern indian surreptitious erotica, to reach out to the dark recesses of an adult mind, to the even tempered logic of mundanity, to insanity, to pure survival, to depravity and to the drummings of your heart that match the first cadence of the creation of such a masterpeice by prodigy #BhaskarDutta, as you sit gripped by the intensity of the art that beholds you. 

Do not waste your time on any review, for it shall fail to capture the beauty you are about to witness. Don't try to hold on to the wings of this butterfly, lest you cripple this ethereal being, before it takes flight in your heart.

Note: The cockroach. That's what this universe is all about, the cockroach.

Haraamkhor: Indian cinema beams out brilliance.

India: Undervaluing its geniuses

Okay, so which moron ever said #Haraamkhor was an average film?!! Oh Damn you movie critics for making a masterpeice wallow in self pity. This is seasoned film making, enacted by some of the darkest faces I have seen come alive and shine bright on any *mm* screen.
And am I blown by the performances!!!

Nawazuddin Siddiqui Nawazuddin Siddiqui - it is an honour to watch you *become* the mildlly revolting, childlike in his lust and increadulous in his love for the girl. Your *Shyam* the teacher could win an award for simply the display of *concealed rage*, if nothing else!!

#ShwetaTripathi you brilliant child of modern Indian cinema, you made *Sandhya* stand tall next to Nawaz, your giggles, your eyes full of mirth, pain, betrayal, lust, you girl can cram so much into those tiny tiny pupils full of such expression!!!

#MohdSamaad as Mintu and #IrfanKhan as Kamal - Sandhya’s classmates play the underaged testosterrony *Sutradhars* of this wind mill blown saga, are such a rare delight. It is absolutely incongruous to put them down as just *child artists*. They make you gasp and giggle, shriek and run wild with their dirty, perverted, innocent, adorable gaffs and very vivid imagination... Watch out for the little one. He is a tour de force.

The nuanced story telling and the insane genius of Shlok Sharma's craft will leave you in deep awe and extreme sadness. Pity, these are Indian artists who have to struggle to fill Inox seats, when under the global arch of film making they are so often hailed for their blessed skills and raw talent. The infantile ease of each character, the sombre love of the police inspector, the insecure wife, the batshit crazy child who is The Shaktiman, every single thread depicts such natural shades of our life. Thanks Bodhayan Roychaudhury for insisting I watch this one alone.

This is superlative artwork and this Director, he knows his people, the glory in their small moments, their gentle hearts and their rich dark luscious souls. He knows the myriad languages India speaks. From the hollowness of committed men, the bold beautiful shamelessness of small town women, the utter glee and crushing sorrow of adolescent children...right until the last hurrah, the song #kidrejawaan which seals every single sordid end frame of Haraamkhor so seamlessly, with such dissonance, that you weep.

P.S: Can someone tap the Censor Board of India (not very gently) and tell them to quit trying to apologise for an adult subject by labling it as *Chatra Shoshan?* This is a love saga gone horribly wrong between a student and her teacher. Deal with it. No exploiting for anyone to see. So There.

The POTUS who Taught us how it's done!

Isn't it amazing how the POtUs went from being a gaunt withered white haired flagpole who could barely pull his weight in congress to being this sassy wand wielding, verrrry with it, white haired Gandalf who has all the answers to Americas problems just before the marching band strikes the last tune? 

He was black and all things puny, and polite...which meant he sucked at playing super power poker with Putin and not getting Papa Xi's overtures right. From undermining Pakistan the nuclear pal to missing India's golden 56 inch wide economic hug.

He didn't know anything this man, who belonged to too many types of people's, including being hussein somewhere too - bang in the middle of his name. I mean how messed up is that for the all whites?!!

Enter last year in office and maah goodness! The man can jive. He can sing and flirt and tease the world economy and foreign policy out of bored punk slumber. He is Beyoncé in the world of hot. He can make Iran smile and UK dance. He knows just how to beat the crap out of the bad boys stuck in the middle of nowhere... Or was it the Middle East? He knows, mah man, he knows how to woo them all.

Go vote he says, cuz Trump ain't got the groove and The Clintons are o so perfect in their white teeth ways and sanitised systems that can control America again. Yes they can. Believe me they will.
Because face it - #BarackObama just knows what America needs. And right now America needs his wife to run for the next term. She nailed it, Mrs O did.

Poor Modi needs to start from scratch with Unca Scrooge. Russia...who knows what Kremlin really thinks anymore except they have the old soviet territories they walk into with tanks and it's ok and Syria never happened. Hell man, who knows what's China up to? I mean Tibet never happened and North Korea is just playing with daddy's new toys. But hey they got to be spying on ya with their fancy tech. Fire up your firewalls peeps.

Isisisisisisisisisis sounds like a rattle snake before it strikes and the US condemns ladies and gentlemen. A few hundred civilians dead in Syria and the US condemns the attacks in France and Germany. Me too. Me too.

So yo, bro. You guys have it all figured out. No fence with the Mexicans and a brand new hug for sexy Mr Canada. All that's cool yo. But, Could you stay on your continent this decade Mr United States? Because you do leave more than just carbon footprints where you go. You leave behind too many dead and maimed and no reporters to tell the story. You go all in. And we love your drones. We do we do.

Don't whine he says. Go vote. And keep the mad hatter out of office this time will ya? Or is that too much to ask of your country Mr Obama?

Oh baby. We will miss you, yes we will. Hit it.

WHITE, BLUE AND BRUISED: BENGAL VOTES 2016

 

Calcutta, 18th April 2016

 
Have you ever been to a Dance bar? Yes, the ones that come with sleazy neon signs, narrow entrances and predictable police raids in the middle of the night?

Do you recall being blinded, first by the signboards outside and then by the utter darkness that greets you once you enter the haloed portals inside? You gradually get used to the rhythm of the bollywood trash playing and the heaving motions that never cease. 

That bilious sensation greets me each time I take a walk on the streets of Calcutta. I feel I have unwittingly walked into an unannounced session of unsolicited pleasure at one such bar. The stench of unchecked corruption and rough callous hands of unbridled power grab at me every single time. Only the garish gyrations of autocracy is not so overtly visible to the naked eye as it is in the bylanes of Mumbai's relatively harmless dens.

Beware Calcutta is now unrecognisable to the trained eye. 

Rest assured, for a newcomer, the ol'Calcutta charm is there in all its pin-up finery. The decrepit buildings, the kakababu and his begun-bhaja, mudi and egg fritters, the evening newsreading prolétariat and it's incessant whinings about the failed state, the ethereal Ganga and her boredom with her silt laden boundaries, the staid brown boats coated with its algae and allergies to the romancing couples inside its dingy bowels, the fragmented graffiti which has very little limerick or wit left but sits painted gaudily on walls in fresh greens and oranges and whites, declaring in not very subtle tones it's silent loyalties, the state transport buses that bulge dangerously near the doorstep as the conductor hails out *ladies, ladies coming through*, the yellow cab that looks tired fighting his way along routes with newer sharper Uber siblings, the tonga wallah puffing on a near finished stick of tobacco with stained lips, the slightly jaded and pink'd walls of Victoria sit still as she patiently stares at an ever impatient city honking past its ricketty horse lined outer walls of defence, the poor creatures braying their near starvation pangs. Well, Calcutta looks almost the same. 

Almost. 

Everyone with half a brain can tell you something is off and yes, everyone knows what that is all about. Since everyone ushered the change in, so democratically and unequivocally, admitting anything has gone south in these teeny tiny 5 years would be very unbengali indeed! So we do what the quintessential Bengali does best - look out of the proverbial window, like good, trained dogs, feeling the hot breeze of change lash at our proud faces and turn to the sea for some salt to rub on our wounds.  

The change has been anything but sudden. 5 years is a fairly long time in any country's social discourse, and for this frail city it has been a  very long time coming. But there it is. In all its white and blue splendour. Painted, re painted and lit up. Pavements crop up where streets haven't been paved. Composite steel structures stand erected, jostling for space with dimly lit ancestral properties and old banyans breathing their last. Malls overpower ponds and old delicate mansions make room for lego sets, propped up on a real estate bubble. 

It has been a city in decay for a while and yet it didn't ask for such logic defying repairs. Never before has the colour Blue so vehemently stamped *change* as it has in this city. All traces of a red communist fortress have been systematically erased, some out of fear, some disdain, some pure malice. The political eclipse of Calcutta is near complete. The common man is soaking it all in, trying to come to terms with the *poriborton*, the literal and the psychosomatic. There is a wonderful paralysis that has gripped any idea of the aesthetic and the brutal domination of the crude has begun. That hasn't been very slow in its wake.

There are no protests of course. The Party wouldn't hear of it. Who minds a cleaner Ghat or a wider sidewalk mehearties, don't be silly now.  We are all good. We are all bigger, better, brighter, see?


In my mind's eye, I can almost see the ever loving Mother smiling  beatifically down on her children of Joy as they change their colour scheme and their political palette to blue. Blue with fear, blue with disbelief. It's fiery shade has left the existential angst driven Bong's voice of dissent no louder than a whisper of disagreement at best. Gatherings of more than four are countered with lathicharge or a night out in the local prison cell. Humour that once graced the walls of this disarming halt of Charnock is reduced to a smirk and splash of tricolour.

We are all in awe actually. In shock. It is stupefying to acknowlge what she has pulled off, to be fair. She has dared the gods of politics and called their bluff and now Eden will never be the same again. Never has any city since Roman times, been claimed by its victor with such efficiency and glee. 

The elections are an ill-tempered joke, held seasonally, fashionably, regularly, to convince the arbitrary and argumentative bengali mind that all is well in the state of Denmark. 

Names that remained on the fringes, thugs if you may, stand tall and proud, thieves and body snatchers rob in broad daylight and women slink about, hiding in the darkened shadows of this once safe city. But don't worry, your sidewalks look freshly painted. Your ego needs a walk, remember? Wide blue and white, dripping with malcontent and malodour, painted for your walking pleasure.

Indeed your tax money is well spent in this state where the collective debt stands at a near apocalyptic 3 trillion, but then your fences are mended and you have trident lights to cheer you up. There is very little to be blue about, honestly. You have so much to be grateful for. Bengal is rising, for once. Rising, like a giant ogre, akin to its new social order, fearsome, bareknuckled, loud, garish, glowing in all its pretty dresses for a party that is likely to never get over...and you must obediently wait for the lights to come on, blue and white, lining your streets, your conscience and your conciousness, telling you, not very softly, that it isn't time for change. Not yet.

ME HINDU, TU HINDU

Paranoia is not a word that often grips a believer or a faith keeper. It is a word reserved for those who find peace in conspiracy theories, in words that go on heresay, moving swiftly along the tongues of uneducated parlance.

In discourses that initiate fools into comprehending something significant enough to be life altering.

It has sadly come to pass, along the many folds of sanskrit verses and divine chants, this word that leaves the modern post colonial Hindoo in cold sweat. This creepy sense of unease that lies buried lightly in a pile of ceremonial excesses. It has given way unceremoniously to muted angst, outed in hushed debates in living rooms, accompanied by loud noises on the tele.

It is we the unfortunate souls who have yet to learn to live with this foul, clingy, P word. We, the born unto death Hindoos.
 
Never took unkindly to the idea, mind you, this whole *being born into a Hindoo Household* bit. Vermillion smudges, crushed marigolds, tuneless but divine chanting, wet naked feet rushing to prayer, blowing conches, sweetmeats and sprinkled holy waters, discarded idols under peepul trees et al. Love the idea of being a Hindoo. It has its own charm.

What I worship the most though, about being one of this faith, was that it allowed me to be careless about this space. This Siachen of all debates right now. This identity of identities. This threatened idea that must be guarded because it has suddenly dawned upon the uninitiated that never before have we the Hindoos been invaded by preachers and thinkers of other ideologues.

Never has our unparalleled ability to diffuse and assimilate been able to bear the brunt of this social onslaught and build stronger diverse nations from its ruins.
Nah. We the meek, ever floundering low lives, who cannot handle a little this and that from the outside world full of intolerant ideas.
Ergo, we are now officially a suspicious lot. But then we do believe all that the holy tele tells us; which by definition makes us nationalists by proxy. Or so I am told.

But hush now. Any dissent and we transmorgrify into conspirers, out to thwart the very idea of a unipolar Hind, which in hinsight has had to deal with nothing but unaccounted for multi cultural and religiously barbaric assaults on its puritanical walls of history.

And by the sheer weight of that tiny fact, are of this country and therefore its' only rightful people. Has such an uncanny ring, this whole thing, like being the heir to the house of Slytherin.
You see, I have not read the holy texts, yours or mine. I have heard stories however. Fairy tales, of chariots and flying vimanas and talking fishes and half human avatars emerging from torn bellies of monsters to vanquish evil.

Stories, the grandparents found novel ways to tell, retell, paraphrase and abridge for my tiny brain to process. Later these sagas reemerged as substantial need to knows. Some tedious, some easy to fathom narratives. Stories that found loyal listeners at gatherings that surrounded holy fires, heaped with ladels of saturated fat and yes, faith. Religious things one does to stay on the benign side of pristine clay models that get feasted or fasted upon by the family elders in the brightly lit ceremonies that typify evenings spent understanding which smiling goddess one ought to have prayed to longer for upcoming exams and other pubescent sins.

That's the Hindoo I am. Unholy but Hindoo. And there lies the sheer beauty of being a Hindoo. For me.

The impunity to write, speak and narrate versions of holy trysts and doctrines, retell them as cartoons, fastrack yagnas, skip havans, chat through prarthna sabhas, giggle through all night jagrans, pay attention to excerpts from geeta, pray to Ravana or worship Sita, fight for animal rights when fellow Hindoos attempt to behead a goat in devotional rituals of Kali or go fasting for 9 days of the year to commemorate a hero's homecoming with a musical soirée.

You can do all of the above and more and live to discuss it all its banality over cakes and tea. Rest assured, no sacred lightening shall ever strike you down for such blasphemy. This lifetime pass of getting away with holy sacrilege is the sole privilege of being born Hindoo. And I for one, relish it.
This unusual exception is the prize of being Hindoo. To be savoured and preserved in all its imperfections. To reassure to the mildly devotional, his sanity and the absurd joy it brings to him every time, that His many unaccounted number of books have let him be. At peace with his unfetished ideas of god. He can believe, or not. He can pray, or not. He can do temple runs, or not. She/He can be. OR NOT.

This theory by definition lends a key insight into what I think stands tall to this idea of being one: choice. It is the single biggest differentiator between religion per se and the nonchalance of being born a Hindoo. We are, as you would have guessed by now, not one made of one Religare, but of plural beliefs. We are not crusaders. We rarely invade. We do not have any one single unifying deity or ideology that holds an unequivocal road to our existance and code of conduct. We have way too many to count. We are therefore naturally and inherently Diverse.

It is there, right there, for everyone to stare at and wonder. It should not amaze us. We can't help but endorse a multiverse society. And here enters the paradox and now paranoia of who we are. Today.
Let's take a hard look at some of these gods. Why are these gods such dudes (pardon my French)? Why do I care so much about being his devotee anyway?

Thing is, this god is very human... he drinks. dopes. gambles. Kills. Forgives. Plots and wages war ... gets angry when his wife dies, their children have daddy issues ... she likes walking on her husbands bare chest, her sisters have cool superpowers. They sing, dance like there's no tomorrow. Some do not endorse monogamy and a few even have mistresses in most port towns in paradise. They are exceptional warriors, especially the female prototype. They do not believe in procastinating nor do they indulge in unqualified boon granting. They are normally open to animal rights issues since they are usually ferried on one or the other. They come in all sizes. They do not ask for untimely donations unless it's time for their annual carnival downtown. Basically, they want me to eat drink and make merry. And yes, behave.

So what unhinged us from endorsing this euphoric tribe of nearly perfect beings? Why does paranoia touch our blissfully content narrative? Why are we so fidgety with this delightful version of divinity? What’s to interpret in this fun idea of faith?

It is an insecurity at its most inexplicable. For a population that stands at a comfortable 67% (give or take a few dots) and a mighty number globally too, it finds itself puny in a face off with his largely benevolent minority brothers. Sadly we are now aware that we have become little more than a caricature of our ancestor's embodiment of goodness, we have forgotten how good it used to be. A time when you could pray, rejoice, fast and feast with a complete absence of apology.

The Hindoo now seeks refuge in the easiest calling to cowards. His paranoia isn't complete but it is settling in. He asks for interpreters. Demands structures, parties, codes, laws. Definition. He wants a set dialogue. He wants you to notice he is the fearless sword weilding Hindoo. He is done with the anonymity of being just another person who mumbles when they chant. He wants to matter as he swells in numbers of *us*. He is now well and truly paranoid.

And that's where he has ceased to be a Hindoo. He is now a creature of majority. As opposed to his post natal free flying destiny, he is the all powerful, almost celestial being who controls. This is not a weak identity mind you, so be careful.

It is however an exceptionally rigid one. It moves in crowds, finds no solace in singularity and freedoms. It calls out to assemble.

Given how flexible, calm and composed his former gods of karma were about issues of loyalty, this version bites. The old world gods never ran to a one stop shop ID pass for all saints. They never were in a hurry to eradicate the reincarnation program for second chances, cleansing all my tainted Hindoo soulmates. We were allowed to be wrong and human and sinners and worshippers and saints. All of us. And we Never prayed to one “god of all gods”. Uh huh. No. Too many of them in line for this one.

For me, a tiny little fly on this vast wall of religious dialectics, this is insanity of such proportion that it threatens to unravel everything eloquent about the identity that stood head and shoulders above the very concept of the herd.

For those who seek to believe or believe they seek the truth hidden behind the richly painted faces of our idols and man alike, the P word is like throwing dark matter in the face of the all knowing Almighty.

This paranoia of being undone by others. Of not being able to stand erect in the face of stronger believers and different rites of passage. Of remaining happy, human and Hindoo.

Truth be told, there is no Hindoo so to say. Yet, it is all there is. It is the very essence of being alive. Loud, boisterous, charming, ugly, delightful, colourful, miserable, dying and reborn all at once. There is no room for paranoia. We are the madness that is life. The Hindoo is intangible, a soul that understands the unending truth of being here, alive, in this moment, undefined by anything or anyone. We are singularly and uniquely the happiest form of the collective. And it has room for everyone.
In a world where the brute force of nature will prevail eventually, I stand here and permit you to laugh at me as I reject all that modernity brings with it, its' ideas and its' boxes, its' upheld need for conformity and dependance on false realities.

Because today, I promise you, your Hindoo will never become my Hindoo. I for one, break this cycle of stupidity and I look to you with hope.

WRITING. JAPAN. A DEEP DARK WORLD

31st December 2015

It is an exceptionally daunting task writing of and about the Japanese skill in writing. It is like commenting on the batting skills of Sir Donald Bradman when you joined the high school cricket team. Clearly you find you know too little about the sport, have played little or almost nothing of it yet and obviously are too small a speck on the field to have the audacity to comprehend a universe that could engulf you with its opening stroke from the middle of his masterfully opened bat. 

So you understand why this piece is all about gut, instinct, heart, emotion, those sorts of things. Things that you perhaps will only be able to qualify if you set about doing what I intend to do here. 

Writing about Japanese literary genius. It is a humbling place.

I have learnt that evil can be beautiful. That hate must be given a long leash. That love can be ugly. This genius of the Japanese mind finds release in its' printed word. You are most welcome to the books I list below...my baby steps, initiation if you wish, to an idea of what makes them who they are.

But then Evil is too strong a word for what the Japanese contemporary authors work with. They don't pen evil, they pen the fallible, the human heart, they write of its' innocent horrors in all its glory, in all its blasphemy and then they make it sublime. Poetic.

No ink tank can create so much splendour out of these unnoticeables, reforge them so carefully that they are forced to take centre stage in the story. There are no heroes. The women are ethereal ofcourse.

In each and every character that both the Murakami's weave for instance, both authors strangely bonded by their name and their ideas of realism, there is a creeping touch of the careless, the silent individual, his unassuming vice, the callous beauty of an uninspiring mind. We see them every day, you and I, in our own subcultures and identities and we fail them. We fail to see the brilliance they exude in their mediocrity, for I find, the Japanese have made the common, the unembellished, startlingly gorgeous, bordering divine. I do not wish to be ridiculed here by commenting on the mad genius of Haruki Murakami. Reading him is a privilege.

Take food for instance, a subject of deep meditative importance for every Japanese writer; You will be convinced that you are watching the shitatake mushrooms boil in the Ramen, you swear you can smell the jasmine tea being soaked onto the page, feel the thin sheen of the finely sliced fish that is being sauced and flipped over by the author, you can hear the gravy pour onto the flattened rice, sense the squid being squeezed on the frying pan, and you can taste the delicate sweetness of the Anpan buns being served by the murderer. 

That's where they take you. Right onto the perfectly crafted wooden foldable table. You sit staring at it, tasting off it. 

And then they get gruesome. Every single element on that plate will remind you somehow of the vast canvas of malice, of discontent that will greet you on every successive page...from the stickiness of the rice, the sour taste of the fish sauce to the red squelching of the tomato into the gravy...every thing will connect the dots of the human heart and its' pitless darkness.

Try Natsuo Kirino in OUT... she is the uncrowned queen of crime being both grisly and preposterous in her storytelling. And yet. Queen she stays.

When you read a Higashino, you start eyeing your neighbour with much more curiosity. That happened to me. He toys with your idea of love, lust, stalking, hate, faith, ability at mathematics, unflinching, giving devotion...he leaves you blinking with sadness and wiping at those tears that form when you fall in love with the wrong side. 

Did I mention, they don't take sides? O, these clever, clever authors. That's the test really. Who's side is the audience on anyway? There is no bad killer, there are no good rapists...who are these people? Why did I ever pick up this book. Why can't I put it down? Don't worry, you haven't been had.

For those who find the profound philosophy and surrealism of Japanese literature a tad bothersome and crave the art that Manga is famous for, I recommend Sanctuary - written by Sho Fumimura, and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami. This story takes you to new highs and lows of modern Japan...from the Diet to dangerous mafia to delinquents and depressive childhoods. It brings a wonderfully unsurreal and universally acceptable idea of Masala into Japanese story telling. Unpretentious, Sanctuary is as bollywood as Japan can get without losing its' pristine identity. Its a splendid read on a sunny afternoon to cuddle up to this groovy bit of thrill and coffee.

Coming back to my old romance with the contemporary Jap authors,  I will be painting a very shallow landscpae if I do not mention just how much justice they can do to concepts like Sin. They can make the vatican historians shrivel. It is indeed a good thing no Japanese ever considered rewriting Dante's Inferno. Their ideas of sin and the grieving human soul are so refined, so steeped in honesty that hell may have issues dealing with the complexities unfolding here...Ogawa in Revenge for example weaves a tale of man made horrors and local myths and urban legends with unending simplicity. Her Diving Pool is my next.

There are some books that bother you long after you have finished reading them...that happened to me in my tenth grade after i finished my first Ayn Rand. Clearly i was transformed and hated the world and i wanted to change everything, right that very instant. Sure.

That's what the Journey under the Midnight Sun does to you. Makes you wish the damn book would not affect you after you put it down and walk away...but it does. It irritates you, it doesn't close those infernal loops, those questions that your mind throws at you in rapid fire succession, but you still want to read it from the authors pen alone...and that satisfaction he won't give! 

Dammit. He just wont tell you what you wish to hear...he leaves you and he doesn't care how badly you need to flatline. He gives you The story of Two Lovers. Deal with it Romeo. And that is what you call reductionist. Truly reductionist. It's so much gentleness and pain and hate and trauma and death and murder and disgust and disappointment and filth and beauty and sex...but it's just a simple raw love story in the end. Like I said, I am dealing with it.

I have never been to Japan. I regret not knowing their language. But I do believe that I have come to know them, slowly, deeply, simply, at a molecular level. Know them in their everydayness, in their subjective boredoms, in their banal and their excesses, their unchecked tenacity to excel, their liberating need to perfect the perfect...I am glimpsing a universe here, a mind boggling realm of stars which delve into the deepest notions of goodness and kindness and evil and hate.

 

And the first page is where it all begins. Every. single. time. Never forget that! 

PURULIA DIARIES 2015 : OF CHHOU MASKS AND MAGIC

Story: Anjita Roychaudhury
Photo Courtesy: Bodhayan Roychaudhury 
19th December 2015, 

Charida village in Bagmundi, Purulia district, is the back of beyond of the back of beyond. The landscape shifts and villages fly past looking clean, and clouds of lotuses bloom in clear ponds as cows graze and chimneys smoke the fresh bricks being toasted in their kilns. The egg devils and aubergine fritters sold by the local kaka babu is unambiguously delicious and ridiculously cheap. The tea sits on stoking hot coals. It's where the vodaphone signal is at its' strongest. It's also where the roads are unendingly smooth...almost eerily pothole-free. Like an autobahn in the middle of a graveyard. 
 

There has been however, for the past 6 decades or so, no known source of employment generated for the men who roam the fields and stare at endless horizons. Surviving on wild roots, leaves and raving antics of the local politicians, their hope for redemption have been these masks. Their loudest claim to avoid ignominy in the face of poverty. It helps keep them and a tribal traditional dance form alive, which very few city dwellers like us will have the time to patronise twice. It is after all, a 7 hour drive on a good day from Calcutta and we are the haloed employed people of this free country. 


The artists, behind their glorious masks and meditative looks, hide thin, ricketty, malnourished frames. They look happy somehow. This evening has been in the making for months. The artisans will be paid, sheltered and fed for a week. They all seem upbeat at the prospect. Food for dancing. Such shortlived exubérance makes the word bourgeoisie hang in mid air, silently floating on top of your head, the moment you take your red plastic seat at the rim of the patchwork amphitheatre, waiting for the show to begin. You feel small, humbled. You want to do something more than just sit there and smile and clap and buy masks for your living room... you feel washed in raw socialist ideals with every passing moment spent on that red plastic chair. Naxalism suddenly makes sense in all its unfairness. 


With worn out socks doubling up as footpads and old Tshirts barely concealing the worn out bodies that bear the heavily adorned and riotously coloured headgear with such pride, you descend into their world with a loud drumbeat from their troupe's Pala. It is a small patch of mud, almost dry enough to start a storm, surrounded by glee infested children of the neighbourhood, who turn more keenly to see what shoes you wear than the Chhou artists on display. You cringe in your jacket and you share your food and your chocolates with them, even as the first artists march onto the enclosure with a confidence that would do Vishnu proud. 


The artist is ofcourse playing the part of Krishna that evening, battling the demons with Balaram, in order to win back Devlok for the sages and the gods above.This battle he will win...he is scripted to win...even as the journalists from calcutta click away at the many possibilities of making this look any more surreal than it already is. But this battle to survive the poverty that laces every single performance...how do you ever win over that? Maybe the photographers can photoshop that part too.


You begin to understand why their art must remain shrouded in darkness. These masks which are impossibly beautiful to the naked eye, need the night to hide the tatters that shroud the man who wears it with such aplomb. Daylight would ruin this magic... flesh and bones would kill this fever pitch cry to glory. 


We stop taking pictures. We soak it in. We are spellbound. Every move, every lustfully devotional chant, every gymnastic twirl and sommersault, every brandishing of sword and bow makes for rousing rounds of applause and we too join in, in shameless abandon. This is better than childhood. These people, my people, our people...our poorest of the poor people, are simply incomparable. Their art, their soul, their kindness, their craft, their wide childlike grins, their deft fingers that create these gods and godesses that sell for a few bucks, their rich heritage and poor realities, their brilliant painted faces on stage and their curiously invisible lives...are all so rich. So powerful in its will to live beyond its obvious means.

 
Live they do, in no small measure. They live in every single purulia song, sung with so much passion and attention. They live in the Chhou masks that mask their ragged walls, their dimly lit porches and their cracked ceilings and lives...they live in every little jerk of that enormous mask on that tired, summersaulting body. The body that shrugs and then quivers to life every time the haunting tunes of the hyms, rooted in the mythologies that this place belongs to, matches the rolling drums and rises to a warlike crescendo.   

They dance because that’s all they know, They fly because they dream, they sing because they need to be heard, they smile because they hope; and once the audience leaves, they get ready again for their next performance. They paint their faces, wear their wigs, limber their joints and laugh over a few cups of tea and cigarettes. They will always keep performing. For life itself is just a rehearsal.