Mid-Week Musings

Ever felt lost and unbearably lonely in a suffocatingly crowded place ? That`s exactly how Im feeling, and have been feeling since this Tuesday.Listless , uninterested , clueless , burned out are a few other adjectives which do justice to explaining my present state of mind.At the risk of sounding overtly dramatic , it feels as though the dementors from Azkaban have come alive out of the Harry Potter series and have sucked me of all happiness...(Hehe..i can be as melodramatic as a girl can be ;) )

And I hate to admit that all this can be caused by the departure of one of few handful of people I really care about in this world.'A' left for the US on wednesday and I really can`t come to terms with the fact that I can get morose over this trivial a thing - It is just an official trip , for God`s sake!! To the point of bunking office for one whole day ,without any rhyme or reason.I can visualize that old adage - 'U never know the value of someone,till u let go' - coming alive.I never thought that I of all people would miss anyone to this extent (I have been infamous for sniggering and giggling when I heard my friends coo 'Baby,I miss u !!' over the phone to their boyfriends).I actually used to think 'What an absolute sissy !!' and considered the MISS-U phrase a highly overrated and over-hyped one.I guess not anymore !! I did believe that in the course of life we do come across someone,where we are putty in their hands.Maybe the reason for my abnormal behaviour is coz I really don`t wanna come across that someone this soon ( Im just 21 !!).Zeroing down on that someone would be such a life-changing (for lack of a better adjective) experience, coz all of ur life that very person alone ,is gonna be 'THE ONE' !! Whew ..!! I think ill just attribute my inexplicable behaviour to the fact that im basically missing those 'Puppy-eyes' and mind-numbing flash of a smile (yeah,yeah these r the very attributes paeaned by the bollywood hero for his lady-love)...

I started reading 'The Namesake', a parting gift by 'A';Which I think is kinda surprisingly thoughtful of him, to have remembered that I wanted to have a go at this book.I had already watched this movie with him last month so I really wasnt hyper-enthu about reading it.But, the jingle that he had composed for me and had scribbled in his child-like scrawl at the back of this book,proved to be the bait.
Jhumpa Lahiri appears to be a sucker for details.This is something that screamed out from every page.Everything about each of the main characters has been detailed out so meticulously throughout the book.The colour of Gogol`s uniform, the skin colour of each of the characters, the thickness of Ashima`s hair and the texture of Sonia`s mane, the fabric of Ashoke`s clothing as he shifts to every different location,which again are carefully detailed out (the rooms,the gadgets,the neighbours).Even the brand of cutlery that exists at the Ganguli`s place and Gogol`s girlfriend`s place is chronicled.She leaves precious little to the reader`s imagination, a trend that she carries over from her Interpreter of Maladies Days .
I feel it must have been both difficult as well as a bit easy for Mira Nair to have thought of making a movie on it.

Easy ,coz most of the stuff is very detailed out, and doesnt need much of a research.The book seems more like a movie-script than a novel.

Difficult, coz it is humanely impossible to cram in all those carefully detailed events in Ashoke`s,Ashima`s and Gogol`s life in a 2.5 hour movie.Expectedly a few relatively insignificant events have not been included in the movie.This oversight kinda shows up in the movie,glaringly in a few places.For starters,I feel the term namesake hasnt been defined well,in the movie, the way it should`ve been.The reasons for Gogol`s aversion towards his daknaam , the tussle within him over his unique name, the underlying pathos over how he struggles to change his name on all official and unofficial records in his first few days of University, the way he cringes everytime he has to write his name in forms,in exam-papers etc ; all this doesnt find a place in the narrative.
I almost forcibly sent my parents to the theatre to watch it bribing them by saying 'Papa, its an art movie,and on top of that a bengali one.You must watch it'.My parents , self-confessed art-movie buffs and having that soft corner for anything bengali, fell for it.On their return, I almost hopped-skipped down to the driveway to know their verdict (As if I myself had acted in it !! lol).I got a noncommittal 'It was nice" from them .On further prodding,Dad said 'It wasnt an art movie.It would be somewhere midway between art and commercial cinema.There were way too many loopholes in it.In art cinema the camera lingers on the protagonist for a nice 3-4 minutes during an important scene, that by the end of it the viewer him/her self kinda starts feeling the suffering/joy or any such emotion.that is the beauty of art cinema.In this movie They makers didnt bother to give a few characters the proper kinda ending they deserved.Character-in-Question Gogol`s girlfriend Maxine.This boy seemed to be so much in love with her and it was a serious relationship , but her track ends abruptly after Ashoke`s death'.Yeah, Dad very true..

But, nevertheless I loved the movie.Mira Nair deserves a pat on her back for having captured the Bengaliness very beautifully and esp. for having casted Irrfan Khan as Ashoke Ganguly.The accent,the look,the absent-minded nature of a Bengali professor, brought out so beautifully that at times i felt like standing up and clapping for this amazing actor.
This movie was very special for me.Infact, after watching it , 'A' and I promptly headed to a nice,cozy Bengali Restaurant '6,Ballygunge place' for a propah Bangali Lunch and promised to celebrate that day,6th April as 'Bengali Divas', year after year.A day which will remind me of my born-in-bengal status, my first movie-watching experience with the cutest bengali to have taken birth , and that very soon I would also have to suffer those I-Miss-you pangs when this cutest-bengali-in-the-world leaves for the Big Apple,just like Ashoke Ganguli did, for earning and learning and leave me yearning....