Chez Moi

It has been quite a while since I saw a film that blew me away but last weekend, I saw one that did just that. I went into it with no expectations, no idea who the actors were and came out absolutely gobsmacked.

I am talking about The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton. Adapted from a novel titled ‘Eizenheim the Illusionist’, the movie opens in this dingy theatre. A man is seated on this rather bare stage, dressed in his shirt sleeves and straining in concentration. There’s a hushed silence as the crowd watches him with bated breath. Within minutes, a wisp of smoke-like substance is seen a few feet away from the man’s fingers and an excited lady in the audience shouts, ‘It’s her, it is her’. A crowd of policemen stomp down towards the stage and the Chief of Police walks on to the stage and arrests the man on the stage. That was when we learn that he is Eisenheim, the master Illusionist.

Inspector Uhl, who’s conducting the investigation then makes his report to the Crown Prince Leopold, who commands the Inspector to find more proof implicating the illusionist. The Inspector starts with the man’s background and we are taken back into the childhood of young Eduard Abromovich, the son of a cabinet maker, growing up in the Viennese countryside. His first brush with magic, according to some, are when he came across a magician sitting by himself, under a tree. The magician, after doing a few sleight of the hand tricks for the young land, vanishes into thin air, along with the tree! The young boy is smitten and practices magic tricks. His father is a cabinet maker, in the employ of the local Duke, whose daughter Sophie falls for Eduard. Of course, this is frowned upon by everyone and the Duke’s men caution Eduard away from the blah blah. But one evening, whilst in Eduard’s secret lair, they hear the guards approaching and panic. Sophie urges Eduard to make her disappear but try as he might, he is unable to do so. The guards come in and take her away and that is the last we see of young Eduard.

He reappears many, many years later in Vienna as Eisenheim the Illusionist and we learn that he has been travelling all over the world, ending up in the Far East, where he is reputed to have learnt even the Dark Arts. After his first trick, wherein he speeds time up so a fully grown orange bush bearing fruits springs from a pip in front of the audience’s eyes, the Crown Prince wishes to see the performance. When Eisenheim asks for a volunteer for his next trick, the Prince kindly volunteers his lady friend and therein Eisenheim comes faces to face with his childhood sweetheart. Though the lady is reputed to be the future wife of the Crown Prince, Eisenheim and his paramour resume their relationship and pretty soon, the Prince comes to hear of it. Along the way, the illusionist also pisses Leopold off and they have a regular tiff going.

One day when the Prince is drunk, he confronts his lady love, who states she’s leaving him for Eisenheim. An angry tussle ensues, at the end of which, a horse carrying the limp body of Lady Sophie is seen exiting the scene. This is when the movie actually starts. I do not want to let on more about the plot details and spoil it for you but it was a real gripping movie, one that will stay in your memory banks for a good while.

The camera work is astounding - the sepia tone makes it easy for us to transport ourselves to the early 1900’s and the scenery is breathtaking. Cinematographer Dick Pope has made Vienna of the 1920’s look glorious. I am normally not a fan of the flashback kind of movies but this one transported me to pre-World War I days and I loved it!

Amongst the actors, Paul Giamatti as Inspector Uhl does a marvellous job. Edward Norton is quite decent Eisenheim as is Rufus Sewell, as the Crown Prince Leopold. But the real hero in my opinion, is the camera and the man behind it deserves a major pat on the back. The movie ticked a whole lot of boxes for me and is a must-see.

As a child growing up in Madras, I remember my granny telling me every summer during the baking ‘kathiri veyyil’ days (when the sun is reputed to be at its peak) that if I went out of the house, I might come across the dogs that were driven mad by the heat. Of course, I made sure I stayed put inside the house, all the while looking out of the window for any stray mad dogs, rather like Scout.

Why am I thinking of mad dogs now, you wonder. Well, in the past few months, the news reports I have been reading / watching about the doggie antics, makes me wonder if it is the mad dog season world over.

Things took a decided turn for the worse in England on New Year’s Day when five-year old Ellie Lawrenson was mauled to death by her uncle’s American pit bulls. Young Caydee-Lee suffered a similar, horrible fate - her parents were pub-sitting and whilst they were away, couple of dogs dragged her out of bed and killed her. As a mum, I cannot even imagine what those poor parents must have gone through and what they have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Last week on TV, there was a special news programme about the dogs suddenly running amok and turning on the people. One lady who was a victim of such attacks, talked about how her whole life is in ruins now. Apparently, as she was walking down a park near where she lived, two American pit bulls latched on to her and tried their best to drag her away. She held on to the railings for dear life and it was a good twenty minutes before a passer-by braved the dogs and helped her out. She’s in excruciating pain now and is unable to use her left arm. She needs a full-time carer to help her and it was real pitiful to see this once confident and beautiful woman broken up in pieces.

There has been a widespread dog amnesty in Merseyside as well as in other areas of the country. Police have had owners of Rottweilers, pit-bulls and other ‘danger’ breeds come in and leave their dogs with the authorities, without fear of punishment. A lot of dogs have been culled, much to the RSPCA and animal activists’ disgust. But even the police admit that the ones that really breed these dogs to become nasty killers are still at large and the public, still at danger from these dangerous beasts.

Around the same time this is happening in the UK, similar events have been taking place in India as well. By now, you might know the story of the children these stray dogs attacked and the resultant culling. Whilst the act has upset animal lovers, the sadness over what happened to the poor children reigns supreme. After all, we have all looked at these mangy curs askance at one time or another, wondering if they are going to take a chunk off you that day.

What has happened to these dogs to make them go on a rampage? Why are these random dogs across UK and India turning on the people? More importantly, what is the solution to this problem?

In the UK, the general belief is that these dogs, that have been especially bred to be aggressive killing machines, possibly for ‘entertainment’, must be culled and their owners, severely punished. Though it is no fault of the dogs that they are so, they still cannot go against their nature and it is in our best interests to protect ourselves and if the only way out is to put them down, then measures must be taken to do so. The ones that must be punished are those short-sighted people that bred these dogs in the first place, thereby putting the unsuspecting public in danger and causing untold grief to the sufferers. At the same time, proper legislation must be put in place to protect the innocent dogs , so that they aren’t mindlessly killed.

In India, the situation is completely different. As the dogs involved are not all domestic pets, one might think the prospect of putting these dogs down might not be such a wrench but these are still animals, and we need to think how we ended up with so many strays littering the countryside in the first place. We need to get some more dog shelters and find ways of funding them so these dogs are rescued from the streets. We must find it in our hearts to set up organisations like the Battersea Dogs Home, where these neglected and discarded animals are given a new lease of life.

Who knows, by doing so, we might make sure that these sort of horrific events do not take place ever again.

This is what my baby got me for Mother’s Day this year. I know I said I did not believe in that but he, being angrez thinks Mum’s day is an essential part of the year’s calendar!!!

Good hearted male lead, with the honourable intentions of making a name for himself in the world. Dad refuses to lend him money and give him a leg up as son tends to while time away by drinking with his mates and getting into gang fights. Statements of ‘get the hell out of my house and never come back’ are uttered on a regular basis by either parent. One day, like all our movie heroes, our man too takes one look at the female lead and falls for her big time. Yes, he is ‘in love’ with her without even knowing her name.

After seeing her big brother beat the rowdies who came a’sniffing around baby sis, hero adopts the novel approach of asking the brother for his sister’s hand. Understandably, this pisses the brother off, who sends hero packing with a flea on his ear. With this starts the ‘thiruvilaiyadal’ (or divine play). The hero makes the girl fall in love with him and whilst they paint the town red, big bro sees red and sends for him to scare him away. Hero stumps him by accepting money from the brother for staying away from his sister. Thus starts the barter system and when his family learns of this, they are aghast and kick him out of their house for good.

Hero now has the dosh to start his business, which he does and becomes a roaring success. On and on goes the movie till the end, where it all ends happily for all parties concerned.

Dhanush plays the role of the male lead, with Shreya as his opposite number. Other notable members of the cast are Prakash Raj as Shreya’s brother and Mouli & Saranya as Dhanush’s parents. There is nothing new or interesting in this movie. Same old tripe, boy sees girl, falls in love and does a variety of stunts before everything ends on a rosy glow. There is nothing new or exciting about this venture. Of course, thousands of Dhanush’s fans disagreed with me and made this a hit! Go figure!

March 18 is Mothering Sunday. The day that is dedicated to British mums. After Valentine’s Day, this is the next big day in the calendar of the card shops, florists, cake shops and restaurants.

There is a never-ending supply of such ’special’ days - Mother’s day, Father’s day, Grandparents’ day, Mother-in-law’s day (I am not making this up!), Sister’s day, Best friend’s day - the list goes on. I am sure there’s a person in Hallmark who is paid a huge amount of money just to come up with these special days.

At first, the whole concept of having a specific day to think of members of your family or friends and visit them, etc. seemed ludicrous to me. I could not understand the need for such days. As I got to know the British way of life more and more, however, I could see that, in a weird way, it makes sense - for them. After all, they live miles away from their family, literally and figuratively and need special days to spend time with them.

Why this concept is taking root in India is a question I cannot answer. I live a continent and thousands of miles away from my family but am up-to-date with what’s happening in each of their lives and vice versa. I certainly do not need a Mother’s day to ring and talk to my mum, send her flowers and chocolates. She’d probably collapse in disbelief whilst my grandfather would shout down the phone at the strange Western notions I was picking up. I am sure this is a familiar situation for many of us.

Which is why I am not joining the mad throng to the florists to make a beautiful bunch of mum’s favourite flowers or booking a table at her favourite restaurant. What I am doing, at the same time, is saluting all those desi mums around the globe.

Whether in India or elsewhere in the world, they are bringing up their children the best way they know how. Take a look at some of these mommy bloggers’ websites and you will see them chock full of love. The love for their children, their wonder at their little miracle’s antics, their joy in their little ones, their fears, their tears, their feelings - it will be real hard for one to glance at these pages and turn away from them without delving deeper.

I chanced across one such blog from a link on one of Sujatha’s posts and was hooked real soon. From there, the crazy world of mommy bloggers was just a click away and pretty soon, I had bookmarked more than a handful of them and was visiting them regularly to find out the latest installment of Winkie’s world or the Brat’s antics or Tara’s shenanigans.

That was how I discovered that little Anirud likes to stand on his mum’s pots and pans and take a peek at the World of Dining Table. It was how I learnt what a great experience having a baby brother was, to Winkie. That was also how I discovered how helpless the Mad Momma felt, even as she awaited her second C-section so she could see her Baby Bean for the very first time.

With or without the helpful advice of the older generation, us mums (and some daddy bloggers too!) are grappling with this furiously changing world, trying to do the best for their children. Some, like Yours Truly, work full-time; we leave our children with strangers for most of the day. Others choose to stay at home to bring up their children.

Some of us are lucky to have a choice in the matter, whilst others are unlucky enough to have to go with the flow. But whatever we might be doing, we are all mums, who love our children no matter what and who expect nothing but their love in turn.

Thanks to the wonder of the blogosphere, us mummy bloggers now write about our children, our lives and ourselves and share our fears, pain and joy with the rest of the world. Our readers become a part of our lives, so much so that the readers are quite eager to know what happened to the mommy blogger’s second scan or if the child has thrown off its tummy bug.

MIL fears, relocation, child’s first day of school, school exams, second baby, sibling rivalry, you name it, we blog about it. By doing so, we manage to weave a wonderful web across the globe, a lovely network that helps us in our times of need, thanks to which we are never alone.

So, on this Mother’s Day, let us stop for a minute to pat ourselves on our backs for what we do all day, every day. Here’s to all of us mums out there -