Vaishnav Jan

There is something fiercely reassuring about devotion. Even if you do not believe in God and such things, there is a strange sense of peace that seems to prevail when you give yourself up to a higher being. I have always liked devotional songs. At least since the time I remember listening to them quite unwittingly. It is a bit sad, though, that more often than not I have understood the implication of the words only in parts. Perhaps that is because my faith in God is not as fervent and passionate as the singer. But often, even if only for a moment, we indulge in role play. I sit down beside the qawwal and let him be my guide. That is the experience I enjoy. During the course of it, I am his apprentice. I let his words and devotion wash over me for a few precious minutes. I am ready, then, to be cynical again.

I remember Papa playing Anup Jalota and other Gandhi bhajans every morning before other people in the house woke up. He would get up early, a couple of hours before sunrise, and meditate in the drawing room. Sitting under a blanket in the winters, he would devote himself to the uphill task of trying to communicate with a higher consciousness. It was comforting to see him that way; even my adolescent mind must have understood the importance of someone taking the pains to comprehend that which I could not even begin to grasp. He still does that every morning and over the last couple of years I have gotten the chance to learn from all the wisdom he gained over the course of those cold winter mornings. His ideas and opinions, so many of which have found reflection in my own person, have made me realise how helpless we can be when it comes to trying to fight our conditioning.

Mummy and I would wake up for school later and he would greet every one, tea ready for Mummy. The bhajans would keep playing till we sat down for breakfast, when the grown-ups would start discussing family matters. I would be busy making sure that the shoes were not too dirty and the shirt was ironed alright. That the nails had been clipped last night and Mother had not packed something despicable for tiffin. The rhythmic chanting of Omkara or Gayatri Mantra would be replaced by other conversations. But the bhajans — they were always a good start to the day. Little did I know that a seed had already begin to germinate without my even knowing about it. Recently, I found my sister asking me for some bhajans to play for her children, thereby bringing the cosmic cycle to its conclusion. (I am bound to sympathise with her reluctance to have her boys grow up listening to Yo Yo Honey Singh.) Of late, I have come to associate such headfake with sanskar.

Vaishnav Jan is just one of the legacies left behind by Gandhi and one of my favourite short cuts to a deeper, meditative state of mind. I don’t seem to remember where I first came across it, but I do know that it made an impression sometime during the last three years. For those who would like to give it a try, here is a version of it sung by the ageless Lata Mangeshkar, while if you happen to have a thing for beats and a multitude of other musical instruments, a trendier version should serve the purpose just as well. The bhajan itself is in Gujarati. So, for all the non-existent, non Hindi speakers who do not happen to be reading this post, a rather inept and prescriptive translation in English should help out with the words.

Vaishnav Jan by Narsinh Mehta

वैष्णव जन तो तेने कहिये जे पीड़ परायी जाणे रे । पर दुःखे उपकार करे तो ये मन अभिमान न आणे रे ॥ सकळ लोकमां सहुने, वंदे निंदा न करे केनी रे । वाच काछ मन निश्चळ राखे, धन धन जननी तेनी रे ॥ समदृष्टि ने तृष्णा त्यागी, परस्त्री जेने मात रे । जिह्वा थकी असत्य न बोले, परधन नव झाले हाथ रे ॥ मोह माया व्यापे नहि जेने, दृढ़ वैराग्य जेना मनमां रे । रामनाम शुं ताळी रे लागी, सकळ तीरथ तेना तनमां रे ॥ वणलोभी ने कपटरहित छे, काम क्रोध निवार्या रे । भणे नरसैयॊ तेनुं दरसन करतां, कुळ एकोतेर तार्या रे ॥

One who is a Vaishnav knows the pain of others, Does good to others, especially to those in misery, without letting pride enter his mind. A Vaishnav tolerates and praises the entire world, does not denounce anyone. He keeps his words, actions, and thoughts pure. O Vaishnav, your mother is blessed! A Vaishnav sees everything equally, rejects greed and avarice. He reveres every woman and Though his tongue may tire, he will utter no untruth. He does not covet another person’s wealth. Material attachments do not occupy a Vaishnav’s mind, it being deeply rooted in renunciation. He is addicted to the elixir that lies in the name of Ram; for him, all the religious sites exist in the mind. A Vaishnav has no greed and deceit; he has renounced lust and anger. Says Narasinh, the sight of such a Vaishnav saves a family through seventy-one generations.

Shame

Stars hide your fires! / Let not light see my black and cheap desires!

Several films, Shortbus and 9 Songs to name two, have sought to ‘de-eroticize’ explicit sexual scenes and depict them as some kind of a happenstance in the broader context of the plot. (More specifically, what I am referring to here is un-simulated sex in mainstream cinema and not just a sleazy B-grade flick meant to titillate). Unfortunately, however, I have often found films like these to be lacking a sound storyline in the first place. As a result, ironically, such misplaced noble intentions have only served the purpose of turning them into some glorified form of soft pornography. Truth be told, I have seen porn movies with a better tale to tell. Therefore, it was a welcome respite when I read some rave reviews about Shame.

One of the few movies I have come across that struggle to deal with the theme of sexual addiction, Shame is unapologetic about its graphic, and almost always unromantic, portrayal of the sexual act. Often nightmarish, it can be best described as a story about neurosis and dysfunction. The protagonist, Brandon, leads a secluded private life in New York and can’t seem to stop thinking of women. Or fucking them, for that matter. He indulges this strange addiction because he must, not because he enjoys doing so. Contrary to expectations, he still hasn’t come to accept it and his innate sense of guilt continues to torment him. His self-loathing manifests itself in his distance from people, even his own sister. As if afraid to be known, he is cold towards his co-workers, prostitutes, and strangers. His fanatic obsession is slowly depriving him of any recognizable human impulses and making him incapable of ordinary human contact. It’s quite obvious why he wants no witnesses to his fall from grace. He loves no one and wants no one to love him.

“We’re not bad people. We just come from a bad place.”

The ‘status quo’ is disturbed when “Sissy”, a neurotic, albeit carefree, aspiring cabaret singer comes to stay with her brother for a few days. As her presence brings Brandon’s darkest desires under close scrutiny, his rage against his own shortcomings surfaces in various forms. In a terse scene, desperate to grant some semblance of normalcy to his life, he dumps his stash of pornography, including his computer, in the garbage bin. Sissy is a witness to these trials and despite needing her brother more than he needs her, tries her best to comfort him. But Brandon is in a world of his own, more afraid than ignorant of her advances. It is suggested that a shared experience in their common past somehow damaged the two siblings. But, as might be appropriate, we never get to find out the hows and the whys.

I have often wondered if dysfunction in the private and emotional lives of such people translates into some kind of a morbid fascination with order and functionality in their public and professional lives. For instance, Brandon lives in an apartment that can only be described as sterile and excels at his work. He is zealous about cleanliness, ferociously cleaning the germs from the lavatory seat with toilet paper, before using the stall to masturbate. Perhaps, he has none of the distractions that trouble the ordinary family man. Aren’t serial killers supposed to be extremely methodical and scrupulous as well?

The title of the film might comes across as intriguing as Brandon finds himself succumbing to self-pity and disgust more often than shame. His is a story not so much about Crime and Punishment as it is about Addiction and Humiliation. But there is a close-up of his face towards the end that, in my opinion, captures the essence of his most private emotion. At a cheap hotel, he is having sex with two women. At the same time. But there is no concern with the movements of his lower body. Or his partners, for that matter. The close-up restricts our view to his misery. As he is about to have an orgasm, instead of pleasure or relief, there is pain and suffering writ large over his face. This is the burden that he must carry everyday. His cross to bear. The shape of his shame.

Gosford Park

On the surface, Gosford Park (2001) appears to belong to the genre of the classic British whodunit — a selected assortment of guests gathered together for a hunting party at an English country house; the pompous Lord (Michael Gambon) who gets grumpier as time passes by, shoots his mouth off more often than is good for him, and is therefore conveniently murdered; and a desperate air lingering over the guests which is sometimes as palpable as in an Agatha Chrsitie thriller. But this is where the similarities end, so to speak. For there are no Belgian detectives with cute moustaches exercising their little grey cells, a Watson or a Hastings in tow. Also conspicuous by its absence is the lengthy exposition of deductive skills at the end by an old biddy fashioned after Miss Marple. What you find in their stead is a healthy commentary on the stratification of the English society during the years between the great wars. That, and a lot of style. But do not take my word for it; my bias taints my opinion admirably.

Directed by Robert Altman, one of the few American directors that I intend on exploring after I am done getting stumped by the Coen Brothers, Gosford Park happens to be one of those well-made movies (well-made, mind you, not exceptional — there is a review on Cold Bacon that shreds it to pieces) which often starve and die in the shadow of their more illustrious counterparts (namely M*A*S*H, Short Cuts, Nashville and the like). That is reason enough for them to deserve a portion of my time and a fraction of your attention. The film tells the story of a shooting party hosted by Sir William McCordle at his country residence - Gosford Park - sometime in 1932. The invitees consist of a wide range of characters — from Lady William McCordle’s two sisters and their husbands to the Hollywood star Ivor Novello and a gay Hollywood film producer who is accompanied by his ‘valet’. But that is not all. Downstairs, we find an entire army of servants at their beck and call where we meet the mechanical housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (on one particular occasion she remarks, “I am the perfect servant. I have no life.”) and the quintessential English butler Mr. Jeeves Jennings, amongst a host of other valets, maids, cooks, servers, and grooms.

Between all the pretentious hunting, the elaborate breakfasts, the even more lavish dinners, and the vicious gossip mongering (why do servants obsesses about their employers' personal lives?), Sir William gets stabbed through the heart as he sits sulking in his study after his affair with the head housemaid, Elsie, is rather indelicately revealed over dinner one night. Although everyone is amply surprised, hardly anyone seems upset by this unpleasant incident. Indeed, all of them are just eager to get back their lives as soon as ‘this horrible business’ is resolved. (In hindsight, I have come to gather that sexual mores look good on the coffee table but rather out of place and prudish when all you want to do is have sex make love.) A comic inspector, played by Stephen Fry and not surprisingly named Thompson, elicits some laughs as he blunders and goofs all around the crime scene. But he is no Sherlock Holmes and we begin to get that uneasy feeling that accompanies the realization that there is more to things than meets the eye – the investigation isn’t the point.

Intended for most parts to be a study of the British class system during the 1930s, Gosford Park highlights the dependency of the upper class on an efficient servant class. Not surprisingly, Lady Lavinia shares the opinion that women who travel without a maid have lost their sense of self respect. Indeed, maids are required even for the purpose of getting dressed for dinner. Talk about sophistication! In the servants’ area, people are addressed by the names of their masters — “We stick to the old customs here, it saves confusion”, explains Mrs. Wilson. An observation that particularly came to my attention was the contempt that most guests bear for Mabel Nesbitt, Hon. Freddie Nesbitt’s wife, just because she comes from a working class family and has climbed her way up the social ladder. Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Lady Trentham (Maggie Smith) - who finds nothing more exhausting than training a new maid - are especially vicious and leave no stone unturned in reminding her of her true standing in the gathering. As anywhere else in the world, the elite always seem to have a weakness for the existing order.

The movie conducts quite a remarkable study of contradictions. Although Lady Trentham is threatened with financial ruin as her brother, Sir William, plans to withdraw her allowance, she is interested in what the maids have to say about her state of affairs. The Hollywood actor, Novello, is past his prime and has to sing at supper in order to ‘entertain’ the unappreciative guests. On the other hand, in the servants’ quarters, Mr. Jennings is amply proud to be the head of the staff at Gosford Park and conducts dinner proceedings in a fashion similar to his master – for instance, people are seated around the dinner table according to the ranks of their employers. This hierarchy extends to other sections of the society as well. So while the inspector struts around puffing his pipe and making a big show of his foolhardiness, his constable diligently searches for clues and points them out to him, only to be ignored. There is a particularly endearing scene in the movie where Novello croons while playing the piano and the servants, all apparently great fans of his, steal a dance or two, behind closed doors, when they are not being ordered about by their bored patrons.

The weather, always grey, damp, and dark, seems to provide the perfect atmosphere for the feeling of general unrest that underlies the perfunctory smiles and the superficial discussions of the guests. Which is all very good since a film critic described surface appearances, rather than complex interpersonal relationships, as the theme of the movie. The film looks good and, I am told, very genuine. Even though Gosford Park is not Barry Lyndon (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1975), the sets and the cinematography convey the mood of the plot quite handsomely. When the murder disrupts the natural order of things, exposing the connections, some of them dark and ugly, between the classes, I realized (and so will you, perhaps) how a good score can help one in appreciating the finer points of a movie. Altman also seems to have a keen eye for snobbery and no one conveys it more flawlessly than Lady Trentham. Her sharp, caustic remarks sting where it hurts the most — when she is introduced to Novello, she mentions his latest movie and observes sarcastically, “It must be rather disappointing when something just, you know, flops like that”.

An ensemble cast with big names often bears an inverse ratio to the collective thrill they actually deliver. Each person just ends up distracting us from the other one. However, as Roger Ebert writes, by suitably choosing his actors, Altman gives us “a party with no boring guests”. That being said, more than once it would seem that the remarkable star cast has been spread out too thin – the downside of having so many threads is that there is no definite closure to most of them. The drama itself is not as intense as a Hitchcockian thriller for it does not seek to build up to an exposé. It proceeds with a relaxed rhythm and seeks to engage you rather than jolting you out of your seats. Having led your expectations astray, the climax leaves you feeling a little perplexed, maybe dissatisfied as well, if not cheated. Quite understandably, once the expected destination has been transformed by the experience of the journey itself, you might be even tempted to watch the movie again. Or not. Who am I to decide?

This post has been respectfully plagiarized from:

http://www.coldbacon.com/movies/gosfordpark.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/nov/08/londonfilmfestival2001.artsfeatures
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020101/REVIEWS/201010302/1023

Ardh Satya

The following poem, by the Marathi poet Dilip Chitre, is a bit abstruse to start with. I say abstruse because different people may interpret it differently. Someone might take it to be a commentary on the existential crisis that stems out of failure to act justly. While someone else might find it to be a fitting description of a romantic’s predicament on coming face to face with the ‘real’ world. You, on the other hand, might come up with a totally different interpretation.

Ardha Satya, a film by Govind Nihalani, has Om Puri reciting it in one of its scenes and gradually becoming aware, during the course of the same recital, the stark similarities between his own moral dilemma and the one the poet is talking about. As the meaning sinks in, he continues reading, but in a much more subdued and sombre tone. He knows the ‘Chakravyuh’ has caught up with him as well and either he must find a way through or subject himself to the moral backlash that will result if he chooses to become a part of it. There is no changing the maze itself. In a way, the poem encompasses the gist of the movie - moral impotency and the loss of self-respect as a person finds himself slowly, and involuntarily, becoming a part of a system he could never relate to in the first place. The loss seems to have amplified when he meets a woman who has much more courage than him.

The part I like best about the poem is its acceptance of the fact that there may not be any Absolute Truth. Just Ardh Satya or the Half-Truth. So, when the moment of reckoning comes, what do we choose? I guess, then, the ‘What’ is not as important as the courage to be held accountable for it. To have the strength to live with your choices and ideals. After all, in the light, the light of choices, will everything be equal? The 'right' choice - it might offer you a way out of guilt. But will it be any less painful or difficult? On the other hand, you might be able to tread the seemingly easier path. But will the guilty conscience be able to subsist on self pity and ignorance? There is no easy way out or in. When faced with an existential choice of such magnitude, in life, love, or beyond, Man is essentially alone, and there is nothing that ‘The Other’ can do alleviate his anguish or lessen his burden. His actions warrant responsibility and the strength to stand by them.

The movie concludes suggesting that Om Puri finally decides to break out of his situation, and regain his manliness and self-efficacy. But at what cost and in what manner? Ardh Satya indeed. Here’s a rough English translation of the poem I found online. However, I would recommend watching the movie you need to feel the real intensity of the poem.

Ardh Satya by Dilip Chitre

Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle, kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha, yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahega. Chakravyuh mein ghusne ke baad, mere aur chakravyuh ke beech, sirf ek jaanleva nikat’ta thi, iska mujhe pata hi na chalega. Chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad, main mukt ho jaoon bhale hi, phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein farq hi na padega. Marun ya maarun, maara jaoon ya jaan se maardun. iska faisla kabhi na ho paayega. Soya hua aadmi jab neend se uthkar chalna shuru karta hai, tab sapnon ka sansar use, dobara dikh hi na paayega. Us roshni mein jo nirnay ki roshni hai sab kuchh samaan hoga kya? Ek palde mein napunsakta, ek palde mein paurush, aur theek taraazu ke kaante par Ardh Satya.

Who was I, before I entered this maze, Is not something that I will remember. As I entered the war-maze, There was only the life-threatening Closeness between the enemy and me. Even this, I will not realize. After getting out of the maze Even if I earn my freedom, The maze by itself, will not change. Unaltered. To die or to kill, To be killed, or to take someone’s life, Even this will not be decided. As a man wakes from his sleep, And starts to walk, he can never Again, see the world of his dreams. In this light, the light of choices, Will all be equal? Impotence on one side, Manhood on the other, And in the centre, (tipping the scale) is the Half-Truth.

The Death of Vishnu

Vishnu, an odd job man in an apartment complex in Bombay, lies dying on the first floor staircase landing. Within the space of a few hours, the life in this microcosm of urban Indian society slowly unfurls around his impending death. So while Vishnu experiences an out of body phenomenon in which he confronts the possibility that he has become a god, the God, Vishnu, the other residents of the building go about their lives in a mindless fashion, bickering, hallucinating, ruminating, eloping. While he swims in and out of reality, his experience almost spiritual, thinking in retrospection about his hopes, fantasies, and a kaleidoscopic past, the characters of the other building dwellers come into colour, painting a rich portrait of everyday life in middle class India in Manil Suri’s debut novel, “The Death of Vishnu”.

Suri, in a remarkable fashion, blends in the lives of the people living in the building with the unearthly experiences of a dying man. These vignettes of the social, cultural, and religious melodrama that is a part of everyday existence in India are brought to life through four families inhabiting the building – The first floor Hindu neighbours, Asranis and Pathaks, the Muslim Jalals on the second floor, and the recluse living in the penthouse, Vinod Taneja. The titular character, Vishnu, is a hopeless drunk who lives on the first floor landing and makes his living doing menial tasks for the residents of the dysfunctional building. His imminent death, however, is at the heart of a horde of issues that surface as his life ebbs away.

Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak seem to be perennially trying to get the better of each other, making each other’s lives miserable, while their spineless spouses just hope to get to the end of the day without being yelled at. Middle class and fiercely competitive, the foremost concern of the belligerent housewives seems to be the fact that the ghee is mysteriously disappearing from its container. Even when they finally do agree to help Vishnu out, it is more out of their suspicion of the Muslims upstairs (and elsewhere) than concern for the wretched fellow. Their superficial concerns seem to be in sharp contrast with the touching retrospection of Vishnu, or even the ruminations of Mr. Taneja.

The Jalals, on the other hand, are involved in their own quite personal battle, none of which is apparent to anyone else but them. Mr. Jalal, having previously declared himself to be an agnostic, is now determined to understand the hysteria surrounding faith. He goes about doing so by first embracing physical suffering and then, when it turns out to be too painful, abstinence – reason enough for him to shun his doting wife in favour of intellectual/spiritual enlightenment. The situation comes to a head when Mr. Jalal declares Vishnu to be Vishnu, The God, and himself to be his prophet, after dreaming about a divine revelation in which Vishnu, the drunkard, features prominently, and assuming it to be a sign.

As if the drama were not enough, Kavita, the Asranis’ daughter, and Salim, son to the Jalals, are a couple of lovesick, impractical teenagers who plan to elope in the dead of the night. They do so, only to realize later how ill conceived their entire romance was. Mr. Taneja, the only endearing soul in the building, is a hollow one at that, having given up on life and most of its trappings sometime after his wife’s sudden death due to cancer. He now silently awaits his own demise, no longer capable of either anger or compassion.

However, the foibles of the human life are only half the book for we are offered a glimpse into Vishnu’s world through flashbacks in the past. It is interesting to note that though the author uses the past tense to narrate the current goings on in the apartment building, he cleverly shifts to the present in order to describe Vishnu’s dying memories. As Vishnu looks back in time and recalls, in almost poetic fashion, his life, several colours and memories splatter themselves across the pages. These interspersed reminiscences – mostly poignant, often heart rending, and sometimes fearfully explicit – impart a dream like quality to Suri’s writing. As Vishnu longs for love from the lusty prostitute Padmini, imagines himself as an avatar of Vishnu in his mother’s stories, looks at Kavita with a fatherly affection that’s mixed with lecherousness, and recounts the tales of his childhood, we realize how every human being has dreams and aspirations, no matter however impoverished or overlooked he might be.

The device of using a Hindu God’s name for his protagonist allows Suri to experiment with creating fairy tale like stories about Vishnu’s past while also building an atmosphere for the socio-cultural crisis in which the plot culminates. Though the author never directly comments on any religious, cultural, or social topic of substance, he draws heavily from these themes. It’s up to the reader to interpret the undercurrents.

Suri’s prose is sensual and replete with powerful imagery. His style is nuanced and his attention to details impeccable. So while Visnu’s lust for Padmini, someone he can’t make fall in love with him, is explicit and insanely passionate, the short anecdote about The Radiowalla’s love for his radio captivates the reader with it’s meticulous attention to minutiae. The characters are sketched to perfection and come alive through the author’s love for the mundane. But the downside is that there are too many of them. The reader is often left with several threads to comprehend. And though he can effortlessly move from one to another because of the surreal nature of the narration, several of these threads remain unresolved. The end result being that the plot lacks a definite closure. It’s left hanging and open. The reader has the freedom to read between the lines. In whichever way he deems fit. While that might not be to the liking of many, it’s perhaps the only way the author could have brought the different storylines to a satisfactory conclusion.

Manil Suri, a successful Indian immigrant in Maryland, has shrewdly targeted his novel at an American audience for “there’s nothing a privileged readership likes more than stories about the ridiculous poor (as long as they’re exotic enough to trigger no unease); their antics and pretensions, their cowardice and inability to tell the truth”. Set almost entirely in a middle class apartment block in Bombay, The Death of Vishnu is an emotional, “old fashioned episodic” novel that teeters on the edge of the metaphysical, all with a touch of Bollywood masala and Victorian romanticism. Although the novel lacks a definite or consistent plot, Suri’s eye for details and exceptional story telling capabilities manage to prevent it from falling flat on its face and give it a certain phantasmagoric quality, something which makes for an interesting read but not an exceptional one.

Reviews
1. http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/01/28/reviews/010128.28gorrat.html
2. http://www.proxsa.org/resources/ghadar/v5n1/vishnu.htm
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/feb/04/fiction.reviews

Eyes Wide Shut

I should have been asleep by now. There is an important class tomorrow. But fortune favors the foolish. Or so I presume. I have not come to believe otherwise. However, I must narrate this story. It’s like a butterfly. If I let it slip now, I will never be able to capture it. I must not create a ruckus. The room-mate has just stirred in his sleep. We must all listen in silence. And with patience.

I had just brushed my teeth and decided to call it a day when a strange train of thoughts was set into motion. It must have been the research I did for my quiz. I think I studied a bit too much about Kubrick. He got me intrigued. His strange persona and an even stranger way of confining it to celluloid. I had to see it for myself. There was no other way.

I did the needful. And when I did, I was simply stunned. The theme of A Clockwork Orange has to be called a landmark. I don't think anything else would suffice. It forced me to contemplate about such possibilities. Can extreme violence, christened ultraviolence, turn a person into a coward? Then came Eyes Wide Shut. It floored me.

The movie showcases an entirely different world. A world where there is a single emotion – lust. No other feeling comes in the way of this overwhelming passion. Love is not the magic word anymore. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is one primal instinct – the need for sex and physical satisfaction. Remember all those songs about promises and devotion that we grooved to? Well, they don’t hold any water anymore. Not in this make believe world anyway. Or is it not that fictional after all? Has it been lurking around in the corners ever since the dawn of civilization? Ever since we decided to curb that impulse and hide it away under the guise of civilization?

It would be interesting to discuss both sides of the argument here. But instead of arguments, I just have some more questions. And questions can not be confined to categories. Are human beings incapable of fidelity? Is the basic instinct too overpowering to be curbed? Can LOVE do it for us? Or will there always be suspicion lingering in our minds? Is it only the masculine gender which is more prone to such fantasies? Or is the fairer sex an equal culprit?

We might do a romantic take on things as well. We might say that i>Love makes a person less mortal and more divine. It is responsible for making us rise above these vile emotions. It makes us find heavenly bliss in mortal eyes. But then again, isn’t the supreme act of love sex itself? How do we distinguish between the two? Romantics might differentiate. Cynics might align them in the same row. I will refrain from giving my opinion. It is liable to be prejudiced.

I think, in the end, it’s all about a decision. Do we seek pleasure or happiness? Do we seek to keep giving in to our primal instincts, again and again? Or do we shun the lust for that ephemeral pleasure, put on the garb, and stake our claim to keeping the human race civilized? Do we choose to shut our eyes or keep them wide open?

It’s just the way I am feeling. Everybody has the right to disagree with it. I guess I must start devouring the masters from now on. There has to be something about the way they capture their ideas on film. I wouldn’t have been floored otherwise. Full Metal Jacket coming up Sir. Next on the menu are Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.

The Godfather

It is hard to describe in a few hundred words, a book of the stature of The Godfather. Mario Puzo creates magic and transports us to the Cosa Nostra - the dark underworld of the Mafia. So much so that I would say that the English speaking world is divided into two categories - those who have read The Godfather and those who haven’t!

The Godfather is a splendid and distinguished blood saga of the American Mafia. It reveals how the Sicilian Rule of Silence or Omerta influences every level of the American society. Men are silenced, cars are blown up, treachery is planned - and all with such cold brutality that one finds it hard to believe there is a human mind behind the entire villainy.

The book deals with the life of Vito Corleone who is driven from Sicily by the Mafia there when he was only twelve years old. Life teaches him tough lessons along the way and he learns all of them. By his sheer cunning and bravado he creates the biggest and most powerful criminal syndicate in America. He is a cold blooded tactician who will stop at nothing to make ends meet. He follows his own rules and trashes the laws of the society which ignored him.

But things take a turn for the worst when he is shot at by some of his rivals. A bloody gang war ensues in which he even loses his eldest son. His youngest offspring - Michael - is an army veteran who has got nothing to do with the family business. But as a result of the assassination attempt, Vito’s empire weakens and in order to save his father’s life Michael is forced to commit two murders. The clash of values within Michael, who wanted to lead a normal life, is amazing and deserves special praise.

The brilliance with which Puzo mixes crime with emotions to produce a heady concoction is remarkable and in my opinion is the life line of this book. One at times is forced to agree with Vito’s deeds. His trademark dialogue - "I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” is subtle devilry.

The Godfather is a story of life and all that comes with it. Pain and love are two sides of the same coin in this book. It is a fabric woven from the strands of love, emotion, crime, devilry and innocence. One could go on writing about it but then the pleasure of the first read would be lost. Try out the book. I am sure you won’t be disappointed.