Sweeter than sweet

Sticky notepad I found while browsing at Landmark, made in China, cheaper than a cup of coffee and gives much more lasting pleasure.

My personal pearly gates

I was possibly one of the worst students any teacher could ever have, not because I was boisterous but because I was not. I remember coming to life only to do my makeup before break so I could slink around but at least look half-way decent while so doing and my favourite History teacher telling me and my best friend C: "Please, girls, please, just once can you pay attention? And how many times have I told you no eating M&Ms in class. Sheba, put down that mascara!" Most of the time I would "waste time in idle behaviour" as my English teacher would rant, (although my favourite was when she wrote on the side of an essay, "Stop varnishing the gloss with your language and give me the facts!"), but there was one more time when I came alive, and that was when the subject was Philosophy. Don't ask me why. I have always had a rich inner life to make up for my non-existent real one, and there's something about the subject that makes me feel... richer. So when I came across these two books, I lit up for a brief, shining moment as the saying goes. Better to enter a kingdom of Heaven right here, right now, wouldn't you say?

An ill wind

The first thought that crossed my mind when I read the Oscar Pistorius saga was how obvious the loopholes were. Which woman, ever, locks the bathroom door at 2am? I mean, ever? Which man, ever, goes to see what the noise is in the middle of the night without checking to see if his lover is safe beside him in their bed? Ridiculous.

At the end of the day, whatever the reason for killing someone, whether it's a hit and run, whether it's “mistaking them for an intruder”, you have to pay the price for it. Even if it is a nominal price, you have to pay it. I wouldn't call 10 months in jail nominal by any means, a full 5 would have made some kind of moral sense. But from the first minute that poor legless Oscar (the whole drawing thing depicting him crawling across the floor was a gross appeal for sympathy, to say the least), entered the South African courtroom manfully trying to hold back his tears and the judge asked him if he would like to sit down, everyone knew which way this wind would blow.

It's blown by, and poor legless Oscar, being white, forget famous, will live his life. With “mercy” from the court. If he had been black, poor, nobody and had killed his white girlfriend, well, that shitstorm would have ended with a lethal injection.

Moral of the story: If you're beautiful or if you're white, you'll be up and running on planet Earth.

Not Expendable

There are two kinds of Hollywood royalty, the Meryl Streep section in private boxes, and the Sly Stallone backbenchers. A little of the former goes a long way, but there's unlimited fun to be had with the latter and The Expendables 3 shows why that is.

Age, as older people figure out, is just a number. When seated at a table with lean, muscled men in dark Levi's and leather jackets, lounging with cigars and heavy tumblers of golden liquid, looking capable of gunning the bad guys down on the streets with just a look, well, no one's going to ask them for IDs. What's the movie about? No idea. Perform what the usual arms of the government cannot, transport some heavy-duty material from some banana republic, shoot a lot of people, throw some betrayal into the mix and there you go. It's adrenaline-inducing with the added charm of being one of those movies where many of the actors are real friends in a kind of heavy-duty, members-only club that is impossible to penetrate.

Things to note: The motorcycle stunt which goes vertical, stunning. Mel Gibson, (who straddles both groups of Hollywood royalty, by the way), watching his amoral representation of the character Stonebanks you're amazed at what the man from Braveheart is capable of. Antonio Banderas' comic timing is great, Jet Li's presence is weird and the young 'uns are like faded sepia photos; sometimes, experience is not expendable.

The script is execrable, “Drummer's in the house”, “Let's mow the lawn”, “Christmas is coming...But it's only June”, although when Lee Christmas is Jason Statham, all can be forgiven.

And when it all comes with a guaranteed HEA, as romance novelists say, what more can you ask from a movie when it gives you a vacation from your life?

Thanks for the Knick, Steven

Knickerbocker Hospital, turn-of-century New York, is not the place you want to get admitted, overrun as it is by a coke addict, a brilliant black doctor who is not allowed to practice and a manager up to his neck with debt collectors. Then again, there's no place better if you get the right man at the right moment. When directed by Steven Soderbergh, how can this new show on HBO Hits be anything but brilliant. The energy, the colours, the twisted characters and best or worst, the practice of medicine in all its blood and gore (warning: you need a strong stomach to watch this), by people who are obsessed with their profession makes The Knick a precursor to Grey's Anatomy. Where it differs from Grey's is not in the baring of bones to show the skeleton of human ailments, both physical and spiritual, but in the fact that you give a damn about the people at The Knick. You feel for each one, flawed as they are, because they struggle to rise above what they seem to be.

Clive Owen plays Dr John Thackery, a cold yet committed soul with a monkey on his back that grows heavier by the day. Algernon Edwards (Andre Holland) runs an 'informal' clinic for coloured people in the basement, politics and egos clash on a regular basis and well-to-do former lovers arrive with syphilis. Good stuff.

Penny Wunnerful

When hands split through a man's chest in a revision of the iconic scene from Ridley Scott's Alien, it was easy to guess Penny Dreadful would be a winner.

Set in Victorian London, the AXN series centres on a motley crew of supernatural-hunters who themselves are not what they seem. They are ostensibly searching for a man's missing daughter but the viewer is soon entangled in everything from Dracula to Dorian Gray and this: A doctor is working on what looks like an autopsy, when the lights go off, he lights a lamp, turns around and the corpse is standing. The doctor weeps and the creature moves towards him, finger outstretched to catch a tear and rub it down his own eye. “Can you hear?” the doctor asks. The man does and the doctor whispers, “My name...is Victor Frankenstein.”

If that doesn't give you your penny's worth, nothing will. The title is from 19^th century England, referring to lurid, serialised stories printed on cheap paper that cost a penny each.

With this show, though, it's the words that carry most weight. Listen to Frankenstein's 'firstborn' sneering at him: “Were you really so naive to imagine that we’d see eternity in a daffodil?” in a nod to Wordsworth and Blake and you will get an idea of the emotional ballast headed your way. The cast speaking the lines help in no small way, although HarryTreadaway as the good Doctor swimming in emotional angst is a clear winner.

This Penny Dreadful is written by John Logan. You can just imagine him as he should be, in a dark, dank garret clutching a tawdry Christmas star bauble in his ink-smeared hands and cackling at man's hubris from his own gutter. 

Need it like now

New pad, new nook

Lauren Bacall, 89

There you go. A dame in every sense of the word, with a beauty that was timeless and a class that was unparalleled. I don't think there is another actress one can name who had what she had. Not Marilyn who was sweaty sex personified with a stunning face that was manufactured, not  Liz Taylor who somehow seemed virginal despite all the husbands and overflowing with an abundance of talent, not Salma Hayek who's the epitome of pocket Venus but doesn't spark off homage, not Scarlett Johansson who is come-hither but doesn't pull you, undeniably great though she may be as a singer, in theatre and the movies. None of them had that touch-me-not air combined with an earth-bound appeal you wanted to follow till the ends of the earth. She's gone beyond now, part of a new constellation with Paul Walker and Robin Williams. If I believed, I would say, God bless, but the sentiment remains.

A lingering music

The time has come when I read a name in breaking news and I'm thinking, no, not dead, not dead, and the next line is always “died at xx of xxx”.

When I recall Robin Williams I remember him in two things, both movies. One in Mrs Doubtfire when he says something snarky to Pierce Brosnan and I thought, Wow, that was real, no acting there. It wasn't the jealous husband he was playing at that moment, it was like he was looking at someone who had every physical advantage he did not, who was on top of that, a genuinely nice guy with no demons chasing his every waking hour. At least that's what I saw. Then in Good Will Hunting, where he plays a therapist but he's darker than his patient; again, real.

His manic but brilliant comic persona was disquieting, funny but it kept me at the edge of my seat and that's not the kind of thing you enjoy.

His problems with drugs and alcohol are well-documented and he, obviously, wanted an end to his particular suffering. That's a pain that no one, lover, friend, parent can know because each man's pain is uniquely his own. You ask, why would a man so venerated and talented, with a loving family, do such a thing? There is absolutely no answer to that question. People do what they feel compelled to do. In the dark, in the quiet, when you are alone with yourself, you may be overwhelmed by what you have become. It's something, often, that no one else can see.

Why did Tony Scott park his car, walk resolutely to that bridge and, in the chilling words of an eye-witness, jump into a river with no hesitation whatsoever? Why did Anderson Cooper's brother jump off a balcony in front of his mother? And these are famous people, not the unsung and unknown legions who have also found salvation in death.

I've always thought it's better to be dumb, self-deluded and religious-minded than grappling with existentialism. How simple life is, then. You wake in the morning thinking of manis and pedis, or the next corporate takeover where you, being naturally brilliant, will triumph, and then off you go to church every Sunday where you can sneak a look at your mistress in the pews. Simple.

For others, of course, not so much. 

I like knowing at least Robin Williams left a legacy, which is something very few of us can say. Who will ever forget Dead Poets Society and Good Morning,Vietnam? That's a lingering music that will only come to an end when the world does.

Yowza

Really, let's be honest: Can anything beat material possessions? Love, shmove; Job, yeah, right; Travel, not if it means flying. But this Versailles-inspired trinket box from Forever New? I think so.

Third World, and others

Moving house is as traumatic as kicking a useless boyfriend to the curb. In fact, if you're living in the third world, it's probably more emotionally agonising. You get sucked into renovation and hire plumbers who aren't plumbers, electricians who aren't electricians, tile-layers who wouldn't recognise an Anthangudi handcrafted beauty if it suddenly came to life and bit them in their collective, untutored asses.

I have never quite figured out how India survives. There are various techniques, sure, like for example, driving and switching on the left signal. Never, ever, then turn left. Oh, no. Wait for that one bozo who will try and overtake just to beat you to the turn. Where is he going in such a hurry, you wonder? Nowhere. It's just the way he is.

But this is just one of the few tricks you figure out, the rest is a mystery box to beat any on Masterchef. We survive by dumb luck more often than not.

Not the best of times to visit one of the most startling countries in the world: China. So efficient and effortlessly beautiful it made my heart hurt. I always knew democracy was overrated. If anyone has had the misfortune to visit Bangalore and travel on the ugliest metro ever built, you will understand my rage thinking of the money we wasted on things other than an engineer/architect worthy of the name. That, at least, we wouldn't have minded if we had then built a metro that looked like Dubai's.

Anyone who tells you India is a poor country, by the way, is either ignorant or a bullshit artist. What we are is a rich country that is completely mismanaged by a bunch of people who have never understood the concept of either shame or patriotism. They are much like most teenagers, clueless and living for the day. Vision-less. Indifferent to any other concerns but their own.

Here's a vision other than a teenager's:

Accessorize rules

Soon, the abyss will have a face

While I was watching '12 Years a Slave' last week, I thought about India and the kind of people who want to run it. In the movie, Mr Parker was the man with a conscience, a man who knew right from wrong, as was Samuel Bass who had the sense to be frightened when asked to do the right thing and the sensibility to do it anyway. Watching Mr Parker's face, I thought of the face of the man who will be India's Prime Minister after our May elections. He is everything Mr Parker is not. He has no conscience, only hubris. He has no values, only a thirst for power. He has no idea what to do with power, responsibility is not an adjunct, as far as he is concerned. His face, and oratory, in fact, give him away. The smug delivery and the calculation in his eyes are as terrifying as staring into the abyss. His face is the abyss staring back.

But all that is secondary. What is beyond terrifying is how so many ordinary Indian citizens think this man is the chosen one who will lead India into some kind of superpower status bar none. Who are these people? Do they imagine economics trumps humanity? That a venal man is alright as long as he makes us money? Oh, if only man stopped at that. But think of the scorpion and the frog; a man's nature is All.

In any case, surely we know by now that a superpower status is overrated. Our PM-in-waiting, He Who Must Not be Named, is not the only one who doesn't know what to do with power/responsibility. Exhibit A-Z: Invading countries whose presidents you don't like; sending drones to kill children on their way to school; jailing musicians or boys who love boys. Or murdering those who believe in a different God from yours. That's not being a superpower, that's pure kryptonite.

He Who Must Not Be Named is the chosen one alright, but not in the way people think. He will lead us, as televangelists would say, into damnation and hellfire. We will all become slaves when he takes his throne, perhaps not for 12 years, inshallah, but even five years is a lifetime we will never get back.

But I watched Mr Parker's face for another reason: In every frame of History, there are also men like him in it.

The kind of rake we could go for

I remember seeing Greg Kinnear, really seeing him, in 'As Good As It Gets', a remarkable movie except for making Jack Nicholson a love interest; Jack's a perennial Joker, who would want to kiss that twisted mouth? But Greg, ah, he's another story. Those guileless blue eyes and That twisted mouth is as adorable as it gets. In the new TV series 'Rake', I didn't get what the show was about in the first episode. Keegan Deane is a lawyer with a gambling problem and the only woman he has a long-term relationship with is a prostitute....and so? Then the second episode aired and I was hooked.

Kinnear is a solo treat. You can watch him all day long, it doesn't matter who he's playing off. He has a charm that I want to and can't see in younger, more obvious heart-throbs like Jay Ryan in 'Beauty & the Beast', (which doesn't mean that I don't watch B&B because Ryan's extremely easy on the eyes and I am extremely superficial).

Anyone who's seen Kinnear in 'The Matador' knows what a fine actor he is, too. But also in that second epi, I noticed a yearning in his face when he had his favourite prostitute straddling his lap and I thought: Is SHE a love interest? Now that would be a very interesting spin on relationships which, after watching the movie 'Last Night' an hour ago, I have absolutely no faith in whatsoever. Not that I ever did. What do people mean when they say “I love you, baby”. The minute the going gets tough, it's “Sayonara, baby”. And as I've always bemoaned, the conversation between lovers is stunningly dull; just watch 'Last Night' if you don't believe me. It's always about them. Do you think we got married too young? When did you realise you loved me? I saw the way you were looking at her! But I was feeling bad and you didn't ask me why!........... Sorry, what? I was watching paint dry there. Yes, so if all we can do is appreciate Kinnear as he navigates a fictional life, well, I dunno, might be more satisfaction in that.

Flower Day

Waiting, Waiting

2014:
The Captive Prince 3
JR Ward's The King, although I shall skip every mention of Trez, aka The Big Bore
A definitive black leather jacket a la Rick Owens
Paris & Italy
That risky career change
The latest from Stacia Kane,
Oh, and Terrible in real life.....

One night in Bangalore

Yes, that massive

Never go to a restaurant where a shuffling, badly-dressed man turns out to be the maitre d'. He is Satan ushering you into a hellish experience. The outdoor space is so dark you can't read the menus, so dark that you can easily fall into the wide gaps between slabs on the floor that cover a dank water body. Against your better judgement, you sit and order a starter and a main course. The waiter brings the wrong order. 

When the right main finally arrives, described as a "massive roast chicken" on the menu, it turns out to be a couple of pieces stuck on a skewer. If you ask the waiter what he means by it, the immortal answer is, "There's another piece under the potato, madam." 

Don't, whatever you do, then make the mistake of sampling the piece either over or under anything: It will turn out to be bland, chewy and unidentifiable. Escape before dessert does you in. And pay for the bill with a sinking heart because they wouldn't even have had the decency to either replace your order, or cancel it. C'est la vie. 

At least I'll never go to Indiranagar again.

An Indian story

Dude returns to the Motherland after many years in Amrika, buys a flat, wants to get his driving licence. Goes to the RTO where he's told he needs a doctor's certificate. He asks which is the nearest hospital and everything, life as he knows it even, screeches to a halt.

The silence is pregnant.

He is then slowly told, as though he is a child with special needs, “What do you mean 'Hospital'. There's a man in the building next door who is, of course, a certified physician and he will sign what you need.”

So Dude goes next door. Said physician answers dripping wet from a disturbed shower, towel wrapped around his waist, and waves Dude in. When asked if he can do the needful, physician says Certainly.

“Now tell me, what colour is this pen I'm holding?”

“Red,” Dude says.

“And what colour is the lawn outside?”

“Green,” Dude replies.

“OK, here's the signature. Rs 100.”

Now that he can differentiate between the traffic lights, and how First World and Third World functions, Dude leaves a wiser man; he also knows now why people here drive the way they do.