Indian Writing

…after a long break. I have been preoccupied with many things:
- my mother’s recurrence of cancer, this time with metastasis beyond the abdomen. She is now on a stiff course of chemotherapy - she’s a brave lady.
- my beloved eight-year old dog, Whisky, has just had surgery for a spleenectomy.
- Desh hasn’t been well this month.
- and I had a fall three weeks ago. I fell on my back - and fortunately, nothing terrible happened except that I was left with an aching back and days of enforced rest - but what a scare it gave me.

*****

I wanted to link to this report about a theatrical performance by trained elephants.

And here is a story about dogs being worshipped in Nepal.
(thanks, Abodh)

Two films released recently received far less attention than they deserved. While both are classifiable as noirish thrillers, they as far removed from each other, in their treatments, as mofussil India and the glittering metropolis. Navdeep Singh’s debut feature film “Manorama Six Feet Under” is set in a back-of-beyond desert town in Rajasthan, while Sriram Raghavan’s “Johnny Gaddaar” is set in fast-track Mumbai. In the first, we’re unraveling a web of crime and intrigue alongside the unlikely amateur investigator, in the other, we’re watching how the murderer is going to cover his tracks. “Johnny Gaddaar” moves with thrilling speed, “Manorama” with thrilling slowness.

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“Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt” by Kishwar Desai
HarperCollins, Rs 395

Fifty years ago, when a 28-year old Sunil Dutt rushed to save Nargis from a fire that broke out on the sets of “Mother India”, the two actors – who were playing mother and son in Mehboob Khan’s 1957 epic – went on to fall in love and eventually marry. It became the best known “true love story” of the movies, alluded to and echoed as recently as in this year’s Diwali release, Farah Khan’s “Om Shanti Om” when Shahrukh (playing a junior actor) saves Deepika (playing the star female lead) from a circle of burning haystacks.

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