Erich Segal

When I was about 15 or 16, I read several of Erich Segal's books: Love Story; Man, Woman and Child; The Class; Doctors. I remembered how much I liked his books when I saw the movie Masoom again recently. Masoom or Innocence in Hindi was based on his book Man, Woman and Child. I hated Masoom's ending, despite loving everything else about the movie, the actors, the songs, the Indian upper middle class setting. At 16, I was convinced that the acceptance of the child into the family was another benign soft-pressure for the woman to forgive the man, do what is right for him. In the book, Sheila Beckwith, leaves her husband and, at 16 in India, I knew that was the smart thing to do.

Now, as a mother of three, Shabana Azmi's character's change of heart moved me beyond words. I have changed. That the hurt wife would set aside her feelings, come around to putting the child's needs before her own hurt and anger, feels like the right thing to do, Indian or not. Whether I myself will do so if I am in such a situation, I don't know. But it feels like a worthy human characteristic to think about.

So, I talked my daughter into reading Erich Segal's books. After some persuasion, she tried Love Story. She liked it, is all she would say. Wouldn't bother with saying more, my teenager. Then this summer, she read Doctors because she is trying to rule in or rule out medicine for a career. She loved it! Enough to give me in writing what she thought about it. Now she is halfway through The Class.

Doctors was an entertaining and informing read for me. I connected with and sympathized with almost all of the characters. My one critique is that each of the four main characters that Erich Segal focused on had some kind of conclusive happiness, except for Bennett, sadly. He had worked extremely hard all of his life and had had to push through a lot of conflict, but even after the unexpected unfortunate situation that forced him to have to change his well-deserved career, there wasn’t any kind of satisfying conclusion to his story. Barney noticed that Bennett was extremely unhappy and lonely and soon after that, Bennett found out that his father died. But there wasn’t anything else about Bennett in the book.

Overall Doctors did push me toward the field of medicine, although I was turned off by the fact that none of the doctors seem to ever get enough sleep. Still, I appreciated being able to learn more about psychiatry, pediatrics, internal medicine, medical research, surgery, and gynecologist. I gained a more accurate understanding of medical school and residencies. Barney and Laura were very impressive and inspiring to me, seeing as how Barney wrote a book, Laura researched at the NIH, and both became faculty members at medical schools in New York City.

 -- Lekha Durai, July 14 ,2020

Short films that I enjoyed recently

I love cinema, especially world cinema. Netflix and online streaming options have opened up a new world of many possibilities. Here are a few recent ones that I've thoroughly enjoyed and wish that others will share my enthusiasm.


Irrfan Khan, a much-adored Indian actor who transcended the divides among different movie genres, died recently at a relatively young age. Several people, friends as well as online strangers, expressed what I was feeling: that we ache at his passing and grieve as if we knew him personally, even though we rarely feel this way about celebrities. For about a week, I walked around with a heavy heart, unable to shake my sadness on his behalf -- that life cheated him in his prime by taking him away. I watched a couple of movies on Netflix, looked for some YouTube clips, and searched for bits and pieces of his past on Google. And perhaps, because of this pattern, the all-seeing Big Brother of the online world recommended me the following on YouTube one morning as I was waking up. I cannot explain the immense sense of satisfaction and fulfillment I got from this artistic offering: the story-telling, the music, the acting. Best of all, Irrfan Khan.

Ek shaam ki mulakaat, via YouTube

 
I recently watched the Tamil movie 'Sethum aayiram pon' on Netflix. Almost documentary-like, the first half of the movie -- the life of the 'oppari' (professional mourner) woman in a village, the 'make-up' artists for the dead, the sassy young sidekick (played by Gabrella sellus) shattering all stereotypes of a timid Indian village woman, the estranged grand-daughter hard-boiled enough on her own to be self-sufficient, bold and independent in the city, the rivalry of a wife and a mistress playing out at the funeral -- all captivated me immensely. The story line of the second half meandered somewhat making it difficult for me to find the plot believable, but not to the point of losing interest. The female characters and the actresses (Nivedhithaa Sathish, Srilekha Rajendran, and the 8-year old whose name I couldn't find) who played them kept my eyes glued to the scene -- each one of them, across the generations, were full of spunk. However, I want to sing a special song of praise for Gabrella Sellus with her twinkling eyes and sassy personality. Cellus so piqued my interest and lit a fire of longing for many lost years without Tamil cinema and a nostalgia for the '80s that I searched online for more of her movies. As far as I can tell, there are not that many -- yet -- but she has the online presence of what I assume to be the younger generation's -- TikTok, short movies, some interviews. I couldn't decide between two of my favorite short movies and, so, I link to both here. Check them out.

Vaemba

Unmaiyarivaayo Vanna Malare

 
I found a link and recommendation to 'Relationship Deli' on New York Times' Short Film of the Day feature. I watched it 5 or 6 times already and each time I find the dialogues funnier and funnier and i pay attention to newer lines. Ladies, don't let this one pass. One of those things that makes you feel you are definitely not alone. Without saying any more, here it is: The Relationship Deli.   

 

Good cinema by women

Three powerful movies I watched recently were all directed and/or written by women.

Cherien Dabis wrote and directed, 'Amreeka', a movie about a divorced Arab mom from the West Bank who immigrates to the United States with her teenage son and learns she cannot, for a minute, let down her resilience to live a life with dignity.  

*****

'Amu' was written and directed by Shonali Bhose who based the movie on her book by the same name. 

The NYT review says something mild about Shonali Bhose not yet in perfect form because this is her first movie (amidst a positive review), but to hell with all these professional reviewers who supposedly know everything. The storyline was gripping and the lighter themes were adequately explored and exposed while the main troubling one rightly haunts your sleep.
The trailer ends with Brinda Karat's voice telling Amu, "you are strong enough to know the truth." The same goes for us. 

*****

And Wadjda is extra special among these specials. It is directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia.  Waad Mohammed plays the very charming 11-year old who has set her eyes on a bicycle -- something the Saudi society has forbidden girls to covet or ride.  The undercurrents of her mother's life paint a distant picture from the pampered, rich and helpless harem wives' image that seeps the average westernized consciousness.     

*****

The world would be a lesser place without these books and movies.

Iranian movie: Border Cafe
If you want to understand how 'benign' masculine protection turns into insidious control of the feminine, how social structures ultimately protect the economic interests of the patriarchy, why women's issues have no boundaries, how dry, difficult and dense political science can be conveyed effectively through cinematic art, why Iranian movies occupy a special place in my heart, then you have to see this (not-so-recent) movie, 'Border Cafe'. Story-telling at its best.


'The Wandering Falcon' by Jamil Ahmad.
This book is a precious gift to this world!  I wasn't aware that I could find common grounds and identify with some of the simple yet richly complex characters from the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran border region, but I do.  I don't think anyone could have resisted being in the shoes of any of Ahmad's characters.  Such is the power of his stories and story-telling ability. 

The language--lyrical; the writing style--beautifully brief; the writer's heart--always tangible.

Please pick it up if you haven't read it, but don't look for reviews online.  All the ones I found give away too much of the book' structure and details of the story.  Reviewers who cannot write reviews without spoilers in every sentence need to be left wandering in the desolate lands of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.  You need to enter the world depicted in this book without knowing anything about it.    

The story of Ahmad's book seeing the light of day is a story in its own right.
  

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
What a stark and audaciously biting novel about human strengths vs. vulnerabilities. This book is testament to Hanif's ability to turn tragedy into comedy for just as long as it takes you to swallow the bitter truth about nations and humanity. The deeper message about the limitations of all semblance of order in this universe (especially the hospital universe), however, lingers on long past you put down the book. I respect that he bravely took digs at stingy Caucasian nuns willing to let brown people starve. I love that his absentee fathers can write soulful petitions when necessary. I agree that tender love lasts only as long as viciousness, with or without reason, stays away. I am not quite sure why we rushed through the last scene abruptly or the timeline of what exactly happened above the hospital roof, but, perhaps, short, swift novel ending is metaphor for how quickly everything comes to a close if you are an Alice Bhatti in this world.

There are numerous themes in this book -- class, caste, religion, misogyny, poverty, marginalization, sickness, hospital management, physicians, professionalism or lack thereof among physicians, police power -- but the ones I picked out in the previous paragraph are not necessarily in order of importance or coverage in the book. Above all, the book is about how unconnected women learn to survive, live, thrive in a patriarchal society. If they make it past survival, that is.

The book is not all raw and stark; there are layers of nuance. And you will come to know a bit more about a little known demographic -- Pakistani Christians from the sweeper class/caste.


'In This World' directed by Michael Winterbottom
Last but not the least, watch this docudrama that will leave you with an idea of the tenacity and maturity that some children have as a result of being born on the other side of the fence.  

'Namesake'--the movie

Only last week did Melvin and I, busy parents that we are, watch 'Namesake' the movie. (Wait, I am not completely honest here. We are not that busy. The truth is really embarrassing: we just can't get seem to reclaim the TV/DVD player from our kids and we've been reduced to watching cartoons aimed at 3- to 5-year old kids. But before you judge us, let me just say that this has done wonders to my reading habit.)

So nearly a year after the movie, directed by Mira Nair and based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, was released, we rented a DVD and watched with abated breaths. When I read the book a few years ago, I had thought that it was reasonably good--not great--and definitely not the kind that Iwould revisit. But being Mira Nair fans, we wondered what kind of magic Nair would bring to the product. But by the end of the movie, I was left wondering, "What was the fuss all about?"

In my opinion, one of the weaknesses of the book--the lack of a central plot--is more glaring in the movie. The entire experience amounted to nothing more than a movie-version of a long, rambling tea-time conversation that started with the life of the parents before drifting off into the as-yet-uninteresting life of their son. In the absence of plot, Ashoke Ganguli's revelation about his emotional connection with the son's name, has been given the status of a pseudo-plot. If I recall the book correctly, there was none of that filmy drama between father and son that got built into the movie.

In the book Lahiri lets the reader know, in a sequential manner, in her characteristic, detailed prose, Ashoke's emotional tie to Gogol the writer; the selection of 'Gogol' as a pet, not real, name for his son; the accident of the missing mail; the resignation with which Ashima and Ashoke accept the 'renaming' of their son by his kindergarten teachers. The name issue was an important feature to understanding the Ganguli family's (not just Gogol's) life and experiences in America, but there was no mystery surrounding it. So I didn't particularly appreciate all the vapid secrecy that was built around it in the movie. I also got the feeling that it was set up to make one cry with Gogol, while he learns of his father's past near-death experience, but, watching Kal Penn's reaction, I only felt deflated.

Ironically, for a character that is so obsessed, tortured and defined by the arbitrariness of names, Gogol Ganguli exhibited absolutely no awareness when he advised his future (Caucasian) brother-in-law to address all the sari-clad, middle-aged Bengali women by the generic label "aunty." "That will keep them happy," says he non-chalantly. As someone who is on the cusp of being called aunty (even though I don't feel like an aunty) by hordes of unreflecting kids, I want to officially register in writing my protest at this one-sided and selective understanding of the complexities of personal identity and nomenclature.

An aside: Amardeep exhibits an academic's insight into the name's issue here.

There was plenty of good acting by Tabu and Irfan Khan but the same cannot be said of Kal Penn, the most recognized (in North America) name and face among all those actors. But considering the alternative--apparently the first actor for Gogol's part on Nair's wishlist was Abhishek Bachchan!--I am all for Kal Penn, and only for Kal Penn (Can you see a pouting, tortured AB, Jr. in an American highschool classroom scene?). What was Mira Nair thinking? Is she selling her soul? Is she ready to give up all that she stood for? Doesn't she know that she is several cuts above that meat industry?