Life as we know it

I adore sci-fi movies. Alien and Predator being two of my favourites you can imagine my elation when they made Alien v Predator, shiite though that was. Life was something else entirely. The movie, I mean, the other is so ghastly the last thing I would do would be to bore you with it.
I like me some Ryan Reynolds and Jake G like everyone else but the movie was less thrilling and more disturbing because of its last scene. That was horror like they don't make 'em anymore. Whoa. No, I lie. The most awful thing I've ever seen on screen has to be Old Boy, worse than Clockwork Orange, worse than Caligula, the stuff of nightmares because some men actually sat and wrote that screenplay.
The movies are wonderful to people who don't have lives, I would think. If you read Roger Ebert you would know he lived fully through fiction. Like we now live through social media. I reach for my phone in the midst of insomnia, and reach for it again before I open my eyes in the morning. I know Brooklyn Beckham is at the gym after a skiing injury, that Skam has uploaded a new clip, that Sean Lowe's baby is the cutest thing on God's good earth, that Grigoriy Dobrygin's redheaded GF is beyond kooky, that Trump is straight up the Fifth Horseman of the apocalypse, that journalists in Syria keep me human and that Sweden has run out of rubbish. Like there's anything else I need to know.
Gotta go. Final episode of The Night Watchman just downloaded.

Pure instigation

Oh, No, I'm going to have to visit MAC again and brave the salespeople! It's not my fault. They've got  a perennial lure line called Punk Couture, names like Instigator and Pure Heroine and Studded Kiss. I can withstand anything but temptation, Oscar, how well you knew.

What just happened

You can't help but fangirl JK Rowling for her tenacity, her talent and fighting the crass and the crazed (see her Twitter), but this morning I mumbled Oh Joanne, Joanne and did the whole SMH thing. I had reached the last page of Career of Evil, you see, waiting for the sexual tension to be cut by a knife, with the same precision rendered to the limb that arrived on a secretary's desk and started the novel off. I waited. And I waited. And in the last line of the last page I realised that either Rowling has reached that stage of fame where editors are afraid to touch her, or she has lost her touch. It was all wrong.
The relationship between Detective Cormoran Strike and his partner, (we won't demean her by saying his Girl Friday), Robin Ellacott is one of the best things about Rowling's crime series, possibly better than her denouements and her sometimes too-populated pages, (I sometimes had to backread to keep track of who was who and what heinous crime each had committed), which nevertheless make for fun times. Characters like Shanker is a case in point, and no it isn't pronounced the Indian way, who reminds me of the wonderful Bubba in Dennis Lehane's Kensie and Gennaro books; how I would love to have one of them come charging over the hill to my rescue, no questions asked. Am I the only one with a Bodyguard on my wishlist?
But the genius subtleties between Cormoran and Robin, that's the thing. So to have it fended off time after time and then end on the worst possible note was aggravating and bewildering.
Do we finally look at the hitherto willow-in-a-typhoon Cormoran as broken in a battle between his head and his heart (i.e., the wuss of all wusses, make up your mind, for god's sake, Corm), and Robin as the kind of weak-willed character she herself despises, when they have been our heroes for 62 Chapters? Wtf.
Cormoran is sexy, imperfect and adorable; Robin is gorgeous, feisty and uncaring of gender when it comes to getting down and dirty in a fight, literally. But her last words show her to be indifferent to vows that are not to be taken lightly, in a setting where real love, which she has already found (and the way Rowling shows that without ever saying it is brilliant), should triumph. Well, I'm just lost.
Will I buy Book 4, Lethal White? Sigh. Of course.

The Lady's Gone Ga-Ga

Watching Adele beat Beyonce three times made you think FAKE GRAMMYS! Beyonce is an outofthebox performer, she thinks, conceptualises and then uses costume and dance and vocals to give you an experience you never forget. Adele has a good voice but she is unremarkable, and then she messes up not one but two Grammy Live shows; one is forgivable, two is just being careless (much like second marriages).

Then there was Lady G. What in the world has happened to her? She was pure pop entertainment at one point, now she's wearing pink hats because she was "wearing a hat in the bathtub when she was writing" her Joanne album, or wearing nothing and singing with Metallica, unintelligibly. She's done things to her face - no, she was not born that way - and is trying too hard to be Real. That was when she was singing Bad Romance, or was with Tony Bennett, or doing a Julie Andrews homage. Now she's becoming a caricature, trying to "find herself", (no doubt we'll bump into her at an ashram in Pondicherry soon), and it's embarrassing to watch.

Talking about Real, that was Gary Clark Jr and William Bell doing Born Under a Bad Sign, which was my anthem growing up and even more relevant, alas, today. No histrionics, no epilepsy-inducing light shows in the background, no wearing a boob-baring male equivalent for attention - an embellished jockstrap perhaps? - it was just great, cool music.

But my favourite of the night was James Corden. What an entrance. It's not just that he's funny, he's genuine when dealing with others. I can't tolerate the Jimmys and their talk shows; you can tell they want to be more memorable than their guests. Like journalists who try to be more on-the-page than the people they're interviewing. 

Ego is something you have to own very delicately: It can be the gift that never stops giving in terms of creativity, or you can be Lady G.

Dear Leader

It never ceases to amaze me how in any given situation, put 5 people in a room and there will be 5 opinions. How can there be another opinion on Donald Trump? He's barking mad and he will finish this world off. Sad. I mean, 'Sad!' His Tweets are so depressing. He's juvenile, egoistic, misogynistic, doesn't know his own language and lies as though he invented the concept. And he is a mirror of the nearly 63 million people who voted for him. 63 million.
You think he's scary, Dear Leader's counsel Kellyanne Conway is more terrifying. That rictus makes me think she's about to rip aside the shower curtain, go Psycho and knife my naked ass.
They've even made news out of Melania, her expressions, her clothes, her blahblah. The only thing I remember about her was, years before her current infamy, when she was asked, "Would you have married Donald if he wasn't rich?" Her answer: "Would he have married me if I wasn't beautiful?" No and No, and there's nothing surprising about either, knowing the human species.
What was fun was social media, as always. There was one photo of Michelle and Hillary looking at each other, grimly, at the inauguration and the caption read, "Girl, I know, girl".

Saddest story I ever heard

There I was, doing what I do, checking into social media every 30 minutes (come on, there are more interesting people on Twitter than I've met my ENTIRE life), when I came across a YouTube comment that broke my heart. It was under a love scene from an interesting TV show, and this stranger wrote something on the lines of "I wish I was one of them, either one. But since I'm almost 80 years old, I guess that will never be. Young people don't seem to understand that sex is something older people can still be into. I'm on YouTube because I like the music I find, and for the porn."
I had to go and sit down for a while. Of course, young people will find the truth of what he said - if they live to be almost 80. They will also find the honesty to admit the truth in everything he said if they live to be almost 80. But I swear, it was the saddest slice of life I've heard in a long, long time.

Akshaya Mukul wins Shakti Bhatt prize

In its ninth year, the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize 2016 has been won by Akshaya Mukul for his book “Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India”.

Judges and authors Samanth Subramanian, Mahesh Rao and Janice Pariat chose Mukul’s work for its “eye-opening and captivating exploration into a parallel literary culture that can often feel at a great remove from English-speaking metropolitan India.”

They added, “Mukul’s painstaking research tells the story of a publishing house in the Hindi heartland, which, through its output of religious texts and magazines, achieved enormous influence to become the vehicle of an intensely focused political project. The current overseers of that regrettable project – of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism -- have only become bolder and more powerful, which makes "Gita Press" challenging, timely and provocative.

“Mukul's book was a highly original and commendable work

involving a dogged determination to set out the many particularities of the Gita Press and the colourful personalities that drove its agenda. It is also a book that is relevant to cultural homogenization across the ages, since at its heart it reveals what it takes to be a cultural mythmaker, and how a specific nexus of religious, caste and linguistic considerations have reaped extraordinary rewards.”

As shortlist judge, author Arshia Sattar said: “This year’s shortlist for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize reminds us that the diaspora is writing hard and writing well. Four of our selected writers live and work outside the sub-continent. But their exceptional work is counter-balanced by equally noteworthy books written within India. All the books this year should make us reconsider what we think we know but have either forgotten or not acknowledged: the long (and often sinister) shadows of particular events and people, the individual lives nestled inside large histories, lives that shimmer on the margins of our vision and as always, the darkness hidden inside families.”

Shortlist

Manu S Pillai The Ivory Throne

Madhu Gurung The Keeper of Memories

Sophia Khan Yasmeen

Nisid Hajari Midnight’s Furies

Akshay Mukul Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India

Kanishk Tharoor Swimmer Among the Stars

The Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize is a cash award of 2 lakh rupees, and a trophy.

It is funded by the Shakti Bhatt Foundation and Priti Paul through the Apeejay Trust.

Need my Stash

I never buy fragrances until I've tested it about three times but my favourite scent (since I fell in love with "Babe", modelled iconically by Margaux Hemingway before she went grandaddy's way), is Sarah Jessica Parker's "Lovely", so I'm just going to try and procure her new "Stash" sight, and smell, unseen. "Lovely"'s bottle is shaped like a woman's body, mine holds pale pink liquid and the aroma reminds you of spiked ocean breezes; there's never been anything quite like it. SJP was personally involved in its debut so I would trust her when she says "Stash" will also be worth my while. There was a run in the Ulta online store, a little bird told me, (oh, ok, I read it on Instagram), and SJP has had to rush in fresh stock. I feel like a junkie waiting for a fix.
On a side note, Narciso Rodrigues' "Her" is too close to "Lovely" to not warrant an eyebrow raise. Originality can never be prized highly enough so while I'll give NR his due for those band dresses, this is a bit much.
"Babe", another birdy told me, (oh, alright, I read it online), has been relaunched. That sweet, innocent, hopeful, young aura could me mine again? Say it's so.
Also, bloody hell, why am I so far from civilisation?

Birthday cake

The tattoo I dare not get on my arm.....not THAT feisty!

Rio grand

Went online to see which medal Tom Daley had won - and screamed. How could he bomb out? Is that even possible? FOUR YEARS of trying and then not qualify?? How he resurfaces from this will be the real test, of course. He's an idol especially to young divers so to show true grit when you fail spectacularly will be much more significant than grinning at the camera holding your gold.
They say character is destiny but that's not entirely true: The universe spins on a roll of the dice; your character is all you're left with after destiny flips you the bird.
Not that I feel too sorry for Tom. A passion that is the singular focus of every day, fans worldwide, a supportive family, great friends and the love of his life. Also, does he have a mirror? Come on. So when he gets over the trauma of the semi-finals, he should be alright. And I hope we see what he's made of when the glory misses him by the curve of his back for one miserable moment.
My other all-time favourite was this Indian girl who none of us had heard of because she's not a cricketer but who showed us with an adorable swagger and grace under pressure what she's made of. P V Sindhu may have got a Silver in Badminton at Rio but she's a 24-carat star in the homeland today.

Dear Johnny

Poor Johnny Depp. Didn't he know that trophies are sometimes heavy to carry? There he was with the sublime Vanessa Paradis for decades and then he simply had to answer the call for a younger model on his arm, although it's ok that HE's become portly and a bit of a caricature of himself. Fortunately for the woman, no one dares call her out on the timely photos of her bruised face, (without Snapchat, what is this, 2010?), except for the Internet commentators - and as we know the Internet Always Wins. No one dares to say that women cannot always be trusted when they yell abuse, just like men can never be trusted when they swear undying love. Recently read a tweet where some wit said he would rather be happy than write. Happiness is for cats and dogs, as the saying goes, Humans should aspire for something more.

Idris baby

Idris Elba's baby black eyes would have drawn me in but Luther was great in various ways. Ruth Wilson? Come on. Talk about killer baby blues, and that smile was like a shark grinning in the water just as it smelled blood, yours. I will ignore the fact that they stayed with the same script, Luther solving cases and living a parallel life of crime for 4 seasons because you know, all I remember is Luther pouring petrol over his body, Luther hanging a guy off a building to get some answers, Luther disposing of various bodies because it was the right thing to do, Luther recognising a sociopath, NOT thinking There but for the grace of God... and donning her like a second skin. Great stuff. The series was people-centric in the best way. It had passion, pain, flawed and yet honourable individuals, and a complete disregard for moral absolutes. Which one of us can throw a pebble, much less a stone; this is why the show struck a chord.
Which is also what made the latest seasons of CSI so awful. The people were lifeless, and we're not talking about the corpses. Did they take Elizabeth Shue off her meds? What was with the perpetual sneer, the twitchiness, the icy capability? Remembering her in Leaving Las Vegas, I don't even know what to say anymore about life's perpetual disappointments. And Ted Danson? Really? William Petersen gained some sympathy even if he was such a cold fish, but what did DB stand for, deadbeat?
From being one of my favourite shows, all I did was heave a sigh of relief when CSI finally closed its doors.
Thank God for Bosch.