At my Grandmother's

Lazy post for today.  The last of my pictures from Mumbai were taken in and around the Mahalakshmi Mahal (new name for the grandmother's house!).  In retrospect the visit had all the hallmarks of a plot for a chick flick - single woman with a career visits her grandmother's place and rediscovers life and family, finds love with an old fling and decides to stay on.  Though elements of each of these were present on my visit, in retrospect its a good thing that real life is not equal to Hollywood!

First up, the blossoms of the citron/narthangai.  My Tamil genes speak when I say that curd rice+narthangai on a summer afternoon=perfection!

I only know the basic kolams but I do like making them and the black slate laid down for it at the entrance made it an infinitely pleasurable activity.

Often I had little to do except wander around the house.  Despite some of my internal feelings which were at times unhappy, there was a certain kind of tranquillity brought about by observing tiny details - though I never achieved the state of grace of the protagonist of The Scent of Green Papaya :-)

When I did venture out the photographs I took were partly a record of sights I grew up with and that somehow seemed to have survived time, even as the people have changed.  The vegetable carts in Rajawadi are an example.

All the time I was in Mumbai the house was full of painters and they would be terribly self-conscious each time I photographed them.

Most of my pictures are a recordal of things that interest me though they make for pleasant images. When my cousin was visiting, she played around with my camera a good deal making for very different images. This image of our grandmother is by her and I like the way it foregrounds an object that my grandmother uses every day.

The Importance of Being Rancho

So I saw 3 Idiots.

Mostly I learnt that men cry, hug and piss at the drop of a trouser. Shall we see how all this unfolded? !

A plane returns to base because Farhan (Madhavan, once so cute but now needs to go a little easy on the thair shaadam eh!), is having a fake spasm of sorts. Soon he has hijacked an airport car and is on his way to meet best bud Raju (Sharman Joshi). The reason for all this is that much hated Chatur Ramalingam (Omi Vaidya) has located the other best bud, Rancchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad aka Rancho (Aamir Khan) who disappeared after graduation. Question Time! What’s common to Tams in Bollywood Films and Brits in Hollywood Films? Answer: Both sport dodgy accents and are designated DOUCHEBAGS! Chatur it appears has been harbouring deep RESENTMENT against the best buds. And is also looking for an inventor called Phansukh Wangdu (people lol, rofl, lmao at the names!), all round genius who has 400 patents to his name (your viewer was all lolwut at patents=genius!). So they are off to Simla where Rancho now lives. Why is Chatur so bitter? FLASHBACK! Time for a Boys Own Adventure where their antics will be treated with a Boys will be Fucking Boys!!

Podgy Farhan has just joined the Imperial College of Engineering and is soon rooming with Raju, he of the 100 Gods Shrine who shall bless him with Complete Examination Success. Time for RAGGING! Lots and lots of boys! Lots and lots of dropped trousers! Arse Stamping! Chatur in a bowtie and skimpy underwear! Everyone looking like an undercover overage student like Drew in Never Been Kissed! Rancho entering, Farhan looking a little smitten - Ruined Botticelli Angel who has been a tad “refreshed” – IRRESISTIBLE! But if you think up next is strobe lights, dance music, Bad Bad Rancho and Queer as Log you are wrong for this is at best a bad advertisement for Dora Underwear. Rancho doesn’t want to drop his trousers – no Tough Male Initiation Rites for the wuss! - and locks himself into a room. Time for a Bully aka Senior to ferret him out by - umm - pissing on his door. Time for a glimpse of Rancho’s native genius for he quickly rigs – double umm - an Apparatus for a Sharp Short Shock to the Scrotum of a Pissing Person! Useful given the movie has so much serial pissing!! So massive toolery all around – except perhaps in the underwear.

ViruS (Boman Irani) - he of the charming eccentricities – Listening to opera! Being shaved while listening to the opera! Taking ambidexterity to new heights! Carrying a bird in a nest! – is giving the TOUGH TALK to the overage students. And mooning over a pen designed for space. Cue a Rancho The Great moment (Reader, you are warned, there are MANY!). It is all about a pencil for space – Rancho boy you will have to do better than lifting old cosmonaut/astronaut anecdotes to establish genius!! Now ViruS his enemy for life but hey ViruS join the queue, we can’t stand a smug smart arse either! Also joining the queue - the Prof in the next scene who is – triple umm - predictably unzipping his trousers! Another Rancho the Great moment - don’t beat us over the head with his genius, folks! And I forget - there is a parallel track of Chatur, Obnoxious Teacher's Pet for each such moment.  

Now time for obligatory creative student crushed by the forces of college bit for beware ViruS the Villain is at large, he will fuck you over, destroy all hope, crush your spirit and spit you out a ghost of a man! Oh note that the student is a Lobo so he gets to sing an English song! Also another song where the bogs are like something out a product catalogue – check out the red doors, the smooth granite! Soon Lobo is quite DEAD and hey a Rancho invention is there to record the moment! And Rancho has a most revolutionary thought – all student suicides are MURDERS! The blood of our nation’s youth is on our Professors hands! For this ViruS puts him on the spot and time for another Rancho The Great moment accompanied by a homily - though oy any dimwit can spot what Farhanitrate and Prerajulisation is! Also time for ViruS’ favourite activity – writing letters to parents! Farhan’s are the aspirational sort, Raju’s the poor wanting a better life. And both are very UNHAPPY so the 3 idiots are soon cruising the streets. So of course time for the Boys will be Fucking Boys to crash a wedding. Oh look ViruS has a daughter Pia (Kareena Kapoor). She has spectacles, she is INTELLIGENT! But has a fiancé who is very very devoted to BRANDS! Hot Chick with Douchebag or Closeted with Beard? The Jury is OUT!

Soon ViruS is giving Raju and Farhan a valuable piece of advice – they are have nots while Rancho is a HAVE! So he can do ANY fuckery he wishes! The life of the genteel poor on the other hand, fucked but no fuckery allowed! Soon all pants down for a discussion and Raju in open rebellion against Rancho and rooming with Chatur. But Farhan still smitten, the man does adore a ruined Botticelli angel!

Anyway Boys will be Fucked up Boys! So a plan is hatched up to “rescue” Raju from Chatur’s clutches. This involves a tiny switch in Chatur’s speech for an Important Occasion. Sort of like putting a spider in a classmate’s desk in Std. 5 when the School Inspector comes visiting. Clever! Also Chatur not knowing Hindi – both HILARIOUS and a CRIME – we must all be proficient in the Rashtra Bhasha! The word in question in India’s Most Famous Speech after Kitne Aadmi The is balatkar. The Rape Word – guaranteed laugh riot! Naturally Chatur all stroppy and vows REVENGE! Oooh FISTFIGHT!!! But no, just drunk people promising to be successes 10 years later. An Apparatus for a Sharp Short Shock to the Plot badly needed!

But we commence a Romance Fuckery Plot in which Rancho manages to divest Pia of the Brand Whore Douchebag/Closeted Fiance and get it on with him instead. Does anyone care about this unsexy romance? NO! Can we have a Time Travelling Device back to 50s Sluttery?! NOW! But halt. We must not forget the mission of this film, to establish that Rancho aka Aamir Khan is Great and Can Do No Wrong! Weird hospital track (hey nice Fortis product placement there, brand whoredom much!) involving Raju’s father. Raju also smitten by the ruined Botticelli angel so he CRIES (Sam Taylor-Wood, you are needed!) and HUGS Rancho.

Your viewer is now suffering from infinite tedium. Also never has a movie stuffed itself with SO MANY unsexy men. That’s it! I am wandering off on my very own Sapphic fantasy track! Indulge me till I return!

Exam results out - Quelle Surprise! Raju and Farhan bottom of class, Rancho a topper! Green Monster! Class Photograph! A Bet! If Raju and Farhan get a job, ViruS will shave off his moustache. Not that we care, a moustache less ham is still a ham! Plus the only good ham is Jon Hamm!

TEDIUM REIGNS. Also the back and forth now very confusing. Sapphic fantasies aren’t helping. Neither is Mr. Hamm. Time to keep company with Tall, Dark and Handsome Mr. Pinot Noir methinks and to hell with the chronology.

Back in the present our boys are in Simla (And a man is snapping 5 burqa ladies, wtf what was that about?!) and at Rancho’s mansion. Rancho’s dad is dead, also Rancho is not Rancho. Sooper Plot Twist, machan!

Some absurd fuckery, cuntery, sluttery, drunkery (God I feel SO much better just using those words!) ends in a dare (Boys will be Fucking Boys!). Rancho is trying to get into Pia’s bedroom, also some very strange stuff with a sister and a baby and all is well! OK, PISSING alert, this time its Raju spraying ViruS’ Wall! Time for ViruS’s second favourite thing after writing letters to parents! RUSTICATION! Out sails Raju though ViruS’ window to the strains of opera. Oh Raju, you really shouldn’t have done that!!!! For now we have to sit through more weird hospital scenes and CRYING and HUGGING and Rancho The Great.

Oh good here’s Mr. Shiraz, a super smooth sort from South Australia - only a ménage a trois will get me though this!

There is some bit about Farhan becoming a wildlife photographer and talking to his dad about it and TEARS! And Raju getting a job in spite of failing so more TEARS! ViruS now without a moustache. CRY, CRY, CRY! HUG, HUG, HUG! DROP TROUSERS! Rancho Tussi Great Ho!

Some backstory fuckery in which the fake Rancho is established as a boy prodigy and genius who would put Mozart to shame. Nothing to see here, move along.

Ongoing ViruS Villainy involving an exam paper and its theft. Does anyone care! A thousand times, a resounding NO! ViruS also “murdered” his son apparently. Boo Hoo.

Oh God no, ViruS don’t let us down, we could have so got together and given Rancho the bumps and tied the fucktard up, put stones in his pockets and thrown him into a river for good! But Sad Sad Day - here he is acknowledging Rancho The Great. This involves floods, the birth of a baby and a vacuum pump. All like some ghastly chapter in a management text book with big signposts to instances of ingenuity, teamwork, blah blah blah. All topped with CRYING. Will this child who shall hear the story of Uncle Rancho's Method for Delivering a Baby every single fucking day of his life be an Anti-Rancho? One lives in hope!

Anyhow back in the present, inexplicably Pia is getting married to the Brand Whore. Who is wearing a pink robe and pink slippers. And listening to Opera. Douchebag AND Closeted! Quelle Surprise! Pia does a runner.

Then we are all in Ladakh where we get further proof of Rancho the School Teacher’s ingenuity bringing joy and progress to poor Ladakhians (what the hell is the man inventing anyway, Permanently Keeping Cheese From Yak Milk?). So everyone gets to meet up because of the reappearance of both Pissing and the Apparatus for a Sharp Short Shock to the Scrotum of a Pissing Person and it winds its way to its predictable End. When I wake up I think- If 3 Idiots was male, I would definitely be applying that Apparatus to its Scrotum. PRONTO. Though  an old fashioned short, sharp kick to its backside would do just as well.

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India’s most popular movie it appears is a mash up of 101 Jokes for all occasions, self-help books and a smattering of Edward de Bono. Its like being stuck in a training course for middle management where you are allowed to fondly recall the last time you were properly alive, aka in college, and made to believe that the rainbow of alternate existence in which you are totally going to be CREATIVE and LOVE your WORK is around the corner. It will no doubt be conducted by Rancho The Great.

If you stick to the very end, it will also make you Vote for Rote.

Two Australian Movies

I try and watch as many Australian films as I can so this week I finally caught up with two movies I had wanted to see for a while, Proof and All my Friends are Leaving Brisbane.



Proof came out in the early 90s and stars the always excellent Hugo Weaving as Martin a blind photographer who distrusts everyone and is locked in a dysfunctional relationship with his housekeeper, Celia (Genevieve Picot who reminded me very much of Isabelle Huppert). Martin takes pictures so he can have proof of what is around him. Celia is obsessed with Martin, a fact he makes use of, in turn she takes her pleasure in both coming on to him and tormenting him in subtle ways. When Martin meets Andy (Russell Crowe), he takes to him and they become friends. When Andy starts interpreting Martin’s photographs, Celia is threatened and seduces Andy. Since this is not a French film with Huppert (Ms Huppert’s films do not allow for tender sentiments), her revenge doesn’t quite work and eventually Andy and Martin re-establish their friendship and Martin learns that the world may not always be interpreted truthfully but is at least interpreted faithfully most of the time by the people close to us. Proof established Jocelyn Moorhouse and this movie is so good that it’s a pity that her particular way of film making didn’t quite work in Hollywood. The cast is on pretty top form in this three hander, even Russell Crowe (an actor I have never really taken to). It’s a small perfectly made film and I kid about the French film comparison – it’s for the better that this movie has an undercurrent of warmth.

All my Friends are Leaving Brisbane is a much slighter film that deals with a dilemma familiar to anyone a few years out of graduation – to stay or to leave? Brisbane is a small city and opportunities, both professional and personal, often lie elsewhere. What do you do when your friends up and move and when your own life feels stagnant? There are no surprising answers in the film about two best friends (played by Charlotte Gregg and Matt Zeremes) who have never got to the romance stage and are questioning where their lives are heading but it is not a movie that is looking for surprising answers. It’s disarming in its sweetness and even if its ending is conventional, it doesn’t feel forced. Its Brisbane setting is incidental – I could see a number of parallels with people a few years out of IIT and working in India for e.g., the discussions on whether to stay or leave, the one cussed person who refuses to and the like. On the other hand I lived in Brisbane for awhile and part of the charm of the film for me lay in how acutely it captured the cosiness and boredom of the city.

The optic nerve of the eye is happy

There a fair few Australian women painters and I had been meaning to do a post on them at some point. The death of Margaret Olley last week precipitated this post. It is by no means a critique, neither does it touch on lesser known painters, it's just a picture post.  Some of the painters belong to the first half of the twentieth century; my interest in them is largely because of their representations of Australian life from that period.

Olley herself is a bit of an icon and quite singular judging from her interviews.  The reason I chose this painting is because by some coincidence it was the first in my search and matches a cyclamen plant I bought this morning.

Yesterday the ABC ran a documentary on Olley and of course being a bit of a clothes obsessive, I was charmed by her liberal use of colour in her clothing even at an old age.  And also charmed by her faded beauty - the only comparison I can think of is an unkempt rose bush :-)

Margaret Preston is arguably the best known of the artists, there have been retrospectives of her work, much discussion on her aboriginal influences and the like.  Her paintings (many are woodcuts actually) make liberal use of the Australian landscape which in a way keeps drawing me back to her. I often think of this woodcut when I am walking around the harbour, for e.g. And of course her floral still lifes are both extensive and beautiful.

Thea Proctor is not as well known but her woodcuts have a languorous air and are tasteful. Though The Rose is the woodcut you often find in merchandise, I like this one of the swing.

AGNSW had a retrospective of Grace Cossington Smith awhile back and though the collection was not as extensive as Preston's there's something intrinsically harmonious and pleasing in her paintings.  There's a slight domesticity to her work (though she does have a few on city life and the making of the Harbour Bridge) but it's the colours that draw you in.  The Lacquer Room is her most famous painting but I also like her yellow interiors.

Last of course there is Mirka Mora who is still very much around and had a book out that made clutter seem quite seductive (Olley seems equally at home with clutter).  A lot of her work is also colour saturated and in her words "the optic nerve of the eye is so happy" when you look at these.