August 12, 2011
Finally the broadband connection has arrived. The 50-something gentleman technician was rather careful in going step by step with the set up. He was as frustrated as I was about the electricity supply to the house getting intermittently cut off. High speed internet, great customer service and cheap bandwidth have all come to the country, but still there is no reliable electric power supply!
Day before yesterday, there was an outage from 9am to 5:30pm. Today was a little better. I wish the modem also came battery operated. I don’t end online chats abruptly rudely, any such occurrence is to be blamed on the erratic power supply!
Early in the morning, more gardening happened. The Indian cinnamon tree reaching adolescence in the backyard was sentenced to death since we have another one in the front and to make way for more vegetables. Drumstick stems, habenaro, long-bean and bitter-gourd seeds were planted as planned. Five minutes of spade-work makes me pant like a teen who has stepped into the wrong locker room. Some spinach was plucked for lunch.
Before I left Kerala for Mumbai 16 years ago, a much discussed sexual harassment case titled ‘Vithura case’ was making headlines. A teen was reported to have been repeatedly abused by scores of men including a popular comedian and some politicians (no surprise!). All these years later, the case has dragged on. The girl has now filed a petition stating that the case itself has become unbearable torture for her!
Since all the wedding invitations were scheduled for the evening, we decided to go for a matinee show.
My reintroduction to an Indian movie theater after seven years!
‘Salt n Pepper’ is a big hit that is currently showing here in the Sri Vishakh theater. Though the movie has been running for three weeks, the gents ticket queue snaked outside the building. Amma joined the shorter ladies line. Making gents and ladies form a single queue will reveal the un-gently side of the gents!
Mostly school and college kids who were supposed to be in some classroom somewhere in the city were coming out of the morning show.
The urine stench hasn’t changed. I don’t think the toilets have seen water in ten years. We can take this as scientific proof that there is an upper limit to a stench. The theater probably reached that limit couple of decades ago. All the subsequent urination has made no difference.
On the bright side, this theater doesn’t cut corners with the air-conditioning and the sound system is on par with the best I have experienced in the US. Unfortunately, the fellow audience was anything but international in its taste. Cellphones were chiming so frequently, almost continuously, that I was able to tune it out in 10-15 minutes. The constant buzzing and ringing makes one feel like the movie is being viewed in a dubbing studio with sound effects addition on the fly. To be fair, the theater never asks the audience to silence their cellphone. Why bother?!
Lord Subramanian (Murugan) is the patron deity of the theater. Each theater has one. A decade ago, before the beginning of each show, a slide projected image of the deity would be thrown onto the screen at an acute angle. It’d look like the god was grappling his spear (vel) to prevent himself from dropping off the screen. Today an animation greets us instead. A tiny Murugan grows ‘Supersize me’ style to fill the entire screen as the word ‘Welcome’ flashes by.
The show was house full. I presume that most of the crowd was watching it for the second time. They were least interested in the movie. Very friendly boys who had walked hand-in-hand and arm-over-shoulder were busy texting through out. Heterosexual couples were interested only in the darkness that the theater offered. The lovebirds in the seats in front of me were particularly frisky when the romantic song came on.
Before the movie came the advertisements: Gold jewelry, gold jewelry, silk showroom, gold jewelry, coaching center, gold loan, gold loan, apartment, gold loan! Marriage (the sole point of gold purchase) is brilliantly marketed as the magnificent, highly desirable, ego boosting event not to be missed out on but with no thought towards life afterwards!
The movie more than made up for the not-so-pleasant viewing experience. ‘Salt n Pepper’ will be recognized in future as a trend-setter. It is advertised as the first food based romantic comedy in Malayalam. But it is a much more fundamental change. The movie is exclusively urban in its topics and treatment. It has none of the regular melodramatic masala elements and unrealistic heroes and was produced low budget. Yet it is raking in money and attracting huge crowds. It is a great example to argue against those who claim that crappy movies are made because the audience demands it. I hope that it will be remade in all the other languages.
I guess I will stick to watching movies only when they come to the nearby theater to do a second round of running in the city. Going to the popular theaters for packed shows is not going to work out for me anymore. Damn you, America, with your decent toilets and well-behaved audiences!
All the wonderfully filmed food in the movie had made hungry when we returned. So it was great to see that Rema aunty’s cook had prepared the sweet snack called “therali” using the leaves of the tree that was cut down this morning. Therali is made by steaming the sweet batter wrapped in the fragrant cinnamon leaves. I am snacking on some more as I type this!
Wedding invitations for the evening were reserved for homes within our housing colony. Of the 13 homes visited, only in 5 was my marriage discussed. It was repeatedly pointed out to Amma that conducting two marriages simultaneously would have made economic sense. She was teased about how all the gold my bride brings will easily balance off anything that is given to my sister!
There is significant horror in the realization that my love for native things, excitement about local delicacies and curiosity about this land’s history are conveniently interpreted as indications of my sexist, racist, caste-ist tendencies and religious bigotry by those with such dispositions!
This journal will be photographically enhanced tomorrow onwards...
Finally the broadband connection has arrived. The 50-something gentleman technician was rather careful in going step by step with the set up. He was as frustrated as I was about the electricity supply to the house getting intermittently cut off. High speed internet, great customer service and cheap bandwidth have all come to the country, but still there is no reliable electric power supply!
Day before yesterday, there was an outage from 9am to 5:30pm. Today was a little better. I wish the modem also came battery operated. I don’t end online chats abruptly rudely, any such occurrence is to be blamed on the erratic power supply!
Early in the morning, more gardening happened. The Indian cinnamon tree reaching adolescence in the backyard was sentenced to death since we have another one in the front and to make way for more vegetables. Drumstick stems, habenaro, long-bean and bitter-gourd seeds were planted as planned. Five minutes of spade-work makes me pant like a teen who has stepped into the wrong locker room. Some spinach was plucked for lunch.
Before I left Kerala for Mumbai 16 years ago, a much discussed sexual harassment case titled ‘Vithura case’ was making headlines. A teen was reported to have been repeatedly abused by scores of men including a popular comedian and some politicians (no surprise!). All these years later, the case has dragged on. The girl has now filed a petition stating that the case itself has become unbearable torture for her!
Since all the wedding invitations were scheduled for the evening, we decided to go for a matinee show.
My reintroduction to an Indian movie theater after seven years!
Mostly school and college kids who were supposed to be in some classroom somewhere in the city were coming out of the morning show.
The urine stench hasn’t changed. I don’t think the toilets have seen water in ten years. We can take this as scientific proof that there is an upper limit to a stench. The theater probably reached that limit couple of decades ago. All the subsequent urination has made no difference.
On the bright side, this theater doesn’t cut corners with the air-conditioning and the sound system is on par with the best I have experienced in the US. Unfortunately, the fellow audience was anything but international in its taste. Cellphones were chiming so frequently, almost continuously, that I was able to tune it out in 10-15 minutes. The constant buzzing and ringing makes one feel like the movie is being viewed in a dubbing studio with sound effects addition on the fly. To be fair, the theater never asks the audience to silence their cellphone. Why bother?!
Lord Subramanian (Murugan) is the patron deity of the theater. Each theater has one. A decade ago, before the beginning of each show, a slide projected image of the deity would be thrown onto the screen at an acute angle. It’d look like the god was grappling his spear (vel) to prevent himself from dropping off the screen. Today an animation greets us instead. A tiny Murugan grows ‘Supersize me’ style to fill the entire screen as the word ‘Welcome’ flashes by.
The show was house full. I presume that most of the crowd was watching it for the second time. They were least interested in the movie. Very friendly boys who had walked hand-in-hand and arm-over-shoulder were busy texting through out. Heterosexual couples were interested only in the darkness that the theater offered. The lovebirds in the seats in front of me were particularly frisky when the romantic song came on.
Before the movie came the advertisements: Gold jewelry, gold jewelry, silk showroom, gold jewelry, coaching center, gold loan, gold loan, apartment, gold loan! Marriage (the sole point of gold purchase) is brilliantly marketed as the magnificent, highly desirable, ego boosting event not to be missed out on but with no thought towards life afterwards!
The movie more than made up for the not-so-pleasant viewing experience. ‘Salt n Pepper’ will be recognized in future as a trend-setter. It is advertised as the first food based romantic comedy in Malayalam. But it is a much more fundamental change. The movie is exclusively urban in its topics and treatment. It has none of the regular melodramatic masala elements and unrealistic heroes and was produced low budget. Yet it is raking in money and attracting huge crowds. It is a great example to argue against those who claim that crappy movies are made because the audience demands it. I hope that it will be remade in all the other languages.
I guess I will stick to watching movies only when they come to the nearby theater to do a second round of running in the city. Going to the popular theaters for packed shows is not going to work out for me anymore. Damn you, America, with your decent toilets and well-behaved audiences!
All the wonderfully filmed food in the movie had made hungry when we returned. So it was great to see that Rema aunty’s cook had prepared the sweet snack called “therali” using the leaves of the tree that was cut down this morning. Therali is made by steaming the sweet batter wrapped in the fragrant cinnamon leaves. I am snacking on some more as I type this!
Wedding invitations for the evening were reserved for homes within our housing colony. Of the 13 homes visited, only in 5 was my marriage discussed. It was repeatedly pointed out to Amma that conducting two marriages simultaneously would have made economic sense. She was teased about how all the gold my bride brings will easily balance off anything that is given to my sister!
There is significant horror in the realization that my love for native things, excitement about local delicacies and curiosity about this land’s history are conveniently interpreted as indications of my sexist, racist, caste-ist tendencies and religious bigotry by those with such dispositions!
This journal will be photographically enhanced tomorrow onwards...
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