Numbers

He was lying on his back, with his eyes tightly shut. 374, 375, 376…. He tried to close his eyes tighter, as if that would make the noise go away. As the night grew, he knew that the sound will only increase. He had tried fixing the tap himself. Someone said changing the washer will help. It did not. He even got a plumber to take a look at it. He was able to fix it, but only for three days. And then the noise started again. 421, 422, 423…

* * * *

He did not know when he had stopped reading the document and started counting the words. He could here the numbers thumping at the back of his head. It was like a hammer landing on his head, one blow after the next. 1047, 1048, 1049… The numbers never seemed to matter. They were just there, in the background, as if trying to remind him about something, but failing each time. He heard the phone ring. He forced himself to look away from the document. He went to pick up the phone. 8, 9, 0, 1, 2…

* * * *

“You need to relax.”

“I am trying to, doctor.” (“74, 75, …. Why did he have to wear a checked shirt today?”)

“You need to pick up a hobby or …”

(“97, 98, …”)

* * * *

742, 743, 744 … He had been counting the people on the street. Seven hundred and … He had never seen some one so beautiful in his life. She looked like a feather, before being blown away by the wind. Completely relaxed, unaware of what will happen the next second, as if she did not care. Thirty two, twenty six, thirty … He burst out laughing. He saw some one streak past him. Then he saw the cars whizzing past in the street, the people moving around him, the branches swaying in the wind, a bawling kid, the music from some body’s window.

He had to go to work. He smiled.

Futility

She couldn’t fall asleep. The eerie comfort of the hospital was more disorienting than calming. She thought about the rope, how the rope felt around her neck, the hard ridges slowly closing in on her and then her grasp for breath. Her hands went to her nose, as if the blood had started flowing again. She had to look down to see that her legs were not writhing. But she had lived. Now she had to live a life she had not wanted – a life she did not want.

Her parents were completely in shock. She felt sorry for them. She had no reason to kill herself. She was their life. They had given her everything they could. They did not understand why she would ever try it. When she tried to think of why she wanted to kill herself, she could not find an answer. She never had a proper reason. Or was that the reason? She could not remember the exact moment she had decided she would do it. Her entire life felt like one blurry motion till the act.

Was she disappointed with her life? She did not know. She could not find a reason to be disappointed. Was she a failure? Nobody else thought so and she could not bring herself to believe that she was one. She had everything that anyone would envy. But was she happy? Always, she thought. She had never been unhappy in her life. Then why did she do it. The answer, for some reason eluded her.

The doctor had said that it was some form of post traumatic stress disorder and she will be ok. She had been drugged for most of last week. But she could not think of it as a trauma. She knew she had wanted to do it more than anything else. It had not been a fascination, but more of a need that she had felt. Her head started hurting and she did not want to think about it anymore.

She sat up and looked out the window. The night air was still and the moon was lost some where behind the clouds. She found the presence of the trees calming and she began to relax. It was then it came to her. It was as if the last week had never happened. She felt as if she was in her room again. She started looking around frantically. She got up and walked out of her room. She found the nurses station empty. She saw a half eaten apple and a knife lying next to it. She walked to the knife and slowly picked it up. Her hand clasped around the handle firmly. She saw her reflection on the blade.

Patchaikili Muthucharam – A review

Every time Gautham Menon makes a movie, he makes me cringe. He has this amazing ability to come up with an interesting plot and then find an ingenious way to screw it up.

Patchaikili Muthucharam starts badly, gathers pace, reaches a high and then fizzles out. Gautham is obviously in a haste to bring in his favorite actress. So, a receptionalist has to say that Sarath Kumar is flirty, for us to know that he is. Sarath Kumar has to tell us he is crazy about his wife, for us to know that he is. Indian cinema has always relied more on dialogues than emoting and scenes to get the message across. And then Sarath Kumar looks completely lost here. So this entire first act looks contrived, but Gautham can be forgiven for the next one hour makes you sit up.

This is Gautham’s ode to Jyothika. This is as much her movie as Sarath Kumar’s and Gautham has tried his best to give her big farewell. She acts well in parts, but doesn’t really manage to get more than a couple of expressions. But the plot unfolds well, if you can forgive the acting. Sarath Kumar comes up with a really subdued performance and he delivers and this hour makes up for the most interesting part of the movie. The reasons and the set up for Sarath Kumar and Jyothika to cheat on their respective spouses is much better than movies like KANK. The places, the dialogues (most of what I could hear from the crappy print) and the situations are very believable.

And then the twist. I think Gautham realized that almost everybody would have guessed it by now and so does not make a big deal about. But I think that is also the reason why the movie dragged on for another half hour.

The funny thing is that this movie will again be touted as really sound movie and will get raving reviews. I can take it when a really crappy movie becomes a huge hit, but I find it really difficult to digest the fact that what could have been a great movie, fails to deliver and still gets touted as a great movie. For some reason that bugs the hell out of me.

Bombay Jayashree is mesmerizing …

Critics

The last decade saw the entry of Hollywood movies in India in a big way. Not all kinds of Hollywood movies, but a select few, that distributors thought the Indian audience could relate to. They were usually action flicks, a few comedies and children’s movies. You can add a few academy award winning movies to that. This created an audience which renounced the so-called Indian movies completely. To them the Indian movies were brash, corny and completely stupid. And they went around claiming that they hated these Indian movies. People who claimed they enjoyed the Indian (read Bollywood) movies were looked down upon.

But there seems to be a reversal in the trend today. With India gaining popularity in the global stage and everything Indian being cool, the Indian movies are getting their fifteen minutes of fame. Today, to sound original and different, you have to say that you enjoy Indian movies. You can say that they are loud, brash, over emotional, illogical and lengthy and still conclude that you love Indian movies for the same reasons you just complained about. You can also go on to say how they really reflect the Indian culture and our emotions and how much you appreciate them for it.

And most of this is generated by the media. Why?

An idea for a reality TV show

Have you noticed that be it sports, entertainment or politics (probably to a lesser extent in politics), the questions asked by the media sound the same, and in most cases repeated? And this has been going on for a while now and the person being interviewed gives the same clichéd answers?

I think it would be a good idea to come up with a reality show where the TV channel picks a celebrity (for lack of a better word) a week and invites viewers to mail them a bunch of questions they would like to ask the celebrity. The person with the most interesting set of questions gets to interview the celebrity on the next show.

But the one loop hole with this program would come in from who makes the selections. If it’s the same bunch of journalists, you already know what the questions are.

But I still think this would make for an interesting show.