Rants

Whatever I have posted have been ramblings, but not exactly rants. Mind wanders, interesting thoughts come up and I put it up here only to give them a shape. But now, I am doing this to just vent, to release my frustration at how things are and hopefully, remove these thoughts from my mind.

In my young days, my mother and teacher said that whenever someone said something that I did not like or found uninteresting, I just turned my face away. They said that people found it offensive- it annoyed them and made them angry towards me. At that age, everyone could get angry at me since I was a helpless child whom teachers and adults could shout at. Being naive since I was not yet sullied by grim realities of live, I used to believe in peace and not arguing and so it got to be a point where I could not turn away, I could not respond and had to take all their garbage head on without any response. 

As I got older, and bigger I might add, I started responding. I was no longer the small kid anyone could bully. I started shouting back, I started responding back, I gave tit for tat replies, I showed my anger and was not hesitant to get people to be afraid of me and hence I did not have to turn my face away from them but could look them directly face to face and confront their hostility.

However, one day, my very wise boss in SBI told me that there is no point in getting into a fight with pigs- you will get dirty while the pig enjoys the dirt. So, even if you win the fight, you will get dirty. This was a new dynamic for me to be honest- the rules had changed since it was about who could play dirty and who could manipulate facts- basically the implications of a post-truth world.

If you can present a rosy picture about your own versions of the story- leave out certain parts that do not favour your argument or twist the words into meaning something else or just shake a lot of branches to disrupt the proceedings, then it is possible to win. I saw this the other as someone literally copy pasted select parts of a conversation and left out parts that completely discredited their argument- initial five minutes of a conversation and last five minutes of a conversation while the middle five minutes where not attached in the email while painting me in an arrogant, inconsiderate and selfish colour.

He got annoyed because I did not respect his mightiness and authority, which I hold are merely delusions of a megalomaniac who has little to vouch for in terms of real skills apart from show-off and shaking branches to rustle a few leaves in order to hide the fact he is incapable of plucking low-hanging fruits.

But these are the people who succeed in terms of career progression, wealth, respect and power. My tactic of entering into a shouting match will only lead to a fight where I get dirt on myself. The world also wants these super-agressive and boisterous types to lead the charge. Toxicity is encouraged and sought after. I am not going to stoop to that level.

I am now going to turn my face away- in contempt, neglect and scorn. This comes only from the fact I do not care about their position, power, authority and what they can do to me- it is called fearlessness. Worst they can do is throw me out whereas I have snubbed even stronger dictators and their cronies and just walked out with no idea where I was heading, but with my integrity and peace of mind intact.

New Meaning of Nostalgia

Change is difficult for me to accept and I try to go back to my past every now and then. Recently, my family moved to a flat in Kochi near Changampuzha Park while I continued in Mumbai and visited on alternate weekends. In addition to the releif and battery recharge from meeting my family, I looked forward to being in familiar territory - I lived and went to school 2km from the place.

As if this wasn't enough, I have now bought a flat in the same area despite being certain of the fact that I won't be living there for the next 20 years at least. Familiarity is not just comforting but also gives a feeling that things are going well.

However, each time I go back to Mumbai, I feel I'm out of place. Even worse, each time I go to Kerala, there's something different about the place. There's a slow, constant but noticeable change which means that home exists only in the past.

It has brought me to the realisation that once we leave a place, it will exist only in the past even if we are able to come back physically to that place. The real meaning of time being the fourth dimension hit me hard.

This tendency to cling on to the past isn't healthy, but perhaps it's too late for me. I was hoping that it's not a genetic trait despite evidence to the contrary as my actions are quite similar to what my father had done during this age in his life- find a home in the place he used to live during his teen years, try to repeatedly go back to that place despite work being thousands of miles away.

Unfortunately, my daughter seems to have been bitten by the nostalgia bug. She's by all measures a plant that has not been allowed to firmly strike roots- moving to Mumbai at 7 months, then back to Kochi at 2.5 years, moving schools and residence within Kochi, making and losing friends every year. Now, she's just moved to Mumbai but we had to come back within a week of the move due to a family health concern. 

In this one week, she said goodbye to get old school and her grandparents, moved to Mumbai, went to a new school for a day and is now back in Kerala. She saw the promises of her old school and expressed her desire to go back. She mentioned that she dreamt about her old school. She was definitely glad to be in familiar territory.

I had thought that repeated movements would have obviated the concept of a stable home.and long-lasting friendships and kept nostalgia at bay. I had hoped that she wouldn't be as sentimental as me about her past. 

There is still time for her to believe that only the present matters and looking back to the past is a futile exercise while we need to be ready for an uncertain future. I do not think she'll be able realise this though. I'm not even sure if it's a good thing. 

One of the cousins my father had once told me the it's important to be aware if and hold onto one's roots. His experience as a national level floater and now an international level floater makes his view a valid one. 

However, my experience only suggests that roots are a burden- an emotional one that makes you vulnerable and not fully enjoy the present surroundings, a physical one since it forces you to attempt to go back to where you started from and perhaps even a financial one since flight tickets and real estate at home is expensive.

I do not know what is right. Perhaps, she will be able to find a better way to deal with it than I have been able to so far. Perhaps she'll be able to feel at home wherever she is and also maintain an identity of her own.

Best Actor

At school and for most people who knew me, I was seen as a nerd- someone who spent almost his entire time studying. This perception only got reinforced when I started succeeding in quiz competitions. So, I was always studying from textbooks or quiz books- never mind the fact that quizzing is not about mugging up questions and fact but requires a good understanding of what is happening in our world.

So, it would come as a shock to this crowd that I have spent a considerable amount of time on movies. Starting with late Saturdayu night Hindi movies on Doordarshan and now continuing with bingeing on new releases in OTT platforms.

Here I am, on another Saturday night, about to watch Kaathal, the latest one from Mammootty. Until very recently, I was of the strong opinion that Mohanlal was a better actor. Both their oeuvre consist of mindblowing performances in the tragedy/ drama genre- to Mammotty's Thaniyavarthanam, I present  Mohanlal's Thalavattom. Yathra and Bhoothakkanadi can definitely hold themselves against Yathramozhi and Bhramaram. There are many more and would take more than one night out to merely list them head to head. The tragedy/ drama thus see the thespians evenly matched and it is a matter of pride for all Malayalees.

When it comes to the action genre, both of them had memorable performances playing the angry (sometimes young, unfortunately too young for their real age) man, fighting the good cause against the entrenched elite like Mahanagaram, Inspector Balram etc for Mammotty and Adwaitham, Abhimanyu etc for Mohanlal. However, both of them did immense disservice to themselves and to Malayalam cinema by choosing several larger than life, chauvinistic and macho roles which do not deserve to be mentioned.

Both of the have also performed well in the playing the 

consummate family man in movies like Aviduthe Pole Ivideyum,  Bharatham, 

Thus far, they are evenly matched and now come the reasons why I saw Mohanlal as a better actor. He played the angst, ambition and helplessness that we all go through in life way better than Mammootty in movies like Mithunam, T P Balagopalan MA, Mukundetta Sumitra Vilikkunnu, Varavelppu, Vellakanalude Naadu, Nadodikkatu etc and that too in a way we did not feel sorry for the character. We could relate to them (just try to get any basic government service delivered even in these days of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, you will feel the pain), but we also felt light-hearted since these movies used comedy to depict the ground level realities of life.

Thus, although the Priyadarshan- Mohanlal combo provided us several slapstick comedy movies and Mammootty has nevern been able to pull this off, my rating of Mohanlal as a better came from the above described depiction of the realities of life through comedy, even black comedy. This had been my opinion until recently. 

However, several movies from the last couple of years have made me rethink my stance on this matter. Mohanlal has been consumed by a larger than life persona in most films including his biggest hit "Lucifer" while most such films have been duds and disappointing to watch for a connoiseur of good acting. The thespian had downgraded his own talent and craft while roles doing justice to the old Mohanlal were too few and far in between like Drishyam.

It is here that Mammootty has scored a decisive point as he has been quite selective and done the opposite of Mohanlal. Yes, there have been duds and disappointments, but they have been too far and few in between. Movies like Unda, Puzhu, Kannur Squad, Rorschak etc are unique in their storytelling- they are dark, real and the main character has shades of darkness in himself in many of them. A few years ago, he appeared in a movie called "Munnariyippu" and this is when he perhaps began reinventing himself, rebuilt his image and played roles more suited to his age and skill. These were not phenomenal performances by themselves, but were rather proof of the fact that when backed by a good story, the tasty dish of acting when served in a shiny and clean vessel, it can be a delectable treat.

As I reach the culmination of my quest to answer who is a better actor now, the final flourish, the helicopter six at Wankhede in 2011, the Fergie time goal by Solskjaer in 1999, the mike drop moment comes from the movie "Kathal-The Core". The movie does not have a stand-out sequence of phenomenal performance, but look at each moment, when the wife wishes her husband the best for the upcoming election or when the brother-in-law says he wants to support his sister and numerous such small snaps, you will see that the actor has done justice to a very difficult role in a socially relevant subject.

Mammootty and Mohanlal will do more movies, Malayalam still awaits the inheritors to their thrones, both are great actors in their own right, but to me right now, Mammootty has moved ahead, after several decades and hundreds of movies in their careers.