Exams Uff!!

Antara's exams have started, and everyone is nervous. Her parents ask her what she eats, I ask her what she eats, and she seems to be the only one worried about whether she studies. I dropped her off to exam schools on Tuesday, and felt very out of place. I was the only person in a red shirt, among a sea of black and white sub-fuscs. Very embarrassing, especially when everyone who enters gives you a withering and unwelcome look, which is replaced by a knowing and understanding smile, on giving Antara a hug.
Bozo is coming to London, great news. Spent the whole of yesterday afternoon calling up halls of residence in London, in search of accommodation. Will now go to Wimbledon with him!!
No other news except that my younger cousin, Buchi suddenly decided to spend £62 on the final day of England v NZ cricket match, after obtaining permission from his 10 year old brother. He realised only later that he could have got in for free, something which his father didn't take to too kindly!!

Sports News

Great Sports News!
on Sunday, Jarno Trulli (Renault) won the Monaco Grand Prix. Thank God and Montoya! I am an avowed Ferrari and Schumi fan, but to win the first five races of the season, without even the faintest of challenge was turning the season into a bore.
Fortunately, Trulli produced a flawless performance to take Pole and edge BAR's Jenson Button to take the checquered flag.
I write in the manner of a sports correspondent for various reasons. One, in the likely possibility that in the future some troubled graduate student might decide to use my records as primary material(historical terms learnt by association with Historians). Also, of course, I have hopes and ambitions of being exactly that, a sports writer, when I take time away from saving the lives of 3 million children dying of malaria by producing a vaccine.

Will anyone truly pose a threat to Ferrari and Schumi this season? I doubt it. Until someone (Trulli, Alonso, Button) perform consistently and improve their cars to get just that little bit of power, Schumi will be hard to beat. Schumi meanwhile, seems to have lost that killer instinct. I can't remember the last time he overtook someone, or had a tremendous start. He is beatable and it might just be his teammate who could do it!!
Will the youngsters step up to the challenge? Onto Nurburgring...

Speaking of youngsters, Naseer Hussain seems to be defying age and all his critics to be playing the best cricket of his career. He took a spectacularly athletic catch on saturday, and followed it up with an unbeaten hundred to steer England home in their comprehensive test Victory against the Kiwis at Lords.
Antara, who has American Revolution exam tomorrow, was glued to the television, while revising Thomas Dickinson( with whom I am familiar enough to address him as "Dicky Boy") et al.
England players seem to reach their peak at the ripe old age of 36, remember Alec Stewart, Graham Gooch... either they have some genetic mutations in their telomeres which delays ageing, or is it just that they never have anyone debuting before the age of 27?

Ok, now that I have finished listening to the answer on backcountry policy, I shall depart to let the finalist get some shut-eye before the big day tomorrow.

My First Post

This blog is testimony to the persuasive powers of women and the gullibilty of men in the face of intelligent pretty beings of the opposite sex. Gayatri and Antara,(two bright, computer obsessed women), and the women to whose powers I refer, debated and argued the reasons and motivations for keeping a blog.They somehow contrived to make me feel that blogging was not only useful, but also in some ways means to make the world a "global village".
So, in my attempt to discover the pleasure of blogging,and being a socially responsible man (I come from the land of Bapu, for those unfamiliar MK Gandhi), I record for posterity my thoughts and feelings of the world around.

monster review

MONSTER

Date : 3^rd April,2004 with SBK, CM, MC at Phoenix Pictures, Oxford.
Cast : Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci,
Director : Debutant Patty Jenkins

This true story is based on the life of Aileen Wournos, “America’s first Woman Serial Killer”. I shall review it with respect to cast performance, direction and storytelling,

The movie sticks as close to the truth as possible and begins with Charlize’s voiceover regarding her lonesome and unhappy childhood. A misfit always, she takes to working as a hooker on the highway just to earn a few dollars to survive, shifting from one place to another. She meets 18 year old Selby Wall, a lesbian coming to grips with her own sexuality and her father’s unacceptance of her “condition” and “sin”.

The movie is fast paced and almost in your face. It almost seems that the Director offers the most brutal view of the movie, in an attempt not to shy away from the fact that her protagonist is a serial killer.

Charlize Theron as Wournos is brilliant. It is not just the staggering cosmetic changeover, with yellow protruding teeth, but the swagger and drawl which are hauntingly in tune with the character, and it is very hard to imagine it is the same actress who acted in Charlie’s Angels.

The script is full of profanities and is taut, without much scope or attempt at homilies and self-pity. Wournos is a small time prostitute on the Florida motorways, and down to her last couple of dollars meets Selby Wall at a bar. Wournos never having had sexual intercourse with a woman is a bit hesitant, but her need for affection and companionship overwhelm her, and she clings on furiously to the relationship.

Soon, armed with better intentions than means, she sets out to change her life and provide for both Selby and herself by getting a job. But, having started prostitution at 13 years of age, she really doesn’t have too much job experience and saleability. It is a poignant reminder of how difficult it is for someone not socially suitable to get a job. Frustrated and increasingly pressured by the timid, emotionally selfish and shallow Selby, Wournos is forced back to her old life.

In one of the most memorable and haunting scenes of the movie, she is tied up, beaten, raped and left to die. She fights for her life, and in a scene where you will her to escape and kill her abuser, she shoots him, buries the body and takes his money. That is the first of her six murders.

The others seem almost out of force of habit, but underlies her need to cling onto her partner and only friend, Sleby wall. Selby seems least bothered and is portrayed as a selfish, young brat, who yearns for the comfortable, pleasurable life. Wournos keeps killing to earn money, even though by now she begins to feel revolted by her own weakness. She begins to love Selby, and believes that in turn she is loved.

Killing innocent people on the same motorway is bound to catch up with her. A young man, a middle aged man who reasons and begs for mercy, and finally a non-uniformed cop, and it is only time till she is caught.

It is the last few scenes, where she still makes sure that Selby reaches home safely, and her shock when Selby testifies against her, make us wonder whether this murderous woman (incorrectly advertised as the first woman serial killer) might actually have led a different path had she been given a job.

The direction is brilliant, very tight, with no time or space to think. There are few loose ends in the movie, and you are left in your seat for a moment or two at the end, shaken by the pure evil and horror in the movie. There are no soppy lines. There is a story to tell and the director does that. There are no sides taken in the story, the director lets any feelings aroused, be that of the audience’s. You are pushed back in your seat, never on the edge of it. You never really want to see more, yet you cannot resist the story.

In Summary, please do not take your children for this movie. If you want to watch a movie, and are tired and annoyed by the normal summer blockbusters around, don’t miss this hard-hitting, truthful and poignant story of a woman serial killer. If you want just one good reason to watch it : Charlize Theron