A language for every mood

We Indians, are really lucky - almost all of us are bilinguals. Many of us are tri and multi linguals. Besides the obvious benefit of having access to literatures in all the languages one has knowledge of, I think languages serve a very important purpose. I have experienced it every time I try to put down my thoughts when I see something of great beauty, like the Niagara or the Grand Canyon or a picture of my cute niece - the lack of words to express EVERYTHING I feel, in English.

I guess I am not the only person, but English seems to me, very inadequate when I have to express something from my heart. My preferred choice would be Tamizh, my mother tongue or even Hindi. Somehow, calling someone, who unmindful of you or the traffic light, decides to cross the road and worse still, pauses to grin like a complete idiot, names in English, does not help in expressing all the anger, irritation, the urge to get down and murder the person as well as I would want it to be!! What can I call the Niagara except beautiful? How shallow the word sounds in front of the majesty of the falls!!

Switching between different languages is a very big convenience in such situations. So when I am upset, I use English, especially when I want to soften the blow. When I am really angry (usually due to road-rage), I switch to Tamizh. Hindi is a rarely used language, and as a result is pretty rusty. Besides, I don’t know cuss words that are moderate enough for me in Hindi. English has a lot of them and most of them are meant for the person’s mother than the person himself, so I rarely use those !!Calling names in my case is using the names of different animals in my case. It is a different thing altogether that in many instances, these animals behave better than people in general and me in particular. In Indian languages, since we tend to sing, rather than talk, changing the tune a little also changes the tone (wow, that sounds like poetry !!). Stress the ‘r’s a little and most words can be converted to cuss words, without really meaning anything harmful.

I am not including the newly evolved languages like Hinglish (’The other day, my papa was telling me ki I should not ghumafy in the scooter’) or Tanglish (what most of our RJ’s speak). Those to me combine the worst of all languages and are absolutely useless in conveying emotions.

What is the best language when you want to ‘pet’ babies? (See I could not find anything better than ‘pet’) That is the language I love most, since there is no limit to your imagination in that language. Although there is no grammar, I think this language too is a derivative of the mother tongue of the petter (is there such a word?) or the petted. As a result ‘chunnu’, ‘munnu’ make sense for kids speaking Hindi and related languages and ‘kutti’, ‘pattu’ along with a combination of different fabrics etc for Tamizh kids. I heard my Kannada speaking friend calling the baby ‘bangara’ (meaning gold) and am guessing that telugu speakers would use a minor variant of the term. What kind of baby-talk can I try with English speaking kids?

What languages do you prefer for your different moods?

Children of Heaven

I have been wanting to write this post for quite a while now. In fact I wanted to write it as soon as I finished watching this gem of a movie by Iranian director Majid Majidi. My friend at work was the first one to recommend ‘Children of Heaven’ to me. Sadly he only remembered that it was an Iranian movie and the story. He promised to find out the name of the movie from his wife, but forgot about it. I chanced upon the DVD in the library and without knowing that it was the same movie my friend had talked about, I went ahead and watched it. This movie is a proof to my theory that to make a good movie, you do not need a complicated script all the time. A simple story executed with a difference or a different story executed simply usually results in a good movie.

‘Children of Heaven’ is one of those rare movies where the characters are very real and the situations are very relatable. It is also one of the few movies where children behave like normal children and their issues are dealt with love and seriousness.

The story is unbelievably simple. The movie starts with a shot of young Ali (about 6-7 years old) getting his younger sister Zahra’s shoes repaired with the shoemaker. On his way back, he leaves them outside the grocers while he picks up vegetables for his home. Unfortunately a blind salesman who collects used things picks them up and Ali goes home without the shoes. Ali tells Zahra about the shoes and tells her not to tell their parents since they both know that their father does not have the money to replace the shoes.

Ali asks Zahra to wear his shoes to her school in the morning and then hand them to Ali who would wear them for his afternoon classes. This difficult arrangement gives rise to some interesting adventures. Ali hears about an interschool race in school where the 3rd prize is a pair of sneakers. Ali decides to participate in the race, win the 3rd place and gift the sneakers to Zahra. He is by now very good at running, thanks to his daily runs to school to be on time and so begs his way into the race, even though the selection of boys from the school for the race is already over. What happens in the race? Does Ali get the sneakers? These questions are answered at the end of the movie.

Iranian movies are held in high esteem in movie circles, for their visual appeal, simple storylines and artistic approach. My first taste of Iranian new wave movies started with ‘Baran’, which also happens to be by the same director. I picked up the movie without knowing anything about it except what the cover of the DVD told me. I wouldn’t say I was blown away by the movie, but it was a movie with very little dialogues and a very pretty heroine who used her eyes to convey all the emotions. ‘Children of Heaven’ is the best of all the Iranian movies I have seen (only 4 )

The kids are extremely cute and their eyes convey everything. When Ali and his father go to the city looking for work, Tehran looked really beautiful with skyscrapers and beautiful buildings. The movie moves at a leisurely pace and it is a welcome break from movies and media where there is a lot of negativity.

This movie was nominated for the Academy awards in the best foreign film category in 1997 but unfortunately lost to a worthy opponent - Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni. For those interested in world cinema, Children of heaven is a must watch.

The Music Teacher

Warning : A long post !!

“My brother wants to learn guitar and my mother and I want vocal music classes in carnatic music”. - That’s how my first conversation with the music “teacher” went. This was after complaining to anyone who made the mistake of bothering to listen to me talk, about my difficulty in finding a good music teacher to continue with my music lessons. My brother too would keep telling me that he wanted to learn to play the guitar. I finally thought I had found my Guru when I saw the ad in the local newspaper. The ad said that guitar, keyboard, vocal and mridangam would be taught at my doorstep and where required, the music instrument would also be provided. After thinking a lot, I finally called the number provided in the ad on Saturday. It was almost 5 pm and the person on the other end took down my address details, gave me his name (Mr. Kumar) and told me he would come the same day. I was not mentally prepared (you have no idea of the mental preparation that goes into learning music !) and asked him to come the next evening. Only after replacing the phone, I realized that both of us had not talked about the fees !

Sunday came and we were returning from Tiruttani ( a temple town near Chennai), when my brother’s mobile rang. The music teacher wanted to know when he could come and my brother told him to come by 4 pm. I have to admit that I started feeling a little like Swami Vivekananda ! (It is said that Swami Ramakrishna Parahamsa literally waited day and night for his disciple and prayed for him to come soon ! It is one of the rare cases where the Guru was more desperate for the disciple than the reverse!!) .

I had just started napping after reaching home, when my brother announced that Mr Paramahamsa was here. An ordinary looking person with kumkum on his forehead smiled at me. After some initial small talk, he declared that he liked ‘Kisore kumar’ a lot. It was not everyday that you would hear a Carnatic Music teacher declare his love for a film singer* and I was, well, surprised ! The teacher then went on to explain that he had lived in Delhi all along and that he knew Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi etc. Then he turned to me and said - ‘Indi’ theriyuma? (Do you know ‘Indi’?)

‘Theriyum’ (I know), I said.

When we read the ad, we had all thought that this was some sort of a music school and that there were different teachers for each instrument. Here was a one-man-army ! Mr. Kumar told me, without any attempt at humility, that he was like TV Gopalakrishnan (a very popular mridangist, who is also a vocalist and plays a lot of other instruments !!).

I told him that both my mother and I had had some basic training in Carnatic music and that I had learnt a few varnams and some keerthanais. (Varnams - small compositions usually performed at the beginning of a concert. Subject of varnams is usually romance. Keerthanai - Devotional songs set to a ragam and talam and sung as main pieces in a concert). Mr Kumar said that he would start with the basic lessons to understand our capability and then proceed.

My mom gently asked him about the fees and he said “2500 for the guitar and 3500 for vocal lessons for both of you (my mom and me)”.

Our expressions changed - “6000 a month for just music classes !!”, we were both thinking. As if we were not enough, I had invited my cousin who lived next door to join the crowd. The teacher thought for a minute and said, “Ok, 5000 for the 3 of you”.

My mom hesitantly told him that it was too expensive, given that we were learning music as a hobby. My brother interjected and added that the cost was nominal for guitar lessons. So we asked the teacher to start training my brother, while the 3 women (my cousin, mom and I) retreated to the kitchen to ‘discuss the next steps’. My mom finally came and announced that my brother could continue his lessons and that we did not need vocal lessons. Secretly I was very relieved that the deal did not succeed, since for some reason, I was beginning to have doubts about the person’s capabilities.

About 5 minutes passed and I was back in the hall to check how my brother was doing. Mr Kumar turned towards me and asked me “What was the discussion about? Do you think the fees is very high?”

I felt guilty for having wounded his artistic temperament and proceeded to clarify -”Sorry sir, we are casual learners and for us, this seems high, but then this is not a market and I cannot bargain with an artist. That is the reason why we said we don’t need the classes. We do not want to put you in an embarrassing situation.”

What came next was really unexpected !!

“How much are you willing to pay?” - he said.

“God !! This is really turning into a conversation at a vegetable market!!”, I thought.

My mom, in the hope of dissuading him, said “3000 for the 3 of us”.

And Mr. Kumar immediately agreed !!

He said “This is Saraswati and let us not bargain much. I had to rent a car to come here, since I had to come all the way from Vadapazhani. This is what I usually charge my other students. Let us agree on this price and start the classes”. I now had a sinking feeling that we were trapped. I also felt uneasy about the fact that he had come all the way from Vadapazhani. Why would a person from Vadapazhani advertise in the local paper for Tiruvanmiyur (which is 15-20 km away)? How can you tell the person delicately that we did not want the lessons! My mom was not looking at me either and the deal was struck.

He had been teaching my brother to pluck the strings of the guitar and he turned to us and said “Let us start with the basic exercises. Shall we sing ‘Sa Pa Sa’?” (Sa, Pa and Sa represent the base note, the middle note and top note in an octave. This is sung first in a class to ascertain the ’shruti’ or pitch of the singers. In Carnatic music, unlike Western Classical Music, pitch is relative.)

I noticed that he did not have a shruti box - a must for music classes, to maintain shruti. He asked me to sing first and I did. And he remarked “Aaha, you sound like a shruti box!!”. I had totally given up on this person and decided that he had no idea about music!! He was resorting to flattery and I totally detested it !! No guru praises the disciple for singing Sa Pa Sa and that too in the first class !!

Then he started singing the sarali varisai - fundamental music sequence involving all the seven notes sung in sequence in different permutations. We sang along. The interesting thing was that we were all singing in one shruti and he was singing in something completely different. It is a very difficult task for a person to sing in a completely different pitch, when someone else is singing in a pitch! It is impossible !! And this man managed to do that. Also, the initial exercises were to be sung in the 1st speed and our man was racing along.

In between he stopped the actual talam (beat) and was generally tapping (and that definitely resembled the way some of my aunts make rotis). After some futile attempts to follow him all of us stopped the talam. My mom, who is ever curious and outspoken stopped him midway and said “Why is your talam different? You did not teach us this one!” and he responded “I am a mridangist also, thats why I tend to switch!”

We took a short break while my mom went to fetch him some coffee. I had already started having doubts about the person’s capacity to sing and wanted to confirm my suspicions. So I hesitatingly asked “Sir, please teach us some small song as it is the first class.”

And the man started thinking and said “The problem is, I am able to recollect only big keerthanais. Ok, let me teach you a very small shloka on Ganapati. It is a very simple one.”

And he sang !! And I cried (inside) and sang (outside)!! Trust me, you have to listen to the song to believe what I am saying !! It was a little more than a nursery rhyme and the teacher sang even that with a lot apaswaram (off-key) !!

We somehow managed to wind up the class and were literally waiting for him to leave. There was silence for exactly one minute and my cousin slowly said, “I don’t know about you, but I was not very convinced.” That was it!! The floodgates opened and we were all talking at the same time. My brother said that when he came in he was breathing heavily, for he had probably walked all the way from the bus stop. Then what was all the rot about renting a car !! We also started laughing uncontrollably ! But after a while I grew really angry! How could a person dare to cheat people like this!! You did not need a degree in music to understand that he was a fraudster !!

The highlight of the entire episode came later !! My mom called him on Monday evening to tell him that we were not interested in the classes as we were not satisfied. The guy simply said ok and disconnected.

In 5 minutes, he called again and said “If not guitar, please take up vocal lessons at least !” and my mother felt sorry and gave him some reason about me going onsite again etc.

The guy did not hesitate and said “But what about yesterday’s class? You need to pay me for it.”

My mom said “But you did not teach us anything!! We were singing along with you and you did not even bother to correct us when we went wrong. ”

Mr. Kumar said, “You need to pay at least Rs.250 for my conveyance”.

And my mom said “The max I am willing to give is Rs. 50 for your bus charge” (I can’t control my laughter!!)

And the guy thought for a minute and said “But I did not take a bus, I took a car!! I will think of this as a donation. I can’t spend 100 bucks to get 50 from you!!”

And my mom thanked him for his generosity and put the phone down unable to control herself!!

On Sunday and Monday, I was beside myself with frustration. I had lost all hopes of my ever learning music well enough. And I simply could not digest the fact that people were capable of cheating in this fashion.

I later had to convince myself to stop this foolish search for teachers. I believe in rebirths and the concept of karma. For the kind of life I have been leading I am undoubtedly going to be reborn. So I am now thinking that I will spend the rest of this birth in only listening to music and devote the next birth to learn it !!

*Not to be construed as demeaning Kishore Kumar or film music. This just represents the usual mentality of Carnatic Music enthusiasts.

When stenches turned to fragrances !

Do you believe in mind power? I do !

The human mind is capable of a lot of things. Our sense organs can be controlled by our minds. Food that you would normally go nowhere near on a regular day, tastes tolerable when you are a little hungry and wonderful when you are starving. Its all in the mind my friend(s).

Airports are horrible places. The only place worse than an airport is the inside of an aeroplane itself. Yet it looked like paradise on earth for me that day ! The day had finally arrived. Like a disgraced man fleeing his country, I was leaving the country of abundance in the most furtive manner possible. Call me superstitious or by any other name, but I didn’t want to go through the entire pain of informing everyone about my departure, only to call them a week later from another state in the same country and explaining the reason for my staying back.

Like all times, my olfactory organ was functioning at its peak capacity. The stench slowly shifted from that of rancid butter from popcorn (America’s national ‘low-fat’ snack, that is eaten in buckets !) to some sort of burnt flesh in the airport restaurants, from that strange undefinable, initially-intolerable, gradually-acceptable smell inside the plane, to the indescribable-yet-sort-of-pleasant smell of the hand-wash inside the airplane restroom (what an economy in space !!), from the gut-wrenching smell of airplane food (garlic to cover all rotten smells and also to numb the cells responsible for the sense of smell!) to the sickening and torture-inflicting stench of sweat of the co-passenger who had boarded in London and was blissfully unaware of the havoc she was causing on people’s sense organs and who probably thought that deodorants are only for models on TV. And finally the most welcome stench of all - the stench of sweat released by numerous bodies tired of over 24 hours of travel and suddenly exposed to the now-infamous Chennai’s hot and humid weather! The smell of anticipation of meeting the loved ones, of fear of receiving all baggage in a safe condition, of tension to get through the green channel, without being detected for that DVD player hidden safely in layers of clothing, and finally the lovely smell of the outside - a heady mixture of petrol, people and love ! With that smell , I knew I was finally home !!

Vanity control

A year or two ago, one of my nieces was telling me about her kid sister - about how the eight year old knew exactly what she wanted in terms of clothes, that she would visit the store and demand for a certain style of garment in a certain colour - the one Kareena Kapoor wears in the first part of the song XXXX in the movie YYYY etc. It was funny for sure, but I was also surprised at how fashion-conscious our kids have become when compared to what we were as kids ! This whole thread of memory was probably born from reading another post on beauty consciousness among today's kids.

When I was young, the world around us made sure we were never vain about our looks. First, our school and the school-uniform they strictly enforced. Girls were to wear a navy blue skirt and a white shirt. That sounds nice enough, doesn't it? Well that was not all, we also had to wear red ribbons on our hair and not in any manner we thought which would reduce the blow of having to wear red ribbons - but with 2 braids that were folded such that the red ribbons looked more like brightly painted horns on two-sides of our heads. To complete the costume, we had to wear black shoes and white socks. I sometimes think that the uniform was formulated by a group of people who had varied tastes and the uniform was actually a kind of compromise to accede to everyone's individual requests and tastes!! The interesting thing about the whole thing is, that never once, during my school days or even later when I was at college, did I ever stop to think how ridiculous the costume was!! In fact, I rarely bothered to change my hairstyle or remove the ribbons in the evenings, when I would go out and play. Not just me, none of us at school ever thought it was uncool to wear a totally uncoordinated costume to school or about going to school with hair soaked in oil.

The next influence was of course our families. Anyone born in a family with sisters/brothers know the torture that we go through in the name of uniformity. Our parents thought it would reduce competition and my sister and I would always be dressed in clothes that looked exactly alike ! If I call it torture, I can imagine the plight of my sister, who had to wear her clothes that were identical to mine and then My clothes, which I had outgrown, thus reliving the pain!! As kids, we did not suffer from any sort of pride in accepting hand-me-downs from our other relatives, which the relative always assured were 'never-worn' and were 'like-new'. How a 'never-worn' dress had multiple hand-sewn patches never struck my mind till then! And we didn't care!! After all, we got to wear what grown-up girls wore (salwar-kurtas) instead of the drab skirts that we had to wear then !!

Make-up was a strict no-no. My mother would braid my hair and fold the plaits with red-ribbons (later we got the 'luxury' of black ribbons too), would put kajal in my eyes with two tails at the edge and would say that I looked like her favourite heroine in black and white movies. I was a child and would innocently take it as a compliment and would return to play. Only later, after growing up did I realize that this 'favourite heroine' was actually middle-aged and looked ridiculous with her two braids and a saree. My mother meant well of course !

The influence of media was not as much as it was today. Our heroines were seldom fashion-icons. If we had to look like our heroines, we had to eat more and exercise less (I am talking about our well-fed south-indian heroines). Their fashion-sense, if it can be called that, if imitated would have people around us in splits. Most heroines I remember from then wore really shiny and gaudy looking clothes and pink or other horrid looking hair-pins right next to the partition in their hair (wigs). But then, the movies that we got to watch (about 52 a year), were the outdated ones that played on Sunday evenings in DD, where the heroines had a permanent bump on their head and 3-4 inches of makeup on their faces. Some styles were probably copied by a few, but this never reached children. We were allowed to dress as badly as we wanted.

This was till an actress called 'Nadiya' was introduced to tamizh movies. She was considered hip and cool and became a style icon. As I said, our exposure to movies was still very limited, but we had the other kids talking about hair-styles and skirts and ear-rings named after her!! My most funny memory of our 'fashion-sense' is about some plastic ear-rings that my aunt had bought for us in Chennai. To us, in the small town Coimbatore, Chennai was the fashion-center. My aunt had bought these ear-rings on the suburban train and had sent them through my mom. The colours ranged from bright yellow, to copper sulphate blue. There were a couple that would reach till my shoulder and I used to wear these regularly to school, not in the least bothered about how I looked!! I must have looked like a walking rainbow !!

But coming to think of it, we were not assaulted from every direction with 'fashion-shows' or movies with heroines who looked like their food-plate was snatched from them even before they started eating and clothes like they were dragged out of the bathroom before dressing up! Eating was encouraged and mothers repeatedly told us that we were growing children, who had to be fed like pigs !! Exercising was never enforced, because we were playing the whole evening, after school. At our school, we had some wonderful teachers who never believed in homework and who thought that the child's time spent in school was good enough and that homework was an unnecessary burden.

Clothes and accessories were necessary evils, nothing more and were only distractions from the more important concept of playing and having fun. We were not subjected to peer pressure when it came to appearance. We did not have televisions and magzines talking about losing 20lbs in 20 days or how actress A achieved size zero! We didn't care about size and thought that to pose for a photograph, the red lipstick that we had literally smeared over our lips (and around it) and the very obvious layer of powder were necessary and had to be washed off afterwards !!They were truly to me, days of innocence !!

Of Red Rocks and Vortexes

No, you did not read it wrong ! Don't pride yourself on catching me making a grammatical error !! I know that the usual plural form of Vortex is vortices, but not so in Sedona, AZ. You will hear people talking about spiritual 'vortexes' in Sedona and that is where I went on Saturday!

Sedona is about 2 hours from Phoenix and is known for its breathtaking sandstone formations called the Red Rocks of Sedona.These red rocks were formed due to deposits of iron oxide over layers of sandstone and limestone over millions of years, that later started rusting giving the rocks a bright red colour. We started pretty late in the morning and like all drives that initiate from Phoenix, found the landscape really dull and boring with endless rows of cacti lining both sides of the freeway. However we did not need any board announcing Sedona to us, the town announced itself. All of a sudden, we saw red rocks all over. Nature or God, depending on what you want to call the creator had literally painted the town red. Even the soil on the road had turned from a drab brown colour to bright red !!

To spirituality and metaphysics enthusiasts, Sedona has a little more to offer. Sedona supposedly houses 4 energy vortexes. These are supposedly places of high cosmic energy concentration. Spiritual energy is supposed to flow upwards from the earth much like a vortex. Many people claim to experience a heightened awareness of spirituality on visiting these vortexes (that's how they are called here, instead of vortices. All my friends and most of you who have read my posts regularly (Pride, thy name is Rathi !!), know that I am anything but subtle and sensitive! I have been initiated in Reiki, but have never felt the 'tingling sensation' that most Reiki practitioners claim to experience. Similarly, with TaiChi too, I have heard my fellow students talking about 'out-of-the-body' experience or energy flowing through them while practising TaiChi. Not so with me. I generally tend to smile stupidly (I like to think it is mysterious), when people talk about such experiences and usually leave the other person confused about what I felt (if I did feel anything at all!). So I was hoping to experience this energy that everyone was talking about and chose to visit one of the energy vortexes called The Bell Rock in Sedona.

We parked our car a little distance away from Bell Rock and took the trail that went around the rock, which is actually a misnomer, since it is more a hill than a rock ! It was quite chilly that day and I was cursing myself for having believed weather.com on the weather forecast ! While I was dressed in jeans and t-shirt and was cursing the weather, I saw many mountain bikers who wore shorts and sleeveless tees and were biking away to glory !

There are multiple beliefs about the energy vortexes. Each energy vortex is supposed to enhance a certain kind of energy within a person. One of them is believed to increase energies associated with strength (and hence called masculine energy) and power. A second one is supposed to enhance the feminine side of a person, like kindness, goodness etc (Men please note !!). The other two are supposed to increase the balance, i.e., both energies. Bell Rock is supposedly the vortex that works on improving the balance in the two types of energies. This worked for me, for I have no idea whether I am strong (I would like to think so), or good (I hope others think so !) and increasing one of them alone would have made me deficient in the other one!

I had done my homework about the place and had read that the juniper trees that grew here were twisted from the trunk, thus proving the theory of energy vortexes. My main aim during the short trek was to take pictures of at least one such tree. I managed to find not one but quite a few of them ! I would have given anything to be able to climb the cliff/hill/mountain, but had to satisfy myself by climbing over a few rocks to get a better close-up of a beautifully twisted juniper tree. Unlike trails in the Grand Canyon which are treacherous and scary, these trails were easy and safe, because they were on the base of the hill. There were people who were climbing the mountain though. I saw at least 3 people on the top of the hill - 2 seemed to be walking on the hill while the 3rd guy seemed to be actually climbing ! Since I was with my mother and there was no one else to whom I could show off my 'courage' I did not attempt or pretend to attempt the climb up the hill.

We chose a flat rock on the way to sit down and practise reiki to see if we 'felt' anything different. Unfortunately my mom is as (in)sensitive as me and the result was that we were sitting with our eyes closed palms open for a while, hoping something would happen. My palms became warm, but that could also have been because of the sun ! Meanwhile I badly wanted to open my eyes and glare at the hikers who were passing and were commenting about us (I think it was about us, because I heard them saying, 'it scares me', 'don't go near' etc. ! I remember thinking, How dare they say that !! Bloody racists !! etc), but had to control myself because I wanted my mother and those idiots to think I was deep in meditation !!

My original plan was to go to the Red Rock state park after this trek and trek there for some more time till sunset and then return after the sunset, but this trek had tired us, not because it was a tough one, but because -

• we were out of shape
• it was quite sunny
• and frankly I was quite tired of seeing red rocks everywhere !!

I realize now that I missed out the sunset which is supposed to be glorious. I plan to go again soon and catch the sunset in one of the other vortexes and see if that one has any effect on me.
Below are some pictures from the trip. I am sorry for the number of pictures of the juniper trees. I was fascinated by them and could not stop clicking away !!

1. The crop of the state

2. The lone climber - a long shot


3. The lone climber - a closer shot


4. A close-up of the bell rock - makes me think of red cheese !


5. I call these Shaivaiite mountains - note the streak of vibhuti on them !


6. One of the many twisted juniper trees

7. Another one ! - I climbed on a few rocks to click this one.


8. And Another !!


9. The trail with the play of light


10. The Bell Rock


11. Red Rocks all the way !






12. A twisted family !



13. My mother thought this rock formation was like Lord Ganesha !


14. The trail



15. Picture perfect

King of Suspense !

For a long long time, I thought Alfred Hitchcock was a writer !! In fact, I almost made a fool of myself when I was in class 8 by going to a library in Hyderabad and wanting to show off in front of my cousins, asked the librarian if he had any books by Hitchcock. The only reason I was saved that day was the librarian was ignorant either and thought I was a child prodigy or something, who read books by unknown authors !! Once again fate saved me from disgrace!

I started watching some of Hitchcock’s movies, without knowing they were his. ‘Suspicion’, ‘I Confess’, ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Vertigo’ were some of the first few movies that I watched. My casual interest turned to admiration and later to a sort of obsession, thanks to the roadside DVD vendor in front of the Wipro office in Chennai. For a mere 50 bucks, this guy was selling DVDs that had 5-6 movies! I jumped with joy when I found some movies that I had already watched and bought 3-4 of them. The more I watched them, the more I loved them and my respect for Hitchcoke grew exponentially.

For some reason, in our country, at least in the past, ‘good cinema’ was usually a bad thing. I talk from my personal experience of watching almost every single movie screened on Sunday afternoons in DD, in the regional cinema section. If the movie was touted as a National Award winner, it was bound to be very very boring. Today when I get appreciated on my patience and tolerance level, I remember these movies with gratitude. I remember a Malayalam award winning movie, where the director spent about 15 minutes of screen time on showing the hero’s morning activities. Hero wakes up, brushes his teeth, takes a bowl of oil, applies it to his hair, and later body.. you get the drift.

Why am I talking about this? Its because I realized after watching some of Hitchcock’s movies, that good cinema can also mean interesting cinema. Hitchcock or Hitch as he was fondly called made movies that were critically acclaimed and were commercial successes. Although his favourite genre was suspense and thrillers, his movies had a lot of humour, mostly the gallows variety.

Hitchcock usually adapted his screenplays from short stories. It is also said that he usually roped in the original writer to collaborate on writing the screenplay. His movies had razor-sharp dialogues and a brilliant background score. Many of the techniques that he introduced in film-making are still used today and some of his movie sequences like the shower sequence in ‘Psycho’ have achieved cult status today. Movies like ‘Rear Window’ have been referenced in many subsequent movies and modern day remakes like Disturbia have been attempted.

One thing I discovered while watching (or re-watching, if there is such a term) many of his movies, was how well he used the celluloid as a visual medium. I was amazed and still am on watching quite a few sequences that are more than 2-3 minutes long where there is absolutely no dialogue and yet the viewer hardly realizes that. The script is taut and there are no unnecessary sequences. Most refreshingly the climax is usually very crisp and to many of us used to a grand finale for every movie, almost abrupt. That does not mean that they aren’t grand. For instance, the climax of ‘North By Northwest’ was shot at Mount Rushmore (and a set of it); in ‘The Man who knew too much’, there is a brilliant nail-bite inducing sequence of a concert where an assasination attempt happens and so on.

Having said all that, the fact remains that almost all his movies entertain! As a viewer, you don’t have to understand the nuances of film appreciation to appreciate movies by Hitchcock. His movies are first and foremost entertainers. With every watch, you will realize a little more of what has gone into making the movie what it is. I am now watching many of these movies for the 3rd or4th time (and this time the excuse is my mother!!) and I find them getting better with each watch.

Here are some of my personal favourites not necessarily in sequence:

a. Rope - Story of 2 psychopathic homosexual (subtly indicated) people who commit a murder at the beginning of the movie and invite people over for a party to prove a point.

b. Birds - Strange things start happening with a woman. Birds keep attacking her all the time.

c. Psycho - I dont have to talk about this one.

d. Dial M for murder - A husband plots to kill his wife to get her wealth.

e. North By Northwest - An advertising company executive is mistaken for an intelligence agent and abducted.

Coming to think of it, I think the success of his movies were because of the scripts which usually involved ordinary people getting into extra-ordinary situations and most people could relate to it. The actors and their popularity are secondary to the script and Hitchcock made sure that in all his movies, the script ruled !!