The Great Beauty

"I spent all my summers making plans for September. Not any longer. Now I spend the summer remembering the good intentions which vanished. In part because of laziness, in part because of carelessness. What's wrong with feeling nostalgic? It is the only distraction for those who have no faith in the future. Without rain…August is coming to an end and September isn't arriving, and I'm so ordinary! But there's no need to worry. It's alright. It's okay."

Baas Ki Baat

Typed 'Baas mar raha hoon'(I am farting/smelling) instead of 'Baat kar raha hoon'(I am talking) while writing down my new story idea. This is what I call an existential typo. Sigh.

The Rain Song

I was asked to write a nature-themed short poem for a 12 year old's poetry recital at school. Here it is:

So there is this thing,
This thing I want to do
Splash on a puddle
Drink a raindrop or two

Feel the damp earth beneath my feet
See the umbrellas on the street
The rains are here again
The rains are here again
Oh I just love it in the rain!

So there is this thing,
This thing I want to hear
Raindrops on a tin roof
Stopping on the window near

The smell of damp earth under my feet
Rainbow umbrellas on the street
The rains are here again
The rains are here again
Oh I just love it in the rain!

Joyful showers shared with friends
Hot cups of cocoa with my family
The rains are good to me
The rains are good to me.

Response to "The Rayon Effect"

In reference to this article: http://www.transadvocate.com/the-rayon-effect-what-cisgender-actors-bring-to-transgender-characters_n_13344.htm

Well we can go deeper and discover the meaning of acting then. Is an actor capable of playing anything that is not the person the actor is? How do we go about fiction then? Why is no one questioning the writer who actually wrote the part? Does the writer/director/producer also have to be the same person the film is about? Is art really a collaborative effort?Can a certain level of authenticity really be achieved by fiction in general?

"When a man steps into makeup to become a trans woman, he embodies this mainstream trans narrative…" hmmm not necessarily. Isn't that a gross generalisation? Can an actor really play Romeo then? Can an Asian theatre group really interpret Shakespeare the 'right way'? I hear these arguments all the time and it pisses me off, to be honest. I'm not saying that the film was perfect. If you have problems with the specific performance then please by all means take it apart specifically but do refrain from making random statements that put people in a box.

As a filmmaker myself, I think this is an important debate and it certainly got me thinking but the article itself I found quite ridiculous, vague and lacking intellectual rigour on the whole.

On principle, there is nothing wrong with Jared playing the role. How the character itself was perceived by the writers and then interpreted by the director could be up for debate, but I personally did not see anything problematic about it and I don't think a comparison with the Mammy character in Gone WIth The Wind is fair to the filmmakers.

Nirbhaya Ke Dukh Mein

Kabhi aapne socha hai
ki swarglok ki apsaraon ka kya
aaj vahi haal hai jo Hindustan ki naariyon ka  ka hai?

Kya un apsaraon ko bhi devgun unhi nazaron se dekhte hain
jin nazaron ka saamna local train mein safar kar rahi
mahilaon ko karna padhta  hai?

Ise kaliyug ka naam deke
itni aasani se na taaliye, Shrimaan.
Ye shoshan to Manu ke kaal se chala aa raha hai.

Kabhi mandir mein jaake dekhiye,
vahaan aapko insaan hi milenge.
Devtaon ne toh kabse vahaan aana
band kar diya hai

The Writers by Amit Chaudhuri

The Observer, Sunday 25 June 2006

On constantly mishearing 'rioting' as 'writing' on the BBC:


There has been writing for 10 days now

unabated. People are anxious, fed up.

There is writing in Paris, in disaffected suburbs,

but also in small towns, and old ones like Lyon.

The writers have been burning cars; they've thrown

homemade Molotov cocktails at policemen.

Contrary to initial reports, the writers belong to several communities: Algerian

and Caribbean, certainly, but also Romanian,

Polish, and even French. Some are incredibly

young: the youngest is 13.

They stand edgily on street corners, hardly

looking at each other. Longstanding neglect

and an absence of both authority and employment

have led to what are now 10 nights of writing.