What am I upto?

Well in carrying 37 Kgs of paper from paper market on two wheeler!! Bad that it is for my back and for my scooter, its good that things are progressing at Pothi.com.

Many interesting books have come and some more are in pipeline. Collection of English stories by Santwana Chatterjee, another collection of short stories in Hindi by Hem Chandra Joshi and this Start Programming with C# book by Anoop Unnikrishnan are some of the examples. More are in pipeline including a book on Yoganidra and a Self-Development book.

And in the “Old Gems” section, you would soon see “Sinhasan Battisi”.

Life has become hectic, but some people are working with us part time now. And that is helping immensely.

And in case you are wondering if I have nothing else to write about, its not so true. I am squeezing time out for “Jaane Tu”, a family day party at a friend’s company and a play in Rangashankara (Love Letters), this weekend.

Party was the like usual company parties, with event management firm’s staff pulling you into the games somehow and trying to sound excited about it all.

“Jaane Tu” has an unbelievable sort of beginning, but the director carried it off very well later. I would admire that way the total time pass comedy and heavily emotional sequences have been tied in together and neither of them seem out of place. “Love Letters” was also beautiful in the same way. Although it had two different phases depicting light moments and heavy ones, with some transition; rather than a totally entwined two facets like “Jaane Tu”. Something else that intrigues me in “Jaane Tu” were some characters other than the lead ones. Particularly Aditi’s brother Amit and Jai’s girl friend Meghna. Both these characters seem to have something to say, which has been left unsaid. They could be a movie by themselves. Ordinarily, such a thing would remind you of those movies, which try to depict too many things and manage to do not even a single one. But the beauty here is that while these characters have put in their moments in the movie, they don’t annoy by their presence, nor do they irritate by not having enough presence.

Okay, okay. If you think this is too much of word-play, probably dealing with books all the time does that to you But that’s precisely what is lovely about this venture.

Bikhre Bimb – A play at Rangashankara

Watched this play titled “Bikhre Bimb” in Hindi at Rangashankara yesterday. The play was written and directed by Girish Karnad.

Firstly given the theme of the play, it was awkward to see it in Hindi. Quite early in the play I thought that this is essentially a Kannada play. Hindi does not suit it. English would also have been fine given the Kannada vs. English controversy that sets the pitch for the play. And it turns out that I was right. It was indeed a Kannada Play, translated into English and later into Hindi. But I really don’t complain. 4 months in Bangalore has done nothing to teach me Kannada really

Story wasn’t particularly unpredictable, moving or brilliant. But the presentation and acting by the solo actress Arundhati Nag was good and would make you sit through it. The dialogs and script were also good and the touch of humour that the author has been able to bring in once in a while were also good.

[Spoilers Ahead]

The story is essentially about a local writer, Manjula Nayak, who is a professor in English, but writes short-stories in Kannada. But this time she writes a novel in English which wins her international acclaim. The critics back home, however, are not pleased with her desertion of Kannada and she gets her share of assault. A TV channel decides to bring a Kannada Telefilm based on her novel and invites her for a 15 minutes address before the movie. In the address she takes the critics hands on and does so very successfully. She also reveals the source of her inspiration for the novel which depicts the fight for life by a young girls impaired since birth. She says it was inspired by the life of her younger sister, Manini Nayak, who was in similar situation until she dies. However, as the story unfolds after the address, it turns out that the novel was actually written by Manini, who used to think and talk in English, not in Kannada, unlike Manjula, the elder sister. Being paralyzed in the lower portion of her body, she was bound to her wheel chair all her life, but never lost the zeal to live. She was more beautiful, more intelligent and more sensitive than Manjula. Because of her disability she got more attention from their parents and they also left a larger part of their wealth for her after their death. She more than made up for her disability by her readings, intelligence and a quest to learn. After their parents died, Manjula brought her to her home. But it turned out that her husband and Manini got very intimate. Manjula with her shallow nature became the villain in this whole situation. Despite realizing what was going on, she could never expose or confront either of them. Probably without knowing it herself, she wished for the death of Manini. Manini, the sensitive girl, however could see through her elder sister. After Manini died, Manjula found the novel in his husband’s drawer and was almost shocked by it. One was the sheer talent that oozed out of the novel and the other was the identifiable vile character that was inspired by her own in the novel. Overcame by jealousy and anger, she decides to publish the novel in her own name and take a revenge by hogging all the glory. She succeeds in doing that, but her husband is angry and leaves her. She is pretty much alone. The final message of the play was that Manjula may think she has won over her sister because she is alive while her sister is dead. But in essence it is Manini who had won because if her purpose was to make Manjula realize just how vile she was, she has succeeded in doing that.

[Spoilers End]

I think the play would have done better not to characterize good and bad in black and white like this. There was a scope of subtlety. Sibling rivalry, particularly fueled by the fact that one of them is getting more attention from the parents since childhood due to her disability, provided a scope of more nuanced representation. Manjula is not so obviously a villain. Probably she is very well a victim, who did not get enough psychological support when she needed it. There was no one to help her check the feelings she developed for her sister. This only got worsened by the fact that she did not have a natural maturity or sensitivity that some people have.

Thus, overall, I think the story is not great. But other aspects were good and despite the weak story, you feel like the time was well invested.

Technorati : Girish Karnad, Rangashankara, hindi, play