Across space

(Extracts from The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.
It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge ….

…..From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.
The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather…..



The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)

I thought of this poem as I watched the movie Thor today. Only it was not a damsel watching for her lover on earth from the parapet of Heaven, but the hammer wielding Thor standing at the edge of the destroyed Bifrost Bridge, the only connection of the people of Asgard to other worlds. As Thor looks into the abyss below, he asks Heimdall, the bridge’s gatekeeper who can see all and hear all, that what is Jane (the woman Thor falls in love with during his exile on Earth) doing. Heimdall says she is looking for you.

And in this post I worry over details: Taking apart “Paa”

When I am done salivating over Ms Balan’s lovely saree(s) and houseful of curios, I wonder if chikan embroidery found a place in her or her mother’s (played by the fabulous Arundhati Nag) wardrobe. Living in Lucknow, you just cannot escape the grace of the delicate lines of jali, taipchi, bakhi or murri on cotton and chiffon. Ask me!

I also noticed in a blink and it is gone moment that the number plate on Dr. Vidya’s car was not embossed with the usual UP 32 but UP71 (needs to be checked). That was a blooper unless Ms Balan bought the car outside Lucknow.

Another contradiction that had my stiletto thin brow furrowed in thought was if Balan was studying in Oxford, why was her mother feeding and cooing over her at the family home in Lucknow? If Oxford was not running a long distance programme and Balan did apply to King George Medical College then I am surprised by the taken for granted “acceptance”, Ms Balan and her son get in the absence of the round and round thing. When did the Lucknow samaaj with a heart, as creepy and crawly as the stinky Gomti get so accommodating? I would have appreciated if Balan’s struggle to get social acceptance had been better documented than "bachhe ko akele paalne se aurat ka dil sakht ho jaata hai". Phew! Please remember that according to grapevine even the fiery Behenji has kept her progeny hidden somewhere.

And how could I not comment on Mr Bachhan (Jr) who flies in and out a la Rahul Gandhi. And you better watch out! Saying condom on camera is mocking the evolved pedigree of UP politicians when it comes to sex. Our dear leaders -whether the octogenarian sweating it out in a foursome down south or another one who had to give out a supaari after he forgot to use condom-are light years ahead of Amol Arte.

That said, I did like Auro and the man behind the character despite the feel good treatment his character was given. There is sensitivity and attitude to life that can only come with pain and isolation.

New age heroes

A Sherlock Holmes drugged by his rogue of a lady love, waking up naked with his hands chained to the bed posts and the key festooned to his manliness is believable to me. A man imperfect, susceptible to goof ups, locked for two weeks in his room and drilling bullets in the wall for want of work and willing to plunge into the dark world for answers appeals to me.

I am a 28 year old audience that today’s film director well understands is unimpressed by the precision and the slowly thinning fog of a mystery. I may look prim and proper with my hair parted down the middle but my mind is as active as a beehive. It needs kicks and its needs excitement. A humourless tale of the past that wets the senses with its aesthetics is good on a certain day but me the 28 year old audience, a character as muggy as the Hong Kong skies, needs action, likes her hero to moan and groan, be a faithful friend and covet the friend’s woman as well.

And so as old fashions come back into fashion, we the yuppies of varying degrees are digging out our super heroes from the comic annals and concocting skeletons to make them more real and juicy. We do Freud proud with our anatomy of the id, ego and super ego.

It is Holmes, Batman and Spiderman for now. Watson, Robin, Alfred and Mary Jane may be next.