Today I watched one of my favourite movies - Masoom....it was in a way my way of re-living childhood days....... I had seen the movie when I was a child.... and danced innumerable times to the song 'Lakdi ki katti'..... I used to envy the children in that movie because they were always so well dressed and thin! Almost believing that the 'moti' they refer to in th emovie was me!! so much for complexes......other than these silly things I dont remember anything much of the movie.... and hence I decided to watch it again...

and this time the subtle messages were obvious to me... the question of infidility... the illegitimate child.... the relationship between the husband and wife... everything.... the movie is fantastically made by Shekhar Kapur and at every scene he manages to capture the emotions very very well.... as an adult I now understand what the movie was alll about....

Having said that I just could not help but notice the gender biases in the movie... for instance Nasseruddin Shah has 2 daughters in the movie... and his friends constantly chide him about how he doesnt have a son... and the protagonist also keeps wishing for a son.... when he has two very smart intelligent daughters.... and that is somehow used to explain that accepting the illegimate son is good... so that the void of a son can be fulfilled... I wonder whether in modern times this would be acceptable.... for instance what if the illegitimate child was a girl?? would the movie have been differently made?? also there is one character played by Tanuja who is shown as a career woman... at first she is shown as a cigarrett puffing career woman... who is always bold and abrasive... and who speaks her mind but does not fit into society....and ofcourse her husband has left her for another woman! I mean if that was not there in the movie then the movie would not have been complete at all... so a woman cannot be a bold, speak her mind and smoke a ciggy without her husband leaving her..... tch tch... will women never learn?? that seems to be what the movie is asking.....forgive all indiscretions of the man and stay together as a family.........

Its all about the joy of the movies!

Delhi - One of my Fav haunts

London - delayed pictures...

Well what can I say - I 'heart' London too.....

Some things just bring back memories .... the recent Jasmine revolution in Tunisia and the ongoing revolution in Egypt brings back memories of the fall of communism in the early 90s when I was still in school..... At that time television was not as sophisticated as it is today and most often we had to rely on radio to get uptodate news about the events in the world...newspapers were always every exciting those days.... I remember getting lost in the literature .... and I also remember having attempted to keep the newspaper clipping of those days for posterity.... somewhere thinking that I would find immense pleasure in reviewing those headlines again....

This time round I can see the part played by technology in bringing about this revolution..... facebook, twitter, you tube etc are all responsible for bringing so many people together... in a way the millionaire inventors of these applications actually provided a service to the people around the world..... and this time I can see action live on TV... almost as if I am part of the revolution....

I never thot I would see the day when democractic movement would sweep the Arab world..... especially since there was a feeling that generally democracy would not work in that part of the world.... I sure hope we are witnessing the birth of a new form of government in the Arab world.... and I also hope that such a change will bring prosperity to the people ... and once the prosperity comes all forms of violent protests will subside and people will be just busy with making their lives better .....