Joy (the other) Bangla?
Interesting things maybe happening in the Indian Bengal, and not just with films, though a film is a pretty good place to start. Aparna Sen’s Goynar Baksho — a family dramedy about changing role of women in the mid-20th century bhadralok society — garners two wholehearted cheers. Moushumi Chatterjee puts on perhaps the best performance of her career, and Konkona Sen Sharma is in her exquisite elements. That’s two cheers, not quite a third for Srabanti Chatterjee though, who pales before the two veterans. More importantly, the first two-thirds of the movie is astute social commentary that is simply fun to watch. Depiction of the partition-induced transformation of a landed gentry East Bengali caste Hindu family into trade-dependent petit bourgeois is up there with the best of partition-related art. Indian Bengalis tend to have a hard time pulling off East Bengali accent — this is a rare and pleasant exception. For all that, however, the movie is far from being a great one because of its last third. And yet, it’s the ending that made me think.
The story ends with this:
Love is just a four letter word
I was 14 when a Dhanmondi girl first told me about Valentine’s Day — no, not asking me for a date, rather informing me about hers. In the quarter century since, in and out of relationships, the day has never really resonated with me. Call me unromantic? Not so fast. You see, I do love rom coms, particularly on the small screen.
And could there be a better show to showcase my case?
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Telephilosophy
I wrote about television waybackwhen, and tried to read philosophy even earlier. Considering vision and philosophy translate similarly in Bangla, it’s only natural that I would pick up Everything I Know I Learned from TV: philosophy for the unrepentant couch potato at first sight. And I read it in on weekend nearly a decade ago.
Anyone who likes to watch TV and read books should get this little gem. Let me just note the shows and ideas covered.
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Doing it the French-style
That’s from the the French comedy OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus. It’s set in the late 1960s. Agent 117 — a French super spy (double one — got it?) — sent to Brazil to track down a en escaped Nazi who has a microfilm of French collaborators and Nazi sympathisers. Our hero successfully concludes the mission, only to find that his boss — the head of the French secret service — is named in the list. The spy chief says something about ‘the war being a difficult, confusing time’ and ‘the need to move forward without opening past wounds’ and appeals to French nationalism, before pinning a medal on the Agent 117.
Watching Aamir Khan
I planned a post on Aamir Khan playing a college / post-college kid over the years — from Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander to Dil Chahta Hai to Rang De Basanti all the way to 3 Idiots. That was nearly three years ago, after I had just watched 3 Idiots. That post never got written.
I watched Talaash recently, prompting me to write this post. I don’t remember what I was going to say three years ago. But hey, it’s a blog, not the New Yorker, so I can just jot down some rambling and link a few songs, right?
Mukti 
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