July 19, 2007
I consider this the prize of my sari collection. It’s an antique silk Parsi Gara sari made in China, probably around the end of the 19th or early 20th century. On their travels to China, Parsi tradesmen from Gujarat fell in love with traditional Chinese embroidery and began to have saris embroidered there. They brought them back and sold them to wealthy Parsi women. This trade stopped after the Chinese revolution, and there have been no true Parsi Gara saris made since about 1950. There are very few whole saris left, and most of those are family heirlooms. The majority have been cut up and the borders preserved, while the silk body of the sari disintegrated.
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Posted in Memsaab in a saree |
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July 18, 2007
People are always asking me what movies I would recommend to them so they can become more familiar with Hindi movies. Of course, that’s like asking what Hollywood movies one would recommend*; obviously it depends on personal preference for genre, etc. but I’ve done my best to come up with a “one size fits all” list. These are not here just because they are favorites of mine (although they all are), but because I think they are also easily accessible to the western sensibility while remaining true to the culture they come from.
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Posted in Hindi movies, Memsaab's lists |
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July 16, 2007
“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre,
but they are more deadly in the long run.”
-Mark Twain
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July 15, 2007
There is a nice article about the great Urdu poet and film lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi in today’s Mid-Day (Mumbai) newspaper. I fell in love with his lyrics watching the 1958 movie Sadhna starring Sunil Dutt and Vijayanthimala. Fortunately for me, the songs were subtitled — and subtitled beautifully, I might add! (The major reason I really need to learn Hindi/Urdu is so that I can comprehend and appreciate the poetry of songs from older movies without having to depend on subtitles…but anyway, back to Sahir Ludhianvi.) By all accounts, his life was unhappy and he was considered very arrogant and difficult to work with. But he was a genius, and he knew it. Bless him!
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Posted in Hindi movies |
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July 14, 2007
I watched Aamir Khan’s movie Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin yesterday. It is an obvious remake of Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night and it got me thinking, not for the first time, about why I prefer the Hindi film version of some of my favorite Hollywood films. The Hindi film industry is often accused of stealing entire plots without acknowledging (or paying for) copyrights held on their Hollywood counterparts. And to be sure, a movie like DHKMN should acknowledge Frank Capra’s work as its direct ancestor. What I don’t understand is why so many people hold these remakes in contempt and use them as examples of how Indian filmmakers lack creativity. After all, Hollywood itself remakes its old films.
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Posted in Hindi movies |
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July 12, 2007
I love love love Aamir Khan’s latest post on his blog (http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php). He talks about mainstream Hindi “masala” films and why he does them, and why he thinks they are as important as the more “highbrow” films he is famous for. Here is a small part of what he says (copied and pasted, all spelling etc. errors are his :-):
“I can see that some of you did not like FANAA, and I can understant why. Happily more of you loved it. Which is why it is among my biggest hits. I want you’ll to understand that when I am attempting to entertain such a LARGE and VARIED audience it will not always be possible for me to entertain EVERYONE at the same time. People have different tastes, different emotional keys, different perpectives. And there will be times when a certain section of my audience likes one of my films better and another section some other film. I personally think that this is very healthy. I dont want to do only one particular sensibility or taste of film. I want to give myself the freedom to do all kinds of cinema. I dont want to do just those kinds of films which make a social comment, or are very logical. Sometimes I too feel like doing something mushy, mad, crude, sentimental. RDB, LAGAAN, MANGAL PANDEY, DCH, SARFAROSH, JJWS etc are my kind of films, but that doesn’t mean that I dont enjoy doing FANAA, RAJA HINDUSTANI, ISHQ etc. which are not typically my kind of films.
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Posted in Hindi movies |
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July 11, 2007
I started this blog intending to use it to write about Hindi movies. But clearly I need to do some work on focusing.
I knew that already!
Sigh. I have so many movies running around in my head that I can’t decide which one to write about. So I’m attaching a link here to an article in the Washington Post that is about one of my favorite Hindi movies ever: Lage Raho Munna Bhai (and I will write about the film in more detail soon)…
But for now I’m going to go have a glass of wine.
Gandhigiri zindabad!
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071002055.html
Posted in Hindi movies |
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July 11, 2007
“My little dog, a heartbeat at my feet.”
–Edith Wharton
Posted in Gemma |
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July 10, 2007
Instead of writing my self-appraisal for my mid-year performance assessment, I have spent my day talking about saris with the sariwalli and researching sperm bank donors for a friend of mine who wants to have a baby (she wants her friends to chime in on her favorites). Donating sperm involves a lot of paperwork just like my mid-year. Pages and pages of it! I suppose if you are going to have a baby and half of its DNA will come from someone you’ve never met, you want that paperwork filled out. It was really fascinating reading, actually, because the donor had to list various qualities of all of his nearest relatives including grandparents, uncles, aunts, from both sides of the family. I liked the ones who took the time to fill in the “Special skills or characteristics” section for each relative, and seemed to know and understand each person’s special quirks. I’d pick one of them if I were doing it. Of course, if I had to fill that section out I couldn’t, since I grew up far far away from my extended family and didn’t know any of them very well.
Irony!
Back to the hamster wheel. I wonder if procrastination can be “spun” into a leadership quality.
Posted in Everything else |
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July 9, 2007
My sariwalli Melinda is here visiting. I spent some satisfying time last evening pawing through her stash of saris. She specializes in regional handlooms, particularly cotton, and has wonderful taste (you can see her wares at http://sarishop.com). Since she’s captive in my house I also got her to identify some of the older saris I’ve gotten on eBay and elsewhere.
Turns out I have two lovely gold Chanderi saris from the 1950’s (this one is my favorite):
and she identified another of my favorites as a silk Dhaka sari from Bangladesh (or East Pakistan depending on its age):
What fun!
The last thing I need is yet another sari, but I may not be able to resist one of her baby-soft Kanchi cottons.
Posted in Memsaab in a saree |
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