Every morning at school, we had ‘The Assembly’. Primary school assemblies were the best. At nine in the morning we would straggle over to the far end of the playground. The ‘playground’ was enormous. Urban-schooled readers would probably not grasp how big the playground actually was. And this was just the primary school! At the other end of the playground was the huge stage with a blue backdrop. Arrayed by class numbers and sections, guys in one line and girls in another, we would stand, waiting for the music to start.

20 years have passed; but I can still remember the tunes. These were the classic British marching anthems. Of course, we never knew which classic anthem was being played. With no words, but just the recorded voice of the amplifier egging us on, we would walk from the far end of the playground to the center. This march was a sudden shift from relative coolness to the sharp morning sun. Come to think of it, the landscapers of my school’s playgrounds must have been masters of chiarascuro – all the playgrounds at my school were sharp contrasting bands of light and dark; of sun and shade.
When you’re small, distances seem huge. For some reason, we would never march up to the stage. We would stop almost in the center of the playground. The ‘Sister’ and the School Pupil Leader would be two distant white stripes – one fat and one thin – in a background of unnatural blue.
The list of events was a litany that was sacrosanct. In the most faithful imitation of the Catholic ritual, the Assembly was carefully arranged as an alternating series of the spoken word and tune. Entropy implied doubt, and change was frowned upon.
The Welcome Speech was always first. In this speech, the presenter would list earnestly what was to follow… as if it ever changed. After this welcome speech, the Prayer followed, and then the Prayer Song. After this would be a little variety thrown in – one day a talk, the other day a skit. The Sister would then give a small talk and let us know of the happenings in the school. By this time the fidgeting would start, because we knew we were getting to the end of the assembly.
The next thing to perform in the litany was the Vote of Thanks, one that would invariably contain the phrase ‘last but not least’. Some thankers would go overboard and thank Soosai for the mike arrangment, but this was OK; Soosai was cool. The School Anthem was the last rite on the litany. All of us knew the first stanza by heart, so this was no problem.
Once the school anthem was recited, the thin white stripe at the far end would bark out a ‘Class Disperse!’. And we would slowly start marching back to our classes. This was also done in an orderly fashion. The center rows would peel off first – a daily parting of the sea. The playground would gradually become bare. Unlike the playgrounds of England being emulated, our playgrounds were made of red sand and medium sized gravel. This was no fault of the management, but a cruel trick played by geography on our Anglo-Indian sisters.

I skydived (skydove?) for the first time yesterday. The rush when I just walked off the airplane into nothing and realized what gravitational acceleration actually meant was incredible. The experience would have been even sweeter had I actually pulled the cord myself and steered some more.

Still, jumping off a propeller plane with a 220-lb hungarian man strapped to your back and realizing all you have is 12000 feet of thin air between you and the ground is quite exhilarating. I would definitely do it again, if only to prepare myself to do a solo.

It is said that the female gender is ten times more likely to suffer mental disorders than the male. So much so that the word ‘hysteria’ was coined from the same root as the word ‘hysterectomy’. A few filmmakers, perpetually fascinated with the female gender and its enigma, try to explore and depict this in their movies.

There are three films I can think of that center around this subject.

* Through a glass darkly – Part of Bergman’s Faith trilogy, the film shows Karin is going mad and is completely aware of it. Given to Bergman’s trademark dialogues (and monologues), Karin muses on the futility of faith when she can see herself sliding into madness.

* Turkish Delight – Rutger Hauer’s first starring role. The film’s protagonist might be an exuberant sculptor in love with an equally exuberant woman, but the film focuses more on the woman when the joie-de-vivre of both gradually turns into despair.

* Betty Blue – A french film that comes pretty close to being the quintessential film in the ‘woman gone crazy’ genre — if there is such a genre. Again, the woman’s liveliness is only the crest of her manic-depressive cycle, so the man in love gets a fair helping of both phases.

Apart from the depressing subject matter, all three movies are a pleasure to watch. ‘Through a glass…’ for Nyquist’s black-and-white cinematography, and the other two for their share of unashamed nudity. ‘Betty Blue’, with its brilliant summertime colors and eccentric characters, is quite a visual treat on High-Def.

There are two nightmares I had as a child that I still remember. They both came during a fevered sleep.

S. was our housemaid and she came and washed clothes and cleaned the house everyday. In one of my nightmares, S. was washing our clothes on a big stone placed in the center of a concrete platform. The platform was designed to drain water from the washing into a small gutter. As S. was beating my mother’s sarees on ths stone , a strange thing happened; the colors of the saree began to fade and run into the gutter. And along with it, S.

Imagine a three-dimensional person turned into a two-dimensional palette of red, purple and black, and dissolving into oblivion. This was my own ‘Scream’ and scream I did, when I woke up in the middle of the night.

A few weeks ago, I watched a movie that came close to representing what existential horror was. After watching ‘Pulse’ I was left with an incredible sadness, one that lingered for some days before dissipating.

There were no weird-eyed freaks or girls of the Japanese horror genre in this movie. It was more of a meditation on loneliness combined with a backstory based on the supernatural. What does my dream have to do with Pulse? It seems that the difference between existing and not-existing is just one of dimensions – three to two, and then you’re gone.

This came up as a google link on my other blog. It was too weird to not click.

I’ve been browsing through PosterWire. It’s a good read for anyone interested in the art of film posters. The most popular genre of movie posters seems to be ‘Big Heads Floating in the Sky’. I used to have ‘The Two Towers’ on my wall – one more that belonged to the BHFITS category. Back when I used to photoshop on Fark, posters were my favorite medium. I was pretty good, if I may say so myself. 🙂

I was 14 when I first heard the remix of the song “Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny, yellow polka dot bikini” on MTV. The lyrics were simple, but it didn’t matter; the refrain was so catchy you couldn’t help sing along.

It was the summer vacation and we used to play table tennis at The Club. There were two tables: A ‘Stag’ for the more experienced players, and a generic, rickety one stored in a 11’X11′ room for the amateurs. Only four could play on the superior table, and the other was reserved for the hordes of bored teenagers who didn’t have enough skills for the better one.

The only way to give everybody a chance on the bad table was to play ‘Americans’. The way it worked was everyone to go round and round the table, hitting the ball back and forth until one missed it and was ejected from the circle. There were cabals and conspiracies to eject certain players, but that’s a whole different story.

Now imagine 30 hormone-filled boys going around a table that barely left any space in a dingy room on a hot April day, chanting “Iiiiit waaaas aaaan itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini”; it was religious. The Masai tribe might have had its initiation for boy-men around a fire with ashes and embers flying about, but this was our own initiation; to boldly shout a taboo word instead of a war-cry, and waving our cheap TT bats instead of blood-tipped spears.

Anyone in Jersey City/Harrison? I’m looking for some information, please email me or post a comment if you can help.

This is how you remake a classic. I can’t understand why opening-week sales were low for the film. Maybe the continuous snowfall around most parts of the US had something to do with it?

Serkis should get an Oscar for again playing a CGI part to perfection. Something I read in ‘Rolling Stone’ made me realize how much effort had gone into playing Kong. Gorillas are known for their strict rules on eye-contact. Jackson and Serkis had to actually plan the scenes where Kong made eye contact with anyone else.

The only bad things about King Kong – too many monsters and Jack Black. Seriously, I don’t need a huge gorilla, half the known dinosaur genus, giant crickets and head-swallowing worm-things to make me watch the movie. I also didn’t need Jack Black saying,”Beauty killed the beast” like it was the opening line of a Tenacious-D song.

Naomi’s ‘O’ face (while screaming) and Kong atop Empire State would’ve done the trick.

Ever heard of ‘The H1Bees’? It features famed Kollywood singers like Tippu and GV Prakash (albeit a bit grown up), singing about earning dollars and missing home and other talking points of the H1B manifesto.