Black Swan

Safely, one of the most disturbing and depressing movies I have watched in a long time. There are times when you simply cannot sit back and appreciate a work of art neutrally. You are taken up in one swift whirlwind motion and thrown into the midst of a complex plot, which is obviously removed from your life, your surroundings, your society, the work you do or even the person that you are; yet you feel that a particular character - in this case, the protagonist - is so much similar to you.

However, that said and done, Black Swan is an exquisite work of art. It is not a sparkling diamond perhaps, that is to say that it is not the undying classic you would watch again and again, but it is definitely a striking crystal.
Watching this movie was a very different kind of experience. There are times you watch a movie expecting it to be something and it turns out to something very different, which actually surprises and pleases you –this was one of those times. I watched the movie prior to the Academy awards so I was unaware of the critical acclaim that it would eventually enjoy. To be very honest, I did not have very high expectations of Natalie Portman; but, my, was I proved wrong and how! As the crests and troughs of the movie unfolded, I was totally taken into this vortex of emotional turmoil that Nina, the protagonist, was going through.

Portman’s portrayal of the obsessive ballet dancer was absolutely amazing. Nina is the epitome of the child who is bent under the parent’s expectations. Only here she not only handles the stress of the expectations of her mother, who is a not-so-successful ballet enthusiast herself, but also her own expectations to be the best. The mechanical dancing girl by her bedside is a true replica of Nina as she is constantly wound up by her mother and driven to perform better and better still. In one emotional crest she reaches out and smashes the dancing girl to pieces in a foolhardy attempt to retrieve her life.

She fights for her place in the troupe with the seductress peer played impressively by Mila Kunis, she fights for her place at home with her mother. At the troupe she struggles playing the dual roles of the white swan and the black swan. Nina is the proverbial white swan, the fragile virgin beauty –she plays the white swan perfectly. However, when it comes to the black swan she falters. She does not know how to seduce men, she cannot be the siren who the Prince would “like to fuck”. In her real life, things are a bit different. She has no privacy in her own home. Though she wants million eyes to look at her in adoration when she is on stage, she shies away from the eyes of her mother at home. She is no virgin, but she has to play the good girl at home. The white swan-black swan duality of the Tchaikovsky piece transcends Nina’s ballet practice and flows into her life so much so that the boundaries of reality and stage begin to blur.

She is fiercely competitive. Though Nina reminds me of the child-woman in Doll’s House at times when she is innocently asking for a chance to play the princess in the performance, we know she is no child. She knows fully well that she is filling in the positions of the erstwhile lead of the troupe. Winona Ryder puts in a sharp cameo as the fading star who is being spurned by the company for a fresher and younger face.

On the night before the grand performance Nina breaks free from her mother’s shackles on a hallucinatory sojourn with her peer and competitor in the dark underbelly of the city’s nightlife. The morning after she finds her world slipping away from her hands, her companion of the night before is almost ready to usurp her place. We see the real Nina only in the final stage performance. As the uninhibited black swan, she has come into her own. She does not falter to grab and kiss the man who has humiliated her for weeks as being frigid and leave him breathless. She does not falter to look her mother straight in the eye. She does not even falter to stab the person who stands in her way, which eventually turns out to be herself.

Nina’s fight with her inner demons does not leave her victorious, or does it?

I was depressed after watching the movie. I had expected it to be the underdog-winning-the-day sort of a movie, where the shy girl who cannot play the seducing black swan finally is able to portray the part brilliantly because of her coming into her own in her personal life. However, it turned out to be something else. Yes, she does finally find her independence, but it is brutally short-lived, quite literally. She is finally suffocated by her Argus-mother who looks on at her final moments being seated among the audience.

Space and beyond

I hear of this new phenomenon called giving "space". It is a bloody convenient tool when put to the right use I tell you.

Picture this: You are sleeping late in the morning, even though your parents have called you for breakfast like a zillion times (and eventually also for lunch) or your friends are calling you and you can hear a distant buzz of your phone muffled under a layer of strategically placed pillows - you want nothing else in the world but to sleep right through these distractions - but you cannot. You are an ungrateful child and a careless friend. You let the guilt get to you, you think that you are actually being a wretch and you leave the comfortable confines of your bed. But, stop right there - you do not have to get out after all! You turn around the guilt which these people are putting on you and tell them that it is actually they who are encroaching on your "space"!

And life would be perfect for you. A kid cousin might be getting bored to death at home and give you a SOS call with the hope that you would take him out for a movie. But you might want to be a couch potato and watch some quality TV (whatever that is) - thats when you drop the bomb - kiddo you are stepping on my space, back off. There, you are sorted.

You might be watching an absolutely nonsensical movie when someone calls and wants you to be his agony aunt, no please, spare me, give me my space!

Try it.

That sissy Y chromosome

X was terribly in love. So much so that X would compromise on her life and her happiness just to steal a moment with Y. But Y was a busy man, having an arm-candy to show off was enough for him. He loved her, but not with the determination of William Darcy or the passion of Florentino Ariza, figures which cluttered the brain of X.

X wanted more than the charm or the token appreciation of her looks. X did not desire the bodily pleasures which were always on Y's mind. A little care, a little concern, a subtle gesture was what she looked for. But such things don't happen in real life. She knew a Rhett Butler waspish charm was not humanly achievable, yet, she hoped.

Y was a free bird, flippant and casual. He flirted easily with other girls raising X's scorn but never pacifying them. It ruffled a lot of things in X, passion and eagerness were a few as Y had slyly anticipated, but a steadily growing insecurity and dissatisfaction which he was ever blind to.

While X pined each day for a Paris who would have his eyes only at her and would risk all for her. she would have to settle for the cool logic and fluffy humor.

X would settle for what she got but she soon saw that everything served Y's convenience, and though they were supposed to be on the same team, she never got what she wanted. So X spoke out and that was the end.

A woman can never speak up. She is good if she is looking pretty and smiling and adhering to what the man wants. The moment she demands something for herself she is cheap.

In older times the outspoken women were tagged witches, whores and insane. The labels remain to this day, perhaps a bit subtly. If X said Y was her priority, it does not mean that she does not have a life, it just means she can put her life on a hold for sometime for Y, she loves him that much.

Logic is not what matters of heart are to be judged by, they never were they never will be.

What exactly did Sylvia Plath go through? She had a life, and damn right its better than that sissy Ted's.

The Broken Nail

Once upon a time there was a girl and she had a right leg with a big-toe which had a brightly painted nail. So this girl was on a bus in calcutta which was being driven by a a person who thought none less of himself than Michael Schumacher. Whirling through heavy city traffic the bus danced its way, slamming on the brake anytime it pleased the Schumacher incarnate. Now it so happens on these prehistoric buses that metal protrusions are aplenty.
So the girl is chirrupping away happily when the fatal brakes are slammed. Her legs which were poised on one of these metal protrusions as a manner of comfort fell with a jerk and went under the metal, only the nail from the big toe refused to go under. SO it went up , up over the metal and with one quck sharp jab the nail and the flesh was open. Her white slippers went red. And there was the rebellious big-toe nail holding its head high; High above the flesh it is attached to the normally.
And all that blood.

Waiting for Godot

I face a ritualistic existential crisis each day. It is quite ridiculous when I think about it in retrospect, but I feel the same virgin trepidation each day.
I take a bus which my office provides each morning, from the same bus stop at the same time every day. Since I am a bit of a hyperventilating punctual I happen to reach the bus stop well in advance, almost ten minutes before the bus arrives. With the cobbler spreading out his modest shop on the footpath and the a few regular people scampering into overpacked buses the day has just begun.
The other people who avail the bus with me have not arrived at this point in time. Though I know in my heart that they would be coming sometime soon, I have this weird feeling that I have surely missed the bus. Invariably I am late and the bus has left without me. Whether there is some deeprooted Freudian explanation to this I do not know. But somehow it is as if my existence at that place and that time is validated by the presence of my co-passengers. Until the others are around there is this gnawing sensation of discomfort eating at my heart.
The regular school children pass me by. Still I keep a lookout for whether a familiar face has come. If even one person reaches I heave a sigh of relief. I must confess that I have never spoken to any of these "familiar faces", except for a cursory hello or a seasons greetings. Mostly they are quite unfriendly, shoving their faces (which are as it is hidden behind his thick glasses) into pink newspapers or happily lost in the sweet melody of their iPods. Yet I look for this detached sense of reassurance from these very people.
Now I know who Godot is; finally, when I don't have to write out answers anymore.

Possessed, by plastic

The credit card is the bane of my existence, that is why I do without it. However, I have realized that the debit card can be as injurious to health.
I guess it was people like me who walk into flashy malls (read into the attractive snares set up capitalist commercial giants) and end up becoming quite lighter, pursewise, that the subprime crisis hit the world. People like me, only ten time more like me, who didn't think twice (which is by the way the number of times I think before that shopping binge).
But then again life would surely be quite bland without the plastic money.

Ilish

A friend of mine has a blog called ilishmaach. At first the name comes across as weird at the most misplaced. Then I wonder, why not? Come monsoons the east of this country is inundated by this phenomenal speciality cuisine. It is a freshwater fish which is easily identified by its silver color when raw and its captivating aroma when cooked. It is a common kitchen byword that you cannot go wrong with the ilishmaach. No matter how bad you try to cook it, the flavour itself will elevate the dish to perfection.
Cooking the ilishmaach has caught on the fascination of the Bengali female as much as writing poetry catches on to every Bengali male! It is an art, a form of expression which is unique to every individual. No cold salad or caviar or lasagne can compete with the magnetism of the ilishmaach.
Be it the dish with the mustard seed paste or the baked one or the crisp fries or the jeere-diye-jhol or the plain dish with eggplant or pumpkin or the spicier treat with pulses or spinach, every avatar promises to be finger-lickin’ good. It is the safest dish to fall back on to impress the in-laws or show off your culinary skills to your friends.
As the raindrops make you feel like curling up like the house cat, munch on an ilishmaach bhaja this year. That’s what I do every year.