Uncomfortably Numb

9^th of April was a warm and sticky night in Coimbatore. Shankar was getting ready for his 7^th birthday. At 8:30 pm the same night, they say I was born, amidst much cacophony and complications. Mother was in labour for long. A brother, whose birthday party met with an abrupt end, sat crestfallen and hungry while his father was desperately trying for a ticket from Chennai.

“Look at your daughter, she is so cute,” the nurse crooned as she thrust a little bundle into Sethu’s arms. Sethu lay in a heap, engulfed by the new wave of pain that made her breathless. Every astrologer and every relative had predicted a baby boy.  And how badly they wanted a girl. It wasn’t a baby but a dream in her hands. “Call your husband,” the nurses prodded. But all she heard was her mind say, “ Poor girl, she will have to go through the same pain one day”.

God seems to be a renowned sexist. Why create a weaker sex at all I sometimes ponder. What stops a woman from physically over powering a man? Is it a case of biological misogyny or years of social conditioning that has rendered us ‘softer’ and more ‘docile’?  The other day while watching ‘Udta Punjab’, the scene where a feisty Alia Bhatt is pinned down and raped by four men mortified me. My eyes involuntarily shut tight and my toes curled. It was too real. Had she been physically as strong, would she have had to succumb, I muttered to myself. The classic nature vs. nurture debate is never black or white; it’s black and white. While nature may be responsible for the initial defect in design; society takes a cue and adds to the widening inequality between the sexes. Patriarchy doles out sexism all realms of life, paving for the arrival of the hapless ‘feminist’.

Who is a feminist? A bindi wearing, jhola toting, ‘fabindia waali’ man- hater, they say. But growing up in India, every girl is a closet feminist. Some choose to be vocal. Some are reticent and most have not discovered their voice yet.  Mine is a fairly liberal and very loving family.But I was oblivious to gender inequality for the longest time. My rose tinted glasses failed to observe the patriarchy that ebbed and meandered slowly into life, nestling in corners, and rooting itself in blind spots.

My father gave me abundant freedom and choice, to opt and grow in the career I wanted and to pick my life partner. He supported my every move. But the same father would leave the dinner table, with his plate waiting to be picked up by a woman, or worse eaten on by my mother. One day I asked him why he couldn’t leave it in the wash area, like the others. He was stumped for a minute. It had never occurred to him he said. Since then he made it a point to pick it up, while my mother affectionately protested. Through school and college, I made friends with guys who in their rare moments, cracked ‘jokes’ about their ‘score’ or admitted that they often became friends with a girl because they found her hot. Family get togethers wouldn’t end without a congregation of uncles and aunts descending on the one ‘Casanova’ cousin and cracking jokes on his battery of girlfriends while he stood shyly, basking in the glory. Why wasn’t a girl with multiple boyfriends ever funny? Our language gives us a slut, but makes one conjure words for a male equivalent. Gigolo doesn’t quite make the cut. Man- whore? We still need a female derogatory term to act as the reference point.

When my brother returned to India with his MS degree in tow, a newly minted name board awaited his arrival, glistening bright with his name and degree. When I completed my masters, albeit in media, my board had no takers. I fumed. I squabbled. I even put my foot down. But it went unheard amidst all the mollycoddling and laughter. I was just the petulant younger daughter who“ anyway is not going to be in this house for ever.”

When I did get married, I realised that equal marriage is an oxymoron. Even with the most progressive

 of husbands and families, somewhere lurking is an unwritten code that makes the man’s house take precedence, making it the fulcrum of all activities. The bride who doesn’t talk is ‘stuck up’ they whisper, while the guy who remains silent is ‘gentle and soft spoken’. Marriages make great feminists and in the rare event that they don’t, motherhood gives the final push.  While battling an inexplicably difficult pregnancy, I often cried that it was a curse to be born a woman. Excruciating pain certainly did not build my character. It only amplified when I realised that my struggle was incomprehensible to most people, especially the male mind. And then the baby came. Some nights, I wanted to shake the sleeping husband awake, thrust the wailing infant in his arms and run out of the room. But alas, the baby wanted me, and only me; I was her source of food. But if breastfeeding is the deciding factor for assuming the mantel of primary caregiver, why aren’t adoptive mothers cut any slack either? How much ever the husband tried to pitch in, it never seemed enough, and most importantly never equal.

I am the generation whose first conditioned response to assault is examining my role in inviting it, where ‘mild sexual assault’ is part of the job description. We have all been groped in public transport, stuck in a labyrinth of human bodies, unable to move and never knowing who our molester is. We have all been stalked/courted by our share of roadside Romeos. We sneak to the restroom with our sanitary pad cleverly hidden among layers of newspaper. (How come we don’t use the same state- of the- art guise to cover baby diapers?) We invite unsolicited advise on dress code from aunties who strut around in saris that precariously dangle down their shoulders exposing their midriff, cleavage and all. There is perhaps not a single girl who hasn’t been followed, or worse flashed at. The road opposite the college I work at has the moniker Loafer’s Lane, after its prodigal sons who can be spotted at any part of the day, routinely indulging in some feverish cat -calling and flashing at girls strolling out of the campus. Within months, a new fast food joint named ‘Mounts View’ (after Mount Carmel College) cropped up on the road, providing solace, hot medu vadas and validity to all the ‘loafing’.

So insidious is the desensitisation that we no longer think it’s distasteful when TV cameras linger on the body contours of the cheerleaders while they dance in slow motion during an IPL match. We gyrate to the tunes of Honey Singh, the obnoxious lyrics falling our deaf ears. Along with their dinner we feed our little girls clichés of princesses who need a Prince Charming to whisk them away to their ‘happily ever after’. 

Feminism is the dreaded f-word of our generation. Our favourite heroines and supposed role models carefully put out the disclaimer that they aren’t “one of those feminist types”. Feminazi seems to be the new cuss word. It’s true that in the name of opinion many may spew unsubstantiated vitriol. After all, showing outrage is our nation’s favourite pastime, and for every action, there is indeed a social media over reaction. 

For instance, why all this furore on the patriarchal undertones of the film 'Dangal'? Dangal is a biography and was merely showcasing reality. It doesn't stop becoming feminist because the feminism doesn't resemble ours. Empowerment comes in different shapes and types for different women and it's not our place to tell what it is.
Others that give feminism a bad name include TV ads that leverage the 'attention grabbing potential of feminist rants' and click- baity articles such as the one that called Ryan Gosling's acceptance speech at the recent Golden Globes sexist. For god's sake, the man had the decency to acknowledge and thank his wife's (Eva Mendes, popular actress herself) role in his success. It easy to be opinionated. However, lets be informed too.

The recent New Year incident in Bangalore and such every day incidents everywhere else in India, demonstrate the need to call out sexism. As they say, in a state of privilege, the clamour for equality may seem an awful lot like oppression. We scream at the friend who dismisses our anger using his favourite ‘’are you PMSing?” comment, while we are speechless when someone in the crowd gropes us in the pretext of New Year revelry. Do we continue to organise rallies, and stage protests that brim with women, but not a single man in sight? We have voices and voices are meant to be heard. We may applaud the movie Pink with its infamous “No means No” tagline. But as long as we lap up an ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’, a movie with a hero who borderlines on being a creep, not understanding the c of consent, just because it’s sugar coated with pretty people, shedding pretty tears in pretty places, the need for feminism will never cease to exist.

10 years later, my little niece, studying in kindergarten, demanded for her name board on the gate and got one.“ These boys think they are only great” she seethed to me over the phone. That day, I learnt from her that sometimes you just need to ask why, and why again and why to every, everyday sexism, till the narrative loses logic and then you can watch them crash and burn.

“No one thinks all men. Just too many men. Enough to be afraid. Enough that all women have experienced it. Enough men to make it a social problem. Not a personal one. “

OK ?

3o years later, when I held little Maya in my hands, I was ecstatic. I wanted a girl baby and there she was. But masquerading amidst the euphoria was an uneasy calm that niggled at my heart. I recalled my mother’s first thought when she held a baby me. My only wish for Maya is that many years later, she doesn’t dig up this post of her mother’s and catch herself nodding and relating to every word.

Best Foot Forward

A new legion of youngsters is spearheading a football revolution in education. Because, they say, the Beautiful Game equips children with vital life skills.

Sunday morning, 6.00 a.m. Eight-year-old Gokul chugs down his milk and tears out of the house, cradling a football in his arm and a bottle of lime juice to go. He pedals away furiously and joins three other cyclists waiting for him at the end of the road.  

It may be the most accessible sport but what makes football the most popular one? “It teaches you life,” says Karthik Chandrashekaran, a corporate slogger on weekdays and football coach on weekends for Gokul and a bunch of boys in Bengaluru. “I was a professional tennis player, until I realised that football was my calling. It brought out the best in me,” he says, arranging plastic cones for the kids to dribble around. The boys are done with their warm-up and gather in the middle of the ground. Chandrashekaran kicks the ball in the air; a shrill whistle signals the start of play. Much cacophony ensues. 

The ball bounces off Gokul’s chest, dropping down to his leg. He halts for a second, jiggling it under his foot. To his right stands Varun, a rookie, and to his left is Michael, the star of the team, trying to sneak through the army of defenders shadowing him. Gokul can either tackle and take a shot at the goal himself or pass the ball. Gokul kicks it to Varun. The ball comes back to Gokul. The defender who is tailing him slips for a second and Gokul slides the ball past his leg and down the goalpost in one slick manoeuvre. The crowd cheers, as he darts across to his teammates and disappears into a group hug.

Football builds confidence. “But to do well, one needs the support of others,” says Vikas Plakkot, one of the founders of Just for Kicks, an exclusive football programme for children. “As children, everyone craves for  flamboyance, to be a striker. My role is to tell them that defending is equally important,” he adds.

A new legion of spirited youngsters is spearheading a football revolution in India. Turning football coaches, they teach the sport not to increase its popularity, but to extend its positive influence on children. Life skills the lesson and football the tool. Good friends Vikas and Neha Sahu were looking for a way to take education beyond the walls of a classroom and help boost attendance. After some soul-searching, they concluded that sports  may be the answer. 

Just for Kicks kicked off in Pune in 2010. Plakkot and Sahu chalked out a curriculum that drew on the game’s strengths without compromising on fun. The programme was thrown open to interested students, girls and boys, and teams were formed. Soon, attendance improved, and within a year, there was a qualitative difference in the children’s academic involvement and emotional well-being. Today, the programme is being implemented in more than 125 schools in Pune. The recent partnership with Mumbai City FC and the increasing fandom for ISL has spiked interest and boosted motivation. Plakkot says football hones critical thinking; the ability to judge oneself and differentiate between what went right and wrong. “It teaches you to cope with stress and emotion.”

“They learn that victory and loss are part of the game. When they fail an exam, they realise that it’s not the end of the world,” says Chennai-based Vikram Menon, a Junior National Tennis champion and the brain behind Phenomenon Sports League in the city. A chance encounter at a local orphanage where he went to donate used football equipment altered his life forever. “I saw how much happiness a ball brought to the lives of the boys,” he smiles. He went on to start Life is a Ball, an NGO that seeks to improve the lives of under-privileged children through football. Since 2010, the NGO has grown exponentially, offering free sports education in government schools in Chennai, Kanchipuram and Hyderabad. Here, too, the basic premise was to use football as the impetus to make children attend school.  

It’s half-time and the boys at Chandrashekaran’s class in Bengaluru huddle under the shade of a mango tree. Some crack jokes. Some animatedly discuss the pervious night’s Arsenal Vs. Manchester United game. Michael wipes a trickle of blood down his knee and shares his juice with the defender who just sent him hurtling on the pitch.  Chandrashekaran waves at the boys. The teams regroup.  

Life is a Ball included another skill in its curriculum this year: gender equality. “We’ve been making mixed teams, and we found the kids bonding really well, and respect for the opponent also developed,” a value that teachers struggle to teach in a classroom. The biggest moment for Vikram this year was when a group of Class 8 and 9 girls staged a protest outside school, refusing to study unless they were allowed to play on par with the boys. 

It’s hard to forget the image of a group of little girls, clad in red-and-white saris and sneakers, plastic flowers adorning their hair, going up on stage to claim their trophy at Gasteiz Cup 2013 in Victoria Gasteiz, Spain. The all-girls team, which contested in the U-14 tournament and won third place, comprises students from Yuwa, a non-profit organisation in Ranchi. In Jharkhand, six out of 10 girls drop out of school and become child brides; thousands are trafficked each year. Yuwa was started in 2009 by Franz Gastler, who believed that team sport could help combat these issues. “In 95 per cent of the cases, parents don’t send their daughters to Yuwa. It’s the girls who choose (and often fight) to come,” says Rose Thomson, Education Director, Yuwa. For girls, especially from rural India, the obstacles are greater, the stakes are higher, and Yuwa’s challenges go beyond  encouraging just school attendance.  Dissuading parents who want to marry off their teenage daughters, addressing instances of domestic abuse,malnutrition, health problems, ensuring the safety of girls as they walk to and from practice, are some of the issues that the organisation confronts. But why football? “That’s what the girls wanted,” says Thomson. “And when we ask how often they want to practise, they say everyday!” 

 Yuwa’s Child Development Officer, Neha Baxla, talks about how the game fosters independent thinking. “The girls realised that in their families they are taught that their role, as a girl, as a woman, is to never think about themselves.”

Thomson remembers the time she met the parents of a girl who were planning to marry her off at 13. When she quizzed them, the mother  said that she was a child bride herself and such was the norm. “I asked the mother how she had felt then. She said that she was scared and that it was a very bad time. I asked if she wanted the same for her daughter. She had tears in her eyes and asked what she could do. I explained that her daughter wanted to be a teacher and that she could earn money and help them when they grew old. The girl continues to play football and going to school. She was also on a Yuwa team which went to the U.S. to compete in the USA cup.” Indeed, the beautiful game can take children places. 

-Originally published in The Sunday Magazine, The Hindu on 13th March 2016

Reality continues to ruin life- celebrating 30 years of Calvin and Hobbes

A six-year old boy in a striped red t-shirt lays a trap for tiger with a tuna sandwich as bait.  Soon enough a tiger falls prey. Thus begins a thirty-year-old journey, a world of imagination and a magical friendship as Calvin and Hobbes, perfect companions on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Calvin, a mischievous kid named after a 16^th century theologian who believed in predestination and Hobbes his stuffed tiger, after Thomas Hobbes, an English political philosopher with a grim view on human nature, are the creations of acclaimed cartoonist Bill Watterson. They debuted on Nov 18^th 1985 and had a successful run in 2400 papers and in several languages until Watterson called it quits on December 31^st 1995.  The comic is an ode to childhood and the pains of growing up, ‘transmogrifying’ the reader into the bratty child lurking inside everyone who wants to get things done his way. 

After the stint in newspapers, the comic was published as fourteen book collections that consistently made it to the New York Times bestseller’s list. The humour in Calvin and Hobbes is subtle, observational, mildly subversive and is expressed through the many adventures that Calvin has with Hobbes, at school, in the woods behind his house and make-believe alter egos as Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man and Tracer bullet. The success of the comic however has been attributed its ability to defy age and time, and appeal to both children and adults. “While as a kid I liked the slapstick humour, as I grew older I enjoyed the cultural and political references he makes,” says Shiva Nallaperumal, a comic book aficionado and graphic/type designer with the Indian Type Foundry Ahmedabad. “Though I am a kid who grew up in the 2000s I find this 80’s work as accessible and funny as the people who enjoyed it when it first got published,” he says.

When quizzed about the relationship between Calvin and Hobbes once, Bill Watterson remarked that he saw Hobbes as subjective reality than as a doll that springs to life in Calvin’s imagination. “That’s how life works, we all see a different side to it,” he said. Sharanya Gopinathan a student of Law and Gender Studies, SOAS, London loves the comic especially for its philosophy.“ I just love the gentle unobtrusive philosophy and wisdom each strip is loaded with. It makes you laugh not only at the kid and comic but yourself and the strange world around.” Calvin’s rants on human nature, pop culture and his curiosity abut the natural world are balanced by the quiet dignity and intelligence of Hobbes, making their conversations a delight to read and ruminate thereafter.

Calvin and Hobbes are supported by an amusing motley of secondary characters including Calvin’s parents, Rosalyn the babysitter, Moe the school bully, Mrs Wormwood the disgruntled schoolteacher and Susie Derkins his classmate. Interestingly, the reader is not given any information about the parents, their names, professions or even the city they live in, thus defining their roles only as the exasperated mother and the father who satiates Calvin’s sense of wonder. Calvin has a mild crush on Suzie that he chooses to express by annoying her, a dynamic that is perhaps true of modern day romance.  Siddarth John, an animator based in California drew inspiration from Calvin to create his own character Spitz. For others, like Shankar Swaminathan, a new parent, the conversations between Calvin and his dad, an amusing motif in the series, sparks interest. “The comic is infused with lessons on parenting and dealing with children, he says. But would he like a Calvin at home?  “ Of course not. Calvin is always adorable as someone else’s’ child, “he laughs.

Bill Watterson, a recipient of the ‘Reuban Award for outstanding cartoonist of the year twice is known to be a recluse. He chose not to appear in the documentary “Dear Mr Watterson’ and has given only two interviews so far. Watterson declined to give merchandising rights believing it would turn the characters into celebrities who need to be profitable and compromise the spirit of the comic.

A part-time cartoonist himself, Shiva Nallaperumal is astonished at the process that Bill Watterson might have gone through as an artist. “He was full of ideas, despite having the same constraints that it had, to involve this kid, his environment, his parents and an imaginary world. It’s a strict framework but he was able to explore so much within that.” Some of the recurring themes of the comic include the snowmen Calvin builds, conversations with his dad, his grouse with the educational system, television the ‘20^th century drug of choice’ and the good vs. evil debate portrayed through Calvin’s love for Christmas. In one strip Calvin selling a ‘swift kick in the butt’ for one dollar is shocked that business is terrible, given that ‘everyone he knows, needs one!’

Calvin and Hobbes enthusiasts are a legion and they have been collecting many quirky facts about the strip. For instance, did you know that Calvin is ambidextrous, multilingual and a fan of Batman, the Star Wars and Bugs Bunny but hates Disney? Have you noticed that Hobbes never calls Calvin by name? Saturday mornings begin with the cereal ‘Sugar frosted chocolate bombs’ and ‘ Hamster Huey and the Gooey Gablooey’ is his favourite bedtime story?

These thirty years may have been about friendship, but as Bill Watterson says it’s also about “finding your own meaning of life, it’s not easy but it’s still allowed, and I think you will be happier for the trouble”,

- Originally published in The Sunday Magazine. The Hindu on 29th November 2015 

 

Do you get the nuances of Textese?

Have you seen that ad where a wife loses her husband in a crowded train station and discovers the love for him instead? Platinum day of love. Well, if such a day does exists, N’s was when he saw me polish off an entire plate of chicken biryani with absolutely no qualms, fuss or mention of diet (unlike regular girls he says). On the other hand mine was when N corrected my spelling of ‘rejuvenate’. I’m a ‘Grammar Nazi, and used to maintain a standing rule that I wouldn’t date guys who txt lyk dis. So, when N caught me in my momentary lapse of reason, I fell for him. Period.

Textese or SMS language as we popularly know it now, developed at the time when phones were as big and heavy as TV remotes and one needed powerful fingers to press the keys. Text messages were expensive and there were only 160 characters to express oneself before the phone balance dipped. It was a handy and made testing faster. Now with Wi-Fi messaging, feather light phones, touch screens, and other paraphernalia you think tesxtese would have died a natural death, but it hasn’t. It has merely evolved. Textese can be a bane or boon of today’s society depending on which team you are in; the Nazis or the busy bees that don’t have the extra second to add the ‘O’ before they reply ‘K’ to the essay you just sent them. I wonder what they do with all the extra time.

Smart phones have made us extremely lazy. We cringe to pick up the phone and have an actual conversation. We’d rather text with our own textese, our unique language with customised vocabulary and personal style. We devise new norms to adhere to and to judge others by. For instance, purists would tell you that the exclamation mark was traditionally used to indicate surprise. When you shout ‘surprise! ,‘at a surprise birthday party for example. Or is used to show vehemence, like “Get off my spot!” But off late, the punctuation mark has been going on overkill. “Hey!!! What are you doing?!! “, says the friend who frankly doesn’t give a damn or the dramatic ‘thank you!!!” when a person compliments one’s profile picture. Well, I have just failed to get long along with these excessive exclamation users. Maybe my phlegmatic personality is allergic to their overly sunny disposition.

 A ‘hey’ with a single ‘y’ has become an unenthusiastic, akin to calling a stranger on the road. ‘Heyy’ shows interest. ‘Heyyy’ is borderline flirting and ‘Heyyyyy’is just plain creepy. Many would agree that ‘Lol’ (laugh out loud) hardly stands for what it started out with. Now ‘Lol’ is the new ‘okay’. “Hey guess what, I bumped l bumped into Neha. Remember her?’ “Oh ya.lol”.  At times it’s measly politeness, especially when a friend says something supposedly witty and you aren’t too amused.  Likewise, a plain ha-ha has become lame, fake almost. The next time you want to find out if your joke is genuinely rib tickling look for the ‘Hahaha’. More ha’s the better, except when it’s Muahaha. That’s Joker having the last laugh.

The other day I was chatting with a friend on Whatsapp and had to cross the road. So I quickly typed ‘brb’ and shut the window. Fifteen minutes later when I checked my phone, he had left me a sermon on how the acronym for ‘be right back’ is used only in shady chat rooms and not with close friends anymore. Really? News to me.

You think teachers must be a happy lot, with all phones coming with an in-built dictionary. It requires determination to defy the auto-correct and get a spelling wrong. Unfortunately, they are far from it. Exam papers and class assignments now lay strewn with acronyms and shoddy spellings. While students type out superlative text messages on autopilot, the same dictionary slowly erases the memory of all spellings from their brains. Come exams, they stutter and start scribbling to mask their mistakes.

To text with ease or text traditional?  To nit-pick or let it go. Is he being friendly or flirty?  Goodnight or nite? That’s the question. Maybe the Emoji will be our answer.

-Originally published in The New

Indian Express, Bangalore on 31st October 2015

Cinema can be a great teacher

I wallowed in a state of ennui. Life was very insipid that Tuesday afternoon until I switched on the TV for some mindless white noise, and HBO was playing the ‘Inception’.  Leonardo jolts awake in the plane and is surprised to see his team mates around him. Did they succeed? Are they still dreaming? Hans Zimmer’s ‘Time’ starts to play in the background as Leo walks down the airport and we feel happy for some reason. He enters home and sees his children playing on  the porch. He spins the top on the table and rushes to hug them. The camera zooms on the top. It wobbles slightly. You pray for it to fall. The screen blanks out.  I gasped.

This flitting sojourn in Nolan’s classic sent my brain tizzy with excitement, as it started writing its own screenplay on dreams, reality and life in between. The curse of the ennui had finally been lifted.

 The other day I asked my mother about my first movie at the theatre, as a baby. Had I asked her what colour frock I wore on my first birthday or if I bawled or behaved on my first day of school she wouldn’t have been too shocked nor would she have jogged her memory so much. I was hoping she would name a Kamal Haasan blockbuster of the 80’s, reaffirming my belief that I was always a film connoisseur. What she did name is irrelevant now, but I grew on a staple of regional and English movies from childhood and cinema was my greatest therapy.

Our family is a bunch of devout Kamal Haasan fans. So much that he is like a member of our kin. Every avatar of his reminds my mom of someone in the house. Demented lover, poor communist, choreographer with suicidal tendencies, we have them all. The tryst with cinema had only one aberration though; my grandfather who supposedly sat beside Rajinikanth in a flight and failed to recognize him even after the superstar introduced himself. Earliest memories of watching movies date back to summer holidays squandered away rolling on mattresses in front of Doordarshan’s Saturday night specials or at a cousin’s community open-air theatre with packed tiffin dhabbas. We watched robots come alive, kids getting locked in their houses and the great escapade of prisoners in awe. One month of Jaundice and missing school went by without much complaint thanks to the re runs of old movies, which I devoured lying sprawled on the hall sofa.

Adolescence is best remembered by the AR Rahman phase. Road trips meant marathon singing -along sessions till the tapes screeched out of agony. Then came the ‘Titanic’ craze. We stuck posters of the legendary ship pose, and shed copious tears when Jack died. I admit I am embarrassed about it today but I’m sure Di Caprio is more. Deploring romance in books, I feasted on mind numbing rom- coms smitten by bumping onto a cute stranger, realizing the love for an old school friend, the climax at the airport. You know the works. Luckily with age came sanity and the ability to discern the good from the bad, the realistic from the fantasy and define pure cinema.  And when I did, a whole new beautiful world opened up, giving me a peek into the fascinating lives of Iran, Germany, Korea and Argentina.

The good thing about great cinema is that inspires you to watch more. The last ten minutes of the Inception set the right mood to watch Court, India’s entry for the upcoming Oscars.  With its lingering camera work, this extremely deft and subtle satirical take on the Indian legal system is the kind of movie that runs in your head as an afterthought long after the credits roll. The more you mull lover it, the more you remember the nuances and deeper it caves in releasing all the pent up remorse. Films graduated from being entertainment, escapism or wish fulfilment into catharsis.

I’ve learnt more about cinema from teaching it to an enthusiastic bunch of college students than studying and understood life better from Woody Allen, The Motorcycle Diaries and the friendship of Andy Dufresene and Red then I can ever hope to.