Funny Minister!

Politics is not funny - not for those involved nor for those who watch! Politics is ugly, a drain, a necessary evil - the descriptions are endless.

Why then, is political satire so wonderful? Unlike other popular subjects of humour, the popularity of a political satire is directly proportional to the amount of truth in it! The closer it is to reality, the more it makes you laugh!!

My earliest memory of political satire (at least the kind I understood) is cartoon strips by a writer called Satya, in the tamil political magazine ‘Thuglak’. It probably helped Satya, that the editor of the magazine - Cho Ramaswamy, is the king of political satire himself!!

But popular media like movies and rarely TV serials approached politics with seriousness. Politicians were usually portrayed as callous and corrupt men, whose job descriptions included lying, smooth-talking, leering at women in general, raping the hero’s sister (who existed in the movie solely for this) and after having sufficient fun, dying a violent death at the hands of the hero of the movie.

TV serials were even worse. In the days of DD, almost no serial touched upon politics or politicians. Even the daily news was sanitized and doubled up as Travel and Living channel, showing the PM’s latest visit to a foreign country.

I remember that my father used to watch this series called ‘Yes Minister’ late at night (or it was probably 9 or 10 pm, which, at that time was late night to me). My father would keep smiling throughout the episode and the laugh track would play to provide important cues. I was really young and loved showing off my intelligence. But although I tried really hard, I simply could not:

a. Read large books without pictures.

b. Understand a word of ‘Yes Minister’ or ‘Bodyline’.

Later a hindi version of the series also played on TV, called Ji Mantriji. It was then I realized that the issue was not only with the language but also the content. I gave up trying to watch the series and concentrated on the simpler ones.

After more than 2 decades, my cousin mentioned Yes Minister in passing. I was abroad with access to all types of American and British sitcoms. During these years, I had also become a fanatic follower of PG Wodehouse and fallen head-over-heels in love with the works of other British writers like Douglas Adams. I realized that the time had at last come to watch one of the most beloved series of Britain. I finally got the DVDs from Netflix, but could still not watch them then, for (wo)man only proposes, it is God who disposes!! I later watched the series months later. And this time, I was on a roll. I managed to finish all the 3 seasons.

Yes Minister is a series about the newly appointed cabinet minister for the Department of Administrative Affairs (DAA)- a fictional department, Jim Hacker and his daily struggle to carry out his responsibilities against the face of opposition (usually) from the Permanent Secretary - Humphrey Appleby. Stuck between the two is Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley whose loyalty towards the minister is often in conflict with the need to grow in his career of a civil servant.

Throughout the series, Appleby instructs Bernard on the duties of a minister and that of a civil servant. He strongly believes that most ministers effectively govern for 2 years. The first year and a half is spent by the minister in getting a grip on running the government and in coming to terms with the appalling state of the economy (which is hidden from the public and the opposition). The last year and a half is to ensure that status quo is maintained, since getting re-elected and not public welfare is the priority. Effectively the remaining 2 years are the only ones where ministers can govern.

The civil servants on the other hand, are the ones that actually run the government, since they are permanent. Ministers exist to create policies and civil servants are the ones to execute them.

The great things about the series are too many to be written in a paragraph (also, I tend to digress and ramble more when I write in paragraphs!!), so here is my MS-Powerpoint experience at play:

a. Top-notch performances by the lead actors - Paul Eddigton as the well-meaning but confused, publicity loving Hacker suits the role perfectly. (Sir) Nigel Hawthorne as Humphrey Appleby is an absolute delight to watch and hear. The richness of his English and his six-sigma diction is like a breath of fresh air - it is like after listening to non-stop ‘hits’ of Kumar Sanu, you suddenly hear a song in Mohd. Rafi’s inimitable honey-soaked voice!! It is like a feast after a famine!! Let me stop here before my comparisons get more cheesy!! Derek Fowlds as Bernard Woolley is superb and his role is more difficult than those of Hacker and Appleby, since he speaks very little. But when he does, it is so funny that you tend to remember the lines long after the episode ends.

b. Dialogues - What can I say about the dialogues? Terms like razor-sharp, witty, funny etc., seem so trite compared to the awesomeness of the lines. Each of the principal characters has a distinct style of speaking and the writing reflects that wonderfully. (I need to keep a tab on the number of ‘wonderful’s and ‘awesome’s in this post!!). Hacker is a graduate of economics but is notorious for mixing metaphors. The funniest lines occur when Bernard takes a worried Hacker’s mixed metaphors literally and provides explanations on why they cannot be right.

(*Hacker - You have sent me into a typhoon without an umbrella!

Bernard - An umbrella is no use in a wind..

Hacker - Shut up Bernard !!

* Hacker - “Now, listen. I want you to go through the Whip’s office to get to the backbenchers and to the central house, to put a stop to this thing before it starts.”

Bernard Woolley: “I’m awfully sorry to quibble again minister, but you can’t actually stop something before it starts.” (from the episode The Writing on the Wall))

Appleby’s language is aimed at confusing Hacker (not that it is very difficult). His language is circuitous, flowery and usually meaningless. As a rule, he truthfully (mostly) answers Hacker’s questions, and Hacker can get true information, if he asks the right questions!!

The fun here stems from the difference in the way Hacker and Appleby speak - some quotes:

*Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, I have something to say to you which you may not like to hear.

James Hacker: Why should today be any different?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, the traditional allocation of executive responsibilities has always been so determined as to liberate the ministerial incumbent from the administrative minutiae by devolving the managerial functions to those whose experience and qualifications have better formed them for the performance of such humble offices, thereby releasing their political overlords for the more onerous duties and profound deliberations which are the inevitable concomitant of their exalted position.

James Hacker: I wonder what made you think I didn’t want to hear that?
* Jim: Who else is in this department?

Sir Humphrey: Well briefly sir I am the Permanent Undersecretary of State known as the Permanent Secretary, Wooley here is your Principle Private Secretary I too have a Principle Private Secretary, and he is the Principle Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary, directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Undersecretaries and two hundred and nineteen assistant secretaries, directly responsible to the Principle Private Secretaries are Plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Undersecretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Jim: Can they all type?

Sir Humphrey: None of us can type Minister, Mrs McKay types, she’s the secretary.

c. Plot - Every episode is complete in itself and can be viewed separately. Most of the episodes end with usually Appleby saying ‘Yes Minister’, smugly or grudgingly depending on whether he succeeds in having his way or has to accede defeat to Hacker (rare, but happens in a few instances).

I am now looking forward to watching ‘Yes Prime Minister’ next, where Jim Hacker becomes the PM and Humphrey Appleby is elevated in ranks to Cabinet Secretary.The then PM of Britain, Margaret Thatcher was supposedly a big fan of the series. The series was enjoyed by both the public and the politicians. Funnily enough both parties (Labour and Conservative) thought the joke was on the other party although the authors Sir Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lyn were careful not to mention or point to any party specifically!!

After enjoying the series immensely, I chanced upon the book version of the series and now am reading the book. Unlike the TV series, the book is presented as excerpts from Jim Hacker’s diary. Interspersed are memos of Humphrey Appleby (which like all good civil servants, are always written on the margins of a paper, even if the paper is empty) and supposed interviews with Bernard Woolley later. This obviously makes the book funnier in some ways. The TV series depended on the actors abilities (well-placed, I have to admit) to elevate it to a different level altogether, while the book allows for a lot of interjections and comments by the authors and other assorted characters (much like my comments such as this one!). I am mid-way through the book and I thought I owed some explanation to my bursting out laughing during lunch at my desk, although most of you reading this would not have noticed it !!

Note: Some of the quotes were from one of the following sources:

www.somaliaonline.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/6/13223

www.uta.fi/FAST/BIE/BI1/khyesmin.html

www.yes-minister.com/ymseas2b.htm

What you leave behind..

My mother tells me often, that her Chemistry Lab Assistant in college, would frequently tell her (my mother) that her workplace in the lab was an indication of how her kitchen would look.

Coming to think of it, the condition of a place after a person has left it is a better indicator of the person than when she/he was resident there. As many mystery novelists will tell you, many criminals gain important information about you by going over what you leave behind inside the ATM room than by what you keep in your purse. Police world-over have discovered important clues from the scene of crime because the perpetrator of a crime supposedly leaves behind something about himself almost always.

Forget such grand things. I recently moved to my new space in a new office that is closer to the city than the previous one. I picked one of the deserted places and moved in. Well, partially moved in, because the draws here are still full of papers, including wedding invitations dating back to 2005 and 2003. It is possible that the junk does not entirely belong to the previous occupant, but is a legacy passed on over generations.

As a result of the junk, my belongings are still in my car although it has been more than 3 months since I moved in. I have not yet had the heart or inclination to clean up the junk or to throw away the papers, since somewhere deep inside, I am worried that these papers may mean a lot to someone else (plus I hate cleaning in general and cleaning others mess in particular!!).

Interestingly I am faced with a similar situation at home. After a short spell at a different locality with my brother and his wife, we have moved back to our old home. Our last tenant has vacated the house, on paper. But the remains of his life here stare at us from every corner of the house - from the poster of Mickey Mouse, to the rusted flower-vase on the stair-case, from the completely ignored and extremely dirty balcony (which he and his family never entered in the entire 1.5 years!!), to two boxes full of junk (to us) and a gas stove on the loft. As if these were not enough, he has also left behind the broken front portion of the car in the parking slot, where it serves as a threat to my car every day. His cupboards and study table had decorated the shared parking lot till last week.

When I first vacated a house in the US, I left behind some old furniture, simply because I did not know at that time, what to do with them. I thought I was doing a favour to the house owner - not only was I vacating his apartment, I was leaving free stuff for him !! The house-owner obviously did not think so!! As a result, my initial deposit was never returned, since moving the furniture out was considered part of the cleaning expenses.

Now, thinking about the drawer full of junk papers and the stuff we had in our house till a week back, I understand what a frustrating experience it must have been for the next occupant to find my stuff lying in the apartment. What may be memories to me, are just garbage to him! I know what I think about the tenant and the previous occupant(s) of the seat at workplace and I really do not want anyone to think the same about me!!

Entering a kitchen which resembles a town ravaged by a hurricane (yes, I have seen one!!), thanks to the previous cook, with all the jars of salt, pepper, chilli powder, the lighter, multiple plates, ladles and pans etc on the kitchen-counter turns me off completely. As a result, I strictly follow a simple rule - replace something immediately after use (it is also because I have zero trust on my memory to do it later!!).

Extending it to the workplace, a clean table gives a good impression to the others. A clean drawer is not only an indicator of an organized mind, but also shows that you are considerate. I am not known as the most organized or cleanliness conscious person in the world. But I frequently check my drawers to check the papers that I have accumulated so far and throw away most of them. This practice is more to make place for really important things than to keep the place clean. This also helps when you have to move to a different location, as you do not have to clean up the desk again, since everything is important.

So, leave behind good memories if possible. Take the other things with you or throw them in the trash before leaving. Do this as a favour and the next occupant’s blessings will be with you!

Bizarre is Funny!!

Now all of you- Ok, Most of you- Forget it, some of you know how I love funny stuff; about how I rave about PG Wodehouse, Kalki, Devan, Douglas Adams and Sujatha.

I envy these people who can make others laugh. It is the MOST difficult thing in life, don’t you think? With entertainment overload, two things have become very difficult for creators of any kind:

a. Scaring People - Fiction has almost lost all its ability to evoke fear these days for reality is scarier almost all the time!

b. Making people laugh - Now there are channels dedicated to comedy, but people are just weary. They watch it like they watch news. Forget making you laugh, many of the funny sequences don’t even make you smile!!

There was a time when a clown could make people laugh merely by slipping on a banana peel. Then talkies came and comedians spoke smart dialogues to make people laugh. Later one guy started hitting another and people laughed and after that one guy constantly got hit by others and people laughed. It takes a different kind of genius to make people laugh (and it requires a little less ego on my part to actually laugh at a joke )!!

Different things make us laugh at different times. One thing that made us laugh when we were kids seems extremely annoying when we turn into adults (and I am assuming this happens sooner or later in all our lives, although for some later than some others !!). On the contrary, some things that seemed pointless or sometimes even sad, may make you laugh a few years then on.

Bizarre and weird stuff may make us wonder, or may scare us, but very rarely they are also funny. Of late, I see myself drawn more and more to such twisted humour. Here are 3 such movies, where the bizarre situations make you laugh in spite of yourself.

a. Arsenic and Old Lace -

For a lot of us, who have always associated death/murder/torture etc with gloom (which it actually is!!), a movie where they are used to comic effect is actually a pleasant surprise. I am not talking about movies/books, where the situation is sad or gory and one takes pleasure in that, for that would only mean the person is some kind of a sadist.

The 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace is a good example. This stars my other favourite hero of B&W English Movies - Cary Grant (the first one being James Stewart). Remarkably handsome, Cary Grant was great in comedy too. He, like John Cleese, was wonderfully funny with his facial contortions and physical humour.

Arsenic and Old Lace is the story of Mortimer Brewster and his two ’sweet’ aunts Abby and Martha. Mortimer, a chronic bachelor, finally falls in love and gets married to Elaine Harper, his neighbour. Mortimer and Elaine return home to get ready for their honeymoon to Niagara. While visiting his aunts he finds a corpse and thinks his crazy brother Teddy (who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt) is responsible. He tells his aunts that his brother must be hospitalized before he kills more people. The women explain to him that they and not Teddy were responsible for the murder. In fact they consider the murder an act of charity towards the elderly and lonely gentleman! They go on to reveal that they have already murdered 12 other lonely people by poisoning their wine with arsenic and a few other poisons!! All the corpses have been buried in the basement, where Teddy thinks he is digging the ‘Panama Canal’. Matters are further complicated when Mortimer’s long lost brother - the cruel murderer Jonathan and his accomplice arrive at the house to dump their latest murder victim.

If you thought the plot sounded more like that of a murder mystery or a slasher flick, you need to definitely watch the movie. It is a laugh riot from start to finish!! The aunts are adorable and the Teddy character is insanely funny! All actors seem to have realized that they are a part of a madcap comedy and have shed all inhibitions and are happily crazy - a must for any comedy movie)!!

b. Ek Chalis ki last local - This is a 2007 Hindi film. This is one of the best dark comedies to have been made in Bollywood (a long long time after Kundan Shah’s brilliant Jaane bhi do yaaro)!! This movie once again proves that Abhay Deol is one of the most dependable actors in Hindi cinema. Say what you want about his acting skills etc, his choice of roles is simply superb and unmatched. Look at his list so far and you will find that every movie is unique!! Neha Dhupia is a mystery woman in Hindi cinema. She is not beautiful, she cannot act much, but she features in most of the offbeat movies in Hindi cinema!

Ek Chalis ki last local, is the story of Nilesh, a call center executive, who misses that last local train (at, what else, 1:40 am) and has to while his time away till the first train in the morning. He meets Madhu (Neha Dhupia) who has also missed the train and both decide to loiter around till dawn. The people they meet, the experiences they undergo form the rest of the story. Trust me, it is very hard to describe the story as it is a series of incidents and every time you think you have figured out what is going to happen next, you are thrown a surprise twist!! If your mind is as twisted as mine, you are likely to enjoy this movie!!

c. No Smoking - Well, how do I even begin to describe this movie! This 2007 movie by Anurag Kashyap cannot be explained at all. Many film-buffs read a lot of philosophy in the movie. People found subtexts for each scene. The news about the movie, more than the movie itself created so much hype, that I was a little intimidated by it all.

I am known for being a complete knucklehead when it comes to ‘intellectual’ movies. My rants against unintelligible pseudo-intellectual climax-less french movies are well known (among a couple of cousins!). But a cousin who knew something about me recommended this movie. Added to this motivation was the fact that I had watched AK’s Black Friday and thought it was simply brilliant. If a moviemaker could turn a facts based book on the Mumbai riots into a gripping movie, it surely meant he had a lot of promise!!

As I started watching No Smoking, I decided to clear my mind from all preconceived notions about the movie and its stars. Frankly I am not a fan of John Abraham - for his looks or his ‘acting’ talent!! I thoroughly enjoyed the movie!! Seriously, I had initially thought (from the title) that the movie was about the evils of smoking but the movie took me by surprise of the pleasant variety!! I could almost visualize AK convincing the producers about the ‘moral’ of the movie, all the while laughing evilly to himself!! I even remember the interviews by John Abraham prior to the release of the movie - how the story impressed him and how it was ‘not preachy’ but still had a moral!! Who knows what he understood of the story when it was narrated to him!! Maybe he understood it all and he was part of the con or maybe he didn’t understand anything and simply surrendered to the director’s will!!

The end of the movie was a little confusing, but overall the movie was very engaging and funny. If I tell you the parts I found funny, you may recommend a psychiatrist for me! Seriously the fact that one of the punishments for smoking include cutting off the person’s finger. If that sounds cruel on paper, you have to see it on screen!! Ranvir Shourey, that superbly spontaneous actor plays Abbas Tyrewala and there is a B&W sequence (titled ‘Kyon ki bachpan bhi kabhi naughty tha’) involving John and Ranvir, supposedly in their teen-age, that is wickedly funny!

Much as I try to describe how much these movies made me laugh, it is difficult to express it all in words. Try watching them and don’t blame me, if you don’t like them, because I warned you, somewhere in the post, that my mind is growing more and more twisted these days!!

Who do you respect more?

How many of the below statements can you relate to?

a. A person I know, once commented that since my mom was a home-maker, she was in all probabilities addicted to daily-soaps and did nothing ‘useful’. (Fact: No soaps except the ones that produce bubbles, in our home.)

b. Another person I know, is quick to dismiss opinions/suggestions offered by her mother-in-law - a homemaker, on issues like health, diet, finance etc. She prefers to ask her trusted circle consisting of working women for opinions.

c. My male relatives/friends, speak to me about ’serious’ things like the economy, bank interest rates etc rather than my mother. However, if my brother or dad is around, they prefer to speak to him.

d. A friend, I know, would chat endlessly with me on trivial topics, but she used to shrug off any opinions I offered on any topic and would agree only to what her friends/relatives, who were chartered accountants said on the topic. These topics ranged from the recipe for fried rice to whether a barometer measured temperature or pressure.

e. A person I know, who uses the term sophistication at least once a day, embarrassed me in public one day, asking me point-blank what I earned!

f. All of us at home, tend to talk down to my mother once in a while. Our tone becomes patronizing and we brush away any opinion she offers on work related stuff.

Why am I talking about some seemingly unrelated stuff?

Have you ever noticed how, that for all the education we have and the work experience we have, many of us mentally rank people and speak to them accordingly? We have already made up our minds on the superiority or inferiority of the comments from people from each rank and have, in many instances, dismissed away a response even before it leaves the mouth of the speaker.

The ranking would probably look like this:

1. Working men - with a professional degree (like Doctors/Engineers/Chartered Accountants etc)
2. Working men - Other professionals (Banks/IT etc)
3. Men who do not work (Educated)
4. Working women - with a professional degree (like Doctors/Engineers/Chartered Accountants etc)
5. Working women - others
6. Women - Homemakers - College educated/English speaking
7. Men who do not work (Uneducated)
8. Women-Homemakers - Non-English speaking/Uneducated

I am not saying that we do it consciously, out of a superiority complex or any such thing. This classifications happens at the sub-conscious level and you can notice it in the slight straightening of the back, craning of the neck, frequent glances at the listener expecting acknowledgment/approval by the speaker. The degrees of straightening/craning and frequency of glancing changes with the rank of the listener. I have seen the same speaker turn oblivious to my mother’s presence once I enter the conversation and later ignore me completely once my father and later brother start talking!!

Somewhere deep inside, we still associate education with class and sophistication. Not just education, we pay more attention to who is saying something rather that what is being said. Even men, who do not insist that their spouses work, tend to speak and listen with more respect to working women than their home-maker wives.

Having had the luxury of a home-maker for a mother, a science graduate, I have, with age understood and admired the degree of intelligence she displays right from planning for the month’s groceries, to handling guests, from packing my bags to accommodate enough grocery to last for my entire on-site stay, while still not exceeding airline baggage norms, to designing my clothes based on what she sees others wearing during that season, from theorizing how Dashavataram (not the movie) relates to Darwin’s theory to studiously noting down new recipes from the TV.

I have grown up seeing my father-a science graduate, learn more and more about computers and financial investments all by himself, so much that today, a few neighbours approach him for free advice on investment decisions.

I live in awe of my 82 year old aunt, who was married off at the tender age of 14 and who taught herself English, Hindi and Carnatic music, in spite of an oppressive atmosphere at her husband’s house, and who to this day, reads the entire newspaper from start to finish.

I see so many other people around me, who may not have gone to college or school, who may not have worked in an office, but are great in their own ways and I realize that class and sophistication are just words that mean nothing. True class has nothing to do with education or wealth or occupation. It is something deeper, something you are probably born with and something that cannot be taught in any school or college!

What a Wonderful life !!

Ever wondered why you were born?

Ever been so frustrated in life, that all you wanted to do, was to drop everything and hide yourself from the world?

Ever felt so depressed, that you hoped that the past few years in your life never happened?

Ever wished you could go back in time and change every single action in your life?

The hero of the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ - George Bailey, feels all the above and more. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, you are told that George Bailey is contemplating suicide. What follows for the next 2 hours is a story of hope and eternal optimism.

‘It’s a Wonderful life’, - a 1946 film by Frank Capra, is one of my all-time favourites. In fact, I love the movie so much that I watch it at least once a year. More often than not, I cite the reason that I am introducing the movie to someone else. Two days back, it was my sister, who was my excuse to watch this awesome movie again. It stars one of my beloved actors of B&W English cinema - James Stewart (the other being Cary Grant).

The movie is some sort of fantasy, but apart from a pudgy looking ‘angel’, without wings, you may not find any other fantastic creatures!

The story is deceptively simple. George Bailey, our hero is on the verge of jumping into the river. God (yes, you read it right), summons one of his angels - Clarence AS2 (Angel Second Class) and gives him the responsibility of saving George. He also briefs Clarence about George’s life so far and the events that have led him to consider suicide.

The flashback sequence (as narrated by God) starts with George with his brother Harry and a few more boys, playing with a sled in the snow. By accident, Harry skids and falls inside the cracked ice pond and George does not think twice before saving him. Harry is saved but George falls ill and loses his hearing on one ear.

He later works for a pharmacist and one day, when the pharmacist receives a telegram on his young son’s death, saves the pharmacist from a grave mistake.

Young George grows up to become James Stewart, a young man, who dreams of leaving Bedford Falls, the town he grows up in. He dreams of traveling to different parts of the world, but circumstances force him to stay. George’s father who has been running the ‘Building and Loan’ company, is frequently threatened by the local bigwig Potter. Potter already owns most businesses in Bedford Falls and is irritated with George’s father for giving loans to the poor in the town to build their homes instead of renting apartments from Potter.

Time moves on - George gets married to his childhood sweetheart Mary, his brother goes to college and returns with a wife. George’s chance leave Bedford Falls increasingly becomes remote, especially after his father dies. George has children and is loved by the townspeople for his good nature. He is stuck with his father’s company.

One day, due to cruel twist of fate, George’s uncle loses the money that he was supposed to deposit in the bank, during a chance encounter with Potter inside the bank. The bank’s examiner and federal officials (called by Potter) reach George’s house assuming he has swindled people’s money. George is crestfallen and reaches out to Potter for help. Potter dismisses him off saying that the only thing that George has as collateral - his insurance policy, is worth nothing till he is alive.

George decides to commit suicide and it is at this point that Clarence comes into the picture (pun unintended!!). Clarence jumps inside the water instead and cries for help and George jumps in to save him. Later when both of them wait inside a cabin for the clothes to dry, Clarence tells him that he is an angel and that he had been sent by God to ensure that George does not throw away God’s greatest gift to him - his life. George, obviously thinks Clarence is crazy and refuses to believe him. He mocks him and asks him if Clarence can lend him the 8000 USD to save him instead. Clarence responds saying that they did not use money ‘up there’ and George answers with a smirk ‘I thought so. Well, it comes pretty handy down here!!’.

George then says bitterly that he wishes he had never been born and Clarence grants him that wish. George then gets a chance to see the lives of his family and friends without him in their lives. Harry dies in the accident, their mother becomes a bitter woman, their house becomes a lodge, his friend Violet becomes a prostitute, his wife turns to an old maid with no one to love her and the town is fully owned by Potter and is called Pottersville. George realizes his mistake and begs Clarence to take back his wish.

He rushes back home, happy to be alive. Meanwhile his wife, who has found out about the trouble, has already approached George’s friends, customers, neighbours etc. While the policemen wait to arrest George, the whole town walks in for the Christmas party and everybody contributes some money to bail George out. Seeing the amount of goodwill and love George has in the town, even the bank examiner and the policemen contribute! Clarence wins his wings due to the success of his mission.

Performances are uniformly good. James Stewart manages to look youthful and carefree in the first half of the movie and slowly transforms to the disappointed family man, with 4 kids, caught in the drudgery of a thankless business. Donna Reed as Mary Bailey is the sunshine of George’s life. It seems so believable that with love, even deserted mansions can be transformed to love and for all the beauty and fragility of Mary, you can easily see that she runs the house and keeps George motivated by being a pillar of strength.

If the movie belonged to an actor, I think that would be Lionel Barrymore, who plays Henry F Potter (not related to Harry Potter!!). Potter is one of the most interesting villain characters to be ever written. At the time I am writing this post, Potter ranks 6th in the list of Top 50 villains. Potter is greedy and nasty. His smile is enough to convince you that he is a fox in the garb of a man. All credit goes to Lionel Barrymore for portraying this character wonderfully.

It is very surprising but the movie was supposedly a failure when it released. Over the years, ‘It’s a Wonderful life’ has become a cult classic and a Christmas time favourite even after more than 60 years of its release!! And that says a lot about the movie!! Frank Capra is known for making feel-good movies with a message and most of them have been remade in many languages. Among his other movies are ‘It happened one night’ (copied by the original DVD ripper - Mahesh Bhatt, as ‘Dil Hai ki Manta Nahi’), ‘You can’t take it with you’, ‘Mr Smith goes to Washington’ (again starring a wonderfully naive James Stewart) etc.

In life and in movies, I prefer the approach that all people are basically good at heart and would not willfully cause harm to others. In the movie, apart from Potter’s character, which seems irredeemable, all the other characters are basically good at heart. Situations may make them mean or rude, but in their hearts they mean no harm.

Agreed, the message is obvious and the story not too realistic, but the strange thing is, every single time I watch this movie, I choke with emotion during the climax sequence, although I know exactly how George Bailey will be saved (Interestingly, my sister said there were tears in her eyes too during this sequence, so I am not weird!!). With so much negativity surrounding us in the form of news and entertainment, movies like ‘It’s a Wonderful life’ somehow reinforces my faith in mankind and makes me believe that, in spite of what media would like me to believe, there are more good people in the world than bad and that all good deeds always pay off!

Arrested Development

How do you describe a series like ‘Arrested Development’? Words like ‘Funny’, ‘Rib-tickling’, ‘Smart’ etc seem so inadequate!!

I was getting restless after watching dark, brooding movies and comedies like Seinfeld and Everybody loves Raymond over and over again. I needed something different - something like, well, like nothing I had seen till then!! Something, that could make me marvel at the creator’s intelligence, something that would make me go ‘Wow’! My cousin mentioned about the series a couple of times. He told me it was one of the best series he had ever seen, that it was very funny etc. Although he owned the DVDs, I never felt like watching it.

One weekend, he brought the DVDs along to my place and I told myself that I would watch one episode. In the end I had watched a third of the first season (about 6 episodes) back to back, non-stop and I didn’t want it to stop, although my cousin and his wife were getting groggy!

Thus began my love affair with the series, which I think is the best I have seen in my life. Unlike other popular comedy sitcoms that are episodic, this was a series that revolved around a single story thread. I had not seen any of the actors’ performances before (except maybe that of Jason Bateman in Juno) and I was blown over by the performances. I spotted many of them in movies later though.

The story is about the Bluth family, a wealthy dysfunctional family, that is made up some colourful and really dark characters like George Bluth Sr, his wife Lucille, sons Gob Bluth, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), Buster Bluth and grandson George Michael Jr. Add to this daughter Lindsay Funke, her husband Tobias Funke and daughter Maeby, and you get one of the funniest and weirdest family in TV history.

What sets the series apart from other sitcoms is not one but many things. The narrative, for instance, is documentary style, with an unseen narrator, offering insights into what the characters say and think throughout the series. The use of hand held camera gives the serial a realistic and interesting look. Acting is top-notch, but what rules is the script. For a comedy, the script is unbelievably intelligent and brilliantly layered. Like wine (or so they say), Arrested Development gets better with time and with every watch. The only movie that I remember having a similar effect is ‘Michael Madana KamaRajan, because I used to discover a new joke with every watch. But while the jokes in the movie were due to the constantly flowing dialogues, Arrested Development works at multiple levels. Several sequences in previous episodes make more sense in later episodes.

The writer Mitchell Hurwitz is nothing short of a genius. As I have said before, it is very very difficult to write 2 genres - Comedy and Thrillers. As we get more and more exposed to movies, books etc from all over the world, the overdose of entertainment makes us more impervious to comedy and the daily newspapers and news footages of murders and carnage have made us immune to bloodshed and thrillers. Writers have to struggle to scare readers and struggle harder to make them laugh. And that is why, a series like Arrested Development, makes me spellbound, by the sheer power of writing behind it.

Sadly, for all its merits, the series had to be ended abruptly in the 3rd season of its run. For all the awards and critical acclaim it garnered, Arrested Development did not get the magical numbers right in the ratings. Today the series is a big hit on DVD and has a cult following (with me being the head of the India chapter!!).

I own very few original DVDs and almost none of them are of TV series. But with one watch of Arrested Development, I ordered the series online and consider it a treasure that can be and will be revisited over and over again.

Some uber cool movies..

As I start writing this, I am silently hoping that the post is not very long. It is not my intent to give a comprehensive list of all cool movies, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation to list out a few that I watched in the last 2-3 weeks.

a. Sankat City (Hindi) - An extremely intelligent and wacky comedy. I kept thinking throughout the movie and later - Just how could anyone think of a plot so circuitous and still manage to keep the movie engaging and entertaining !! One of the better comedies (unlike those churned out by the Ekta Kapoor factory or the unintentionally funny ‘ghost/Nisha Kothari’ movies by RGV). The characters were wonderfully over the top and acting was top-notch!!

b. Alibaba (Tamil) - Now, I would never have thought I would enjoy a tamil movie, made by some obscure guy and featuring 2 new faces who don’t even look all that good - especially if it was touted as ‘India tholaikaatchigalil mudhal murayaga’ (for the first time on Indian Television!!). But this was one of the rare finds that don’t make it big and still have a catchy story line. My only complaint was that the hero looked and acted really bad! But for a direct-to-TV movie (I am just guessing), this was a pretty interesting thriller, except for the usual climax with a lot of senseless ‘dishoom-dishoom’.

c. Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French) - I should really dedicate a separate post for this one. This is the film-adaptation of a french novel of the same name (Le scaphandre et le papillon) and is the awe-inspiring story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, former editor-in-chief of the ‘Elle’ magazine, who as a result of a massive stroke, suffers from a locked-in syndrome, where he can only move a single eyelid. Bauby narrated the entire book in this condition to his transcriber by blinking his eyelid!! The story is wonderful enough, what makes the movie even better is the way it is filmed. Right from the start, we see people around as Bauby would have seen them. I loved a particular sequence where Bauby’s estranged wife comes to meet with him and talks to him and his eyes mist over. You can feel it because the shot of the wife’s face becomes hazy too!! A brilliant movie!!

d. 99 (Hindi) - This was on my list from the time the movie released. Frankly I had not expected it to be as good as it was. The cast comprises of Kunal Khemu, Cyrus Broacha, Soha boring Ali Khan and the amazing Boman Irani. A very interesting script and pretty sharp dialogues made this a very good watch.

e. Kaminey (Hindi) - What do I say that the media has not already said before? Forget performances, the script rocks. Of all the actors, I thought Amol Gupte playing Bhope was just so very cool !! The movie, reminded me a lot of Guy Ritchie’s ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking barrels’ mainly because of the similarity in style and multiple tracks running in parallel. It absolutely rocked!! I simply loved the sequence between Bhope and Mikhail where they keep pretending to shoot each other - it was so surreal and filled with tension. You know both of them are maniacs and you know something is going to go terribly wrong - a brilliant brilliant sequence.

This seems like a great year for Hindi movies. Some really offbeat movies are being made. I hope, for my own sake, that the trend continues!! Meanwhile I still have Quick Gun Murugan, Achamundu Achamundu, Eeram, Sinthanai Sei and a few others lined up!!

And for those, who, like me, cannot stand Yashraj movies, this review is a delight!!