Romeo loved/lost Juliet

Reality dazzles when it is pruned and presented in style. Truth tempts when it is narrated by a master raconteur. Beauty blazes when it walks away in the night…Truth, beauty, and reality makes magic with the mind when it is young.

An epigram is a pithy saying – a witty ‘tweet’ that encompasses a moment of truth, or a piece of reality, almost iconic in its essence in the way it is told. Up close, it is mostly found lacking in its sagacious appeal, but by then the point has been made, and the argument won. Nobody enquires after a nine-day’s wonder; nobody forgets those nine days either.

The prince of tweets is, who else, but the crown prince of storytellers – the marvelous Oscar Wilde, and his quips are as addictive as Lucy in the sky with diamonds. If you get to know his epigrams while in school/college, they are sure to come back and haunt you like the memory of the girl with kaleidoscope eyes from time to time.

Sample this sparkler from his treasure trove – In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. Vintage Wilde, it is a show stopper of an epigram, the only catch being, after the show ends, when you look for it to take home - it is missing. But say this while you are having beer with your buddies in a proper context, you shall probably get the middle finger, and also a silent and grudging admiration for saying what is probably going on in their minds at the time.

Oscar Wilde came out with epigrams with the same fecundity as that of a ten-year-old shooting pebbles from a catapult on a summer afternoon. The only difference being the child had to stop when its stock of pebbles ran out. It is not for nothing, that he famously wrote, I can resist everything but temptation.

I could not resist the temptation of trying my hands at it, and what I came up with was at best a one line summary of the two stories that they were based on. One was the Beauty and the Beast, and my take was Beauty saw beast and became more beautiful. The other one was Romeo loved Juliet/ Romeo lost Juliet.

Neither of them is strictly an epigram, and the second one is appalling. Then why have I chosen this as the title of this post, you may ask. Epigrams, quotations, lyrics, or anything that you remember are enriched with the years that pass by while they are sitting in your minds, and when they stand up, they become imposing by the virtue of association. Memory is a time machine; you get back to the beginning in a trice.

And no matter how much razor-sharp your memory is, you are bound to have forgotten something of the actual and got it replaced by a reminiscence of a latter day. When the mind, and the memory do a tango together, you sit back and enjoy. My riff on the Shakespeare classic represents to me the electrifying times when I was getting acquainted with epigrams and other facets of literature. It was a moment of celebration, and the title is a reflection of that festival of youth, that festival of first love – an ode to all Remembrance of things past.

Oscar Wilde almost always had the last word, but witdom is not exclusive, and nobody can win them all. Once while appreciating the aphorism of the painter Whistler (Yes, the same artist whose celebrated work Whistler’s Mother, Rowan Atkinson vandalized in Mr Bean) at his table, Wilde said, I wish I had said that. Whistler replied famously, You will, Oscar, You will.

Wilde died in 1900, and even a century later his epigrams are top of the charts. Some of them are :-Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes, There is only one thing in the world worse than not being talked about, and that is not being talked about, Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught, The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius

If Oscar Wilde lived a life of the dandy, the French nobleman La Rouchefoucauld was in the thick of things in palace intrigues and had crossed the path of the authoritarian Cardinal Richlieu ( yes, the same person who turns up as a mighty foe for The Three Musketeers in Dumas’ eponymous novel) more than once. He witnessed loss of fortune, regained it and earned the respect of the literary world with his Maxims, his observations on mankind.

Laced with wit, and backed by first hand experiences of the ups and downs  of life, Rouchefoucauld’s wisdom is sought and quoted even today. A handful of them are :-In love there is always one who  loves, and one who is loved, How can you expect another to keep a secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?, We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves,It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves, Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors, Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed

Romeo loved Juliet/Romeo lost Julie is not an epigram at all. But if you want to head a piece on the love of something that was mindblowing while it lasted then there are few things on earth as apt for it as the careergraph of Romeo.

He loved Juliet, and he lost her, you see?

N.B. Lucy in the sky with diamonds is a Beatles song on the effect a particular mood enhancer which can make one visualize Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Here is the lyric:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly;
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head;
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she’s gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredible high.

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you’re gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking-glass ties.
Suddenly, someone is there at the turnstile:
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

India’s Most Wanted

He spooked the living daylights out of leading ladies for decades and almost brought the heroes to their knees before being customarily vanquished. He fine-tuned the enemy of the people act to such perfection, that people desisted from naming their off springs after him for a long time. For six decades and for over 400 films he remained India’s most 'wanted', even when his on screen characters stopped being on the wrong side of the law.

Pran was a star actor-a powerhouse performer-an artist who crossed generations and touched the borders of innumerable lives.

If the mass wanted to watch him in over 400 plus screen appearances, then he must have been doing something right and was lucky at the same time. But he also risked getting stereotyped (which he was to an extent) – it is not possible to not to recycle one’s tricks, if one is called upon to use them again and again. Pran, or Pransaheb as the Indian film industry rightly addresses him, escaped the contempt of familiarity due to his protean gifts. He would imbue the stock characters that he played with a tic, a mannerism, or a demeanor that would make them connect with the timeless.

Raka, the bandit from Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai was one such character. The menacing robber was afraid of the gallows and would occasionally loosen his collar as if it was getting too tight for him. The seemingly unconscious act, enacted with a naturalness that came from art and more of it - brings out the fact that though criminals may appear otherwise, they are mortally afraid of the punishment that they keep eluding.

Thakur Ramesh from Dil Diya Dard Liya, an Indianized adaptation of the dark classic Wuthering Heights is another example. In a scene or two, Pran conveyed the descent of a character into one’s personal hell with the felicity of a Japanese master of the haiku. The movie did not turn out well, but Pran’s presence in it is beyond reproach.

When you watch Kashmir Ki Kali, you realize how Pran had been trying combinations of several shades in his character portrayals for a long time so that his black acts do not become monotonous. A negative character may be a buffoon as well; there is no hard and fast rule that a villain has to be ramrod straight.

What could have been one of his best role ever because all the salient points of the character seem to be tailor-made for Pran’s on screen persona was Faria from The Count of Monte Cristo. The sage-like convict from the Dumas bestseller whose middle name was never-say-die, and who taught the ingenuous sailor Edmond Dantes the ways of the world, and finally transformed him to the Count of Monte Cristo so that he could go back to society and take his revenge had Pran written all over him.

For reasons unknown, the Indian film industry shied away from adapting Dumas, though the plot of his The Corsican Brothers, have been tweaked into several Indian blockbusters like Ram aur Shyam, Seeta Aur Geeta, Chalbaaz, Ghazab, Kishen Kanhaiya, etc.

Whether he played a jailor (Kaalia) or a crippled war veteran (Upkaar), a noble savage (Dharam Veer) or a tyrannical feudal lord (Madhumati) – Pran ensured that India would want to get spellbound by his magic once more.

He remains one of India’s most wanted forever.

 

 

 

 

Who’s who?

He had a one-track mind which made him a roaring success in his pursuits. Naturally gifted, his reputation as a sharpshooter became a legend, and he is among the all time greats. Yet, he is known to have suffered from performance-anxiety, and on the most important day of his life was numb with doubt. If not for his friend, who galvanized him to action with the best pep-talk ever in the history of the world, the man would have gone down and been remembered as a royal choker.

Suave, courteous, knowledgeable, and prodigiously talented – the only chink in his armor was a lack of killer-instinct. Perhaps, that’s why women found him irresistible, and old timers still recount his exploits with as much fervor as they talk about his derring-do. He eloped with his best friend’s sister.

Some say that he was the brawn, and the brains behind most of his feats belonged to his friend, who was almost his alter-ego. Like the MGR-Karunanidhi duo, they had a firm grip on the pulse of the moment. When bad times hit him, he had to spend years incognito, sometime disguised as a eunuch.

He came back from the cold, set back his setbacks, and lived a dream life. Only in the autumn of his years, his prowess faltered. Street thugs molested the consort of his best friend in his presence, and he had to digest the ignominy.

On judgment day, he was found to have suffered from the sin of pride, of feeling that he was the best.

Who is this man? Is he only Arjuna, the archer prince from Mahabharata? If you look at his trajectory, you find that he was good in his job, and yet required constant reminders that he could do it. He had a support system in his best friend, with whose sister he eloped. Reversal of fortune hit him like a Muhammad Ali punch, and remained 'emasculated' for some time. He regained what he had lost, and enjoyed the good life. At the end, he discovered that even his own country was No country for old men.

If we take away the gloss, it could be the story of every man - the man, who is brave and coward at the same time. Arjuna was skillful, but needed recognition from others to bolster his self-esteem. He was a champ, and on his day could easily stop the world; and yet suffered from performance-anxiety. Though he did not know it, he felt that he was the best. And, yes – he had a thing for his best friend’s sister.

Heroes are Hollywood versions of the common man, or common men are heroes without the fancy trappings.

Which side are you on? Who is who?

Rolling stone_Daddy’s girl

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

How do you find a word that means Maria?

A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp!

                                                                               -The Sound of Music

 Well, yes! How do you solve a problem like Maria Faye Dunaway? How do you reconcile with the fact that she remains elusive, in a mental countdown of the acting legends, even when you are overwhelmed by her talent? Is it because, she may not seem to possess a ‘body of work’? But that’s not kosher, you know yourself very well. After all, she has more than one performance (and I am no thinking about The Netwok; it has an Oscar) to her credit, which makes you spellbound with the knowledge that madness is a country, just around the corner.

It is Faye, and Faye alone, who can make you want to put a step forward despite knowing that what shall ensue can only be mad, bad, and dangerous to know. And not only when you have just started, but also when you have been on the Mean Streets for quite some time. Again and again. If that is not greatness, then what is?

Bob Dylan’s trailblazing Like a Rolling Stone, 1965 asked How does it feel/To be on your own/With no direction home/Like a complete unknown/Like a rolling stone? The answer came two years later in the shape of one Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde, 1967. Faye Dunaway, not only blazed as the lawbreaker on the run; she created a mercurial chemistry with the magnetic but continent Clyde Barrow played by Warren Beatty – a liaison kindled by the fire of non consummation that makes an offer you can’t refuse.

Dunaway made you realize that a stone while it is rolling can only fall down, but during that free fall, it is unstoppable! Amorality, violence without a cause, complete disregard for society and its norms – Bonnie and Clyde were epitomes of everything that is a threat to life. Yet, Faye makes it bonnie while it lasts, almost to the very end and you have to stop yourself from marveling at their swinging out of control act.

Edna St Vincent Mallay wrote about a candle burning at both ends, and not going to last the night. But ah my friends/ and oh my foes/ it gives a lovely light. Bonnie Parker was such a character-a will-o’-the wisp! After you shake yourself away from the lure, if you want you can shake your head in exasperation and say, it’s Chinatown! But, you know, it won’t change a thing, it never has, and never will.

And nothing changed in Chinatown, 1974. Except the fact, that Faye could fall back on a decade long experience, and give the slowly getting mentally unhinged process a precision that is as visceral as a knife wound, and as fatal as a gun shot at point blank.

Evelyn Cross Mulwray, in Chinatown has a secret. She is at once the daughter of Noah Cross, the father figure to a community, and also the mother of his child. Faye Dunaway fights till the last moment to not to give in, to remain sane. But some fights are won, only because they are lost, and you have to let the blood drip drop by drop, and are not permitted to wince till the last.

And because one does not cry out, one has the appeal of an exotic. Silence is charming, most of the times, because it is covering something sinister. Even, if we sense it, we are conditioned to applaud, or even get enticed by what we feel is strength of character. We get turned on by an aberration and also relieved that somebody apart from us has also erred – it makes us human.

Dunaway’s portrayal of Evelyn is a wrist-slitter, a noted film writer describes her as a ‘broken orange doll’ and nothing could be more apt. It is acts like these that make one wonder, why did she have to do a cameo in Dunstan Checks In?

Perhaps, the answer is in the same lines of Dylan with which I opened Dunaway’s case. Art is To be on your own/With no direction home/Like a complete unknown/Like a rolling stone, and an artist can never know when the crest shall break, or form. All one can do is wait for the wave.

Faye Dunaway has not given up romancing life. Meanwhile, if you ever wonder how Chinatown may look like without her – then watch Navtej Singh’s extremely competent and adroitly Indianized Manorama Six Feet Under, 2007.

Hamlet, without the Prince of Denmark, may not be a bad idea, if it is written by somebody with the caliber of William Shakespeare. In this riveting drama, Navtej Singh, proves that he does not have to be Roman Polanski to pull it off. Of course, the movie does not have the Faye Dunaway character.

After all,

                                            Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?