The elegance and opulence of Urdu, a composite language native to both Northern India and Pakistan alike – falls like a soft feather landing gently on your ears. The beautiful poetry of Kashmir is ripped by the harsh reality of Kashmiri life – the Indian military protecting its land against the people who cannot seem to make a home in their own land.

If you are unaware about the tragedy called Kashmir – the jannat (translation Heaven) where once Gods lived – watch Haider.

Vishal Bhardwaj (director, scriptwriter, producer and music composer for the movie) is an exceptional storyteller and always ahead of his time. If you haven’t watched Haider – please do so. If you’ve watched it, tell me what you thought of it. I should have watched it in 2014, but I got lazy and watched it this weekend. The story is not leaving my mind, the background humming and the characters are still talking to me.

The sophistication about Bhardwaj’s movies is that they tell the story of the land and the people so politically correctly. Be it Omkara and it’s placement in the interiors of Uttar Pradesh, or be it Haider and it’s positioning in the valleys of Kashmir. Each character in Bhardwaj’s movies is painstakingly sketched, appropriately cast, and perfectly rendered. I honestly feel if Bhardwaj made a movie about the painful subject of “Black Lives Matter” today, he’d do a better job at it than most acclaimed Hollywood directors. He’s stark, he’s real and he’s tasteful.

In Haider, the Kashmiri locales are dark and almost painted in monotone. The wide angle shots of the carnage leave a deep mark on your psyche. The two angles of the story – the torture and the pain suffered by the innocent Kashmiris at the hands the militants, and the somewhat ruthless tact with which Indian army has to deal with the innocent citizens to protect Kashmir from insurgency. You will see real-life insights into the inside job – militants trained to kill militants, but the only ones who suffered – the innocent Kashmiri citizens.

The story starts with Haider returning to his hometown from college and finding his home annihilated. His father, a doctor who helped saved the life of a militant was caught by the police and the family home razed with bullets. Haider sets out to look for his father – across the mournful Jhelum river, through the silent Himalayan mountains, and the among the orphaned Kashmiris. What he instead finds is a treacherous path to revenge, militancy and hate – a stark reminder that pain and loss can often steer humans to unleash suffering on their own kin. The scene with piles of bodies of innocent children reminds you of the insufferable and immeasurable pain suffered by fellow Kashmiris – be it Muslims or Kashmiri Pandits. We all hurt and bleed the same!

The Perfect Cast

The searing guilt exuded by Tabu – who plays Haider’s mother having an affair with Haider’s paternal uncle, rips your heart. She calls her Haider, her only son – “Jaana” or “my angel, my life”. But her ambitions and desire could not curb her lust for power – she decides to stay with her newfound lover – her politician brother-in-law, instead of being a maternal balm to her crumbling son. Haider and his mother share a difficult love-hate relationship that’s dark enough to make you wonder about the extent of their mental and physical intimacy. The whole subject of the mom-son Oedipus inspired relationship is not in-your-face, but lingers subtly in the back of your mind.

Tabu is exceptional as always and is probably the only Indian actresses who can deliver the vulnerability of a loving woman and the callous zeal of an ambitious woman with a stroke of unabated perfection. Raja Sen says, “It’s hard to feel affection toward a black widow spider who leaves bodies strung up in her wake—unless Tabu plays her.”

Of course, the movie upped the sexy quotient to the nth degree with Irfan Khan playing the undercover Pakinstani double-agent, who is nothing but trouble.

Haider, aka Shahid Kapoor – poignantly represents the pain and confusion so rampant in Kashmir. His wretchedness is so palpable. Even in the scenes where he makes love to his lover – you can see the invisible dagger of betrayal through his heart. Unable to come to terms with his mother’s affair and his father’s death, Haider’s sensibility and stability slip from under his feet.

Agony, longing and revenge are a dangerous concoction. It’s like falling in a dark mudslide – you slip till breathing becomes a burden and your mind and body give up. After all, there’s no cure for vengeance – it never leads to salvation. Without revealing the storyline,  Shahid plays the role of a wounded child-man with uncontested honesty.

Shraddha Kapoor – Haider’s love interest, is charming, innocent and pure like life itself. I wish she continues playing in meaningful movies because she has a budding actress buried in her somewhere.

Despite being a adamant nationalist, you will find yourself at least acknowledging the point of view of various stakeholders in this politically charged movie. That is the subtlety of great movie making – you will find yourself thinking about issues beyond the movie.

The Brilliance Named Vishal Bhardwaj

It’s worth mentioning that the maker of the movie, Vishal Bhardwaj is originally from Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh – a state mostly notorious for birthing rapists, criminals and corrupt politicians. Being a proud native of Uttar Pradesh, I have come to believe that Uttar Pradesh rarely produces diamonds in form of people – but when she does, they’re are nothing short of Kohinoor. Case and point – Amitabh Bachchan, Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kshayap, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and many others of the current lot, who are untouchable and unparalleled in their talent quotient.

Bhardwaj is an ardent disciple of William Shakespeare. Many of his movies are an adaptation of Shakespeare’s work. Maqbool, an adaptation of Macbeth, Omkara, an adaptation of Othello, and Haider, an adaption of Hamlet. I imagined Shakespeare’s soul sitting in the audience and marveling the genius called Bhardwaj. I bet he’d nominate Bhardwaj for an Oscar too – but that’s my secret fantasy.

Each of these movies made me think about the human condition – we haven’t stopped conniving, scheming, backstabbing – like crabs dumped in a bucket pulling each other down to rise up and escape. From the times of the Julius Caesar till today – regimes have been toppled and innocents killed – nothing has really changed.

Here are some famous quotes from the Hamlet:

And just because I can get away with it, I added a random gallery of Irfan Khan pictures for my own viewing pleasure!

For all the strides women have made in the 21st century, I have a genuine question for my ladies. If you were earning all the money you needed, would you be OK with your man managing the house, while you made a living for the family? I for one, am a bit stumped.

Balki’s new movie – Ki & Ka, elucidated by own misgivings about stereotypical gender roles. I strongly feel both men and women should contribute to their household income and to the economy by being engaged in financially productive jobs. Based on the family’s needs, either can take a break in their career as needed, returning to the work force when ready. The idea about one partner not working at all, is not feasible anymore for a large segment of the population.

However, would it be so wrong, if a man simply took a backseat, and let the woman be the breadwinner, while he took charge of homemaking – forever?

The Backdrop

Ki Ka is new-age love story about the ambitious, status driven Kia – played by Kareena, who falls in love with Kabir – played by Arjun Kapoor, a guy who didn’t care for a corporate career or participating in the workforce at all. They get married as Kia pursues the highest-highs of her career and Kabir continues to take care of the home like a typical “housewife”. Things get strenuous when Kabir gains appreciation for his a-stereotypical role as a supportive husband, causing significant misunderstandings between the couple.

Remember the time when women were expected to be homemakers, they had to curb ambitions for a career, they couldn’t desire limelight as their husbands stole the thunder all the time? Remember the phrase – “behind every successful man, there’s a woman?” Well, Balki turns the concept on its head. Though a feminist husband fully supports his woman’s career ambitions, the woman treats him poorly just like any other petulant man would, in case he was ever pissed off with his homemaker wife.

Kia is seen complaining about the coffee, the food not being ready on time, telling Kabir how he lives on her earnings – sound familiar? Things get worse when she’s seen physically abusing Kabir and hurling insults at his one wrong move.

So summary of the movie is as such – the financially dominant person (or provider) in the relationship may abuse the dominion. As we discussed in our blog, financial issues are a leading cause for divorce and strain in adult relationships. Hence, my earlier point – both men and women must contribute financially in a relationship over the long-term, else the imbalance quickly throws the relationship off course.

Is the Movie Worth Watching?

Balki has never shied away from controversial love arrangements. My mind keeps going back to Cheeni Kum – where the stalwart Amitabh Bachchan played the smitten lover-boy trying to woo a woman 25 years younger than him. And the audience was enamored because the love and lust felt real. After all who wouldn’t fall for regal and unconventional Tabu?

And then there was Paa, and the soul stirring love between mother – Vidya Balan, the child – Amitabh Bachchan, and the near-absent father played by Abhishek Bachchan. Both Cheeni Kum and Paa were magical movies – perhaps because the cast pulled the character nuances so well.

Kareena, sadly had big shoes to fill. And she fell loud and flat! Kareena continues to channel her inner “Poo” from the Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham days, and frankly, the repeated glamor woman persona is getting too old to entice the audience. Kareena desperately needs an Omkara, Chameli caliber movie to save her lifeless career. Ki Ka does nothing for her!

Arjun Kapoor is promising, and played the role of a sensitive and loving man with sincerity. He has a long way to go however! There’s a lot of kissing and making out between Kareena and Arjun – but the chemistry just didn’t work. Music too, was insipid.

Rajit Kapur and Swaroop Sampat are well cast as parents. The relationship shared by Swaroop Sampat’s and Arjun Kapoor’s characters is especially tender.

Last Impressions

Ki Ka reminded me of Abhimaan from the 1970s. Arjun Kapoor’s dejection has an uncanny resemblance with Jaya Bachachan’s downcast eyes as she sang “Piya Bina” (translation – without my lover). But that’s where similarities end, because Abhimaan was so well rendered.

In this case, I wish Balki watched and re-watched 1970’s Guide – the Dev Anand and Wahida Rehman movie that challenged gender stereotypes. The movie where Wahida left her husband to pursue a dancing career but was eventually disappointed by her lover Dev Anand, who afforded a living on Wahida’s hard earned money. Guide left me feeling sympathetic to both characters and especially the woman because supporting a man who does not really take a career all that seriously, can be difficult.

Maybe that’s where Balki wants us to dig deep and think why we typically expect men to go out an earn the bread? But Ki Ka doesn’t really help us get there at all. It’s an effort largely wasted.

Our rating out of 5 stars:  

You know the hardest part about being a mom?

You honestly have no clue what you’re really doing – whether you’re parenting the right way, whether your darling baby will  turn out to be a boon for humankind or an entitled spoilt brat you dare not unleash on the world.

The confusion and distress moms face doesn’t end with the guilt we put ourselves through – am I a good mom? Visit any mommy blog – the conversations reek of unfounded judgement hurled on moms by moms! Breast-feeding moms totally think non-breast-feeding babies have IQ-lower than their smothered b**b-suckers, gluten-free moms totally look down upon moms feeding their doting darlings McDonalds and Pizza Hut, vaccine-boycotting moms totally think other moms know nothing about the relationship between vaccines with autism, sugar-free moms totally think the world’s going crazy because moms feed their babies way too much candy!

But here’s what binds all the moms together – our inexplicable devotion and love toward our kids. It’s why we moms push ourselves to borderline insanity – the kids must have the right kind of fooding, clothing, parenting, schooling, after-schooling, tutoring. The result – hyper-stressed moms and children! We all know – there is no perfect way to raise a child. Heck, most of us mostly grew up on our own – through compassionate community parenting and mostly hands-off parenting.

Here’s my question to the amazing moms out there – when did we take time off for ourselves to have breakfast at a lovely joint, write or read at a hipster coffee place, splurge on sexy Louboutin – heck even on a sexy bra? Well now is our time, ladies…

I didn’t expect this latest MOMMY movie by Directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (of the Hangover fame), to be plain outrageous fun! Mila Kunis of the 70s show fame is the overworked, underpaid, yet stunning, sane and a devoted mother whose world explodes in a tizzy after she finds her husband cheating online, children behaving like pompous brats, PTA membership ending disgracefully, and a part-time job ending in shambles. The remaining moms in the movie are also dealing with their own troubles, sometimes gracefully and sometimes pitifully.

My absolute favorite was Kathryn Kahn character’s – a loud, trash-talking, outrightly loyal, out-of-control single-mom who wasn’t afraid to paint the town red! Now, we all need a friend like that!

The movie follows a typical super-hero or super-heroine storyline, where the heroine:

1. Finds herself in a life-altering crisis
2. Is lost and confused and about to give up on life
3. Finds her inner strength and super heroine powers
4. Realizes she has an impossibly dangerous nemesis
5. Fights her nemesis and wins big time
6. Discovers a new meaning to her life!

The endearing and out-of-control comedy has just the right amount of heart for mommies and women in general. The story is about finding the much needed support in sisterhood – amongst women who love and support each other without judgement, women who cherish each other’s company and rely on their “sisters” in the most troubled times. Because I am very fortunate to have such amazing women in my life, I strongly endorse the movie! Go with the amazing women in your life and enjoy the movie – and bring the guys along too!

If you’re not convinced, watch the trailer here!

“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
― Jalaluddin Rumi

Sometimes even the most painful betrayals have their way of bringing us closer to life and love. Gangster – a love story, is an exceptional love story – painted in colors of blue, where lovers seek togetherness, only to realize the meaning of true love beyond mortality.

Anurag Basu is well known for his movie Barfi – India’s Oscar entry for an international movie in 2012. Unlike Barfi, a movie lifted off Charlie Chaplin’s black and white slapstick style comedies, Anurag’s 2006 Hindi movie Gangster is an exception in its own right.

Gangster was debut movie for the four-time National Award winner Kangana Ranaut. A rare find by Mahesh Bhatt, Kangana has been delivering raw and power-packed performances ever since, but Gangster is still one of her best work at mere 17 years of age.

The Passion

The movie tells the story of three lives entangled is love, betrayal, and redemption. Daya (played by Shiney Ahuja), the notorious gangster falls in love with a simple-hearted bar-dancer, Simran (played by Kangana). Unaware of the dangerous, yet addictive lifestyle of gangsters in Mumbai – the unlikely couple is constantly on the run hiding from domestic Indian and international police. Simran, whose only dream is to start a family life, is constantly picking up the pieces of her broken dream as she tries to build a life in dilapidated buildings, isolated apartments, and 5-star hotels.

Love and passion ooze from every scene in the movie. Daya hardly looks up at his beloved, as she is forced to dance around lecherous men to make a living, but when he does the intensity in his eyes is searing. He never makes love to her because they were unmarried, yet passion is palpable in the way their bodies move together.The most romantic dialog in the movie is simply – “let’s go home!” It’s as if the vulnerable girl inside you is waiting for someone to take her home where all promises of the heart are held sacred.

The Betrayal

The movie shot in flashback, shows Simran love lorn, aching for Daya and their adopted child – a family she eventually loses in a gang and police shooting. Daya runs for his life and eventually leaves Simran to deal with the mess called life all alone in Seoul, South Korea. Drowning in pain, loneliness and alcoholism, Simran finds intense reignited passion in the arms of an undercover intelligence agent – Akash (played by Imran Hashmi). Simran falls in love quickly and in a cliched turn of events, Daya returns to find her physically and emotionally involved with Akash.

Ghosts of your past never leave you and life inevitably completes a full circle. The man who couldn’t be vanquished by life, was broken down by the betrayal of his woman. The woman who left the world for Daya but couldn’t make a home with him, the woman who waited endlessly for Daya, but Daya never came back to her for more than a day.

In an ultimate betrayal, Simran calls Akash to discuss her and Daya’s secret whereabouts and to inform Akash about their unborn love child. What unwinds is immense pain and pure carnage. No one wins when good intentions are met with betrayal!

Watching Gangster the second time was a bigger treat, you noticed the unnoticed. The smug look in Akash’s eyes when he lays in bed with Simran that was once reserved for Daya – the Gangster he’s out to get at any cost. The disgust in Akash’s eyes for Simran as she passed out inebriated trying to vanquish her misery. The pain and intensity in Daya and Simran’s eyes till the end because they lived their entire lives hoping to consummate their love. There’s only one question I was left wondering about, did Akash never feel love to Simran? Or was he so blinded as an intelligence agent that he felt no compassion for a gangster girl and his unborn child till the end?

The Stellar Performances

Kangana has been a controversy’s child and epitomizes the trials of a modern woman – living with her heart on her sleeve but on her own terms. Her character in Gangster is similar – vulnerable but tough as rock for things she values most – love, her child and her man!

Shiney Ahuja entered the movie industry will accolades and critical acclaim. He was charged with rape in 2009 – though the case ended up turning into a mangled he-said-she-said mess. Having said that, I have to confess as an actor, Shiney had immense potential and I was a big fan of his acting chops.

There’s one thing Mahesh Bhatt does very well, he writes stories about love and betrayal so well – it’s the stuff for suckers for wretched romance. I absolutely loved the blue filters turning Seoul in morose and languish, this movie shreds the heart apart! Women in Bhatt’s movies are typically brilliantly portrayed and Kangana shines bright in her first ever Hindi movie.

The movie closely resembles Monica Bedi and Abu Salem’s (the notorious gangster from Dawod’s gang) romance that went wrong. I found this interview in Filmfare with Monica so revealing about her spending romantic times with the gangster, getting caught in Portugal and being extradited to India.

The music composed by Pritam is truly soothing and timeless. Bheegi Bheegi is a wonderful rendition of the popular 80’s Bengali song “Prithibi” – originally composed by MG Krosswindz and performed by Bonnie Chakraborty.

Here are links to some of the best songs from the movie:

Bheegi Bheegi

Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai

Ya Ali

(WARNING: Post contains graphic details of violence against women. May not be appropriate for readers under 18).

92 women get raped in India, EVERY DAY. That is one woman every 18 minutes. By the time you get up to the daily monotony of a routine robotic life and are finished with a sumptuous breakfast of toast with peanut butter and coffee, almost 15 women have been savagely stripped off their dignity!

Ever encountered a victim of gang rape? Most of them appear to be corpses, scarred so deep, they scream in their sleep, fear drips from their eyes like floods rampaging onto the streets, sensing a male presence, their hands tremble when they feed off steel utensils and see a reflection of their faces, the horror of being violated is so encapsulating some victims chew off their fingers down to the bone just to distract themselves from the memory of that moment.

However, the idea here isn’t to demonize the entire male fraternity or label all women as martyrs. The attempt is only to pose very inconvenient, difficult to swallow, even harder to accept questions, the bludgeoning weight of the realities and find an answer. To reflect within

PINK drew me to the theater because of the very same reason – the name – PINK. A color that is associated with everything feminine, until very recently before the “metrosexual man” syndrome tried to break these shackles. Personally, I have always been enamored by women in Cobalt blue or striking purple but my proclivities aside, the intrigue drew me to what would lay the bricks to the foundation of this write-up.

The movie is a slap in the face of a society, rinsed in feudalistic fragrance of dominance bestowed upon the men by the mere fact they were men, so hard, it frantically shakes the conscience out of the darkness of convenient ignorance and just drags it by the scruff of the collar, making it come face to face with the realities of the time we live in. A society that lends far more weight to the “bright ” future of a Brock Turner than the dignity of the woman he ravaged and that too when she was vulnerable and could not defend herself.

What have we done ? What have we done to the most beautiful creation of life, after life itself.

The woman, the giver of life, the radiance of our existence, the woman that makes this sinful, evil, imploding world beautiful, the woman that adds colors to the four walls of concrete and makes it a home, the woman that imparts reassurance with her smile, heals with her touch. It will take less time it does to blink to envisage a world without women, because there would be nothing!

It’s a story set in Delhi, the rape capital of India. A distinction it has earned quite easily as it leads the way in reported no of crimes against women. Quite ironic when you think of the fact that it houses the country’s government, literally. The PM, the Home Minister, the cabinet ministers, The President of India, and yet.

If you divide the area of Delhi by the number of women that get raped every year (roughly 40,000), the possibilities are quite high that your next door neighbor has been a victim !

The Movie

3 women Meenal, Falak and Andrea, one night out. Common friends, a group of men and women. Foods and drinks, someone tries to sexually harass one of them. Meenal retaliates in self-defense.

Sounds familiar?

Ever been in a comparable environment? Where the male manager couldn’t resist the constant gaze fixated on your breasts, deviant and deliberately brushing past you, trying to feel you up. A friend at a party who just wouldn’t take a hint after a few drinks, a male companion that would keep making suggestive conversations Or been groped in public? How suffocating and appalling is that feeling?

Men profile a woman’s character based on everything from the color of her lipstick to the length of her dress, the laughter as a response to something comical, to an opinion on an issue. From, the time she visits a club, to the no of male viz-a-viz female friends she has. Everything about a woman, to a man, is an analytical puzzle to decipher her character and the liberties that he could take with her. While she is being warm when she hugs a colleague, his mind is busy calculating the pressure that she applied in the embrace and if that could mean, she was trying to send a clandestine signal.

Sickening ? Profoundly yes.

However, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Art, culture have all been manipulated to cater to this profiling pedagogy. A Hollywood movie had a dialogue “women don’t wear black lingerie unless they want someone to notice it”. I always thought people dressed up inside or on the out because it made them feel more confident, comfortable and good about themselves but how wrong was I.

The tables are turned when Meenal goes ahead and files a FIR (First information report) after being threatened by the gang of friends of the guy she injured, in self-defence when he tried to sexually molest her.

Can of worms is let open, the rotten filth that today forms the consciousness of the Indian male makes no bones about his shameful presumptions and his belief system that brazenly justifies his actions against a “woman like that”.

A woman today is not just a woman, she’s either good or bad, righteous or characterless, a prospective wife or someone offering sexual gratification for money and men have assumed the responsibility of categorization. If she drinks, smokes, wears a dress that reveals her cleavage, dances in carefree abandon, calls up a male colleague late at night, asks instead of being asked out, suggests a quiet restaurant instead of Pizza Hut to indulge in a meaningful conversation, buys the latest in lingerie line, accidentally shows off her bra straps, is naturally curvaceous and her shirt accentuates her figure, she is easy, is begging for sex, using everything as a ploy so she doesn’t have to spell her feelings out.

Nauseating?

A woman here loses her right to express her dissent the moment she gets married. A woman here loses her right to express her dissent the moment she gets married. As a society we are still debating the merit of marital rape, robbing millions of women who are exploited in the name of matrimonial compunctions.

So, the cross questioning in the court room begins when the ladies are charged with attempted murder, extortion, and prostitution. Meenal’s sexual history is discussed, Falak is tortured into submission and subsequently coerced into accepting they were sex workers, Andrea is compelled to emphasize she is from North East, hence the natural invitation to the advances Men are shown the mirror, they confess to her branding a “randi”, because she was “friendly”, accepted drinks and showed interest. The next door neighbor, who could be like any Uncle we might have known for years, that testifies to their promiscuity and debauchery because the girls used to “come late at night”, and had “male friends” over!

The movie is for the men to take back a moment and introspect, to what they have done to the women, how each one of us aided in the victimization since childhood. How we never stood up to our fathers the first time he raised his voice against our mother. How we married out of love and swore to sharing the burdens and yet slept peacefully expecting her to prepare the breakfast and dinner, how we laughed at a sexist joke sitting in an all-boys group, how we conveniently called someone a whore when we first encountered a gossip around her sex life, how we refused to help a stranded lady in the night because at that hour how could a “good” woman be present there, how we tried to rub our arms against a female colleagues breasts in a crowded space, how we told our sisters not to stay out with a boy after 8 while we were out post-midnight.

The questions are endless and get more embarrassingly ugly as you descend deeper into the introspection. Apathy against women has so many heads like the hydra, from female infanticide to inequality in pay. The movie just broadly paints the canvass and incessantly hits home the point that any possible hope of corrective or correctional retreat has to begin from men, while women are empowered, laws are made stricter, investigations are made fairer, society more compassionate.

The elitism around sexual harassment of women is as dangerous as the violation itself. “It only happens in rural, backward areas, in most cases men are uneducated.” The skewed sex ratio, the significant difference in testosterone and estrogen levels, lack of sex education. While scientifically all of these could be debated endlessly but are women raping men in same numbers when the maths is tilted in their favor? No, this decadence is a resultant of deliberate ignorance to teach the next generation the value of values, while we push them for academic excellence.

To honour, honour and not conquest. To respect a woman’s choices, as much as yours. Having no demarcations between what’s masculine or a man’s prerogative or feminine. To tell the boys that before you become a software engineer you ought to become a man that would fight for the injustice to any woman on the street, shall commit to respecting a woman irrespective of all your prejudices if there in, never to objectify her, judge her or weigh her against any moral compass, deal with her anger in most humane, kind manner, consider it sin to ever raise a hand, be proud of her, never ashamed to work under her or to earn less than her, to encourage and motivate all her aspirations and not be threatened by them, to see the beauty in her dreams. Yes, the time is here when we tell our boys, respecting a woman is the foremost quality of a real man!

Pink isn’t any more or less feminine than Black. She makes the colors look good and the clock doesn’t run in the opposite direction. There is no rationale or reason to why men treat women the way they do. It’s a sense of entitlement that has never been challenged or questioned. The movie does both and does it with an unapologetic aggression and realism.

The movie ends with a definitive beginning, hopefully,one that shall be imbibed by the society one day. It doesn’t matter if she was a sex worker or your wife or anyone else in between, NO means NO.

.

DISCLAIMER: SPOILER ALERT!

Raped every night by her second husband, molested on the orders of her first fiancé, treated as nothing more than a political object, had her father executed in front of her, has lost contact with almost her entire family…and all this started when she was merely 13 years old.

Welcome to the tragic life of the beautiful Lady Sansa of House Stark.

Sansa Stark is the eldest daughter and second child of Lady Catelyn and Lord Ned Stark, two of the only good, loving parents in Game of Thrones. House Stark is the house of nobles that rules over Winterfell, a cold and snowy place in the North.

Everything changed for the Starks when King Robert (the ruler of all Seven Kingdoms, of which Winterfell is just one part) came to ask Ned to become the next Hand of the King (sort of like a prime minister).

Ned Stark was an exceptionally honorable man and not the least bit interested in power and politics, but he accepted his friend’s request. So, the Stark family had to leave Winterfell and go to King’s Landing – the capital of the Seven Kingdoms.

It is in King’s Landing that Sansa becomes betrothed to Joffrey, the Prince and heir to the throne.

However, this being Game of Thrones, nothing ever stays happy.

Prince Joffrey is revealed to be a sadist in every sense of the word. He enjoyed sexually abusing women, torturing little animals, and killing people, but he initially pretended to be a gentleman in front of Sansa.

Sansa was one of the most hated characters at the start of the show due to her spoiled attitude and naiveté. But one should remember that in the beginning, she was just a little girl who had grown up listening to songs about heroic princes and fair maidens; she had been raised to be a “proper lady” with perfect etiquette. Therefore, Sansa was beyond excited to marry Prince Joffrey and bear his children, much to the annoyance of her feisty little sister, Arya.

Oh, Sansa, if only you knew what you’d been signed up for. Not before long, everything went wrong.

Queen Cersei and her twin brother, Jaime Lannister, were having an affair. Everyone thought Cersei’s three children, including Joffrey, were from the King, but they were actually Jaime’s.

While they were visiting Winterfell, Cersei and Jaime were spotted in a tower by Sansa’s younger brother, Bran Stark. In order to hide their incestuous relationship and save their bastard children, Jaime pushed tiny Bran off the tower, permanently paralyzing his legs.

(Note: a bastard is a child born outside of marriage.)

Eventually, Ned Stark discovered that Joffrey was a bastard born of incest and not the true son of the King. Cersei consequently arranged for Ned to be arrested and her husband King Robert to be killed while hunting. On his death bed, the King told Ned to be the king regent until Joffrey came of age. This royal decree was unacceptable for Cersei, who wanted her family alone to hold the power, so she tore up the paper with the command.

Joffrey promised Sansa that if her father confessed to treason (even though Ned obviously never tried to steal the throne), Joffrey would spare his life.

However, once Ned made his confession, Joffrey instead had him executed, right in front of Sansa’s eyes. The horror did not stop there: Joffrey then had Ned Stark’s head put on a spike and forced Sansa to stare at it.

When Robb Stark, Sansa’s elder brother and Ned’s eldest son, heard of his father’s arrest and subsequent execution, he gathered their army and declared war against the Lannisters and the throne. Now, it is important to establish that Sansa and Arya were Stark children living in King’s Landing, where most of the Lannisters were.

When Robb and his army decided to fight and avenge his father’s death, Sansa became the hostage of Cersei/House Lannister/the throne.

(Arya would’ve been a hostage too, but she was disguised as a little boy and escaped –  to be discussed in a separate post).

All of that was just some background information to better understand the story. From here on out, let us focus on Sansa specifically, and her blossoming into a strong, intelligent woman.

As a hostage, Sansa became a mere toy for Joffrey, who was now the official King of the Westeros, to torture. When King Joffrey found out that Robb Stark had turned against the throne, he punished Sansa for her brother’s “treason”.

Luckily, before things could get even worse, everyone’s favorite dwarf, Tyrion Lannister, entered the court and saved the day. Who doesn’t love Tyrion?

Afterwards, Tyrion asked Sansa to truthfully tell him whether or not she wanted to get out of her future marriage with Joffrey. Knowing that disloyalty to the crown would get her killed, Sansa lied spectacularly, announcing that she was still loyal to King Joffrey, her one true love. Even witty Tyrion was impressed and noted that her intelligence may be the one thing that would keep her alive.

This absolutely didn’t mean that Sansa actually supported Joffrey. It just meant she had to oppose him in more subtle ways so that she would not have her head chopped off. In fact, by feigning submissive stupidity, she once tricked him into going where the fighting would be the thickest in battle, knowing that he had the highest chance of dying there.

We also see her presence of mind during Joffrey’s naming day tournament, where knights have to duel. One of the knights, Ser Dontos, showed up late and drunk. This infuriated Joffrey, who ordered Ser Dontos to have wine shoved down his throat until he died. Sansa’s compassion and intelligence came to the rescue when she cleverly suggested that Ser Dontos didn’t deserve the mercy of death and should instead be made a jester in Joffrey’s court. In this way, she saved Ser Dontos’s life, for which he is grateful.

Sansa’s days in King’s Landing continued to be filled with loneliness and sorrow. She was even molested and nearly gang raped in the streets. 

Some hope appeared for Sansa, when Joffrey put her aside to marry another Lady. But Game of Thrones is not known for happiness. Sansa’s freedom was short-lived, as Tywin Lannister, Tyrion’s father, instead decided to make her marry Tyrion, who is much older than her.

In a male-dominated universe, Sansa had no choice in the matter; her and Tyrion become engaged shortly thereafter. Tywin tells Tyrion that they need Sansa to birth his child. He orders his son to impregnate her “one way or another”, implying that if needed, Tyrion should rape Sansa. But being a decent human being, Tyrion refused to commit such a sin.

In fact, the night that they are supposed to consummate their marriage, Tyrion felt so bad for Sansa that he promised he wouldn’t even touch her until the day she asked him to.

Though Sansa has some happy moments with Tyrion, her world once again flips upside down when her brother Robb and her mother Catelyn are viciously slaughtered at a wedding dinner on Tywin Lannister’s orders.

To all the vocal people who view Sansa as weak, put yourself in her shoes. She was married to a man whose family chopped off her father’s head, stabbed her brother in the chest and sewed his wolf’s head on his body, and cut her mother’s throat to the bone. She had no friends or family in King’s Landing, and she was still essentially a hostage.

On the celebration day of Joffrey’s marriage with Lady Margaery, he drank poisoned wine and died within minutes. While this seems like good news, everyone thought Sansa and Tyrion were the ones responsible (though they were actually innocent).

Tyrion was arrested, but Sansa escaped with the help of Lord Petyr Baelish, the most cunning mastermind in Westeros.

He was in love with Sansa’s mother, and it appears that he is now in love with Sansa (weird, I know).

After spending some time disguised as Petyr’s niece “Alayne”, Sansa was once again sold off to a man. Petyr had brokered a marriage alliance between Sansa and Ramsay Bolton, a bastard who had recently been legitimized. Ramsay’s father, Roose Bolton, was the one who put a dagger through Robb Stark’s heart. After his death, the Boltons took over Winterfell.

If most of us were in Sansa’s place, we probably could not even stand to look at the man who stabbed our brother. But with all her tenacious drive and graceful dignity, Sansa faked a smile and curtsied.

The one good thing about this situation was that at least she got to return to Winterfell, her one true home.

Naturally, Sansa was not a fan of the fact that her home had been invaded by outsiders, particularly the people who murdered her family.

If you thought Joffrey was bad, wait till you get to know Ramsay Bolton. He put up a facade of being a nice guy up until him and Sansa proclaimed their marriage vows.

On their wedding night, Ramsay raped Sansa, while forcing her childhood friend, Theon Greyjoy, to watch her lose her virginity. Ramsay then kept Sansa in a room all day and raped her every night. When her and Theon escaped, Ramsay set his man-eating hound dogs after them.

There are some who argue that what happened to Sansa on her wedding night was not rape, as she never explicitly said no. Because sexual violence against women is still prominent in modern society, it is crucial to establish that if a girl is clearly anguished and hesitant to have sex, you should not force yourself on her. Sansa was in undoubtable distress, and to diminish the severity of the violation of her virginity is an injustice to her character and rape victims.

Sansa, who had not seen any of her family members for years at this point, was eventually reunited with her elder bastard brother, Jon Snow.

Because Jon was raised as Ned Stark’s bastard son, Sansa was always mean to him when they were younger. But now, after everything that both of them have been through (Jon is one of the main characters of Game of Thrones), they have nobody but each other.

Regaining some of her spirit after Jon’s arrival, Sansa told him that they should take back Winterfell. It belongs to the Starks, after all, not the treacherous Boltons. But Jon had spent the past few years fighting devastating battles as the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and he had lost many people close to him. He didn’t know if he had the strength to fight a war to regain Winterfell.

In a testament to her willpower and independence, Sansa said that while she wanted Jon’s help to take back their home, she’d do it herself if she had to.

Once Jon got on board, they started rallying other, smaller houses to their cause.

Sansa became frustrated when her brother did not ask for her opinion on what to do, considering she had a keen political mind after learning from strategists like Petyr Baelish. More importantly, she knew Ramsay Bolton better than all of the men there.

They later found out that Ramsay had taken their youngest brother, Rickon Stark, hostage.

Though Sansa’s advice on how Jon should not do anything Ramsay wants him to do seems obvious to both Jon and the audience, she ended up being right. During the climactic battle at Winterfell, Jon fell right into Ramsay’s mind trap (he used Rickon to lure Jon out, knowing Jon could never resist trying to save his little brother).  Just when it seemed like the Bolton army was going to win, Petyr Baelish showed up with his knights to help – only because of Sansa.

Thanks to her, Winterfell once again became the home of the Starks.

And what became of her tormentor, Ramsay Bolton, after he lost the battle? Well, throughout his life, he had always enjoyed watching his hound dogs eat people alive…

In an ironic form of poetic revenge, Sansa unleashed Ramsay’s own hounds on him.

Sansa Stark teaches us the value of perseverance, that we are not just strong despite our struggles; we are also strong because of them. Though she started off a spoiled brat with delusions of chivalrous knights and princes, her struggles hardened her into a clever individual who no longer believed in fairy tales – all while retaining the graceful honor she always had. Sansa shows that even in a world as patriarchal as that of Westeros, just because a girl is ladylike does not mean she has no resolve. Even now, femininity is usually seen as a form of weakness. Many people believe that fortitude only lies in physically powerful men or assume that “masculine women” are the only tough females in the world, but these are inaccurate conclusions. Dismissing a more understated type of resilience because it is different than what society projects as “toughness” would be sheer ignorance.

“Bachpan mein jab rona aata hai
Toh bade kehte hain: aansu pocho
Jab gussa aata hai Bade kehte hain:
Give us a smile taaki ghar ki shaanti bani rahe
Nafrat karna chahte hain to Ijaazat nahi thi
Tab jab hum pyaar karna chaahte hain,
to pata chalta hai Ye saara emotional system
hi gadbada gaya Kaam nahi kar raha, cannot function!
Rona, Gussa, Nafrat Kuch bhi khulkar express nahi karne diya
Ab pyaar kaise express karein?” 

Gauri Shinde is probably one of the few female protagonists amidst mainstream filmmakers whose heroines are far from being restrained by men. She made English Vinglish, which was inspired by the story of her mother. Her magic continues with Dear Zindagi that is inspired by life, connections in life and their impact on us.

Dear Zindagi is a simple story of a young woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The story also highlights numerous clichés like 9-5 jobs, annoying regressive relatives, hesitation of accepting a gay child, the undeniable expectations from unmarried girl, best of all – stigma of seeking a therapist. Say, what “A Therapist?”

A simple story with beautiful life coaching dialogues to complete life’s puzzle!
Ones you get past Alia’s uneven eyeliner and her insecurities, you start experiencing life through her eyes.

Alia Bhatt plays the character of Kiara, an aspiring cinematographer cruising through life’s icebergs, who thinks she knows better than the directors she works under, and is in search of a picture perfect life. Her topsy-turvy love life ends before it begins. Kiara, at times comes across self centered, whiny and irascible mess. She claims to hate relationships till she meets linen-clad unconventional therapist too good to be true. A therapist, who tinkers with bicycles, plays kabaddi with waves on the beach and has numerous misfit chairs in his gypsy-style office. The therapist likens trying out lovers to a hunt for the perfect chair through fleeting seats.

There is much joy in dialogues.

If you are a fan of Shah Rukh Khan narrating the life coaching lines, this is a film for you! For those who have already judged the movie based on the pairing, you are in for a surprise. Alia Bhatt plays the character true to her personality – quirky, empathetic, but a slightly messed-up person. She is upset, angry, heartbroken and happy in a relatable way only she can be. Both Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan work exceptionally well together, with her gamine grin which falters when she remembers something troubling, and his twinkly come-to-me-and-it-will-all-get-better vibe.

The supporting cast, embodied with Alia dating men with contrasting personalities, whose perspectives on life eventually reflect in her short film she is making.

Kunal Kapoor is a pumped up film producer with a man-bun and a high-fashion look. Alia’s petite size enhanced his built up physique and height.

Ali Zafar plays a brooding rock star with interesting tattoos, is as passionate about love as he is about music. He does very little talking and embraces us with his constant deep singing voice. Angad Bedi is Alia’s sweetheart, owns a starry suburban restaurant, is seen mesmerized by her innocence.

Dear Zindagi doesn’t take sides, there’s no preconceiving notion that Kiara is wronged, a heartbroken woman or even the men in her life are evil. It just tells you Kiara is a woman with suppressed feelings, she is often seen laying awake in bed, jarred by an acute fear of being judged! The writer lets us piece together our own conclusions of the dream sequence that has Kiara confused.

Dear Zindagi emphasizes on two words ‘Love Yourself’…..rest falls in place with time.

Befikre!

The promise young love is always enchanting – it is refreshing and the mere thought makes the heart skip a beat. Befikre unfortunately is a regressive view of modern love, with a warped perspective about lust, love and commitment in today’s world. The story is about Shayra, played by Vaani Kappor version 2.0, and Dharam, played by Ranveer who seemed to be playing himself.

The movie promises to teach you how to love “carelessly”, but instead preaches how to love “recklessly”. The plot centers around a viciously predictable plot – hookup with anyone and everyone, dump the unsuspecting lover or get dumped by the vindictive lover, fall in love, rinse and repeat!

This of course wouldn’t be as offensive if it wasn’t a grand production from Aditya Chopra, who once wrote and directed Dil Wale Dulahniya Le Jayege – a sensitive and à la mode love story. Indians across the globe haven’t changed much since, we still love and date the same way. It is a conundrum as to why Aditya feels that global Indian diaspora suddenly became more promiscuous and reckless about matters of the heart.

Befikre is baffling and dare I say offensive to women with even an ounce of self-worth, in more ways then one. So many poorly structured stereotypes, let me enumerate some for you:

The White Women Can Be Used and Dumped

Here’s one stereotype the Bollywood cinema needs to break – sooner the better! Offensive to its core, Befikre yet again portrays White women as “easy”, women to hook-up with, but not to bring home-to. Ranveer’s character hooks up with many white women through the movie, and is respectful to none, including his French fiancé, whom he conveniently sleeps with and dumps when he finally finds his muse.

You Can Treat an Indian Girl Anyway, and She Will Always…Take You Back!

The breakup scene between Vaani and Ranveer tells it all – Ranveer calls Vaani a “slut” who has slept with everyone in France, insulting her sexual liberation as he continues on to sleep with and dump women all over France. Despite the way Ranveer continues to treat women through the movie, Vaani not only considers him a lovely friend, but takes him back eventually. Just a simple sorry about calling her a slut is enough and of course, that’s exactly how Indian girls are – we forgive men no matter how they treat us! That’s a stereotype all Indian women love to live with – don’t we?

For Indian Parents the Best Match for Daughters is an Indian Boy…No Matter His Character!

Why Vaani’s parents love Ranveer’s character in the movie is beyond me! He’s not really employable, has a depressing stand-up comedy career, didn’t treat their girl right, and is generally unreliable. The only thing he does right is touch their feet to show respect the traditional Indian respect. But apparently Indian parents, so eager to dump their daughters on a marriageable Indian guy, would take a boy like Ranveer over any non-Indian…right?

Sexual Liberation = Promiscuity

Sigh! Enough said. The movie was meant to be sexy and who doesn’t like to watching gorgeous people getting their groove on large screen. Vaani and Ranveer can be classified as sexy, but the constant sucking each other’s face, taking clothes off in public was repulsive. A woman’s sexual liberation has nothing to do with the number of men she’s with or the number of layers of clothing she takes off. Does Bollywood get that yet?

On and on and on the movie goes, reinforcing just one thing – it’s high time Aditya Chopra lives up to his father’s legacy. I am convulsing confessing this – but papa Chopra’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan was ions ahead of times compared to Befikre.

The only thing that salvages this s***-show is Ranveer Singh. Whether you’re a fan or not, Ranveer is a dude-friend every girl needs. Deliriously funny, risqué, and an endearing childish charm – a bundle of joy for Christmas. From all the interviews I’ve seen of Ranveer, Befikre seems like his playground, a movie space where he wasn’t acting, he was just being himself. And oh that butt! Yes, there’s a generous view of Ranveer’s butt for all the fans – money’s worth? Maybe for some…

2016 sure has been a year of Reel Sports. We’ve seen biopics in pairs, starting with concentration on our diehard sport of cricket transcribed from Azher to Dhoni and the latest surge of interest in wrestling from Sultan to Dangal.

While Sultan raked the moolahs, pleasing the masses with Salman’s langot clad fights; no one would have dared to recreate a Dangal in the same coliseum besides our Mr. Perfectionist. Two years after he starred in PK, Aamir Khan returns in wrestling drama Dangal.

Dangal:

दंगल Noun

• dangal means wrestling competition
• arena (esp for wrestling)
• an amphitheater

Story at large, no spoilers, I promise! 

The story revolves around an over confidant young regional level wrestler, Mahavir Singh Phogat (played by Aamir Khan). His ultimate goal was to be the first to win a gold medal for India in the prestigious Commonwealth Games. However, without adequate financial support, Mahavir succumbed to finding a real job and gets married in hopes that one day his mini male version, Junior Phogat will accomplish his unfulfilled dream. Unfortunately for him and for the entire Balihari village, he was gifted with 4 daughters eluding him to attain his dream and leading him to carry a somewhat pregnant belly for the 90% of the movie. Probably, in hopes, if his wife can’t deliver his desires, Mr. Perfectionist will attain that himself. (Hey, he is after all Mr. Aamir Khan!)

Over the years, the moping father doesn’t hide his disappointment when the entire village distributes laddoos on the birth of several ‘sons’. It’s not till one day when Senior Phogat returns home to face the complaints of the neighbors’ sons been beaten by a Phogat child. Naturally, Senior Phogat misconstrues his nephew to be the culprit, which we know is not the case. The dormant athlete in Mahavir awakens when he discovers that his adolescent daughters Geeta (Zaira Wasim) and Babita (Suhani Bhatnagar) are dexterous brawlers. He is determined, that his daughters could succeed where he couldn’t. He exempts the girls from any housework to start training them, and flouting convention by pitting them against boys. The two daughters eventually compete in the Olympics, under the scrutiny of their obstinate trainer-father.

When the girls get older, the film switches actresses (the two younger ones, Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar, with Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra). Though, Aamir Khan’s belly stayed intact with slightly more salt and peppered hairdo.

What are your odds when you defy not just biology?

This sports based film, feels authentic, and not just because it’s based on a true story. Rather, cause of its defiance of the clichés of the society that pre-slots the girls into domestic categories that they are nothing more than sex objects and homemakers. The athletic abilities of the two oldest daughters Geeta and Babita, are also their avenue of escaping the circumscribed future of early marriage and motherhood, an asphyxiating fate dramatized by their teenage friend whose only wish is that she wasn’t being consigned by her family.

The two Phogat Girls marveled their journey of Golgappa loving teenagers from their own pre-consumed girly nature to standing against the village that never failed any opportunity to point fingers with their ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, to marking their small village on the map of the world. All four actresses playing Geeta and Babita are conspicuously good! They depict the story of women empowerment and a father who believed in his daughters.

While the film has Aamir written all over it, director Nitesh Tiwari and his writers defined a fine line between the multi faceted Senior Phogat — as a harsh taskmaster whose ambitions for his daughters are rooted in his own disappointments and as a concerned father massaging his daughters’ feet in the quietness of the night.

Watch out, these Girls might just flip your mind away with their hard work #Phogat 

It may very well be an Aamir Khan movie, but the girls owned the movie!

We’ve all seen the videos that went viral of Aamir Khan’s transformation. He left no leaf unturned to attain a pregnant belly to finally reaching his athletic young self for a 2 minute fight sequence in the movie and the internet went crazy with his fat to fit transformation. Given his status and years in the industry, it’s perhaps expected.

Seldom do we hear about the small time costars who undergo a similar experience from their realms of comfort to attain the physique needed for the desired roles. Here’s a video highlighting what the film’s team calls “the breathtaking journey of the Dhaakad girls.” “Dhaakad” is the name of a motivational song in the film.

Aamir Khan and the makers of Dangal walk us through their fascinating schedule and transformation of how Sanya, Fatima, Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar, undergo six days a week Olympian level training for 8-9 months prior to filming.

Sanya confides that they did not speak a word of their pain for a long time, as they feared that they might lose the opportunity.

Fatima voiced that she was badly injured during the shoot that the entire schedule had to be pushed a bit forward because of her, and how she managed to look like a tigress on screen even though she was in extreme pain.

Survival against all odds!

Sport teaches us to survive against all odds, whether you win the trophy or not. Dangal, also sends out the social message of gender equality. Both reel and real-life father braved all societal odds to train his daughters as wrestlers in a male-dominated sport. This family radiates paternal devotion beneath a stern exterior, who grapple appreciably with wrestling tactics. Dangal, is about self-discipline, a person who believed in his vision, and women empowerment. It is an ideal film to end our 2016 with both inspiration and entertainment.

Edward Hopper – The Lonely Realist

“…barriers and boundaries, wanted things at a distance and unwanted things too close: and erotics of insufficient intimacy, which is of course a synonym for loneliness itself.” – Olivia Laing

David Wojnarowicz – The Activist Artist

“there was no way I could relate them to anybody in a room full of people at any party anywhere. The sense of carrying experiences on my shoulder, where I could sit there and look at people and realize there was just no frame of reference that was similar to theirs.”

“I could barely speak in the company of other people. There was never a point conversation at work, parties, or gathering where I could reveal what I’d seen.”

“To place an object or writing that contains what is invisible because of legislation or social taboo into an environment outside myself makes me feel snot so alone, it keeps me company by virtue of it’s existence. It is kind of like a ventriloquist’s dummy – the only difference is that the work can speak by itself or act like that ‘magnet’ to attract others who carried this enforced silence.”

We were on a mission to dine at every single recommended cafe on Trip Advisor and that euphoric madness led us to Gaia! A boutique restaurant on Kumari Marg, Thamel. A stone throw from our hotel but we still needed two of each, brains, cell phones, GPS navigation systems and apps to triangulate the position. Thamel district in Kathmandu is an explorer’s paradise. The diversity of what is on offer is spell binding. The city’s cynosure, this area is an epitome of Multiculturalism. Americans, Hispanics, south-east Asians, folks from down under, one can spot the entire world within a few blocks of the suburban landscape. Bob Marley and BB King on this side of the road in an upscale lounge and “Tip Tip barsa Pani” in a makeshift, basement dance bar on the other. Authentic Pashmina shawls on the first floor and Gucci and Northwest replicas on the ground floor.

The buildings have more hoardings and banners on them than bricks and the same structure of 4-storey could very well have a hotel, a spa, a café, a pizzeria, a bakery, a mountaineering gear shop, artifact stores, another café, internet parlor, salon, a zoo a space station…you get the idea, don’t you!  Exhausting just to recreate the imagery!

Right before we turned left to enter Gaia, I heard what I never expected to hear in this lifetime, not in India and most certainly not in Nepal.  A remixed version of “Zindagi Maut Na Ban Jaye” from the Bollywood movie Sarfarosh with Bhangra beats, and I knew the barber shop it was emanating from had to belong to a Bihari (no offense).

Dressed in black dungarees and a Nirvana t-shirt, with cropped, gelled hair and rings on every finger, we had met our first subject for this blog!

Jai Ram Thakur from Saharanpur had moved to Kathmandu 17 years ago. A decade and a half later he was still adjusting to the “rough” hair styles of the young Nepali boys as he described the undercuts and spikes. His parlor had an orange decor – oh, not the shade you associate with orange but the color of the Sindoor they put on Indian brides, right from the tip of their noses to the base of their skulls! Instantly appealing to the ridiculous sense of impropriety the brain is programmed to get attracted to.

 “I am going to give you the latest Ranbir Kapoor look from the movie he’s doing with Salman’s ‘item’”, he exalted, on my mention that I was there for a haircut and possibly a change in hair style!  The feminist in me was about to intervene when a wry smile spread across his face and he unapologetically uttered “waise Didi (Katrina Kaif) hain badi acchi, pehle u ek chotta (translation: petty criminal) ke chakar me phans gayi (referring to Sallu) fir Ranbir ke chakkar main. Ab bataiye, jo Deepika jaisi ka nahi hua, uske character ka aur kya test.” I was amazed at the depth of knowledge the man possessed about the latest in Bollywood gossip!  This was going to be some haircut experience, I muttered to myself.

“A lot has changed in the last 2 decades since I moved here,” he proclaimed. The streets have gone murkier and dirtier. Though I knew what he implied, I had the most candid and earnest encounter with a drug peddler only last evening in broad day light as he walked up to me at a crossing and enquired, “Bro, do you smoke? I got hashish, grass.” Before I could answer in a negative, prompt came my other alternatives, “No? How about some crystal, heroin? No? A line perhaps (referring to cocaine)?”

But given how much I enjoy interacting with strangers who are determined to express themselves with limited inhibition I decided to indulge Jai Thakur a tad bit more. “What do you mean, things have changed around here?” I enquired. “Sir, Is jagah ka naitik patan ho chuka hai (this place has morally degraded).” Such chaste dialect, “naitik patan” and I could barely conceal my laughter.

He went on to further explain how a plethora of massage parlors employing young girls has mushroomed in hundreds over the last decade, catering mostly to the white pot-bellied Caucasians and “couldn’t afford a ticket to Pattaya – Indians!” The streets are infested with teenage boys selling drugs for a quick buck! There are alleys in Thamel that are unnavigable after 10 because of chain snatchers and perverts trying to grope you, something that was unheard of when I first moved here, he concluded. Working here isn’t as exhilarating as it used to be, was my conclusion for him. 17 years of monotony would do that to anyone, the city was little to be blamed!

There was a hint of frustrated exaggeration about his verdict, maybe a haircut went bad and the client refused to pay but a large part of his assessment bordered around the reality. Nepal through the eyes of this hyperbolic barber was a dream destination that had lost its charm, nothing worth looking forward to, addictive none the less. It was as impossible for him to palate the dynamism witnessed over a long career as it was to just hang his boots. By the time the hair wax had been applied and a final nod of OK was made by Thakur, I was looking like a rough, Nepali porcupine and Ranbir would turn in his grave if he were to know, someone thought this hairdo resembled his!

The fascinating 1-hour of the interaction was priceless and I did go back to Thakur the next day for the leftover insights into the mesmerizing city of Kathmandu, Jai was married to Nancy Thapa a beautiful lady that also managed the women’s section of the salon and together embodied the amalgamation of diversity Nepal truly is!

Hari, was our cab driver assigned to us by our Hotel administration. A polite man in his mid-forties, a tour guide plus travel agent plus spiritual speaker and everything in between. His facial expressions often read of boredom having repeatedly done the same thing day in and out for inquisitive and sometimes annoying tourists like me. For the most part sporting a feeble smile he eventually even got our Lumbini trip canceled with a whole lot of conundrum resulting in unavailability of return flights to Kathmandu. At the end of the first day of the tour, Hari was very keen on taking us to Nagarkot, apparently to view the snow-capped peaks of the lower Himalayas and also because the place was outside city limits and hence he got to charge us a premium over the city package of the day!

 The time set for departure from our hotel was decided to be 4 in the morning. We left as per schedule only to realize half way that the thick cluster of clouds would make it an impossibility to get a view of anything beyond 500 Ft. So, there we were, parked at the edge of the highest cliff in Nagarkot with no further trajectory to navigate. Chilly winds and drizzle welcomed us at 5 AM in the morning with no signs of any other living person or organism anywhere around.

As I reclined in the rear seat of the car, I saw a young lady in her early 20’s appear out of nowhere! Bleached locks, fiery red lipstick, a Hawaiian-patterned dress and a glass of chilled beer in her glass trot gently towards my friend. For a moment we assumed she was the owner of the small but neatly done hotel right behind where our car was parked. That’s when we were informed she was there to relax with a couple of her friends. She was jarred with all the drinking through the night and dancing in the discotheque. No wonder, she was having more alcohol at 5 in the morning. Good high sometimes eliminate the perils of a bad high.

Sujata – This 23-year-old fiery bombshell would have hung Jai Ram Thakur like a goose on a rotisserie and watched him slow cook to oblivion had she heard him address Sallu Bhai as “chotta” (ruffian). This pocket dynamite, married at 14, a single mom and abandoned by her husband at 16 could very well be Salman Khan’s fiercest fan alive. In a span of 2 hours with her, she had already gulped down half a crate of Carlsbad and smoked 21 cigarettes (yes, my astonishment made me keep a count). Accompanying on the same table was her older friend she loving addressed as “Don”. Don was every bit of the woman you can picture in your head right now! Big, loud, brash, rambunctious, uninhibited, encapsulating and someone who would walk inside the room one second and own the atmosphere the next. Together Sujata and Don reminded me of Thelma and Louise or if you missed that classic, Butch, and the Sundance Kid!

Don was the support system for Sujata, helping her raise her 9-year-old son Tanmay and also with her business. In conversation with them, I realized a few things. Every individual can be strong when facing an adversity but none could be as resilient and determined as a single mother. Women exude this sense of character and their beauty, elegance, and appeal amidst all that life was throwing at them, transcends borders! Sujata was still hoping to find love, love that happened to Bodyguard Lovely Singh but today she isn’t afraid to be inebriated to the brim and instead of taking a cab, purposefully walk inside a police station and request to be dropped at home.

What also struck me was for all the penchant Nepalese possess for Indian cinema and Bollywood, they are equally in love with their culture and traditions. As Sujata later said, she could dance all night as she did the night before coming to the mountain top on songs ranging from Tamma Tamma to Chikni Chameli, the sense of true happiness and a connection with everyone lay when the music was from the biggest Nepalese hits from Bhuwan KC.

Sujata and Don were the cannons of reprisal fighting the dogma of an early marriage and patriarchy that seems to be a part of Nepalese culture. A bit on the edge to our liking but they were living it up in style. A reflection of a society that was transitioning from cognitive and cultural bondage to liberty and empowerment, with a touch of an overdose of a few vices!

While exploring the Bhaktapur Durbar and the regalia it would have boasted when first created, we found ourselves bumping into the Nepalese and academic version of the African child soldier from the Bosnian civil war days!. This child guide knew no less about the Durbar, the history, the iconography, the dates than the adult guides we had through rest of our prior visits. While we were engaged in some rather fascinating revelations we saw a young girl walk briskly past us. She was barely 10 and made a rather abrupt halt right where we were seated. The axiomatic reaction was to enquire about her as ardently as we had done about the boy. She was Sunita – the boy’s classmate. Spoke fluent and flawless English. Her linguistic proficiency could have very well put many Indian parents on the anti-depressant Prozac! She was poignant and stupendously confident of both, the context and the content. Thoroughly impressed by their skills we were more than keen to offer them a treat or an ice cream bonanza given how brutally and unrelentingly the sun was scorching down on the city.

Sunitha and the boy gazed into each other’s eyes for a brief moment and before we could unravel the dilemma, she asked us to buy them books from the local book store instead of treating them. The heart just warmed up to the request and we agreed with as much gusto as we did with eagerness. Walking behind them from one lane to another, we were informed that Sunita’s education was being funded by a man from San Fransisco. God bless that noble soul, I thought to myself. In a world that’s defined by the ills and evils here was an example of someone doing something spectacularly humane and selfless! Eventually, we reached the bookstore and told them they could buy whichever book they needed for their curriculum and just waited for them to decide.

Sunita looked at the shopkeeper for a moment, spoke to him in her local language first time that afternoon and a book was placed on the front desk. The boy followed suit and asked for the same book. Seeing them both purchase the same question bank we were inclined to suggest that they should buy 2 different books. However, we didn’t pay much heed to the fact that they were both quite adamant with their decision. My friend took out her wallet to pay for them and asked for the price. 5000 NRS for both, the man said with an expression as calm as that of a torrential flood that had just receded after having lost its motivation to cause more havoc. That’s when I felt something just didn’t add up. I checked online and found that the price for the book was merely 400 NRS. 80% less than what was quoted to us. We informed the shopkeeper and he didn’t even resist bringing the price down from 2500 to 400, which felt even more mystifying. As soon as that happened, the boy refashioned his choice and asked for another book. This time the price quoted to us was 600 NRS. Google informed me that the original price was 200 and we intimated the shopkeeper and yet again he agreed with sublime nonchalance and with an alacrity to stupify. Right at that moment, the boy altered back to the original choice and that’s when I requested my friend to just fold her wallet and just walk away.

The children never needed any books. They only needed tourists to agree to their request for purchasing a book. They would take everyone to the book store and have the hapless and unsuspecting tourists buy them a rather expensive book. Thanking the tourists for their benevolence and kindness they would later return to the book store and return the book for cash deducting some commission for the role played by the shopkeeper. The plot was laden with rather minimal loopholes to be apprehensive about.There was hardly an aroma of flippancy about the script and demeanor.  This was a very well thought out, racket. Like my friend later said, it’s a SCAM!

These kids were also the Nepal we were there to discover. Rendered impotent with government apathy and deploying their skills and knowledge to survive in this ruthless world without much caution or care for morality, I wondered if they realize the gravitas of the priceless knowledge of historicity they acquired rather accidentally or was it just means to an end.

They made me realize that people anywhere in the world are just that, people. They do the best they can with what they and when they can!

Sujata, Hari, Sunita, Thakur were what Kathmandu is! Mysticism integrated with modernity or the banality of it so to speak. A forward society with its own share of repressions, a depredation of a glorious legacy, a crossover to the fast times of sex, drugs and rock and roll and yet pristine and the virgin in its aura of religiosity defining the way of life.

Kathmandu and Nepal through their eyes was a treat to savor and cherish. When memories of the grandeur of history embedded in those royal pagodas and the divinity of Symbhunath begins to fade with age, those faces and their view of the world is what shall remain in me of Nepal…