Mode C is as much for Calvin as it is for Chaos, as much for Cool as it is for Cold, as much for Class as it is for Crass.

Mode C is a way of life, the Calvin way of life which I am so fascinated by as to keep trying to make it my own way of life. But what exactly is Calvin's way of life, you ask...and I say that there are no clear answers to this one.

I strongly believe, however, that almost all the seriously critical fundamental concepts of life, they are just the bogies under Calvin's bed that he is afraid of. Everyhting else...Miss Wormwood, Susie, Mom and Dad, and of course above all, Hobbes...aren't they all merely the means that he uses to attack these bogies?

It is nothing, therefore, but the perspective of each of these players on the stage of Calvin's dramatic life that helps him fight these bogies and move on in his own unique way...listening to all but doing only what finally makes sense to his own individuality. This is what comes closest, I guess, to the Calvin way of leading one's life...

Monday, August 03, 2015

Mann kasturi re, Jag dasturi re...




There are movies that give you a route to escape the monotony of life and take you along on the journey to nothingness and larger-than-life experiences. However, there are others that have a meaningful story to relate, quite often and unfairly dubbed as the serious movies. Piracy and TV screens unfortunately make such movies fall short of ringing the cash registers. There are markets for both these varieties of cinema of course, just that appreciation may center on the moolah in one to the standing ovations in another.

Masaan does tell us a serious story and yet it is a saga of escape. Not escape from reality a la cinema, but what it seems to significantly tell us is that entrenched within reality is escape from it, sort of a catch 22. The movie talks about the ultimate escape though, the "KashiYatra" (final journey to death and salvation) and how even that is not enough to get free of the stranglehold that life and its customs have on you.

Set in the lanes and ghats of perhaps the oldest surviving city in the world, Varanasi, the story stays clear of stereotypes despite the strong allegory across the plot. Varanasi is not just another picture perfect image here of tourists, backpackers, and junkies smoking up their lives but is more of an important character in the movie, a confluence of life and death...of livewire ambitions and silencing destiny.

There are various sub-plots that make up the story and you watch spellbound as they keep coming together, each thread almost touching the other shyly before intermingling completely. Fire and water, the two elements that the Varanasi of Masaan is made of, are up and about throughout the story...the subtle yet simmering father-daughter relationship playing perfect foil to the fiery ambition followed by consuming sadness of the underdog. At the cost of appearing a bit muddled to the average cine-goer, this interplay between the tracks is effortless enough to actually add to the movie's narrative instead of taking anything away from it.

A professor in Sankrit at the local college has come upon bad days, selling trinkets and trivia at the ghats, that confluence of religion and spirituality that only a few cities are blessed with and Varanasi perhaps most well known of them. His daughter embodies the spirit of youth in India's small towns who is confident in her own skin, not ashamed of getting caught in the middle of a sex scandal except for the problems it is causing her father...cornered but defiant. Even the unlikely little hero who assists the Pandit at his shop is unafraid of diving deep and competing to win every gamble placed at his cost.

The other track, even more poignant, relays the story of the emancipation that every small town looks up to. Education is widely identified even in the darkest reaches of the society to carry hope and yet, it also makes a lot of promises, some kept and yet others totally lost in fires of the crematorium. The lower caste boy dreams to fall in love without drowning under the social stigmas and associated drag. Unlike in the small town India of old, he gets support from his friends and partner, the facebook generation having come up the curve. All he needs to do to make his dream come true is within his reach...or so he thinks. Plans to escape the reality go back to the earth from where we all come into being. Destiny strikes and strikes hard enough to break the skull that can’t be destroyed even by the holy fire.

The acting is top class and the sheer personalities that the protagonists bring to the table are outstanding. Richa Chadha's undefeated fight in slinging over her bag to Sanjay Mishra's hunched shoulders, the debutantes Vicky Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi with their joie de vivre and cute idiosyncrasies, the unambiguous and uncaring evil of Bhagwan Tiwari's blackmailing cop, and even the vulnerability shrouded in boastful swagger of the child artist Nikhil Sahni...the screen is brought alive by these artists and more.

Masaan, the local colloquial term used for Shamshaan (crematorium) is wonderfully titled and brilliantly executed. Generating and retaining its own brand of charm, the writer-director duo of Varun Grover and Neeraj Ghaywan give a local flavor to the movie. References to popular culture notwithstanding (even those meshed into the local milieu of a small town with cyber cafe owners glaring away at facebook explorations), the story keeps referring to poets from the Hindi and Urdu heartland. As the background tracks and songs take you on their unique Kashi Yatra, you can only wonder at the play with words.

Added to the story and its intricacies, what also impresses one about Varun Grover is the striking color he gives to the songs, perfectly creating bright and inviting cocktails which get you high once poured into the soulful music that only Indian Ocean is capable of. The director's debut is as mature and sensitive as it could have been and given the challenging non-linearity of narrative, his handling of his characters and the story are remarkable.

Masaan burns in your mind for hours and even days after you have watched it, the pyres dying down to embers, and embers proving to be genesis for life as they power the cooking stove. It is so pretty, the way water, glorious in the afternoon sun enlivening one ghat ends up being just the background for death being consumed by fire on the other.