BONJOUR 2009!

Too much has been happening in my life lately and it’s all been such a rush!...of long-pondered-over decisions and uncontrollable deluge of emotions. First, let me fill you in on my year-end. Christmas was fun at S.D.’s—good food, good liquor, stimulating conversations…no, I take that back…for once mindless conversations(!) and great company. Met Kajari on the 26th. Felt pretty mushy considering the fact that I might not meet her again for the next few years. Came to know the insider’s story of IFS training. We have been sworn to secrecy. She got me a lovely dupatta from Mussorie. Plan to take it to Lodz. Am sure it will be quite a hit there among the Poles. On the 29th attended A.D.’s wedding reception. Met some real characters after a pretty long time. Was wearing a kanjeevaram after three years. Thought that was pretty momentous. 31st was spent at home watching the Henry Fonda-Audrey Hepburn starrer ‘War and Peace’. Good in parts. But it really is too much of old Hollywood in its pace to demand a repeat watch from me anytime soon. I’d prefer David Lean any day. The first day of 2009 was laidback. Got back to some pending work and devoted the evening to ‘The English Patient’. I had not seen the movie before. I was a bit disappointed by the fact that the Kip-story is not fully developed in the movie. But predictably the Katherine-Count Laszlo passion play takes up most of the screen-time. But what passion play! Ralph Fiennes makes me change my mind about British male sexuality. He was a scorcher what with his intense and dazed gaze. It seems that the more reprehensible his on screen characters are, the more he excels as them as an actor. Remember ‘Schindler’s List’ and his portrayal of the abominable Amon? And then the haunting background score and the theme song—the Hungarian folksong ‘Szerelem Szerelem’ sung by Marta Sebestyen. Sounds Arabic and funnily enough Katherine in the movie thinks it is Arabic too when she hears it. Just had to download the song. I let the movie completely take over me for a couple of days. And then fulfilled a fourteen-year long dream. Watched Massimo Troisi’s swansong—‘ Il Postino’. I think the fact that Massimo passed away twelve hours after the cameras stopped rolling for the film added to the mythification of this movie for me. It has been worth the wait and much much more. I have never ever seen a movie so lyrical and that is not only because of Neruda’s poetry and the scenic beauty of the Italian countryside but because of the lilt of its cinematic language, the portrayal of the humdrum life of the fisherfolk in a poverty-ridden yet idyllic Italian fishing village, the amazingly heart-wrenching melody of Luis Enriquez Bacalov’s music and most importantly one actor’s out-of-the-world performance as a simpleton in love with poetry and life—Massimo Troisi as the unforgettable Mario Ruoppolo. The sea has never looked so blue, rose-hued walls of a villa have never looked more Mediterranean and Dante’s Beatrice has never seemed as desirable as they all have in this poetry in motion. If the movie has not left a lump in the throat and a smile on the lips of anyone who has watched it, boy, he ain’t human! And I rediscovered something else as well. Poetry is the weapon of a lover. You can win the world and your girl with poetry. Maybe that’s the Bengali in me speaking. My Class XI students took me quite seriously when I said this the other day, albeit quite amused that I was talking to them about love! Raising a toast to two of 2009’s great finds, I’ll stop for now.