Amodini's Book Reviews

Book Reviews and Recommendations

The politically-connected ? Always innocent !

Written By: amodini - Sep• 19•06

Some time back I remember seeing Bina Ramani on TV, being interviewd by Ruby Bhatia on one of those mind-body-health shows. Ruby has been places on that show, a monastery in Eastern India, an ashram in the South etc. and has interviewed various people on the show. On that show she interviewed Ramani and asked her the usual questions. Ramani replied in the way one would expect – how she did Yoga, how she worked to make the world a better place etc. . I expected nothing else. After all on TV you bring out the good side, no ? I would too.

Ramani has been on the news often, she seems to have various connection with film-wallahs; wasn’t her name always on those “clothes-designer credits which seem to roll by really quickly ? Overall she seems to be in the right place at the right time and with the right connections. As it happened It was also her restaurant where Jessica Lall was murdered. Apparently Bina, her daughter Malini and her husband George Mailiot didn’t see the crime but had a pretty good idea on who the killer was. So, they tried to stop him from getting away, reported his vehicle outside the premises and rushed Jessica to the hospital. The 3 were also the only 3 witnesses to stand by their original statements about Lall’s murder and identify Manu Sharma in court as the man they’d tried to stop from escaping. He (as the Ramanis said in court) looked like the man who shot Jessica.

Bina Ramani was recently arrested and remanded to judicial custody by the Special Investigations Team, for forgery and cheating with regards to licences issued for her restaurant. And while I’m no fan of Ramani and would want her (and all the other thousands of offenders in India accused of cheating and forgery) to get their just deserts, this excessive enthusiasm on the SIT’s part to go after Ramani instead of the main accused – Manu Sharma seems extremely suspicious. The plain truth is that Sharma killed Lall, Ramani did not and all the trumped up charges and investigations and raids into Ramani’s business cannot counter that fact, however much corrupt policemen and an easily swayed judiciary might want us to believe it.

Call me naïve, but I believe Ramani was brave. I do not cast her in the mould of a role model, nor have I yet called for the public to dedicate a temple her honor or build a monument to remember her bravery. However, considering the fact that the police are a pariah most Indians wish to avoid, (because guess what – they follow the rule of the rupee), and that if you oppose a person with political connections you are in big trouble, (because right or wrong that person will win) Ramani has risked her neck to implicate Manu Sharma. Maybe she thought she was too powerful ( a Page 3 person in her own right, no less) and would not be touched by the powers that be – I don’t know. The bottom line is that she stuck to her guns, which is way more than the 100 other witnesses to the crime have done.

Not that I blame the witnesses that swerved from their statements either. With the current record of the police and the judiciary at hand, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that opposing a powerful person or the son of a powerful person is harmful to one’s health. Take Shayan Munshi who was apparently standing next to Lall when she was shot, and who later changed his incriminating testimony and said that he had been mistaken in his original statement because he couldn’t read or write Hindi, and had taken the police for their word. Really ! My, my, such trust – and that too in the Indian police – moves you, it does. I keep back my tears with an effort. But what to do – I can imagine the guy’s quandary – how to retract a true statement – the Hindi story seemed the most plausible I guess.

With all the outrage that was raised due to NDTV’s SMS campaign (and which I believe led to the decision to reopen the Lall case) I had really thought that justice would be served this time. But with the SIT going after a witness, rather than the killer who’s roaming free, and running a nightclub and who’s father is STILL a minister in the Haryana government, it seems that political connections still have top billing.

Money rules. And what is money to the rich and the politically well-connected ? For a Rahul Mahajan – not much more that a scrap of paper rolled up to snort coke.

Sahara Filmy

Written By: amodini - Sep• 12•06

DirecTV has a new desi channel on Channel # 2008 – Sahara Filmy. No message on voice machine this time, so discovered this one flipping channels. And this was my lucky day too, because I generally don’t channel-flip. I just watch one channel. And attain nirvana. So easy.

From what I’ve watched of it, Filmy has movies, and a “Chitrahar-ish” program called “Aunty Break Fail”. Last night as I watched the progam, it played a number of good songs, including some from films like “Dil Chahta Hai”, Lakshya, Don, “Kabhi alvida na kehna” etc. However they seemed to have a thing for repeating songs. In the hour that I watched they repeated the song “Piya, Piya” 4 times. It’s sung by Priti-Pinki – don’t remember the film, and while it is a catchy number, and displays a prancing Preiti and a then-thin Rani, 4 times is a bit much (even for goggle-eyed desi TV viewers in far-off lands).

Aunty Break Fail though seems to be a smart lady. She’s portrayed as a “healthy” desi woman in rodeo attire and sports a gun, which she uses to kill annoying ads/people in the ads.

An ad-less program – I get it.

Since I fit the stereotypical profile of a rabid desi in search of ever more desi programming on TV, I scrabbled around the internet trying to get more information about their programming. Filmy’s website though doesn’t have much information, and offered up a program schedule for August. Hmmph ! Why can’t supposed world leaders in television keep their web-sites up-to-date ?

Much as I love NDTV, their filmi coverage is the pits. They do their “Page 3 “ thing covering all the parties, events, fashion weeks, but when it comes to films, they really under-do it. You’ve got desi films spilling out of the industry like an overflowing popcorn machine. Every Ram, Shyam and Ghanshyam unworthy of his salt makes one these days. There are dozens available on DVD which I haven’t even heard of – many of them not even making it into the theatres. One would think this a golden opportunity to get into some serious movie reviewing and ripping-into-shreds frenzy (more of the latter seeing the quality).

Back to Filmy – I do like their tag-line : “Ma kasam filmy hai”.

Categories : _television , _india

Friends with money

Written By: amodini - Sep• 06•06

This is a smart, witty film, which is in places funny, even though it has a sad/neurotic under-tone to it. It is the story of 4 friends : Christine (Catherine Keener) unhappily married to fellow screen-writer David, Jane (Frances McDormand) a famous fashion designer married to Aaron (who Christine thinks is gay), Franny (Joan Cusack) married to Matt, and Olivia (Jennifer Anniston) who is single. The 4 care about each other, but can still be petty and mean behind each other’s backs. Each has her own problems : Christine faces imminent divorce, Jane is depressed and prone to emotional outbursts, and Olivia used to be a high-school teacher, but she is now a maid, after a melt-down (we don’t see it, apparently happened in the past). Franny and Matt are the only obviously happy ones. Their friends assume it’s probably because they are very rich, have hired help, and have the time to do what they please.

There are of course the conflicts that come with having more money or less than your friends – Franny buys her daughter $95 shoes but won’t loan Olivia money when she wants to get training to be a personal trainer. And the remarks that fly about in private in the friends’ homes about each other, are pretty snarky.

The other 3 are worried about Olivia, and trying to get her settled because she seems to meet the worst men, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere in her life. Franny sets her up with her personal trainer Mike (Scott Caan), but he turns out to be a real cad, using and abusing Olivia, and even demanding a “cut” of her money when he accompanies her to her cleaning jobs. Needless to say, it’s not like he does any cleaning. But poor Olivia (and I really felt bad for her) is too beat-up and down-and-out to refuse the sleazebag anything he demands of her. Finally he decides he doesn’t want her anymore, and breaks up. Olivia is pretty much where she was then, cleaning homes, although she does manage to get angry with Scott when she sees him with another woman, and buck up a little.

Although acting is good overall, Anniston does really well, portraying Olivia as the sad, broken-up individual that she is. You feel bad for her when she lets people walk all over her and get away with it, and you cheer for her when she gets a bit of good-luck. Overall, an interesting film, and worth the time.

Categories : _films , _film_reviews

Side-effects of law-enforcement

Written By: amodini - Aug• 31•06

Chockful ! Chockful of cars. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. That’s how I’d describe it, and I’m sitting in it. All 5 lanes are the same. If you need to travel by freeway you must travel like this. Not that the feeder road is any better. However there is a bright side to this story. Since it’s 2 of us in the car, we have the option of taking the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lane. And ah ! the HOV lane lies empty. Well almost. There are a couple of cars ahead of us, as we swerve into it. As we speed along (because now we are speeding compared to the crawling traffic next-door), I’m thinking what nice people these other car-drivers are (you know the ones stuck in traffic) because this HOV lane is a “diamond” lane, that is it’s a part of the freeway, and there are no barriers around it, preventing other non-car-pooling vehicles from entering. But still no-one enters the lane that is not supposed to. In the cars ahead of me, I see atleast 2 heads bobbing.

My husband is more pragmatic. He doesn’t argue the “nice-people” theory. To him, the niceness is a side-effect of law-enforcement. I mean, it’s better to be law-abiding and reach a little late than to be handed a $200 traffic ticket, no ?

I tell this HOV lane story to a distant cousin while we are in India. At my obvious “admiration” for the law-abiding citizen, he looks at me like :

a. I’m demented, or
b. I’ve gone soft in the head

As he tells me, to him no road law applies. If a guy in khakhi objects, he can be stopped right then and there by a hand-ful of notes. See, so easy. So, that’s that. I don’t argue with the guy. I mean, is there a point ? Plus, I’ve got to be polite, even though the guy is an odious creep, else I’ll get the whole “you don’t live here, we do – maintain relationships etc.” schpiel from my Mom again.

A couple of months later, I hear of him again through my Mom, who is the ordained bearer of masala news in the family. Apparently the cousin and his brother had come to California to setup a business. He was driving around going about his business – so that was good. But is now unable to drive, because he was caught driving under the influence of alcohol, and had his license suspended for 6 months.

I’m guessing the offers of financial remuneration didn’t work this time.

Categories : _india , _culture_and_society

My KANK review on Rediff

Written By: amodini - Aug• 25•06

Rediff had called for review submissions of this movie, and I sent mine (a shortened version of the original which appears on my movie review blog). It was judged to be among the 10 best reviews (which makes my day, to put it mildly) and is now featured on Rediff here.

Categories : _films , _film_reviews

India within reach

Written By: amodini - Aug• 23•06

Some days back there was a voice message on my answering machine. In a male Indian sounding voice it said, that now Direct TV viewers had free access to Doordarshan India. Imagine that ! Doordarshan in the good old United States ! I am delighted to say the least, although I’m not sure I’ll actually watch it. I mean DDs been there forever, like from the begining of time. When there was TV, there was DD. The kids gasp when I tell them that at one point in time there WAS NO TV (And you were alive then, Mom ?)

So I flip over to DD last night, and I see a very nice looking, gracefully sari-clad newsreader (Sangeeta Rai, I think) reading news in “shudh” Hindi. So “shudh” that my Star News corrupted ears didn’t actually understand the pesticide (“keetnashak” in Hindi) story until later. But really it was the purest form of Hindi – extremely soothing to the (y)ears . Like one of those Vedic chants; you should get it but you don’t but it’s nice to hear anyways. The kind of Hindi I’d like to hear and get used to, to avoid Hindi hell post-life, from years of having my ears bombarded with the mutated language now used in most “newer” channels. The news was classy too, they didn’t make cheap digs at anyone, didn’t berate, didn’t lament. Reportage pure and simple. Plus I didn’t see any of the overt “flattery” newspieces featuring the ruling party honchos, which were so common before. Like no mention of Sonia and her clan, no obligatory stories on the Congress Leaders etc. Of course that’s just one day.

Still, having DD is nice. I identify DD with India. It is of India, by it, from it. Yes, it reminds me of how bureacracy (mis)functions, and the various flaws that I associate with governance in India. But it also reminds me of good things, like not everything can be commercialised and spit out for the good of the elite rich.

It’s good to have DD at my fingertips, good to know that I can watch boring old programming in shudh Hindi pumped right out of the TV in my bedroom. India within reach. Like having a tenuous link restored (and you didn’t even know that it existed).

Categories : _india , _television

Poetry for Fridays – 2

Written By: amodini - Aug• 11•06

Brief reflection on the sun

by

Miroslav Holub

Thanks to the systematic work of our meteorologists,
and altogether thanks to the general labour effort,
we have all been witnesses of many solstices,
solar eclipses and even
sunrises.

But we have never seen the sun.

It’s like this: we have seen the sun
through the trees, the sun above the Tatra
National Park, the sun beyond a rough road,
the sun drenching Hasek’s village of Lipnice,
but not the sun,
Just-the-Sun.

Just-the-Sun, of course, is unbearable.
Only the sun related to trees, shadows,
hills, Lipnice and the Highway Department is a sun for people.

The Just-the-Sun hangs like a fist over the ocean,
over the desert or over the airliner,
it doesn’t cast shadows, it doesn’t flicker from movement,
and is so unique it almost isn’t at all.

And it’s just the same with truth.

Category : _poetry

The Lincoln Lawyer

Written By: amodini - Aug• 10•06

The Lincoln LawyerThis is the first book by Connely that I have read, and it took me a few days. Not that the book was uninteresting, jut that time was scarce. The book actually is a top notch legal thriller, interesting enough to want one to finish the book even if you break the reading for a few days (and not many books can do that).

I’d compare this to “The Street Lawyer” only it is very different (I enjoyed that one too). The Lincoln Lawyer, defense lawyer Michael Haller (so called because he conducts his business from the backseat of his Lincoln Towncar) is a streetsmart lawyer defending all types of criminals. Whether they are guilty or not doesn’t matter to him. So, yeah, he is cynical and has no illusions about the “justice” of the law or about the world in general. He has 2 ex-wives, both of whom still love/have affection for him, because ofcourse underneath it all, the guy has a heart of gold. He also has a daughter, whom he’d like to give more time, living with his second wife.

Michael Haller in defending the run-of-the-mill client is starting to be over-powered by his conscience, and is worried that he may not recognise innocence when he sees it. And it looks like that is what has happened, when Michael is approached by a “franchise” (rich – the franchise that’ll pay) client Louis Roulet to defend Roulet in an assault/attempt-to-murder charge . . .

The book moves fast, the characters are sketched well, well enough to elicit sympathy, especially for Haller. Lots of court scenes, private investigating etc. Nice, highly recommended.

Categories : _books

Poetry for Fridays

Written By: amodini - Jul• 28•06

I got the first poem from Ammani’s blog, and the others I went searching for, because I though the poetess, Sophie Hannah was pretty fantastic :

Now and then

“Now that I’m fifty-seven,”
My mother used to say,
“Why should I waste a minute?
Why should I waste a day

Doing the things I ought to
Simply because I should?
Now that I’m fifty-seven
I’m done with that for good.”

But now and then I’d catch her
Trapped in some thankless chore
Just as she might have been at
Fifty-three or fifty-four

And I would want to say to her
(And I have to bite my tongue)
That if you mean to learn a skill
It’s well worth starting young

And so, to make sure I’m in time
For fifty, I’ve begun
To do exactly as I please
Now that I’m thirty-one.

And this one made me laugh :

Don’t Say I Said

Next time you speak to you-know-who
I’ve got a message for him.
Tell him that I have lost a stone
Since the last time I saw him.
Tell him that I’ve got three new books
Coming out soon, but play it
Cool, make it sound spontaneous.
Don’t say I said to say it.

He might ask if I’ve mentioned him.
Say I have once, in passing.
Memorise everything he says
And, no, it won’t be grassing
When you repeat his words to me –
It’s the only way to play it.
Tell him I’m toned and tanned and fine.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Say that serenity and grace
Have taken root inside me.
My top-note is frivolity
But beneath, dark passions guide me.
Tell him I’m radiant and replete
And add that every day it
Seems I am harder to resist.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Tell him that all my ancient faults
Have been eradicated.
I do not carp or analyse
As I might have when we dated.
Say I’m not bossy any more
Or, better still, convey it
Subtly, but get the point across.
Don’t say I said to say it.

And then a nice, optimistic one 🙂 :

Pessimism for Beginners

When you’re waiting for someone to e-mail,
When you’re waiting for someone to call –
Young or old, gay or straight, male or female –
Don’t assume that they’re busy, that’s all.

Don’t conclude that their letter went missing
Or they must be away for a while;
Think instead that they’re cursing and hissing –
They’ve decided you’re venal and vile,

That your eyes should be pecked by an eagle.
Oh, to bash in your head with a stone!
But since this is unfairly illegal
They’ve no choice but to leave you alone.

Be they friend, parent, sibling or lover
Or your most stalwart colleague at work,
Don’t pursue them. You’ll only discover
That your once-irresistible quirk

Is no longer appealing. Far from it.
Everything that you are and you do
Makes them spatter their basin with vomit.
They loathe Hitler and Herpes and you.

Once you take this on board, life gets better.
You give no-one your hopes to destroy.
The most cursory phone call or letter
Makes you pickle your heart in pure joy.

It’s so different from what you expected!
They do not want to gouge out your eyes!
You feel neither abused nor rejected –
What a stunning and perfect surprise.

This approach I’m endorsing will net you
A small portion of boundless delight.
Keep believing the world’s out to get you.
Now and then you might not be proved right.

Categories : _poetry

Filmwise III

Written By: amodini - Jul• 25•06

Touted as the movie to knock Superman off it’s number one slot, Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead man’s chest” comes as a dissapointment. The build-up was great and on a Sunday matinee, even after 2 week’s since the release, the hall was almost full as I entered ; people were trooping in as the lights went out and the trailers started. The first film “Pirates I – The Curse of the Black Pearl” is much better, having a better story, interesting sequences and fast-paced action. DMC (Dead Man’s …) was lackaidaisical, very “concocted”, and not too sincere about what it was doing. There’s nothing new in this film that you haven’t already seen in Pirates I; so the script is just a rehash with the same characters. There isn’t much of a story (not that there was any in the first film either), however Pirates I worked, Pirates II doesn’t. The film gathers momentum during the last half-hour or so, and that’s the only part worth watching. The rest of the movie was boring, boring, boring and left me feeling I was watching Pirates I again, only a much worse version.

“Superman Returns” is quite outstanding when compared to “Pirates II”. And “Mission Impossible 3” is better than Supie. The “Da Vinci code” is at a respectable number 3, although if you’ve read the book, you lose some of the chase-appeal, since you know what comes next ; the film follows the book quite faithfully. “Derailed” was a surprisingly good film – the story is great and the film has many surprising twists and turns. Also didn’t expect much from “Basic Instinct 2” but it was watchable , although slow. “Firewall” is run-of-the-mill predictable fare, with Harrison Ford as the family man saving his wife and daughter from the bad guys. “Failure to launch” is an average film, and “The Family Stone” is similar but better. Both are the “watch-on-dvd” when run-out-of-other-films variety.

Categories : _film_reviews , _films