I bumped into a long lost acquaintance sometime last month in one of the film fests in the city. Bhushan Korgaonkar, who I used to meet on-off through some of our mutual friends is this quiet, composed person who seemed pretty much at ease in his skin during all our previous meetings. That day, he asked me and Shibu to wait outside the auditorium after the film fest since he wanted to catch up with us. After the film fest when we found him waiting outside, after our initial exchange of pleasantries he began digging into his jhola and took out couple of CD covers. And that’s when he told us where he was keeping busy all these days. Over the last 3-4 years, he had been working on making a movie.
Working as a freelancer journalist some years back, Bhushan had written some article on the art of Lavani dances in India. He had become so enamored by the dance form and the fabulous stories of the dancers that he decided that this needs to be captured on camera. For the past few years on a very meager budget of a little more than Rs. 1 lac per head (along with his partner in this movie, Savitri Medhatul), he had been filming a documentary movie on the lives and times of the Lavani dancers in Maharashtra.
For the unknown, Lavani is a genre of music, incorporating a song-and-dance routine popular in Maharashtra. The word Lavani comes from the word Lavanya which means beauty. The Nirguni Lavani (philosophical) and the Shringari Lavani (erotic) are the two types.
Finally his movie was ready, and when I met him he was going through the post-production process for the movie. Titled Natale Tumchyasathi, (translated as ‘Behind the adorned veil’), both the cover photos had the lavani dancers dressed in colorful sarees on the stage during a lavani performance. While one cover had a close up of couple of dancers showing their faces as they were lifting the veil, the other cover photo showed about 6-7 dancers on the stage at a distance, some of them with their heads covered and some of them with the veils off their heads in various dance poses. I preferred the latter, and told him so. My point being that it seemed more active, more crowded and more colorful.
We spent some more time talking and Bhushan narrated some of the troubles he had gone through while making the movie, and we provided all the encouraging words to let him know of what a fabulous attempt he has made. While all of us would love to do something beyond our routine jobs, there are a very few who move on to a different direction while they are on a steady 9-5 job. That he has managed to make a full-fledged documentary and that too on a topic, not so often spoken about was truly a feat, and I offered my services for any help he might need to get his movie out successfully. While he did not need any of my help, I thought I would at least provide word-of-mouth publicity for his movie. The least I could do is that. The movie is scheduled to be released in a few weeks and it is already creating a buzz in the Marathi literary circles. There have been a few news items regarding the movie, and I am pasting the URLs below for the readers to know more –
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/57/20090318200903180306455957e2b03ff/Behind-the-adorned-veil.html
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/dancing-queens/434956/
Friday, March 20, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Little Zizou
Lately I have been noticing quite a few things Parsi. News items regarding the feud in the Parsi Panchayat, and a viewpoint into all things Parsi and how it is displaced in a foreign setting in Bapsi Sidhwa’s book ‘An American Brat’. That included with the last week’s dinner outing at Jimmy Boy Café where I had delicious Chicken Dhansak. So an opportunity to relish some more of this very interesting community came in the form of the new movie ‘Little Zizou’. And I was glad to have made good of the opportunity. As the name suggests, it is little and lazy in its scale and ambition, but it is also definitely extremely likeable.
At the helm of the script for some excellent movies (The Namesake, Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala – all with director Mira Nair), Sooni Taraporewala finally gets into her own act with this little movie. And she has chosen the topic closest to her heart for her first movie - the delightful landscape of the Parsis in Mumbai and their little, vastly unkown eccentricities.
The director's own son Jehan Batliwala playes Xerxes, a 10-year-old football fanatic who dreams that his dead mother will bring Zenedine Zidane to Mumbai. While Zenedine Zidane is the Zizou, Jehan – the Little Zizou is an ardent soccer follower. His brother Artaxerxes or Art (played by Imaad Shah) is a cartoon-sketching teenager who spends his days trying to construct a flight simulator with his other Parsi friends. Both the motherless boys have to make-do with their father Cyrus Khodaji II (played by Sohrab Ardeshir) who is more interested in making money out of power-plays and politics in the Parsi Punchayat. He is a Parsi fundamentalist who believes that any Parsi who marries outside the religion should be ostracized from the community and not be allowed to pray in the community fire temples. This pits him against the younger, moderate and free-thinking Parsi generation led by the liberal-leaning editor-publisher Boman Pressvala (played by Boman Irani, excellent).
The motherless Khodaji boys detest their father so much that they spend most of their happy moments at their dad’s rival Pressvala’s house. The motherless younger Little Zizou gets all affection from Mrs. Pressvala (the pitch-perfect Zenobia Shroff - a brand new revelation), much to the jealousy of Mrs. Pressvala’s younger daughter – Liana (Iyanah Bativala). And Art hangs around at the Pressvala’s because he is in love with their elder daughter Zenobia (Dilshad Patel), but the poor boy has to pay second fiddle to Zenobia’s love interest, the non-Parsi Arjun (John Abraham, returning to his Parsi roots with this Parsi movie. The other Malayali root of John's is still unexplored).
Most of the movie touches on the premise of the clash of the religious fundamentalists v/s the liberals, which frankly is nothing new in any of the religions in India. We have all, at some stage, sided on either half of this debate. The director uses this clash to drive home the point that protectionism is not benefitting anyone and as the world changes, the older & orthodox values change and give way to newer values.
Things go way too complicated when people react to the articles written by Boman Pressvala. And when Maharashtra politics interferes with the Parsi Punchayat politics, things take a nasty turn. In the middle of all this melee, a host of characters walk in and out of the plot making their relevant points where it calls for. The most touching character of all of them being Mrs. Pressvala’s mother, played by the grand-old dame of the Mumbai’s English theatre, Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal, who turns in an absolutely brilliant performance as the slightly batty, but still full of joie de vivre mother.
It is an extremely simple, small scale and lovable movie. Having made her grand debut in the movies ages ago, Sooni Taraporevala could have chosen any topic that would have raked in the moolah for her, but the fact that she chose the topic closest to her heart speaks volumes about her conviction and love for this project. And the passion and enthusiasm shown by the largely Parsi cast in bringing her vision to reality is there for all to see. The movie is filled with warm little moments that are born out of the director's sharp understanding of the Parsi community, and her ability to bring their quirks and charms to the screen. The movie is entirely well cast, and almost all actors have played their parts convincingly well. Boman Irani as usual stands tall amongst all the characters and Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal left a lasting impression on my mind. The two child actors, Iyanah Bativala and Jahan Bativala also turn in noteworthy performances. They do a great job of being believably vulnerable without overacting the goody-two-shoes type of kiddie characters that one most often encounters in Indian cinema. All-in-all the movie is a very recommended, lazy Sunday watch. A little zany, a little crazy, that’s Little Zizou for you.
At the helm of the script for some excellent movies (The Namesake, Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala – all with director Mira Nair), Sooni Taraporewala finally gets into her own act with this little movie. And she has chosen the topic closest to her heart for her first movie - the delightful landscape of the Parsis in Mumbai and their little, vastly unkown eccentricities.
The director's own son Jehan Batliwala playes Xerxes, a 10-year-old football fanatic who dreams that his dead mother will bring Zenedine Zidane to Mumbai. While Zenedine Zidane is the Zizou, Jehan – the Little Zizou is an ardent soccer follower. His brother Artaxerxes or Art (played by Imaad Shah) is a cartoon-sketching teenager who spends his days trying to construct a flight simulator with his other Parsi friends. Both the motherless boys have to make-do with their father Cyrus Khodaji II (played by Sohrab Ardeshir) who is more interested in making money out of power-plays and politics in the Parsi Punchayat. He is a Parsi fundamentalist who believes that any Parsi who marries outside the religion should be ostracized from the community and not be allowed to pray in the community fire temples. This pits him against the younger, moderate and free-thinking Parsi generation led by the liberal-leaning editor-publisher Boman Pressvala (played by Boman Irani, excellent).
The motherless Khodaji boys detest their father so much that they spend most of their happy moments at their dad’s rival Pressvala’s house. The motherless younger Little Zizou gets all affection from Mrs. Pressvala (the pitch-perfect Zenobia Shroff - a brand new revelation), much to the jealousy of Mrs. Pressvala’s younger daughter – Liana (Iyanah Bativala). And Art hangs around at the Pressvala’s because he is in love with their elder daughter Zenobia (Dilshad Patel), but the poor boy has to pay second fiddle to Zenobia’s love interest, the non-Parsi Arjun (John Abraham, returning to his Parsi roots with this Parsi movie. The other Malayali root of John's is still unexplored).
Most of the movie touches on the premise of the clash of the religious fundamentalists v/s the liberals, which frankly is nothing new in any of the religions in India. We have all, at some stage, sided on either half of this debate. The director uses this clash to drive home the point that protectionism is not benefitting anyone and as the world changes, the older & orthodox values change and give way to newer values.
Things go way too complicated when people react to the articles written by Boman Pressvala. And when Maharashtra politics interferes with the Parsi Punchayat politics, things take a nasty turn. In the middle of all this melee, a host of characters walk in and out of the plot making their relevant points where it calls for. The most touching character of all of them being Mrs. Pressvala’s mother, played by the grand-old dame of the Mumbai’s English theatre, Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal, who turns in an absolutely brilliant performance as the slightly batty, but still full of joie de vivre mother.
It is an extremely simple, small scale and lovable movie. Having made her grand debut in the movies ages ago, Sooni Taraporevala could have chosen any topic that would have raked in the moolah for her, but the fact that she chose the topic closest to her heart speaks volumes about her conviction and love for this project. And the passion and enthusiasm shown by the largely Parsi cast in bringing her vision to reality is there for all to see. The movie is filled with warm little moments that are born out of the director's sharp understanding of the Parsi community, and her ability to bring their quirks and charms to the screen. The movie is entirely well cast, and almost all actors have played their parts convincingly well. Boman Irani as usual stands tall amongst all the characters and Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal left a lasting impression on my mind. The two child actors, Iyanah Bativala and Jahan Bativala also turn in noteworthy performances. They do a great job of being believably vulnerable without overacting the goody-two-shoes type of kiddie characters that one most often encounters in Indian cinema. All-in-all the movie is a very recommended, lazy Sunday watch. A little zany, a little crazy, that’s Little Zizou for you.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Ranaji
Anurag Kashyap is out with a new movie today, Friday, the 13th - Gulaal. After 3 brilliant movies - Satya (scripted by AK), Black Friday and Dev D. (we can safely ignore the mindless 'No Smoking'), I am very eager to watch this new movie. The interest is also quite considerably piqued because of a song - Ranaji - from the movie. Now don't get me wrong, it is not the mujra in the song that has captured my attention. The lyrics of the song, are most interesting. And of course, the haunting voice of Rekha Bharadwaj who has Namak from Omkara and Genda Phool from Delhi-6 to her credit. She certainly seems to be thoroughly enjoying the proceedings and one can rest assured that there would be whistles and catcalls in the auditorium when the song plays on screen. Some of the lyrics of the song go thus:
Rana Ji Mhare Gusse Mein Aaye,
Aiso Bal Khaye,
Agiya Barsae,
Ghabrae Mharo Chain;
Jaise door des ke tower me ghus jaaye re aeroplane
Jaise sare aam iraaq me jaake jam gaye uncle Sam
Sajini ko dear bole, Tharre ko beer bole
Mange hai english boli, Mange hai english choli
mange hai english jaipur, english bikaner
Jaise bisleri ki..
Jaise bisleri ki bottle pike bangaye english man
Jaise har ek baat pe democracy me lagai lagao ban
Jaise bina baat afgaanistaan ka baj gaya bhaiyya band
Composed and written by Piyush Mishra (who is in fact the composer and lyricist for the entire album), this is yet another quirky number making an appearance in an AK film , after 'Emosanal Atyachaar'. There are references to quite a few real life issues in the song (all in light humor though), and one just hopes that there are no controversies around it in days to come and it is accepted with as much interest and enthusiasm as 'Emosanal Atyachaar'. The number is as whacky as it gets. In a lighter vein, it manages to make a serious statement about today's socio-economic condition of the world. It makes references to such diverse topics like 9/11, Uncle Sam, Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan, mineral water, democracy etc. How inappropriate for a mujra number, yet how appropriate for today's times!
Political lyricism thus finally makes a strong occurrence in Hindi filmdom. And it is indeed well sung by Rekha Bharadwaj's intrinsically folksy tones. Ranaji definitely sends out vibes of an ethnic collage of events and stirs it up well with amiable folksy music that can set the desired pace for this blood-curdling political warfare saga.
P.S.: Read Anurag's blog post on the story behind the creation of the movie Gulaal here.
Rana Ji Mhare Gusse Mein Aaye,
Aiso Bal Khaye,
Agiya Barsae,
Ghabrae Mharo Chain;
Jaise door des ke tower me ghus jaaye re aeroplane
Jaise sare aam iraaq me jaake jam gaye uncle Sam
Sajini ko dear bole, Tharre ko beer bole
Mange hai english boli, Mange hai english choli
mange hai english jaipur, english bikaner
Jaise bisleri ki..
Jaise bisleri ki bottle pike bangaye english man
Jaise har ek baat pe democracy me lagai lagao ban
Jaise bina baat afgaanistaan ka baj gaya bhaiyya band
Composed and written by Piyush Mishra (who is in fact the composer and lyricist for the entire album), this is yet another quirky number making an appearance in an AK film , after 'Emosanal Atyachaar'. There are references to quite a few real life issues in the song (all in light humor though), and one just hopes that there are no controversies around it in days to come and it is accepted with as much interest and enthusiasm as 'Emosanal Atyachaar'. The number is as whacky as it gets. In a lighter vein, it manages to make a serious statement about today's socio-economic condition of the world. It makes references to such diverse topics like 9/11, Uncle Sam, Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan, mineral water, democracy etc. How inappropriate for a mujra number, yet how appropriate for today's times!
Political lyricism thus finally makes a strong occurrence in Hindi filmdom. And it is indeed well sung by Rekha Bharadwaj's intrinsically folksy tones. Ranaji definitely sends out vibes of an ethnic collage of events and stirs it up well with amiable folksy music that can set the desired pace for this blood-curdling political warfare saga.
P.S.: Read Anurag's blog post on the story behind the creation of the movie Gulaal here.
Monday, February 23, 2009
The Oscars are back and how!
The 2008 Oscar ceremony was distinctly a damp squib. I remember having made the journey from my suburban Jackson Heights apartment to my friend's place in Union Square in the cold New York winters to watch the ceremony last year (You see, I didn't have a cable connection at my place). As we plonked ourselves in front of the TV, half an hour into the show both of us got distinctly uninterested in the proceedings, and he got on the phone with some of his friends and I began browsing the internet, hardly paying attention to what's happening in Oscarland.
But this year "the man with no genitalia and a sword in his hand" made a distinct reappearance into public memory. One of the best Oscar shows that I have ever seen, never mind the fact that I have actively been watching the show only for the past 5-6 years or so.
Months before the show, the American economy crashed and people began predicting as to how this year's recession-ridden-torn-moneybags sponsored Academy awards would probably be one of the last shows before the Oscars moved into a connoisseur-audience league like the Tony's. That coupled with the fact that none of the biggest nominees were major worldwide hits (All the 5 nominees for the Top Movie Honors together raked in less moolah than the biggest hit last year 'The Dark Knight'), were enough to predict a doomsday show in movie history when Hollywood moviedom would have to give up its crown as America's culture and conscience building institution.
Thankfully that was not the case, and the Oscars and Hollywood still reign supreme. The show was brilliant, it started with a song-and-dance routince, and ended with the kids from Mumbai's slums stampeding onto the stage to claim the statuette, which all of them believed, was always rightfully theirs and their country's. Jai Ho! said the kids and the entire nation in unison.
But maybe three-and-a half hours before this climactic orgasm, I could not just believe that I had woken up this early in the morning Indian time, to watch another uneventful night at the Oscars. I was hoping they cut-size the show to less than a two or two and half hours so that I could go back to sleep for another hour or so before heading to work. The fact that it was Hugh Jackman who was gonna be the emcee, was even less of a redeeming factor.
The pre-show ritual of the red-carpet proceedings with the usual question of "What are you wearing?", etc was going on when I switched on the TV. In short, all looked good and I was hoping against hope that someone turned up in an ugly outfit, so that the fashion police could dissect their choice and ridicule them to death, just to uplift my spirits. Sadly the Bjorks and Chers and other fashion train wrecks of yesteryear are no longer in vogue, and everyone was prim and proper. What's with this herd gown-pout mentality? The only troupe that I noticed on the red carpet were the very kids who were going to create a mini stampede at the Kodak theatre a good three hours later. What gathered my attention was not the fact that they were an extremely good-looking, impeccably dressed and a beaming-with-pride lot, but an extremely stupid question that Ryan Seacrest asked the youngest girl in the lot, "Who made your dress?" The girl just looked at him blankly. Clearly, Ryan needs a reality check. What was he thinking? I began hoping that Hugh doesn't end up doing a Ryan, when he begins his act in a while.
The main event starts. Hugh makes some uninspired jokes "Everything has been downsized because of the recession." That's new! He starts his song-and-dance routine, which starts off as a very pedestrian affair. But then Jackman invites Anne Hathaway onto the stage, and very, very surprisingly she breaks into a song, and has an incredible voice. Everyone sits up and notices, I am sure she is gonna get some musicals in her kitty pretty soon. The song ends with a very good line, which I fail to note in its entirety during the show and google later up to find out exactly what those last words of the song are. It ends like this "I am Hugh Jackman, and I've waited so long! And no recession can stop my confession or silence my song! These are the Oscars, and this is my creed! I am a slumdog, I am a wrestler, I'll rent 'The Reader,' I'm Wolverine!" And the audience gives the act a standing ovation. So far so good.
After that, comes something new. Five former best supporting actresses, coming together on stage to announce and give away the award for this year's best supporting actress. At first the act seems too much like "Let's induct a new member into our mutual-admiration society". And I wait for them to get done with the act. Penelope Cruz wins for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Good! She is pretty and I know nothing about the movie.
Then came my best part of the show Tina Fey, and Steve Martin. Ah! for some comic relief. (I googled this part of the show script too)
Fey: It has been said that to write is to live forever.
Martin: The man who said that is dead.
Fey: Yet, we all know the importance of writing, because every great movie begins with a great screenplay.
Martin: Or, a very good idea for the poster *. But usually, with a screenplay.
Fey: And every writer starts with a blank page.
Martin: And every blank page was once a tree.
Fey: And every tree was once a tiny seed.
Martin: And every tiny seed on Earth was placed here by the alien king Rondelay, to foster our titrates and fuel our positive transfers!
(* Ek vishesh tippanni - Was Martin referring to CC2C? The idea for that movie indeed only started with the poster. The poster was the only thing that remained interesting after the movie was seen.)
Next, Dustin Lance Black wins best original screenplay for "Milk." Black says, "To all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who've been told that they're less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that, no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you, and very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours." Hanky time! And there's Sean Penn, crying in the background. Oh God! what is this? My eyes have begun to well up too.
Next Jennifer Aniston comes out with Jack Black to present the best animated feature Oscar, which Wall-E wins as expected. But at least twice or thrice when she was on stage, the camera cuts to Angelina Jolie to show whether she was laughing, grimacing, cursing, frowning or being plain indifferent to Jen. I begin to feel sorry for these two girls, they will be stuck in the same competing-against-either image for the rest of their lives. Much like the Jaya Bachchan and Rekha of Indian movies. Even at this age, some 20-30 years after their tu-tu-main-main over AB, whenever Rekha comes on stage, the camera pans to Jaya and vice versa. I was secretly hoping that Angie does something really bad, but that's just me, looking for cheap shots even at places where I should not.
Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman next. Ben doing a routine which I don't quite understand. Maybe one of those Seinfeld type of jokes which only people in New York could understand, in this case maybe only the 200 odd crowd in Kodak theatre could understand.
Beyoncé joins Jackman onstage for a musical medley. She looks fat, sings well, and I can't wait for the entire song-dance routine to end. When will they get me my Indian song-dance routine? Wasn't this supposed to be India's night out at the Oscars? I so want to dance to O Saaya and Jai Ho, and show this angrezi waltz-schmaltz my thumbs-down.
Next some 5 best supporting actors from the past come on stage to induct a new member in their tribe. The only interesting guy here - Cuba Gooding Jr, who is introducing the nomination for Robert Downey Jr from Tropic Thunder. He introduces the role as that of an American actor playing an Australian actor playing an African-American guy. And he screams to Robert, "Pls leave the black roles for our brethren." Funny! But by now, the whole world knows that the award just has to go to Heath Ledger. So none of the other nominees even care to give an anticipatory act for the cameras sake. The Ledger family comes on stage to collect the awards. My eyes well up again. Many in the audience are sniffling.
Next are the music awards, and what I have been looking forward to for most of the night. Rahman wins his first award for the best score. And he is really humility personified on stage. Probably the movie is a reflection on his life as well, a rags-to-riches tale, someone who has really gotten where he is only by his hard work and determination. This is indeed a recognition long due for someone as talented as the 'Mozart from Madras'. He says "Mere paas maa hai", in reference to his mother who accompanied him to the awards show and then says in Tamil "Ella pughalum iraivanuke (All glory and fame is to God)". How Indian of him to dedicate his award to maa and bhagwan! I am beaming with pride at the Indianness of the moment.
Next a group of garish pink dressed girls run onto stage unexpectedly and begin dancing to loud dhol beats, when I realize that they are dancing to the tune of O Saaya, ringing in the next category for Best Original Song. Rahman sings well and really kicks ass in the next performance for 'Jai Ho' with the loud yellow salwar kameez clad girls, dunno their names. When his name is announced again as the winner for Jai Ho, he says "I always had a choice between love and hate in my life. And I chose love and I am here" How original and how true! How refreshing too!
Next Danny Boyle is awarded the best director for "Slumdog Millionnaire". He could as well be dancing with Shilpa, John and Abhishek to Shut Up and Bounce when he received the award, he literally bounced up and down systematically thrice on stage before coming on to the mike. "My kids are too old to remember this now, but when they were much younger, I swore to them that if this miracle ever happened, that I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from 'Winnie the Pooh.'" He really seems like a 50+ year old child.
Next comes my best part of the evening. The Best Actress award. Like everyone I am rooting for Kate Winslet. Now who doesn't like her? She is sweet, too honest, too original, and too curvy not to be liked. And I really love her since I saw her blue-haired "The Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind". Here's Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and last year's winner, Marion Cotillard, to present the best actress Oscar. Suddenly this induction of a new member into the mutual-admiration society doesn't look too tiresome. It's for Kate, and only Kate, and God knows how much she deserves all this and much more. MacLaine tells Anne Hathaway she's going to win more awards, and, "By the way, I think you have an extraordinary voice." Hathaway sobs and says, "Thank you, I love you!" As Hathaway's chins quiver, I am openly weeping. What is wrong with me? The moment is kind of lost when Sophia Loren refuses to let go of her tea-pot pose while introducing Meryl Streep, but it still sustains. And then, Kate Winslet wins the best actress! Now I am openly crying and hiding my face behind a news paper, so that my mom doesn't see me weeping for some girl winning a statuette. She is a hard core Shobana fan, and doesn't really care for anyone else. She does ask though "Isn't that the girl from Titanic?" This is too much for me to handle, my mom knows my favorite actress. I am sniffling openly. And there Kate goes on to break my floodgates of tears, when she says "Dad! I wish I knew where you were seated so that I could see you. Pls whistle or something"...and Phewhoo! goes the sound of a whistle somewhere in the auditorium and all heads turn to see the Dad who inspired this beautiful and so deserving Best Actress.
As if this was not enough, Robert De Niro, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Adrien Brody and Michael Douglas appear onstage. "How did he do it?" asks Robert De Niro. "How, for so many years, did Sean Penn get all those jobs playing straight men?" Uproarious laughter. I had just watched Milk yesterday, and the weepie that I am, had cried even in the theatre when the end credits were rolling. What a powerful performance! I am rooting for Sean Penn to win the award, though I know that most of the world wants Mickey Rourke, the comeback kid to win it. And when Sean ia announced the winner for the award, I let out a gleeful, victorious "Yes!", as if I am together in this fight with Sean. "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns!" he gushes from the podium. "I did not expect this, and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me, often." Still crying, my tear ducts are poised for a fresh torrent. And there he goes "I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban in gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."
And of course, lastly Slumdog Millionaire wins the best Movie award. And like Alice lost in wonderland, the Zubinas and the Azhars rush onto the stage, and the whole world breaks into a standing ovation for the message that last act of the event is portraying. How there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! How there are still hopes and dreams in this world full of despair! How everyone is happy for the kids and the city that the kids are from and the country that the kids are from, how it is such a fine example for everything that is worth hoping for in this world! Jai Ho! And cheers to the sincerest and most heartfelt Oscars I have ever seen.
But this year "the man with no genitalia and a sword in his hand" made a distinct reappearance into public memory. One of the best Oscar shows that I have ever seen, never mind the fact that I have actively been watching the show only for the past 5-6 years or so.
Months before the show, the American economy crashed and people began predicting as to how this year's recession-ridden-torn-moneybags sponsored Academy awards would probably be one of the last shows before the Oscars moved into a connoisseur-audience league like the Tony's. That coupled with the fact that none of the biggest nominees were major worldwide hits (All the 5 nominees for the Top Movie Honors together raked in less moolah than the biggest hit last year 'The Dark Knight'), were enough to predict a doomsday show in movie history when Hollywood moviedom would have to give up its crown as America's culture and conscience building institution.
Thankfully that was not the case, and the Oscars and Hollywood still reign supreme. The show was brilliant, it started with a song-and-dance routince, and ended with the kids from Mumbai's slums stampeding onto the stage to claim the statuette, which all of them believed, was always rightfully theirs and their country's. Jai Ho! said the kids and the entire nation in unison.
But maybe three-and-a half hours before this climactic orgasm, I could not just believe that I had woken up this early in the morning Indian time, to watch another uneventful night at the Oscars. I was hoping they cut-size the show to less than a two or two and half hours so that I could go back to sleep for another hour or so before heading to work. The fact that it was Hugh Jackman who was gonna be the emcee, was even less of a redeeming factor.
The pre-show ritual of the red-carpet proceedings with the usual question of "What are you wearing?", etc was going on when I switched on the TV. In short, all looked good and I was hoping against hope that someone turned up in an ugly outfit, so that the fashion police could dissect their choice and ridicule them to death, just to uplift my spirits. Sadly the Bjorks and Chers and other fashion train wrecks of yesteryear are no longer in vogue, and everyone was prim and proper. What's with this herd gown-pout mentality? The only troupe that I noticed on the red carpet were the very kids who were going to create a mini stampede at the Kodak theatre a good three hours later. What gathered my attention was not the fact that they were an extremely good-looking, impeccably dressed and a beaming-with-pride lot, but an extremely stupid question that Ryan Seacrest asked the youngest girl in the lot, "Who made your dress?" The girl just looked at him blankly. Clearly, Ryan needs a reality check. What was he thinking? I began hoping that Hugh doesn't end up doing a Ryan, when he begins his act in a while.
The main event starts. Hugh makes some uninspired jokes "Everything has been downsized because of the recession." That's new! He starts his song-and-dance routine, which starts off as a very pedestrian affair. But then Jackman invites Anne Hathaway onto the stage, and very, very surprisingly she breaks into a song, and has an incredible voice. Everyone sits up and notices, I am sure she is gonna get some musicals in her kitty pretty soon. The song ends with a very good line, which I fail to note in its entirety during the show and google later up to find out exactly what those last words of the song are. It ends like this "I am Hugh Jackman, and I've waited so long! And no recession can stop my confession or silence my song! These are the Oscars, and this is my creed! I am a slumdog, I am a wrestler, I'll rent 'The Reader,' I'm Wolverine!" And the audience gives the act a standing ovation. So far so good.
After that, comes something new. Five former best supporting actresses, coming together on stage to announce and give away the award for this year's best supporting actress. At first the act seems too much like "Let's induct a new member into our mutual-admiration society". And I wait for them to get done with the act. Penelope Cruz wins for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Good! She is pretty and I know nothing about the movie.
Then came my best part of the show Tina Fey, and Steve Martin. Ah! for some comic relief. (I googled this part of the show script too)
Fey: It has been said that to write is to live forever.
Martin: The man who said that is dead.
Fey: Yet, we all know the importance of writing, because every great movie begins with a great screenplay.
Martin: Or, a very good idea for the poster *. But usually, with a screenplay.
Fey: And every writer starts with a blank page.
Martin: And every blank page was once a tree.
Fey: And every tree was once a tiny seed.
Martin: And every tiny seed on Earth was placed here by the alien king Rondelay, to foster our titrates and fuel our positive transfers!
(* Ek vishesh tippanni - Was Martin referring to CC2C? The idea for that movie indeed only started with the poster. The poster was the only thing that remained interesting after the movie was seen.)
Next, Dustin Lance Black wins best original screenplay for "Milk." Black says, "To all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who've been told that they're less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that, no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you, and very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours." Hanky time! And there's Sean Penn, crying in the background. Oh God! what is this? My eyes have begun to well up too.
Next Jennifer Aniston comes out with Jack Black to present the best animated feature Oscar, which Wall-E wins as expected. But at least twice or thrice when she was on stage, the camera cuts to Angelina Jolie to show whether she was laughing, grimacing, cursing, frowning or being plain indifferent to Jen. I begin to feel sorry for these two girls, they will be stuck in the same competing-against-either image for the rest of their lives. Much like the Jaya Bachchan and Rekha of Indian movies. Even at this age, some 20-30 years after their tu-tu-main-main over AB, whenever Rekha comes on stage, the camera pans to Jaya and vice versa. I was secretly hoping that Angie does something really bad, but that's just me, looking for cheap shots even at places where I should not.
Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman next. Ben doing a routine which I don't quite understand. Maybe one of those Seinfeld type of jokes which only people in New York could understand, in this case maybe only the 200 odd crowd in Kodak theatre could understand.
Beyoncé joins Jackman onstage for a musical medley. She looks fat, sings well, and I can't wait for the entire song-dance routine to end. When will they get me my Indian song-dance routine? Wasn't this supposed to be India's night out at the Oscars? I so want to dance to O Saaya and Jai Ho, and show this angrezi waltz-schmaltz my thumbs-down.
Next some 5 best supporting actors from the past come on stage to induct a new member in their tribe. The only interesting guy here - Cuba Gooding Jr, who is introducing the nomination for Robert Downey Jr from Tropic Thunder. He introduces the role as that of an American actor playing an Australian actor playing an African-American guy. And he screams to Robert, "Pls leave the black roles for our brethren." Funny! But by now, the whole world knows that the award just has to go to Heath Ledger. So none of the other nominees even care to give an anticipatory act for the cameras sake. The Ledger family comes on stage to collect the awards. My eyes well up again. Many in the audience are sniffling.
Next are the music awards, and what I have been looking forward to for most of the night. Rahman wins his first award for the best score. And he is really humility personified on stage. Probably the movie is a reflection on his life as well, a rags-to-riches tale, someone who has really gotten where he is only by his hard work and determination. This is indeed a recognition long due for someone as talented as the 'Mozart from Madras'. He says "Mere paas maa hai", in reference to his mother who accompanied him to the awards show and then says in Tamil "Ella pughalum iraivanuke (All glory and fame is to God)". How Indian of him to dedicate his award to maa and bhagwan! I am beaming with pride at the Indianness of the moment.
Next a group of garish pink dressed girls run onto stage unexpectedly and begin dancing to loud dhol beats, when I realize that they are dancing to the tune of O Saaya, ringing in the next category for Best Original Song. Rahman sings well and really kicks ass in the next performance for 'Jai Ho' with the loud yellow salwar kameez clad girls, dunno their names. When his name is announced again as the winner for Jai Ho, he says "I always had a choice between love and hate in my life. And I chose love and I am here" How original and how true! How refreshing too!
Next Danny Boyle is awarded the best director for "Slumdog Millionnaire". He could as well be dancing with Shilpa, John and Abhishek to Shut Up and Bounce when he received the award, he literally bounced up and down systematically thrice on stage before coming on to the mike. "My kids are too old to remember this now, but when they were much younger, I swore to them that if this miracle ever happened, that I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from 'Winnie the Pooh.'" He really seems like a 50+ year old child.
Next comes my best part of the evening. The Best Actress award. Like everyone I am rooting for Kate Winslet. Now who doesn't like her? She is sweet, too honest, too original, and too curvy not to be liked. And I really love her since I saw her blue-haired "The Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind". Here's Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and last year's winner, Marion Cotillard, to present the best actress Oscar. Suddenly this induction of a new member into the mutual-admiration society doesn't look too tiresome. It's for Kate, and only Kate, and God knows how much she deserves all this and much more. MacLaine tells Anne Hathaway she's going to win more awards, and, "By the way, I think you have an extraordinary voice." Hathaway sobs and says, "Thank you, I love you!" As Hathaway's chins quiver, I am openly weeping. What is wrong with me? The moment is kind of lost when Sophia Loren refuses to let go of her tea-pot pose while introducing Meryl Streep, but it still sustains. And then, Kate Winslet wins the best actress! Now I am openly crying and hiding my face behind a news paper, so that my mom doesn't see me weeping for some girl winning a statuette. She is a hard core Shobana fan, and doesn't really care for anyone else. She does ask though "Isn't that the girl from Titanic?" This is too much for me to handle, my mom knows my favorite actress. I am sniffling openly. And there Kate goes on to break my floodgates of tears, when she says "Dad! I wish I knew where you were seated so that I could see you. Pls whistle or something"...and Phewhoo! goes the sound of a whistle somewhere in the auditorium and all heads turn to see the Dad who inspired this beautiful and so deserving Best Actress.
As if this was not enough, Robert De Niro, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Adrien Brody and Michael Douglas appear onstage. "How did he do it?" asks Robert De Niro. "How, for so many years, did Sean Penn get all those jobs playing straight men?" Uproarious laughter. I had just watched Milk yesterday, and the weepie that I am, had cried even in the theatre when the end credits were rolling. What a powerful performance! I am rooting for Sean Penn to win the award, though I know that most of the world wants Mickey Rourke, the comeback kid to win it. And when Sean ia announced the winner for the award, I let out a gleeful, victorious "Yes!", as if I am together in this fight with Sean. "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns!" he gushes from the podium. "I did not expect this, and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me, often." Still crying, my tear ducts are poised for a fresh torrent. And there he goes "I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban in gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."
And of course, lastly Slumdog Millionaire wins the best Movie award. And like Alice lost in wonderland, the Zubinas and the Azhars rush onto the stage, and the whole world breaks into a standing ovation for the message that last act of the event is portraying. How there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! How there are still hopes and dreams in this world full of despair! How everyone is happy for the kids and the city that the kids are from and the country that the kids are from, how it is such a fine example for everything that is worth hoping for in this world! Jai Ho! And cheers to the sincerest and most heartfelt Oscars I have ever seen.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Dev D.
I saw Dev D. yesterday. One of the best Indian movies I have ever seen. There are many brilliant scenes in the movie, but there are some that are just stuck in my mind. So much so that I had to write about them:
1) Dev, tipsy and dopey legged gets into a bus. He sits besides a middle-aged woman. The woman gives him the suspicious, judgmental look that women and men that age and above save exclusively to be thrown with venom at young girls and guys. He reeks of alcohol and grass. The woman covers her nose disgustedly with her yellow dupatta. As with Indian women and men that age and above, she considers it her bounden duty to offer him unsolicited advice on how to conduct every aspect of his life, undeterred by lack of qualification, expertise or experience. Dev continues giving her a blank stare and there when I was expecting an outburst from him asking her to shut up, he goes on and does something very startling. I am still laughing.
2) With his addictions, Dev has lost so much weight that he fits into a medium sized bucket, where he is seated and Chanda is scrubbing him with a loofah.
3) Chunni, who is Chanda's pimp with a heart of gold, has a white wife. She just has a single scene where she opens up the door when Dev knocks on it. It is left to the viewer to figure out how Chunni ends up with a white wife. Most probably one of his lays who he had taken up as a wife later on.
4) The bandmasters are rendering 'Emosanal attyachar' in the background. They are playing the band for Paro and Bhuwan's shaadi ki baaraat. As the song reaches a crescendo, Paro forgetting the Indian bride's suggested behaviour of self-restraint, gives in to the music and begins dancing with gleeful jhatkas. After a while, she realizes her folly and gets back to the Indian bride act, with a sheepish grin.
5) Paro cycling to the fields with a mattress on her cycle, the mattress being where she plans to lay Dev.
6) Chanda is extremely upset that her suicidal father killed himself rather than holding her in his hands and saying a few words of consolation. At exactly that moment, Dev takes her in his hands and says exactly those words.
There are very many small gems like these in the movie, which I can go on writing about. The movie is abso*#$@ingly brilliant. Must must watch! Hats off to Anurag Kashyap.
1) Dev, tipsy and dopey legged gets into a bus. He sits besides a middle-aged woman. The woman gives him the suspicious, judgmental look that women and men that age and above save exclusively to be thrown with venom at young girls and guys. He reeks of alcohol and grass. The woman covers her nose disgustedly with her yellow dupatta. As with Indian women and men that age and above, she considers it her bounden duty to offer him unsolicited advice on how to conduct every aspect of his life, undeterred by lack of qualification, expertise or experience. Dev continues giving her a blank stare and there when I was expecting an outburst from him asking her to shut up, he goes on and does something very startling. I am still laughing.
2) With his addictions, Dev has lost so much weight that he fits into a medium sized bucket, where he is seated and Chanda is scrubbing him with a loofah.
3) Chunni, who is Chanda's pimp with a heart of gold, has a white wife. She just has a single scene where she opens up the door when Dev knocks on it. It is left to the viewer to figure out how Chunni ends up with a white wife. Most probably one of his lays who he had taken up as a wife later on.
4) The bandmasters are rendering 'Emosanal attyachar' in the background. They are playing the band for Paro and Bhuwan's shaadi ki baaraat. As the song reaches a crescendo, Paro forgetting the Indian bride's suggested behaviour of self-restraint, gives in to the music and begins dancing with gleeful jhatkas. After a while, she realizes her folly and gets back to the Indian bride act, with a sheepish grin.
5) Paro cycling to the fields with a mattress on her cycle, the mattress being where she plans to lay Dev.
6) Chanda is extremely upset that her suicidal father killed himself rather than holding her in his hands and saying a few words of consolation. At exactly that moment, Dev takes her in his hands and says exactly those words.
There are very many small gems like these in the movie, which I can go on writing about. The movie is abso*#$@ingly brilliant. Must must watch! Hats off to Anurag Kashyap.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Book Review: The ThoughtWorks Anthology – Essays on Software Technology and Innovation
The Thoughtworks Anthology provides a peek into a diverse set of topics, views and perspectives held by some of the Thoughtworks firm members. The book consists of thirteen insightful essays on modern software development practices, most of them challenging some long held views. The book is aimed at several different audiences right from Project Managers to Business Analysts to Developers to Testers. There is no single central idea to the book, and all the thirteen essays touch a wide range of topics. Not having technical expertise in some of the topics hampered my understanding and I skipped those; I wouldn’t comment much on them in this review. The quality of the different essays varies widely but in a word, for anybody in the software industry: Recommended
Various Chapter Highlights:
1) Solving the Business Software “Last Mile” – by Roy Singham, Founder and Chairman, and Michael Robinson, Technology Principal.
While newer processes like Agile, SCRUM and TDD have allowed us to deliver high-quality software quickly, it still hasn’t helped us resolve the problem of “the last mile”. In the author’s words “This “last mile” is the part of the process that happens after the software satisfies the functional requirements but before the software goes into production and starts to deliver value to the business”. This essay was easily my best pick in the entire group of essays, and was worth the entire book alone. How many projects that we have worked in go “live” as quickly as it is produced?
2) One Lair and Twenty Ruby DSLs – by Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist
3) The Lush Landscape of Languages – by Rebecca J. Parsons, CTO
Nothing too new. If you need to refresh your memory about the difference between various programming language, then read through this essay.
4) Polyglot Programming – by Neal Ford
The author in this essay start off by explaining what polygot programming is by saying "The word polyglot means speaking many languages. Polyglot programming leverages the separation of language and platform in Java (and in C# as well), allowing developers to use specialized languages to solve specific problems. We now have hundreds of languages that run on the Java virtual machine and the .NET managed runtime. Yet, as developers, we don’t leverage this capability enough.". In the next few sections, they show us some examples of applying polygot programming. Didn’t understand much.
5) Object Calisthenics – by Jeff Bay, Technology Principal
A really thought provoking essay. While we all code in our day-to-day lives, the author suggests nine rules to code, which could make programming easier to understand and large project code respositories easier to handle:
i. Use only one level of indentation per method
ii. Don’t use the else keyword
iii. Wrap all primitives and strings
iv. Use only one dot per line
v. Don’t abbreviate
vi. Keep all entities small
vii. Don’t use any classes with more than two instance variables
viii. Use first-class collections
ix. Don’t use any getters/setters/properties.
6) What is an Iteration Manager anyways? – by Tiffany Lentz, Project Manager
This essay provided some new insights into the role of the SCRUM Masters and Iteration Managers as opposed to the traditional Project Managers. It talks about the roles and responsibilities and restrictions with an IM. While many people believe that the IM is just a weaker version of the Project Manager, this essay explains how this is not true, and how the two roles are quite independent in their job profiles
7) Project Vital Signs – by Stelios Pantazopoulos, Iteration Manager
If you are reviewing a project, in the middle of, say, the 10th iteration, when the project is a 20 iteration project, how do you gauge the “health” of the project? The author here comes up with some quantitative metrics, called Project Vital Signs, which help an outsider identify the “health” of the project:
i. Scope burn-up: The state of scope delivery for a deadline
ii. Delivery quality: The state of the end product being delivered
iii. Budget burn-down: The state of the budget in terms of scope delivery
iv. Current state of implementation: The real-time state of the system delivery
v. Team perceptions: The team perspective on the state of the project (Personally, my favorite...something new)
8) Consumer-Driven Contracts: A Service Evolution Pattern – by Ian Robinson, Architect
Do your SOA from the consumer side not the provider side, excellent idea.
9) Domain Annotations – by Erik Doernenburg, Technology Principal
This essay advocates the use of domain-driven design, which follows the idea that during development, the primary focus should be on the domain and the domain logic. Should be very interesting for those into domain-driven design
10) Refactoring Ant Build Files – by Julian Simpson, Build Architect
11) Single-Click Software Release – by Dave Farley, Technology Principal
If you are planning on building an end-to-end continuous integration release systems that will deploy large, complex applications to whichever environment we choose at the click of a button, then this is the chapter you need to read. The essay had some good points for the deployment process
12) Agile vs. Waterfall Testing for Enterprise Web Apps – by Kristan Vingrys, QA Consultant
This essay gives a good overview of the testing life cycle, the different types of testing, and testing environments. The first few sections narrating this should help refresh the testing news and views that are well known. The author then covers topics such as issue management, the tools you need to use for testing purposes, reports and metrics. The essay is concluded with discussing the testing roles for different members.
13) Pragmatic Performance Testing – by James Bull, QA Consultant
This essay gives us an insight about what performance testing is, and gives detailed explanation about the four key elements: requirements, product performance data, communication, and process. The author concludes this essay by explaining how to link all these together, how not to drop behind, and finally how to bring an issue resolution process to close. Again, nothing new, something we have been hearing for long, but do not imbibe quite frequently in our day-to-day proceedings.
Altogether, some really good essays, some just fillers, but overall the book is quite relevant, timely and definitely recommended.
Various Chapter Highlights:
1) Solving the Business Software “Last Mile” – by Roy Singham, Founder and Chairman, and Michael Robinson, Technology Principal.
While newer processes like Agile, SCRUM and TDD have allowed us to deliver high-quality software quickly, it still hasn’t helped us resolve the problem of “the last mile”. In the author’s words “This “last mile” is the part of the process that happens after the software satisfies the functional requirements but before the software goes into production and starts to deliver value to the business”. This essay was easily my best pick in the entire group of essays, and was worth the entire book alone. How many projects that we have worked in go “live” as quickly as it is produced?
2) One Lair and Twenty Ruby DSLs – by Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist
3) The Lush Landscape of Languages – by Rebecca J. Parsons, CTO
Nothing too new. If you need to refresh your memory about the difference between various programming language, then read through this essay.
4) Polyglot Programming – by Neal Ford
The author in this essay start off by explaining what polygot programming is by saying "The word polyglot means speaking many languages. Polyglot programming leverages the separation of language and platform in Java (and in C# as well), allowing developers to use specialized languages to solve specific problems. We now have hundreds of languages that run on the Java virtual machine and the .NET managed runtime. Yet, as developers, we don’t leverage this capability enough.". In the next few sections, they show us some examples of applying polygot programming. Didn’t understand much.
5) Object Calisthenics – by Jeff Bay, Technology Principal
A really thought provoking essay. While we all code in our day-to-day lives, the author suggests nine rules to code, which could make programming easier to understand and large project code respositories easier to handle:
i. Use only one level of indentation per method
ii. Don’t use the else keyword
iii. Wrap all primitives and strings
iv. Use only one dot per line
v. Don’t abbreviate
vi. Keep all entities small
vii. Don’t use any classes with more than two instance variables
viii. Use first-class collections
ix. Don’t use any getters/setters/properties.
6) What is an Iteration Manager anyways? – by Tiffany Lentz, Project Manager
This essay provided some new insights into the role of the SCRUM Masters and Iteration Managers as opposed to the traditional Project Managers. It talks about the roles and responsibilities and restrictions with an IM. While many people believe that the IM is just a weaker version of the Project Manager, this essay explains how this is not true, and how the two roles are quite independent in their job profiles
7) Project Vital Signs – by Stelios Pantazopoulos, Iteration Manager
If you are reviewing a project, in the middle of, say, the 10th iteration, when the project is a 20 iteration project, how do you gauge the “health” of the project? The author here comes up with some quantitative metrics, called Project Vital Signs, which help an outsider identify the “health” of the project:
i. Scope burn-up: The state of scope delivery for a deadline
ii. Delivery quality: The state of the end product being delivered
iii. Budget burn-down: The state of the budget in terms of scope delivery
iv. Current state of implementation: The real-time state of the system delivery
v. Team perceptions: The team perspective on the state of the project (Personally, my favorite...something new)
8) Consumer-Driven Contracts: A Service Evolution Pattern – by Ian Robinson, Architect
Do your SOA from the consumer side not the provider side, excellent idea.
9) Domain Annotations – by Erik Doernenburg, Technology Principal
This essay advocates the use of domain-driven design, which follows the idea that during development, the primary focus should be on the domain and the domain logic. Should be very interesting for those into domain-driven design
10) Refactoring Ant Build Files – by Julian Simpson, Build Architect
11) Single-Click Software Release – by Dave Farley, Technology Principal
If you are planning on building an end-to-end continuous integration release systems that will deploy large, complex applications to whichever environment we choose at the click of a button, then this is the chapter you need to read. The essay had some good points for the deployment process
12) Agile vs. Waterfall Testing for Enterprise Web Apps – by Kristan Vingrys, QA Consultant
This essay gives a good overview of the testing life cycle, the different types of testing, and testing environments. The first few sections narrating this should help refresh the testing news and views that are well known. The author then covers topics such as issue management, the tools you need to use for testing purposes, reports and metrics. The essay is concluded with discussing the testing roles for different members.
13) Pragmatic Performance Testing – by James Bull, QA Consultant
This essay gives us an insight about what performance testing is, and gives detailed explanation about the four key elements: requirements, product performance data, communication, and process. The author concludes this essay by explaining how to link all these together, how not to drop behind, and finally how to bring an issue resolution process to close. Again, nothing new, something we have been hearing for long, but do not imbibe quite frequently in our day-to-day proceedings.
Altogether, some really good essays, some just fillers, but overall the book is quite relevant, timely and definitely recommended.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Book Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma - A Natural History of Four Meals
A fab new addition to my list of interesting-reads, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'-- a gift to me by a colleague, who is quite a foodie just as I am -- is a book about food. To elaborate, not just "about food", in fact it's all about food and about all food. Not just cooking and eating food, but it's also about the production, evolution, industrialization, emotion, environmentalization, consumption, digestion, and philosophization of food. While it is primarily a scathing look into all that's wrong with the food industry in the US of A, it's a good read for anyone who wants to nip the fowl in the bud, if the food industrialization crisis is just about hitting their country. What Michael Pollan, the author, set out to do was to describe the creation of 4 different meals. This would take him to farms, feedlots, grocery convenience stores, forests, and hidden mushroom gathering sites all over the Americas, while discussing the social, political, ecological, and economical aspects of the food chain. Following were the four meals that he focussed his writing on:
1) Industrial - A fast food meal dinner brought at a McDonald's drive-through and consumed in the car itself
2) Industrial Organic - Organic food bought at a local Whole Foods, and cooked at home with other organic produce
3) Local - A farmer’s market meal from Virginia’s Polyface farm, cooked at home with other local produce (things produced and consumed within a defined geographic boundary)
4) Hunter-Gatherer - A meal for which Pollan hunts the meat and gathers the mushrooms himself
While 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' is by no means an iconic book, or even quite a literary achievement, I would still deem it as a must-read for all. Absolutely essential, especially for Americans, and Indians who are fast driving into the fast-food lane. With increasing nuclearization of our traditional Indian joint family system, we are coming to depend more-and-more on McDonald's and KFC for our daily bread and more. With this book, Pollan aims to throw more light on all that's wrong with the lifestyle of comfort that we are choosing for ourselves. While food in India has still not reached as much a state of remote-control as it has in the USA, it is interesting to read how we are falling preys to the consumerization of food and in turn harming our own lives, and the world as a whole.
How did we reach this situation?
Where to begin from? Maybe from corn (Meal #1 starts with the evolution of corn), starting from how the American government subsidizes the corn industry at the expense of the land and, most disturbingly, the health of its people; to how scientists at places like McDonald’s conspire to turn corn-—which is outrageously cheap and plentiful-—into millions of different products, from Chicken McNuggets to the stabilizer in the dressings you put on your “healthy” salad, not to mention the zillions of chemicals derived from corn—-from HFCS (high fructose corn stabilizers) to xantham gum to edible essences.
The cornification of our body and lands is an important issue, yes. The bigger issue, though, is the treatment meted out to the poor animals that go into making our fast food -- the tortured, diseased animals whose miserable lives are rendered into that flavorless disc called the tikki or the patty. That meat comes from a cow that’s fed an unnatural diet of the plentiful and really cheap corn, as opposed to its biological and evolutionary propensity for grass. This change in its eating pattern leads it to break out in numerous diseases while crammed mercilessly into lots, standing in piles of their own shit. Which again means numerous antibiotics that go into their feed to prevent them from falling ill and falling into a "depression" which might trigger them into riots. As one could expect, there aren't many positive sides to the industrial meal, the production and consumption of which is a waste of money and energy, topped with disgraceful animal living conditions, exploitation of labor, absurd government subsidy structures, and vast ecological damages leading even to global warming.
However gruesome the scene that Pollan tries to portray with beef and pork, he doesn't try to push for a vegetarian agenda. Human beings are actually animals with a carnivorous evolutionary pattern, and hence it is but natural for mankind to be eating meat. The fact is that with the discovery of agriculture, mankind found an easy access to a vegetarian diet, and hence turned omnivorous. It’s only a new phenomenon that with the industrialization of agriculture and animal farming, we are getting into a harmful pattern of producing and consuming food.
Meal #2 wasn't exactly a remarkable read, except for some pertinent issues raised by Pollan. For example, is it better to eat a "conventional" apple from a farm down the road, or an organic one flown in from New Zealand? And just what is "organic," or "free range"? And does all "organic" food actually mean good?
For meal # 3, Pollan spent a week working on Polyface Farm, a self contained grass farm run by a man named Joe Salatin that raises cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, rabbits, etc. Salatin describes himself as a "grass farmer", the ideology behind it being that the grass sustains most of the living beings in his farm, starting from the ruminating cows to his customers who end up buying the commodities from his farm. The idea is that instead of importing nutrients in the form of chemical fertilizers, Salatin uses a very well planned and intricate system of animal rotation to raise everything using only his own forest and pasture land. According to Salatin, grass grows better if it is nibbled on (but not overgrazed), and with this system Salatin has turned an overgrazed wasteland of a farm into a very efficient and productive plot of pasture and forest. So the cows graze on one part of the land just right, and then he moves the cows to another part. They are followed by the chicken who nibble on the cow dung, to take out its nutrients and spread the grass seeds further; which are then followed by the rabbits and the pigs in a very systematic and proven dance. What it results it is in eggs with the most carrotish orange egg yolks, and thick muscle bound whites, and farm produce with not even the slightest bit of artificially produced fertilizers or pesticides. This was my most interesting portion of the book, and I would recommend this book to all just to go through this particular section. At the end of one particular cycle, when Salatin begins selling his produce at the local market, people come driving all the way from about 50 miles afar to buy things from him. This is what Pollan stresses as "putting a face" to your farm; trying and learning more about where your food comes from. Sample this writing: "But imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a manner of course, these few unremarkable things: What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost. We could then talk about some other things at dinner. For we would no longer need any reminding that however we chose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world"
The final meal was about as close as one could come to the whole hunter-gatherer model. Pollan hunted mushrooms, wild pigs, and random greens and fruits to make a dinner focused on things that he "found" himself. This was quite an easy read, and again raised some pertinent questions.
There are so many more interesting points that were highlighted in this book, that, if nothing, I at least came out enlightened by the reading of this book. And hence I would recommend this book as a very essential read for everyone. If you want to live healthy and eat good, start with eating what's right - for yourself and for the environment. As for the money part of eating right, let me defend it with Pollan's argument "Americans today spend less on food, as a percentage of disposable income, than any other industrialized nation, and probably less than any people in the history of the world. This suggests that there are many of us who could afford to spend more on food if we chose to. After all, it isn't only the elite who in recent years have found an extra fifty or one hundred dollars each month to spend on cell phones (now owned by more than half the U.S. population, children included) or television, which close to 90 percent of all U.S. households now pay for. Another formerly free good that more than half of us happily pay for today is water. So is the unwillingness to pay more for food really a matter of affordability or priority?"
1) Industrial - A fast food meal dinner brought at a McDonald's drive-through and consumed in the car itself
2) Industrial Organic - Organic food bought at a local Whole Foods, and cooked at home with other organic produce
3) Local - A farmer’s market meal from Virginia’s Polyface farm, cooked at home with other local produce (things produced and consumed within a defined geographic boundary)
4) Hunter-Gatherer - A meal for which Pollan hunts the meat and gathers the mushrooms himself
While 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' is by no means an iconic book, or even quite a literary achievement, I would still deem it as a must-read for all. Absolutely essential, especially for Americans, and Indians who are fast driving into the fast-food lane. With increasing nuclearization of our traditional Indian joint family system, we are coming to depend more-and-more on McDonald's and KFC for our daily bread and more. With this book, Pollan aims to throw more light on all that's wrong with the lifestyle of comfort that we are choosing for ourselves. While food in India has still not reached as much a state of remote-control as it has in the USA, it is interesting to read how we are falling preys to the consumerization of food and in turn harming our own lives, and the world as a whole.
How did we reach this situation?
Where to begin from? Maybe from corn (Meal #1 starts with the evolution of corn), starting from how the American government subsidizes the corn industry at the expense of the land and, most disturbingly, the health of its people; to how scientists at places like McDonald’s conspire to turn corn-—which is outrageously cheap and plentiful-—into millions of different products, from Chicken McNuggets to the stabilizer in the dressings you put on your “healthy” salad, not to mention the zillions of chemicals derived from corn—-from HFCS (high fructose corn stabilizers) to xantham gum to edible essences.
The cornification of our body and lands is an important issue, yes. The bigger issue, though, is the treatment meted out to the poor animals that go into making our fast food -- the tortured, diseased animals whose miserable lives are rendered into that flavorless disc called the tikki or the patty. That meat comes from a cow that’s fed an unnatural diet of the plentiful and really cheap corn, as opposed to its biological and evolutionary propensity for grass. This change in its eating pattern leads it to break out in numerous diseases while crammed mercilessly into lots, standing in piles of their own shit. Which again means numerous antibiotics that go into their feed to prevent them from falling ill and falling into a "depression" which might trigger them into riots. As one could expect, there aren't many positive sides to the industrial meal, the production and consumption of which is a waste of money and energy, topped with disgraceful animal living conditions, exploitation of labor, absurd government subsidy structures, and vast ecological damages leading even to global warming.
However gruesome the scene that Pollan tries to portray with beef and pork, he doesn't try to push for a vegetarian agenda. Human beings are actually animals with a carnivorous evolutionary pattern, and hence it is but natural for mankind to be eating meat. The fact is that with the discovery of agriculture, mankind found an easy access to a vegetarian diet, and hence turned omnivorous. It’s only a new phenomenon that with the industrialization of agriculture and animal farming, we are getting into a harmful pattern of producing and consuming food.
Meal #2 wasn't exactly a remarkable read, except for some pertinent issues raised by Pollan. For example, is it better to eat a "conventional" apple from a farm down the road, or an organic one flown in from New Zealand? And just what is "organic," or "free range"? And does all "organic" food actually mean good?
For meal # 3, Pollan spent a week working on Polyface Farm, a self contained grass farm run by a man named Joe Salatin that raises cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, rabbits, etc. Salatin describes himself as a "grass farmer", the ideology behind it being that the grass sustains most of the living beings in his farm, starting from the ruminating cows to his customers who end up buying the commodities from his farm. The idea is that instead of importing nutrients in the form of chemical fertilizers, Salatin uses a very well planned and intricate system of animal rotation to raise everything using only his own forest and pasture land. According to Salatin, grass grows better if it is nibbled on (but not overgrazed), and with this system Salatin has turned an overgrazed wasteland of a farm into a very efficient and productive plot of pasture and forest. So the cows graze on one part of the land just right, and then he moves the cows to another part. They are followed by the chicken who nibble on the cow dung, to take out its nutrients and spread the grass seeds further; which are then followed by the rabbits and the pigs in a very systematic and proven dance. What it results it is in eggs with the most carrotish orange egg yolks, and thick muscle bound whites, and farm produce with not even the slightest bit of artificially produced fertilizers or pesticides. This was my most interesting portion of the book, and I would recommend this book to all just to go through this particular section. At the end of one particular cycle, when Salatin begins selling his produce at the local market, people come driving all the way from about 50 miles afar to buy things from him. This is what Pollan stresses as "putting a face" to your farm; trying and learning more about where your food comes from. Sample this writing: "But imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a manner of course, these few unremarkable things: What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost. We could then talk about some other things at dinner. For we would no longer need any reminding that however we chose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world"
The final meal was about as close as one could come to the whole hunter-gatherer model. Pollan hunted mushrooms, wild pigs, and random greens and fruits to make a dinner focused on things that he "found" himself. This was quite an easy read, and again raised some pertinent questions.
There are so many more interesting points that were highlighted in this book, that, if nothing, I at least came out enlightened by the reading of this book. And hence I would recommend this book as a very essential read for everyone. If you want to live healthy and eat good, start with eating what's right - for yourself and for the environment. As for the money part of eating right, let me defend it with Pollan's argument "Americans today spend less on food, as a percentage of disposable income, than any other industrialized nation, and probably less than any people in the history of the world. This suggests that there are many of us who could afford to spend more on food if we chose to. After all, it isn't only the elite who in recent years have found an extra fifty or one hundred dollars each month to spend on cell phones (now owned by more than half the U.S. population, children included) or television, which close to 90 percent of all U.S. households now pay for. Another formerly free good that more than half of us happily pay for today is water. So is the unwillingness to pay more for food really a matter of affordability or priority?"
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