She’s tonguing my coc…

hlea. I’m having difficulty focusing on the live band.

I’m pointing this out only because it hasn’t happened before: I’m writing this entry drunk. It’s about four in the wee morn and I just hobbled back home. I had a fun evening out—one that began with a viewing of the latest comic book-turned motion picture extravaganza, “Watchmen.” Overall, I really liked it and thought the copious shots of naked male bums and proud glowey penises were well done.

My silence has belied it, but I’ve been doing a lot more adult-y things with my life lately. I’ve been entertaining guests at home, hanging-out later at bars and inviting people over afterwards. It’s like for the first time in my life, I’m not embarrassed about how I live it. And that’s made me comfortable with the notion of sharing it.

It’s not like anything has fundamentally changed, it’s just that life has become more fun to navigate after moving here. With everything being so laid back, I have all the time in the world to focus on whatever catches my fancy. Without guilt.

Of course, with all that leisure time and substance-induced inhibition reduction, my mind often tends to revert to its core state. And rather than explicitly spell out to you what I mean by that for the 400th time, I leave you with the following metaphor.

Most of the buses and trains in this city have an approximately equal number of seats that face forward and back. I’ve been keeping some notes over this past couple of weeks, and guess what? Given a choice, 98% of the people choose a forward-facing seat from which they can see where the bus is going.

I always pick a seat that faces backwards.

Stars among us

Emerging from the south of my country, moreover so from a city and community rife with anti-Hindi sentiment, it’s not surprising that I hadn’t seen a single Hindi movie during the course of my entire life. All that changed a couple of days ago, when my kin dragged me along to a screening of Taare Zameen Par, a quaint little feature with a moving social message.

Hindi movie ticket

It’s because of this heartwarming message and the wonderful acting all across the board that I’m willing to overlook the fairytale ending, the needless random breakouts into song and dance, and the overly colour-saturated cinematography, to proclaim that it was a very moving and delightful experience; something which I had least expected.

I can heartily recommend this movie to anyone who’s curious about what Indian cinema has to offer (it screens here complete with well-written English subtitles) though I recognise that it isn’t even remotely representative of the standard fare, to anyone who knows someone with a learning disability or mental handicap, or to anyone who’s experienced a certain very third world mentality I try hard to rally against: That if you’re not the absolute best at what you do, be it anything from not scoring at the top of your class in an inconsequential test in first grade, to not earning the most amongst your peers upon completing your education, you’re an utter failure.

In summary, if you belong to any of those groups, please try it. You won’t be disappointed.