Foreign Movies, Bengali Movies And The Universe

This morning, I was thinking about the battle of the sexes, its origin, propagation as a function of self-pollination and the test of time. Centuries ago, when Ape Man and Jane* were the only two people walking Mother Earth with gay-abandon, things were all going fine until the invention of Civilized Defecation. The invention of CD, led to the discovery of WC. This was really the critical mass, the defining moment that sparked the battle of the sexes. My wife insisted that we must have the WC seat grounded while I argued we must have it raised. The argument never ended, thereby propelling us to miss breakfast and head to work at break-neck roadkill speed. This argument also resulted in a) Balancing the WC seat at 45 degree angle with the assistance of a stick b) Opening the Encyclopedia Britannica and typing out the story on battle of the sexes.

My wife and her family are arty-farty lovers of alien-language movies. If you ever happen to visit my in-laws place or for that matter my place, you will find innumerable DVDs that cannot be watched without a translator. I recall, we had to cancel watching a movie due to the unavailability of Russian, French, Italian, Japanese and Uw Oykangand language translator. The interesting part is my-inlaws watch movies** like La Dolce Vita, Satyricon, Höstsonaten, Det sjunde inseglet, Yojimbo, À bout de souffle, Le Mépris, Roma città aperta, Rashômon, La Nuit américaine and Jules et Jim without, this is true, subtitiles while I sit there chewing gum and hoping for a nude scene. I just hate those film appreciation sessions where my inlaws (including PP's mum, my wife) sit together and watch two or three foreign films back-to-back without subtitiles. I am not entirely kidding but my FIL's fascination for la Nouvelle Vague stems from a trip to Europe on Thomas Cook vacations.

I recall, when I was first introduced to my to-be in-laws, my to-be wife categorically told me that her parents were aficionados and bon vivants of cinema, theatre, art and wine. She insisted that I must resist myself from calling Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Shakti Chattopadhyay or Joy Goswami bongs. I wasn't aware this was such a serious issue until her family initiated me into bengali poetry and movies much before our marriage.

I can proudly say, I have watched most of the movies made by Bimal Roy, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Rituporno Ghosh, Pramathesh Barua, etc. For my avid readers, I suggest***, Devdas, Madhumati, Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar, Subarnarekha, Heerak Rajar Deshe, Aparajito, Choker Bali and ofcourse Pather Panchali.

Upholding the Bengali spirit, sometime last year, my inlaws decided that we must (Chintu's family, PP's family, wife and yours truly) watch Antarmahal: Views Of The Inner Chamber as a family since the movie featured Jackie Shroff, Abhishek Bachchan, Roopali Ganguly, etc. I am not kidding you but the movie was a treat. The parents were busy trying to close the eyes of their respective kids while I was trying to hide my face in my nonexistent bosom.

The movie is about how Jackie Shroff, a Zamindar, who cannot beget children and he keeps changing wives to try new positions. He desperately needs progency (preferably male) to carry forward his legacy and he employs every possible person in town to help him achieve it. To appease the Queen of England, he decides to overthrow his old sculptor with a bare-chested AB to make a figurine of Kali Mata with her body, this is true, and the Queen's head. He believes, this might help his wife conceive. OK, I was kidding. He then employs a pujari who insists by chanting some secret vedas while Shroff is in action with his newife, he can help Shroff and his newife have a baby. The newife is dismayed and sharooshed by His Zamindar's idea and decides to commit suicide. At that point, the oldwife makes an appearance. She seduces the pujari and get seduced by the bare-chested AB building a Kali Mata figurine with a Queen's head.

--INTERVAL--

I will leave it upto you to figure out what happens next. The movie is reflective of normal Bengali families though the director begs to differ. He says, Yes, it is true with unlikely exceptions.

This zealotry extends to Indian Theatre too. People like Geoffrey Kendal, Naseeruddin Shah, Lillette Dubey, Tom Alter, Girish Karnad, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi, etc are always mentioned in our conversations. I recall, answering a question, I said, PVR, Regal, Odean and Paras are fine Indian Theatres. My FIL thought I had a sense of humor until he figured out I was not kidding. From that day onwards, my FIL stopped treating me as his SIL.

Dada, ami baachte chai.

Yours educatedly.

*History of Jane: Jane is Plain Jane with extraordinary good looks and huge breasts. She comes to the jungle with a bunch of amateur hunters in search of rhinoceros horns, tiger penises and turtle eggs. Soon after they arrive, Jane decides to stay back at base camp and read some mind-numbing John Collins book. Her friends and a bunch of aboriginals instruct her not to wander away from the camp. Ofcourse, like in all movies and books, Jane decides to stroll through the jungle insouciantly only to be snared by one of Ape Man's bOOby traps, which knocks her unconscious. She wakes up to find herself in Monkeyland surrounded by monkeys and Ape Man. (Look alike of Hermes, with six pack abs and a well toned muscular body in a loin-cloth) Jane then enjoys a Banana Split, which happens to be the cardinal and fundamental point of no return in the History of Mankind.


** I have spent close to forty-five minutes with a selection of the aforementioned DVDs before my computer trying to find special-characters such as "ö, À, é, ô" on my keyboard. I figured, I had to use Programs >> Accessories >> System Tools >> Character Map to find them. I had to insert those characters for authenticity and foreign effect.


*** I didn't spend forty-five minutes since they did not contain any special characters.