Author: manuscrypts

  • So, what happened in the end?

    Happened to see ‘Via Darjeeling’ last weekend. It left me with a very poignant thought. About storytelling. Lets take a murder mystery/ thriller.
    When a writer develops a story, it exists only in his head, its origin, its twists and turns, and its conclusion. What happens when the author leaves the story open? Gives the audience all the twists and turns and refuses to give the ending? Worse, what if the story is such that it has many plausible endings?
    Now different members of the audience could propose several endings, based on their sensibilities, but they will never know what ‘actually’ happened. These days, we are so obsessed with knowing ALL the facts, that it would be an absolute blow. And its not like the real life happenings on which we are okay with some ambiguity. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get out of our conditioning that forces us to accept nothing less than conclusive endings in works of fiction, especially in cinema.

    until next time, unending

  • Unaccustomed Earth

    Jhumpa Lahiri

    This is Jhumpa mashi’s (from her role in the cinematic version of ‘The Namesake) 🙂 third offering. The book consists of 8 works, the last three related to each other.
    Melancholy, that’s always been my favourite takeout from her books, and this one does not disappoint on that front. But if you’re looking for anything beyond the regular Bengal and Boston chronicles, you are advised to look elsewhere. This book really reminds me of Interpreter of Maladies, her first book, though the premise of the stories (except the geography) do differ.
    To briefly describe the stories, ‘Unaccustomed Earth’, the first story, is of a man who discovers interests after his wife’s death, and connects with his daughter in a way she’d never thought possible. ‘Heaven and Hell’ is a tale told by a woman who discovers her mother’s affection for a young Indian their family took under their wing. ‘A choice of accommodations’ is about a couple coming to terms with each other and their marriage, a sort of reigniting the spark, if you will. ‘Only goodness’ is a woman’s attempts to hold together her family, and her guilt over her role in her brother’s downward spiral. Nobody’s business is a story of a boy who loves a girl who loves a boy. 🙂 The last 3 stories trace the life of a man and a woman who appear in each others’ lives, as though pulled by fate. This was the one I liked best.
    The above have been simplified to avoid messing up the plot and giving a warped perspective. I have noticed that with Jhumpa’s works, people have different takeouts.
    Meanwhile, her eye for nuances and her subtle ways of expression make up for perhaps what can be roughly put as lack of depth in her characters.
    But the stories are a compelling read, and are very human. While I’m by no means an ABCD (perhaps Confused Desi, but definitely not American Born) it is extremely easy to identify with the characters’ emotions, in spite of an alien setting. The kind of book I’d love to curl up with on a cold, dark, stormy night, with Coldplay in the background.
    Melancholy, and the complexities of the human race!!

  • Wake up call

    He liked watching her sleep. She looked so much at peace now, wrapped up in that something-like-a-shawl thing. But he’d have to wake her now, to tell her that he’d finally cracked a puzzle. Now he knew why reality shows worked. People would rather watch someone sleeping than the movie for which they paid Rs.200.

    until next time, in reality….

  • Fresco’s

    Fresco’s gets very close to a chocaholic’s version of heaven, so we make up excuses to go there, even though its on Cunningham Road, and not so close to home. Its on Cunningham Road, within 100m of entering it, a couple of buildings after the Foodworld (?), and its not visible from the road. But there’s lots of parking available outside and some space inside too.

    Fresco’s is a semi-outdoor kind of space, quite cosy and is always buzzing during dinner time (at least weekends, when we go). And this time was no exception. So you might want to reserve before going. We didn’t and were asked to wait for a few minutes. Fair, but what was quite dumb was giving us a seating that was uncovered, especially when there were intermittent showers happening all through the day. So we asked for a different table. We should have taken this as a premonition. We didn’t, since we’d never been given any reason to complain from our previous visits.

    It took us quite sometime and a reminder to get hold of a menu card. And though it took a long while for our soup to be created, the Chicken and Coriander soup we ordered was excellent and succeeded in putting our fears to rest..to an extent. It comes a close second to the soup at Tangerine I’d written about earlier.

    For the main course, we ordered a couple of sizzlers, a Chicken Parmigiana and a Chicken Cordon Blue (Bleu, i thought ?), chose the latter by voting out a Parsi Chicken 🙂 We’d chosen the rice option for the former and pasta for the latter, and they succeded in reversing that. I got them to give us Rice for the Parmigiana, but didn’t insist on the pasta. I was too hungry!!

    The Parmigiana is chicken breast with herbs, crumb fried served with pomadoro sauce and Parmesan cheese grattinated. The wife says it tasted a bit like pizza, and was reasonably good. The Cordon blue  is chicken salami and cheese wrapped with chicken breast, grilled, and topped with mushroom and concasse. It was good in patches, burnt at some places, but perfectly well made in others. The rice was good too, wonder if the pasta would’ve been better. And both were sizzling hot, good for a rainy night if only they had been done well.

    The dessert choice here is always difficult, and there is always a lot of heartburn when we can’t test out new talent 🙂 We chose the Chocolate Demise, and as always didn’t have any reason to complain.

    The experience can be summed up best with the bill we got for all the above – Rs. 911. The service this time was extremely poor, and except for the soup and the dessert, the food was only reasonably good. I think a visit now would happen only when desserts warrant, and only for that.

    Hatworks Boulevard, 32, cunningham Road, Ph: 41327551/5

  • Faith

    So, how did it all start off? An understanding that there was a higher power that controlled destinies and the world around beyond any level that a man could aspire or imagine ? A need to connect to this entity and lay out the easiest way to do so? A way of bringing together people and making them work towards a common goal? A physical platform to relate to the belief in a metaphyical entity? Perhaps, and perhaps not.
    Somewhere in between, came the ones who claimed to have gone much closer to the entity than their peers. And they formed the higher power through prisms that were based on their individual realities and expectations, and their peers, who at best, were a confused lot, followed. Faith became religion and from a thought, became a set of practices, and from us, we became us and them.

    And that makes me wonder whether He, any He, feels the need for religion. And brings me to an unintentionally hilarious but profound statement from an old Malayalam movie, where the character states, in all seriousness to a priest, ” In religion, and in sex, I don’t feel the need for middlemen” 🙂

    until next time, profundity or profanity?