You're so fine, Mickey

Why I love 'Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man':
Apart from the bit where Don Johnson begs Mickey Rourke not to hold the gun like a part of his anatomy?
Last scene, when Mickey in his Greek God avatar says to the supermodel posing as hitchhiker: "Where're you headed?"
She says, "Nowhere special."
He says, "Lemme take you there."

Die, die!

I've always had a weak spot for threesomes. By which I mean the girl-in-love-with-two-boys motif, silly. So The Vampire Diaries was a fave TV show. Then they got confused. The threesome is still going strong, never fear, but I can no longer keep track of people being killed and then coming back to life.
The worst was the Season 3 finale. Alaric's death scene was poignant, everyone comes to pay their respects, fat, white candles burn in the background - and then, hey presto, he's back! Ridic.
But wasn't it high time they made Elena a vamp? Of course, God knows what Season 4 will bring and I am not going to Google it. I shall wait, patriotically, until it comes to the Third World. I might even stay undisappointed longer that way. Like they remain undead.

*********************
Speaking of which, how painfully dull was "Breaking Dawn 2"? Although I did notice Rob Pattinson seemed so relieved throughout the movie, seeing the light at the end of the perennial fog in Forks, no doubt. The lead actors must have had 10 lines each, but Michael Sheen was hilarious. Every time he came onscreen, the theatre erupted in laughter. But the weird baby, the repulsive bond between a grown man and said baby, the way too facile answers to all the problems on hand and the stark contrast between how appalling the Twilight movies are when you compare it to the Potter movies... I can tell you Pattinson isn't the only one relieved the nightmare franchise is over.
Oh, and anyone wondering whether Kristen Stewart is a good actress or not? I was on her side until I saw "Breaking Dawn 2". When she shouts at Jacob for bonding with a newborn? Cringeworthy. Since I'm good at the waiting game, however, I shall reserve final judgement until "On the Road".

Stop already!

Tahereh Mafi has joined the long list of writers who are doing the unconscionable: Writing bloody trilogies and not ending the book that I'm bloody reading. What the hell. Laini Taylor, Becca Fitzpatrick, Jennifer Estep, Darynda Jones all write highly readable books but don't they realize that they are annoying the reader by blatantly writing for book contracts and not the satisfaction of the people who buy their books?
I want that sigh of contentment when I finish avidly reading a single story. If I like it I will buy your sequels (which shouldn't be plural, in any case, they should be standalone indulgences), never fear. But at least let me have a sense of closure in case I drop dead before the next installment is out.
Look at the incomparable JR Ward, Kresley Cole and Stacia Kane who all respect their readers and yet give us more and more of the characters we adore.
Mafi's "Shatter Me" is great reading - until I came to the end which turned out to be a comma and not a full stop. Maddening.

Holy Trilogy

There are actors, and then there's DiCaprio. There are directors, and then there's Tarantino. Now God has brought them together, and I will soon get to Heaven.

Wishing for Skyfall, until...

Javier Bardem walked onto the screen right before Intermission.

Bond movies are formula films, that's part of their USP. They have broken the formula with 1. A lead actor who looks like a thug with two expressions in his armoury. 2. No gadgets and too much reliance on brawn.

Is it Sam Mendes' fault that we have a slow dance for the first half of the movie when we wanted that spectacular opening sequence? Remember the first shot in GoldenEye (where Pierce Brosnan gave us the best Bond with his beauty, toughness and vulnerability)? That was a lesson on how to make an impact, not Craig's endless fight with the bad guy on top of a train. Another shot of Craig giving chase on the SAME ROOFTOP in Turkey we saw in 'Taken 2' made me worry about the budget for this film.

I think it's Barbara Broccoli's fault for tampering with genius in the first place. She chose Craig, who wears no expression throughout 'Skyfall' – except when the word itself is spoken to him and his eyes change. Then Mendes comes along and we are deprived of so much acting skill that we almost don't realize it since all the actors seem to be suffering from the same ailment. Then comes Javier. But even his long entrance is too long, his monologue too tender – until it hits you. Tender? He then runs his hand over Craig's body in the slowest, scariest shot and you think: Genius is back. But it takes a long time coming, and only because you have an actor in Javier who will always transcend his material slash director. The smirks, the false solicitude, the crazed focus of “What have they done to you?” whispered to Judi Dench when he has come to kill her, it's breathtaking.

Berenice Marlohe gets the formula back on track as the hot chick who has a moment in the sack with the spy and then gets killed off. The black dress we first see her in makes more of an impact than she does; at moments she is fascinating to watch, at others she is as hazy as a sepia photograph. She also doesn't have the body required for the role, large hips and fat ankles? Come on.

Both Bond and M are horrible people in 'Skyfall'. She lets her agents down time and again, he watches people die. Now I don't know about you, but that does not hero material make. And this is supposed to be a Bond movie?

The one special effects shot where a train plows down on Bond missed the mark because it had no people in it, thereby through one careless inattention to detail leaving us indifferent instead of gasping in our seats. The young Q brings no kickass new toys, (I know we're backtracking but may I say again, this is a Bond movie), and the entrance of Miss Moneypenny is equally daft: She was never black.

The last shot in the house on a Scottish moor where the Aston Martin getting shot up finally moves Bond to violence is almost tragi-comic.

But in the end, it's a great film because it has character. It reveals how ruthless government can be. It has bad guys who are good and good guys who are bad. It has those gorgeous sweeps of location that move you to sighs. It has the wonderful title song from Adele. It has Javier. It has Javier. It has Javier.

Nothing casual about it

I loved The Casual Vacancy. What a decimation of British smalltown culture, with their petty concerns, their sad sex lives and their young and aimless. Rowling says it all 'authentically', never mind whose point of view she is working from. I don't know many writers who can delve into the workings of an obese old man, an Indian expat and a teenager with equal ease. She even has a turn of phrase, although her writing style isn't extraordinary or descriptive: It is to-the-point and tells you everything you want to know. I was interested enough to read it right through, this story about Pagford and its high and low citizens. It was like sitting in the cold kitchen of one of its older residents as she dictated the town's history to a biographer.

The high school students are strikingly captured in all their angst, their obsessiveness, their feelings of alienation, things each one of us has lived through and never forgotten. Their parents are blind to their character, too embroiled as they are in trying to figure out their own lives.

The focal point is the death of a respected man and the vacancy that then needs to be filled in the local council. Enter the contendors, anonymous viper posts on the Net and a gathering free-for-all.

There is no sentimentality in the stories being told here. A young girl will die, and although she is both slut and saint, there is no redemption for her. Her world is depicted in gruesome detail, and you almost welcome her death for her sake. A boy will lose his sense of self with a single act of cowardice, when all the while you've admired his insouciant defiance. A married couple who hate each other will discover there is still love to be found amongst the ruins of over-familiarity and routine gropings in the dark. There are abusive fathers, and you can almost smell the terror of their households, rampant adultery in both mind and body, and the unravelling of established matrons in the most pathetic ways.

Rowling manages to make them all so real that you can see the movie coming. I admire this woman, especially for flipping the bird at critics carping about non-essentials when readers are simply enjoying the tale she tells.

Seven years....SEVEN YEARS

Just thinking about the author who spent seven years researching/writing what turned out to be a really bad book. Could anything be worse. Imagine what he could have done in all that time.
1. Adventure sports in New Zealand.
2. Marriage.
3. Divorce.
4. Landscaping his garden.
5. Writing a cookbook after seven years of research enjoyed by friends and family.
6. Being arrested and sentenced to 7 years after committing a non-heinous crime, like a Robin Hood robbery or some Greenpeace activity.
7. Worked for the Books page of a well-reputed publication - because as we all know, those who can't write, review.

Looking forward to this...

Oh, what a lovely war!

I just read two World War 2 books (The Collaborator and Night Soldiers) back-to-back and realized why I like them so much, apart from the fact that they are gloriously written: It was a time when we could see clearly between good and evil. 

The enemy had a face, not a mask. 

We knew who was fighting the good fight and who we had to rally behind. Love, Integrity, Justice, Brotherhood were words we understood and embraced; the opposite of them were so horrific only madmen like Stalin and Hitler could embrace its darkness while normal humans veered to the light.

 Now, there is so much darkness that we are all stumbling around, careening into each other. On one hand, heroes have turned villains, while villains try to outdo them at every turn. Other grey areas abound.

As we speak, there is a strike in the city I live in. When once my country's strikes were symbols of unity and fights against oppression, now they are vehicles where the lawless have a day of partying; young men feel powerful when otherwise they are helpless against a daily ritual of poverty slash ennui. They roam the streets burning tyres, shouting slogans gleefully and strong-arming shopkeepers who disagree with the idea of a strike that takes away their day's earnings. 

So the strike in 2012 means nothing more than fear, not unity, with businessess and ordinary citizens' lives shutting down for 12 hours.

The issue at stake was our highest judicial authority giving a ruling on sharing our river's waters with a neighbouring State. So with a strike, not only are we thumbing our noses at our highest judicial authority but we're also proving that the idea of “good neighbours” hasn't only been twisted on Desperate Housewives.

Found this on a news site today, a bit intense but the sentiment (except for the Kannadiga comment, some of my best friends are smart Kannadigas!) is spot-on:

“To the twits who think water rights are ENTIRELY owned by the region or territory where the river originates, please spend 10 mins on the Net and you will DISCOVER how the world handles it. By your incredibly stupid reasoning, China can completely deny the waters of the Brahmaputra to us - you all fine with that? Knowing the limited intelligence of the average Kannadiga, I wouldn't be surprised if you answered Yes cause you are not affected by the Brahmaputra and could care less about anything else other than 'what is in it for you' !”

The Drone life

Where are we? Beirut? East Berlin? The Gaza Strip? No, we are in a country that borders my own, where my brothers live. And are now dying. When will we say 'Enough'? http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gibson-drones-civilians-20121004,0,1147467.story. If you read this, read the comments below, too.

One tries to differentiate between the Governments of a country and its citizens, but sometimes that's difficult to do. All Pakis are terrorists, going by what white people seem to think. In that case, all white people must be rednecks.

Irrespective of who's who and what's what, I can't for a moment imagine not being able to step out of my house to buy groceries, or take my children to school, or go to work. Oh wait, I'm black. I don't do these things. I'm supposed to build a bomb in my garage, so the Great White Shark, sorry, Saviour from the West has no option but to send flying toys that pack quite a punch to annihilate me and my toddlers - who of course would have grown up to strap more bombs around their chests and kamikazi an embassy or whatever. What a mercy they were blown up themselves before they could achieve that grand ambition.

The scary thing is that American presidents now blatantly encourage murder, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, bin Laden. (Isn't that what terrorists were doing? How now do we tell the difference between anyone?)

Tomorrow, of course, an American Prez could issue a fatwa against Me. Bloody hell, tomorrow it could be You. I guess then we'll give a shit.

Really? Brahmin?

It's a bag company. Rather delicious ones, actually. But surely they could have come up with a better brand name? Casteist and provocative to the very same caste.
Ignorance is no excuse in a world waiting to trample on you the minute you open your mouth about, well, anything really. You want to make a film? Trample. You want to draw a cartoon? Trample. You want to write a book? Trample.
The real problem is that very few of us have lives so anything that can distract us is welcome. Or worse, we're just cretins.
Now let me get back to my crochet.

It's pretzeling ALL my buttons

You gotta hand it to OPI. Love the names in the German Collection Fall 2012:
Schnapps Out of It!
Danke-Shiny Red
Don't Pretzel My Buttons
-  (and my favourite) -
 Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!

Reflected glory du jour

                                                   Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2012

One Horseman is right here

TLC's "What Not to Wear India" should be a lesson on why Western TV shows can never be successfully replicated in the subcontinent. We're just different animals.
Soha Ali Khan is great. She has the personality and the smarts, not to mention the good looks, to host something like this. Aki Narula, although flinging his hands about indiscriminately, is palpably sincere. So where have they gone wrong? The first client was enough for me to know instantly: It's in the people they've chosen to reinvent. The woman had only one thing to give her a passport to the show: A stunning absence of style. She also had a corresponding absence of a single accent, it being a mixture of Surat and the States. Apart from that, she was inarticulate, dull and never underwent the emotional transition that made Trinny and Susannah's chosen few such a hit.
There is also one other rather inexplicable element: The clothes Soha and Aki choose for the client are horrendous. I cringed every time she appeared in another tasteless, badly-tailored, cheap outfit. What the hell was going on. Especially as Soha herself was dressed beautifully. Then, of course, I got it.
This is India. We don't have anything like Topshop or Forever 21 or H&M. Yes, we have Zara and Aldo but what, that's it? And no one not associated with Bollywood can buy designer labels like Jimmy Choo and Vuitton. The rest of what's available to us, exemplified by the most downmarket malls it's been my misfortune to be surrounded by (in the south of India, admittedly Delhi's are good), is tacky in the extreme.
Which is why this programme is like hearing hooves thundering in the distance; it feels like it's being brought to our screens by one of the Horsemen destined to usher in the Apocalypse.
Like we needed any more.

Material Girl

When all the happiness on hand comes from material possessions, you know you've either discovered the meaning of life - what else but to enjoy worldly goods - or, as the great philosopher said, the abyss has finally decided to stare back. Whatever, I'm currently gloating over my new Zara black suede bag with gold accents, and black pumps from Debenhams.

It's all grey

I know we're almost as Americanised as our parents always foretold we would be (in the most sepulchral tones) but the latest ad on TV for 'Grey's Anatomy' is going one step too far.

Full disclosure: I loathe 'Grey's Anatomy'. The cast of doctors are the most unpleasant, self-obsessed, neurotic individuals I would never get my ill body close to. And they seem to be the same in real life. I don't know about you but I remember poor Isaiah Washington being fired from the show because he got into a fight on set with the gay-in-real-life actor whose name I don't recall but who always looked like he had just spied a pile of dung in the corner of the room. Anyway, poor Isaiah got canned because he yelled 'Faggot!' apparently. Oh boo-hoo. Dude should have just grown a pair and yelled back “Black!'. But no, American studios not only have to do the politically correct thing they have to be seen doing the politically correct thing. So out Isaiah went. But not before everyone from Patrick Dempsey to Katherine Heigl took sides against him, publicly naturellement.

Meredith Grey meanwhile never stopped whining. (You need to see Ellen Pompeo's 'Punk'd' episode to be fearful of your life if you ever done her wrong, btw.) Grey's so-called friendship with Yang is the kind of double-edged sword we would only want to emulate if we had a death wish. This is the role model for Indians in the workplace. 

The TV ad has a woman whining about her colleague, and best friend, being taken to Paris. 'Should I tell my boss her CV is fake?' she wonders, before delivering the punchline: 'What would Meredith do?' Then you have a guy whining about the work he has piled up on his desk on a Friday night while his boss gets to go home. Should he quit, he wonders. 'What would Meredith do?'

Sweet suffering Christ. With friends and employees like this we might as well go strand ourselves on a desert island with a pile of good books because the human species seems to be devolving rapidly. Jealous over a friend's good fortune to the extent that you would destroy her career? Complaining because you have to do what you're getting paid to do? What next? Taking cues from a TV show to chart your sorry life?

The Mayan prediction for December 2012 can't come soon enough. 

Of course the truth is we're already dead. We just don't know it.

Quote of the Week

Bangalore Police keep you on hold when you make an emergency call. When finally asked what the hell they mean by it, the immortal answer: “We aren't Vodofone to answer immediately. We're very busy.'

Best Book Title of the Week

Heil the Dumbness

There's ignorance, abject ignorance, and this....

I would like to think the owner is simply ignorant, mistaking this for the religious symbol. Either that or there is a Nazi enclave in my neighbourhood and I need to head for the hills.

No A-Ha moment for Oprah in India

Oprah's Next Chapter: India captured for posterity by TLC and Discovery is simply stunning. In all the wrong ways. Take the moment when she walks, (or staggers, her weight has become impossible for her to handle in more ways than one), through a Bombay slum, holding on to people with both hands, and acting as though she has never in her life seen a one-room home. In fact, going by her rather incredible (as in hard to believe) dialogue, it's as though she has just gingerly stepped out of a spaceship and onto an alien planet. Where no woman has gone before, as is the perennial Oprah motif, of course.

Now before going further let me just say I am an Oprah believer. She has a great deal of charm and empathy. She is also still innocent in many ways; she gasps when meeting celebs and genuinely enjoys giving away her money and her time to people and causes she believes in. Unfortunately, she also believes it's all given her a certain moral authority that no one will dare question. She doesn't know Indians.

Ever since her two-episode show aired this week, the dark faces have been asking dark questions. Did she really wonder if Bombay slum-dwellers had microwaves? Or looked for a shower head in the shack where people bathed? Could she possibly have lifted her foot and measured the width of a man's dwelling which he shared with his wife and three children, then gone on to ask them if they were happy? Could she honestly have listened with a straight face while Dee-pack (is he related to Tupac?) Chopra blathered on about whatever it is he blathers on about? Perhaps how to be spiritually connected to God within and without by scratching our left ankles with our right toes or whatever?

*****

Aside: 

*Surely anyone who believes in God (and marriage) is simply not evolved enough? Maybe anyone who does should try and hide it so the rest of us don't know that they are simply not evolved enough?

*She can't say Deepak but we can say Oprah?

*Are there showerheads in African shacks?

*****

Oprah then visited some random rich person's house where she *gasp* ate with her hands, and moved on to the 'party of the year' (in her own words) which Bollywood tantalisingly attended, giving viewers peekaboos of themselves while Oprah's cameraman acted like marathon man.

She visited the Bachchans and the Taj Mahal (one and the same to her by the sound of it, larger-than-life and looking down at us lesser mortals. Perhaps the Taj was more accessible; the Bachchans wouldn't even let Oprah's camera crew past their hallowed doors). And both took about five seconds of screen time where she told us nothing and we learned nothing. Who is this and what have they done with Oprah, in other words.

Everywhere she went, she was treated like a visiting dignitary. I like Oprah but I don't mistake her for Obama.

She then ended it all by telling us something we didn't know: “India is a paradox.”

Here is a list of adjectives her researcher/advisor should read up on:

Inexplicable

Maddening

Lawless

Gorgeous

Green

Overwhelming

Changeless

Rich

Real

Raw.

I hope Oprah's next chapter is....from 'Shantaram'. Author Gregory David Roberts, her host during the slumwalk, at least had something to say about this giant, unwieldy, mesmerising country of ours.

See, that's another three words she could have used.

Reading room as lair

Racism rules OK

Is there anything more grotesque than the Australia ads with Indians telling other Indians what a fantastic, gorgeous, wonderful, egalitarian and fun-loving country they live in? They are hoping, no doubt, that we Pakis (aka all brown people) ignore the regular racist attacks our countrymen undergo there year after year and spend our money to increase their wealth. Yes, the ads only surfaced after the attacks were too numerous to ignore.

And btw, there is something more grotesque: the American Tourister ads with their 'surviving a city' theme, as in “Survive Istanbul, Survive the world”.

The AT honchos adspeak ran thus: “Through this new communication we are aiming to drive home the message of American Tourister as ‘the tough international luggage’.”

Really? The message we got was that Americans, yawn, still think they are kings of the heap. 

Come to think of it, that they are.

Crime & Punishment

Reading about the arrest of a Frenchman in India on suspicion of the most appalling crime was enough to make my breakfast come up. You would think a man accused of allegedly raping his 3-yr-old daughter would be enough of a slice of the Apocalypse, but there is something worse: Bangalore policemen giving him the benefit of the doubt not because there was only circumstantial evidence, but because they could not imagine a father raping his daughter, they said. The circumstantial evidence, according to hospital reports, is that the toddler was raped from various orifices. And that's not allegedly.

The father is now saying the mother is trying to frame him. I see. And she would no doubt have raped her own child using some implement or another to get back at him for reasons unknown? Yes, perhaps Bangalore policemen can find some credibility in that scenario because, you see, the guilty party would then be a woman.

In America, paedophiles are killed in prison, proving that serial killers are ok but child molestors are not. We are not that advanced in India. Here, the father above was merely slapped by a passer-by as he was being taken to jail.

I was watching a rerun of Luther, the cop drama on BBC Entertainment, and when they shoot this piece of excrement trying to pose as a human being I was seriously upset. Come on, where's the justice in that? A quick death in response to horrific acts based on, in this fictional case, greed?

No, no, no.

I am against the death penalty because there are many people who need to suffer slowly, painfully and just as remorselessly as the deeds they commit, a little every day so they don't get used to it. (If there's one law we should all adhere to it is the Law of Diminishing Returns, don't you agree?) They need to have everything they care for systematically removed so the horror they undergo seeps into them on a spiritual level, too. Then, they need to have done to them exactly what they did to someone else, and I mean exactly.

For sub-humans who rape or murder or abuse children, there needs to be a whole other punishment to fit the crime.

Saw, Bought, Love..Zara

Who needs a finishing school?

I have been on the fence about Kristen Stewart. I've always thought she was a good actress; it's not her fault that "Twilight" has had some of the worst directors that escaped a good whipping at the confessional, as my adored fictional character Ignatius Reilly would say.
But what about her ditzy persona in real life, dropping awards, wearing Converse onstage and sharply inhaling through her teeth when she has nothing to say, which is often? Yes, bloody annoying. I know she wants us to think she's a free spirit and all, but it gets old real fast. And did she really ask Taylor Lautner or Chris Hemsworth to come up for a snog while accepting her Best Kiss award? Eeeek.
At the MTV Movie Awards 2012 a few days ago, it was all I could do to stop myself from hurling my four-inch stilletto at the TV screen. Especially as I had just watched Jen Aniston who is cool without trying accept her Dirtbag award with grace and humour, and Emma Stone accept her Trailblazer award with sincerity and heartfelt emotion.
I think Stewart's new movie "On The Road" will at least finally make or break her reputation as a serious actress, though. That should be fun.
Urgent hint to Stewart's stylist: I know the politically incorrect "just raped" look was all the rage once upon a time but this was a "I forgot my hairbrush" look....oops, forgot she was a free spirit. Silly moi.
Meanwhile, Russell Brand and Charlie Sheen were just embarrassing and Michael Fassbender needs to understand timing; you cannot loll on the floor for so long that people wonder what to do with you. Dear o dear.
Best timing? Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale.
Best dressed? Charlize Theron and Elizabeth Banks.
He-got-even-cooler award? Johnny D with a guitar in his hot little hands.
Please-restart-your-medication award? Steven Tyler for lauding the movie Edward "Scissorhand" before giving Johnny his Generation accolade. I ask you.
*Kristen Stewart update: Wow. Don't know about her acting chops but she certainly has no moral chops. Her rep has been blown in the wind, and the world being what it is, no one will ever forget this 'out damn'd spot' moment of hers. After seeing the pictures where she and her 41-yr-old "fling" act as if they've been stuck in different monasteries for a year, one can feel, mingled with the contempt, a certain nausea. What a sad species we are.

Tender graces

This might not seem like much to you, but I firmly believe it shifts the scales between life as it was meant to be lived and, well, Not.......

If a guest room is without a little table for luggage, or a restaurant is without a footstool for your handbag (and you need to fish out your bejewelled hook and fix it to the table)...really, can civilisation devolve any further? At least I got one out of two recently so we must thank the good Lord for his tender mercies.

You red-eyed Lothaire you...

Lothaire is one of the best books from the Cole stable. It's all in the lead character. He's invincible and mean - and hilarious, the rarest of rare combinations. Blend uncompromising strength with humour and you've found the daring duo that will slay all female hearts.
Example: As a wailing female ghoul slashes at his face, Lothaire says "Didn't I know you when you were pretty?" She shrieks. Then he adds contemplatively, "Didn't I do you when you were pretty?" She shrieks some more before fleeing. He says, Yeah, thought so.
His Lothaire-speak, his intensity, his E-vil (shades of Mike Myers) is just delicious.
I just love Cole's penchant for drama, the fight between good and not-so-good, the searing chemistry between her couples which blends nicely with a meeting of minds from which the dialogue flows and crackles and refreshes.
S'all good.
Now to wait for a week and then read it again...

In awe this day

Nothing more extraordinary than to discover a new writer of worth. This novelist writes each paragraph as though it were her last. I am in awe. It helps that the cover design is of the perfect woman - from the eyes of both sexes - but it only helps; it's the words that are incandescent.

Wake-up Call

The first thing I see every morning while brushing my teeth.......surely the perfect man to wake up with?

Cliche, but I finally nailed it!

Struggling with my search for nail-polishes that stay and are deep enough for two coats only, three make me feel as though I'm buried alive, I've come to a conclusion: Not in India. Well, it's in Delhi but, you know, that's not India. And what is in Delhi? OPI, the only nail colour that can stand tall in a sea of not quite-quite brands. Included in the shades of shame are Lakme, Bourjois, Colour Bar and Faces. These don't apply evenly, leaving those horrid see-through patches that my OCD simply loathes.
I mean, how difficult  can it be to get the fundamentals of nail-polish right? We can't all afford Chanel's Le Vernis, so OPI it must be. Now to check Delhi flight rates. Hmm, I know, I would end up paying 10 times what Le Vernis costs. Alright, alright, you've held a gun to my head. Le Vernis it must be. The shade appropriately called "Vendetta" (top). 

Gotta have that

The kind of red you can imagine on a wall, on a LRD or as a slash across the mouth. Win-win. And of course it would be called Lady Danger. From M.A.C.

One line can hold a world of sorrow

Mills&Boonwriters are seriously under-rated.

First of all, there's nothing trashy about romance, as Robin Williams said in the marvellous Fisher King.

Second, sometimes, it's these authors who have the most ringing lines you'll come across.

Take Jane Donnelly where a character asks a woman what it was like afterwards, after her husband died. The answer: “There was no afterwards.”

Or Robyn Donald where a man says of the time spent without the woman he loved, that it was “years and years, all grey”.

Anyone who has understood what it's like to live in a bubble of time where you can see all the roads not taken and cannot break through because it's too late, will recognize this kind of sorrow only too well.

The best-dressed man on TV

I've always had a soft spot for Jim Caviezel. Mainly because he has the face of a suffering Christ, sensitive, beautiful, intense. No doubt the reason he was chosen to play ol' JC in The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's first foray into the engrossing chaos that is his mind. The story about Jim being struck by lighting on the cross when they were shooting in bad weather was one of the best I'd heard in film anecdotes. But I digress.

He is now playing Mr Reese in Person of Interest on Star World and I really think he's edible in the role. He's tall, well-built, has thick, salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, and wears perfectly-cut, dark suits with open white shirts and impeccable black shoes that look Italian. He speaks in a compelling whisper which is not irritating, (unlike Kiefer Sutherland in 24 and now the entirely forgettable series Touch). He is protective, loyal and has scruples. One look from his icy blue eyes and violent individuals have been known to stop short as though hit by a brick wall.

Good grief. Is he the perfect man or what.

The Secret Millionaire

This show on BBC Entertainment has me hooked. I dislike the fact that I'm in tears at the end of every episode but you can't have everything, can you.

What a concept. Millionaires in the UK go undercover in seedy cities to find people or organisations they can give money to. They mingle, work in poorly-paid jobs and often go back to their roots. What's interesting is the way their personalities are revealed, and how they embody the fact that you can take the boy out of Liverpool but can't take Liverpool out of the boy, or whatever gender or place can be substituted here. The last show I watched Hilary Devey weeping about her heroin-addicted son and the fact that she was friendless, lover-less and had not quite found her place in the world. This from a woman worth 50 million pounds.

She finds joy in working behind the bar in a pub, and we discover she grew up in pubs before striking it rich through sheer hard work, but acknowledges that she wasn't there for her son and that was the highest price a mother can pay. How sad are our lives. Money may not buy happiness but only a fool thinks it can't solve most of our problems. Let me be rich at least when I'm moaning about what else I don't have.

Still, it's a great show because it reveals what makes people tick, whether it's the millionaires at hand or the selfless individuals they interact with, who do things for others without wondering why. That's the interesting parallel, really, when people who have been focusing on themselves meet people who have focused on others.

Travel wishlist....Nungwi, Africa

Not quite resurrected

JR Ward is a God. No question about it. She has created a world of the most intimate, tender, tough, cool characters, with the kind of internal struggles and a masterly interactive dialogue that is unparallelled in her genre. It isn't realistic dialogue – do you know men who love to talk and examine their feelings? - but it is touching and what women want. Yet the latest book suffers from the worst malaise an author of repute can suffer: Lover Reborn's main storyline doesn't work. It's the exact fate of Lover Enshrined, where Phury and Cormia are just boring.

Here, Tohr (or Thor as Ward fans still insist on saying on her FB page, I thought Americans only had problems with Asian names, maybe they think Tohr is Arabic), is still in love with his dead wife, still mourning his unborn son, and in a matter of a few chapters we are to believe that he has fallen in love again. I think this is a modern day problem, where you are expected to love again and marry again no matter what, it's as though you are wanting in some way if you don't. Superficial much? Even the sex seems mechanical, and that, for Ward, is the coup de grace. But. I still love her work. There's a gritty, raw essence and deep values of loyalty and commitment that gets me going till the last page. There are new characters I've fallen for, like Xcor, and old characters that still set my heart beating faster, like Qhuinn and Blay. Layla having Q's baby was a motif introduced in the last book and one gets the feeling that Ward felt she had to stick to it although it really is a stumbling block to the developing saga but you get my drift? I am invested in these people.

This is the mother lode for a writer.

The arsenic-laced Indian reviewer

The longer I live in India the more depressed I get. It's not that this isn't an interesting country, with fascinating people and gorgeous architecture and beaches and shopping and food, it's just that I need my basics. I need paved roads, uninterrupted electricity and water, efficient garbage collection – and an intelligentsia that's, well, intelligent. I am brimming with angst because I've been following the reviews of a new book and this is what I learned: Every Indian review was either ignorant, sitting on the fence, or came laced, like arsenic, with the reviewer's particular baggage. It was all about, in other words, the person reviewing the book, not about the book itself. I wondered if I was reading too much into it, whether I should give the reviewers the benefit of the doubt, and then the international reviews started coming in.

Every single one has been a rave.

Whether it was The Guardian or the TLS, whether they were personal blogs or reputed sites, every single non-Indian review has been a rave.

Every single.....have I made myself clear?

This is just sad. What does it say about us, writers, journalists, readers? It says that we are children, in the worst way children can behave. We are uncomprehending, unreasoning, spiteful – not to be relied on. Not to be relied on to read a book and give a critical, honest judgement on it so that others can decide whether they want to read it or not. How simple is that? And yet it is not something we can do.

So this means that we can never, until we grow up as a nation, believe anything anyone says in the Indian media about someone's book, someone's film, someone's designs, someone's art, a new restaurant, a mall, even a personality profile in the feature pages.

Yeah. I'm depressed.

The Hunger Games

Numero Uno: Why does Miley Cyrus' BF have only five minutes in this movie?
2. A new but not really improved version of The Truman Show.
3. When Jennifer Lawrence trembles with fear right before the Games, you know why they're making a fuss about her in Hollywood.
4. Too much preamble before the Games begin.
5. Terrific actors from the teenage Amandla Stenberg to the seasoned Stanley Tucci.
6. The direction is as confused as the appallingly-produced Twilight series. Too slow, too little noir and too many questions left unanswered. Like if they had so little food in the territories, why didn't they fall on the feast on the train instead of delicately sampling it? 

Another one bites the breathalyzer..

With all the money celebs make, you'd think they could afford a driver. But no. They have to drink, drive and then crash into a cop car.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20585014,00.html

Reading Room wishlist

Honestly, never dreamed I would be a bit of a geek but I do love my technology. And discovering new things on the Net, like I have with Pinterest. Here's why I love browsing it every day and discovering the most delicious images ever. And saving them! And gloating over them! And making plans about them! Yes, I can see it all getting a bit out of hand....

Va-Va-Gloom

Shebaaaa....Shebaaa....

Fifty Shades of (Bleak) Grey

As a huge fan of paranormal romance, I'm no stranger to erotic fiction which is great fun. So when I first heard the buzz about EL James' Fifty Shades I sang a Hallelujah chorus as I tripped to the nearest laptop and downloaded merrily away. Alas. This is why my mother taught me never to look forward too much to anything because the resulting thud of disappointment can be quite jarring.

Who is this little novella meant for? Thirtysomething housewives standing next to the laundry line with a ciggy dangling out of their lipstick-smeared petulant mouths, a dissatisfied meatloaf in the oven and a screaming toddler flinging food from a highchair? If you think that's a cliched image out of the 50s, I'd like to know what you think of this teenage dream alive and kicking between the pages of a book.

The hero is flawed, the heroine a virgin and just to modernise the whole, James throws in some sex toys, aka TMI. In the old days of Mills&Boon (a staple for all virgins), the formula was just that, without the sex toys. I know people (read romance fiction readers) don't change and I shamefully admit that the M&B formula can still float my boat but not when it is so painfully, haha, written. James has ensured that even if you only have a clutch of 'O' levels to your name, you can easily follow her simplistic style because it seems to be written from the point of view of a 15-year-old. (Sarah Honenberger makes that work in Catcher, Caught. Here? Not so much.)

Christian Grey is a CEO of who-cares-what, he's tall, gorgeous and has haunted eyes – really, what woman would not jump into the man's bed – and Anastasia Steele is lovely, shy and never felt the need to be bedded until etc etc. But, aye, here's the rub, when Christian speaks he speaks 'phlegmatically', when he's turning Ana on she sighs 'Oh my' and you wouldn't be surprised if she was pausing for a cucumber sandwich or two, and I do not mean that as part of their sensual arsenal but in terms of what a simpering Victorian Miss might do.

He has to have some BDSM going on and does sinful things with whips when he's not using his hands - and she is learning to like it.

Fifty Shades has perhaps five nice lines but in terms of why it is popular – this is a mystery. I can get my kicks from Stacia Kane and JR Ward, the gods of paranormal/erotic fiction, and I can re-read their dialogue and lust after their characters without a second thought. With Fifty Shades I keep thinking 'Why, God, why' and once you start thinking...God help you. Great fiction just lets you feel. That clutch at the throat first, then you let it sink into your consciousness.

Then again, maybe I can guess why Fifty Shades has caught the public imagination. Working women everywhere with busy husbands, or no lovers at all, may have very vivid imaginations to make up for what they're not getting at home. Christian and Ana work on the obvious level, but James has added a clever touch: She's made them have normal family lives, siblings and best friends so it seems that much more realistic. As in: Maybe, just maybe, this could happen to you.

James has also understood the need most women have for that something extra in their personal lives, which is where the Dom/Sub element of the book comes in.

It's the same reason why I've stopped reading Mills&Boons and have switched to its more substantial big sister; and she doesn't always need to wield a whip. In fact, erotic fiction like Fifty Shades pales in comparison to paranormal erotic fiction for the simple reason that you hardly, if ever, meet human males who are even vaguely interesting, either in real or unreal life. But if you're having dinner with Zsadist of Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, with a scar slashing his face, his penchant for green apples and his tender, tender loving, hell could freeze over and you wouldn't notice. Of course hell will freeze over before you meet someone like him other than in the pages of a book, but you can't have everything.

Although these days, much as j'adore Ms Ward, my heart belongs to Terrible, Stacia Kane's incredible character from the Chess Putnam series who I keep beside my bed.

Just to remind myself of the standards I must hold.

My song du jour

I don't know if it's the singer or the song, but this is a bit of alright. Comments are hilarious.

Me and Mini-Me

Indian wedding art

Marigolds twined around a tree as part of the decor at a wedding dinner in Madras.

The nominees were Dross and Gold

That's what it all came down to at Oscars 2012. On one hand, you had Angelina Jolie vamping it up to the entirely wrong crowd, on the other you had Meryl Streep with her bottomless talent accepting an Oscar and saying what mattered was looking out at the audience and seeing all the friendships that had accrued over the years. It was like a farewell speech, and perhaps it was because mortality is always around the corner and she's been on that stage so many times, the odds, as she herself said, are against her. But what a woman. Where La Jolie is a bottomless pit of hype, here is someone with the kind of class you have to be born with, not the kind of flaking-off vanity that you need to escape from under. Streep is a good egg, and she has the respect of every single person who crosses her path. She doesn't need to be Jessica Rabbit to validate her existence, she just goes about her remarkable business.

Oscars 2012 was also Billy Crystal bringing a level of comfort and hilarity to hosting that is exactly what Jay Leno brings to the table. Critics panned Crystal and Leno has many haters, but as a viewer you know why you enjoy, say, Leno while Letterman is nothing but a conundrum. It's entertainment, not existentialism that you need at the end of the day with your feet up, drinking green tea. The latter you're faced with the minute you open your eyes to another over-bright morning anyway, and how many mornings are those. Crystal was impeccable, with the kind of inputs (Clooney and Justin Bieber) that had you laughing long into the night.

Loved Gwyneth Paltrow's flowing-like-molasses white gown and matching cape from my hero Tom Ford, and Rooney Mara's fragile beauty in another delicate, virginal creation whose designer I don't recall because Rooney's fantastic face overwhelmed everything else.

Blew kisses at the screen every time Scorsese's face was shown and wiped away the tears as Christopher Plummer spoke but that was only to be expected.

It was the best Oscars in years, with new inputs like actors talking about their profession and only a few people going over the time limit with their acceptance speeches. Of course, the media has said it was the worst but what do they know. They're the same ones who think La Jolie is a great actress.

Big, bad manners

People simply don't know how to behave in public. This coming from someone who screeched 'Asshole!' and flipped the bird at an auto-driver yesterday may seem a bit much, but still....I would never do what this woman did at Barista. First of all, she was getting the evil eye from other customers because she was a big woman, and tucking into a cheese croissant and cold coffee with nary a care in the world. Yes, people are like that. 'Honey, really?' were the thought bubbles appearing above several turned heads but I digress. As I tried in vain to catch the server's eye, she had no such compunction. 'Tissues!' she bellowed. Then she stabbed the croissant with a forefinger you couldn't ignore and said, 'Bring butter.' When she next bellowed for the bill, we were better prepared but honestly, what ever happened to using some good, old-fashioned articles prefaced with a 'May I' or some such thing. So okay, I was still struggling with a delicately upraised hand while she had already paid and walked into the sunset to rue someone else's day but I dunno, I don't mind waiting a bit rather than opening my mouth and removing all doubt about my antecedents.

Sunny days

This is one of the very few reasons to like Bangalore, south India. It makes up for having to go home at 11.30pm, dealing with autodrivers who remind you of Sicily in the old days, and drooling over Net-a-Porter because there are two boutiques here where you may find fashionista wear – makes up for it for about 3 minutes, that is.

Walk this way

Catwalk shoes, a sorta modernised Great Gatsby look. Nothing quite like earth tones, no?

Not very tasty

So the Comedy Central channel shows the classic 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'SNL' and even the cute 'My Boys' but do they all have to remind you of Queen and INXS? The shows are as old as dinosaurs. But where I have to draw the line is at the Quickies clip, where a zipper pulls down and the CC logo pushes up hard and fast against each other. Dear me. Something tells me no Indian censor has quite realised what's going on. Maybe they think Quickies refers to an iced latte or chocolate - both of which would take much longer if used in the bedroom, in any case.

Oh, no, Miuccia

I know the brand name is synonymous with high fashion, but this is the reason why I am amazed at Prada's popularity. If you see a woman dressed as an Italian housewife (no, not of the Sophia Loren variety) or wearing something particularly unflattering on her feet, you know where she got it from. I mean, look at the picture. Need I say more.

Fame: a P&L

Fame: a P&L

At Home with Jorge Elias in São Paulo Homes: architecturaldigest.com

At Home with Jorge Elias in São Paulo Homes: architecturaldigest.com

J'adore. Anything that combines animal and floral prints instantly gets my vote, of course, but it's the overall feel of this room, and much of the house, that is so warming. I love the crowded, homely feel, the thought that went into the personalised choice of artwork, the comfort of the sofas. One can imagine long winter afternoons, and sunny spring days spent in this room as the staff brings in petit fours and tea.

That's what a home essentially is, isn't it: A setting for who you believe you are.

A propos Jaipur and Salman Rushdie

Wow, what a nasty couple of days for civil liberties in India and the rights of writers to, you know, bloody well write. When people talk about religious sentiments being hurt over what someone said in print, surely the only logical question to ask is: So why read it? Please carry on, with our blessings, to Church, the mosque, the temple, the totem pole for all the rest of us care.

If publishers only handled books that did not offend, the only paper we would be handling would be the toilet roll as we mused in the loo. And considering the Jaipur Literary Farce, it would have to be on the story of Pontius Pilate calling for a bowl of water so that he would have no responsibility for crucifying people.....no doubt read out to us at some underground meeting by rebels because, of course, the Bible would have been banned.

Oh dear. Now let me get back to reading Lady Chatterley's Lover.

More pearls that called my name

Up a little staircase on Commercial Street, you will find a lovely little jewellery store called BIA with the most creative bits and bobs in rings, lockets, ear-rings, chains and bracelets. Much of it is in an Indian motif, but there are some fusion pieces that are hard to resist. (The fact that the owner was playing Ray Charles when I walked in told me immediately I was in the right place at the right time, something I cannot say very often.)

The semi-precious pearl and ruby nugget here took my breath away and I intend to pair it with my boyfriend jeans and black shirt, never mind that it was made for churidars. Nothing like mixing and matching to come up with your own look, it's what fashion is all about. I mean, where do you think pairing a Chanel jacket with pearls and blue jeans came from. Oh, stop. If there's one thing that makes me groan it's the lack of fabulous boutiques in this sad little town I have never been able to call my own.

Oh, these foreign tongues

What in the name of all that's holy is a programme where the characters speak in a foreign tongue doing on the English channel Star World? Is nothing sacred? So ok, the language is Hindi but still – I don't speak it which is why – this is a no-brainer – I watch English channels, get it? get it? And the programme is Survivor India which is as noxious as Minute to Win It (India version), Masterchef India, Indian (gawdhelpus) Idol and so on. I mean, the day McDonald's entered these shores serving only chicken (!!!), I knew the world as I knew it had changed forever. Where's the beef? Where's the meaning of life, more like. Just watch the strange beings on Survivor India and you will soon be asking the same question.  

I've seen these hands before!

This is outrageous. Captivated by something I read which spoke of 'the greatest crime story ever written', I scrambled for Flipkart so I could immediately order The Hands of Mr Ottermole. Turned out to be a 23-page, Rs 438 limited edition imprint which was wonderfully written, yes, but really, if the words 'right under (policemen's) noses' gave the game away, it's a good thing this was written in the 30s – there would be no other excuse for it!

And horror of horrors, Georgette Heyer wrote a terrific whodunit, A Blunt Instrument, which has the same idea at its core. I refuse to believe she stole it, there's no law that says two writers can't have the same spark of genius. I also possess evey single book Ms Heyer ever wrote so obviously she can do no wrong in my eyes. But nevertheless, it was all most disappointing.

Of saints and addicts

Wow, new year and much-improved Blogger. There is a God.

Just finished reading Narcopolis. So clever, some passages unforgettable, like the similarity between saints and addicts, or the very funny Introduction to Aggressive Reincarnation, or the learning from lines like grief being "a deep distraction, like absent-mindedness without the insouciance". And this amidst the hugely disturbing imagery and characters one watches like an impending car crash.
Not a bad impact for a first book of fiction.