Baz Luhrmanns Elvis

I saw it en route from Cal to Bangalore 2 weeks back.  Last year I had seen the documentary on Elvis on Netflix and knew the real story of Elvis from interviews with him, Priscilla, her mom and many others who had worked with him. I saw it only because of that name before Elvis - Baz.

This may be the recency effect, yes one of the best films of the year. More than the debate of the right portrayal or not. The show stealer was of course Austin Butler - he may not look exactly like Elvis but his acting as Elvis was mind blowing. After the movie I saw many interviews of how Austin has been preparing for this movie for many months. 

Interestingly Austin had read and seen Elvis videos, pics and sent a video of him playing a piano and singing Unchained Melody to  Baz even before the auditioning started. He learnt to play guitar and he actually performed in stadiums in front of 1000’s of people. One must see the movie and then understand the effort which went behind making this movie. Of course add to this the villianish role played by Tom Hanks who is also the narrator of the movie and as always outstanding in his performance and you are set for a good trip.

Of course when Baz makes a movie, it’s his vision end to end, (he has done story - screenplay - direction) and is in full control. His sets & costume design as expected is like all his other movies - Romeo+Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge is phenomenal. I only wish I could see it in theaters.   

On Elvis: Anybody who listens to music cannot ignore Elvis. He is a phenomenon who had nothing, had everything then left a vacuum which no one could fill. One feels sad when one sees how he has been exploited to the extent that he lost his life making music. But that is true for many musicians. More than music Elvis is about stage performances which is why Baz is the perfect director to make this movie.                

There are plenty on the you tube: Start with these 2. 

Behind the Scene video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vww_q9c8C-I 

Austins’ interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6gh-PUa85s

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The book got the Booker's Award and I found the premise interesting. This is like Ghost meets Saving Private Ryan. It’s a long read and I felt it could have been reduced a bit, maybe 50 pages. Or, maybe I was in a tearing hurry in the end to just finish it. When you see a war movie after a point the scenes seem to blur - dead bodies, destruction, torture, battle ground. 

But, that’s a very small crib compared to the brilliance of the book - in terms of structure, characters, suspense ultimately it’s a murder mystery which also lays bare the Lankan mess with IPKF, UN, LTTE, srilankan army in 90’s which led to the death of Rajiv Gandhi. It’s also about photography and journalism which is what Maal (short for Maali Almeida) does. He takes commissions from the press, govt, NGOs and goes to war / conflict zones and takes pictures or fixes interviews. So apart from being a photographer he is also a fixer - he connects the journo’s to chiefs or leaders of various organizations. 

The fact that he is gay and is constantly found groping or being groped, kissed etc was at times became irritating - as if sex is a constant thing in his mind. I had read Less by Andrew Seen Greer last year which is written from a gay perspective and I felt a similar sense of a constant need for sex. In reality I don’t think it’s like that or Is it ? I wouldn’t know. But Maal being gay and flirtatious is an important angle which becomes clearer only in the end.

Why should you read this book?

It’s funny, yet philosophical. The character of Maal is similar to what I found in most Murakami books, carefree, cynical but philosophical, speaks his mind, what he does he does very well. War, especially civil war is a very depressing topic, political deaths, bomb blasts, description of a mother whose whole family is killed etc. This is the news you read in all papers and throw it in the dustbin with disgust. But the beauty of the book is the way it is narrated through the voice of the ghosts and afterlife that the message is delivered without making you flinch or stop reading. 

I loved the language, the dialogues and philosophical one liners or two. It’s almost like after a cynical outburst - someone says it in a deadpan expression. 

The structure of the book is unique, at least I have not read it before. 

Postscript: I browsed and read about the 83 pogrom and what happened. I was too young when this was happening and our history books don’t talk about these conflicts. Vanni - the graphic novel is one of the best portrayals of civil war in Sri Lanka.

I dusted and took out his first book Chinaman from my personal library, which incidentally I could not finish when it came out. Will read it soon.

Some passages which I liked: 

“The memory comes to you in pain,The pain has many shades. Sometimes it arrives with sweat & other times it comes with nausea and headaches.”

“...in this noisy station & memories that lie at the edges of your thoughts, on your visions of periphery, at your tongue’s tip. They wash against the windows  of your mind but stay hidden in the storm.”

“All stories are recycled and all stories are unfair. Many get lucky, and many get misery. Many are born to homes with books, many grow up in the swamps of war. In the end all become dust. All stories conclude with a fade to black.”

Goals for 23 - 75th & last post of the year.

In the ultimate analysis - you are alone. You came to earth alone and you will die alone. So, goals can be only your goals. Any goals beyond this circle are only possibilities. This has always been my principle. Yes, there are a few principles which you want to follow at home or as a lifestyle choice, but you have to accommodate. 

I set goals on my birthday and these were scribbled on my notepad, I thought I will transfer it here. It’s great to have these, I believe what gets measured gets done.

Here goes:

(Key Driver - Health n Fitness, Resilience, Solitude & Balance)

• Running - This year I will end with 12k, next year I want to double it to 25K & MY DARE would be to do 55K on my 55th b’day

• Perfect Swimming - I can manage to stay afloat but I want to enjoy swimming.

• Many small treks as prep & 1 long trek (2 - 3 wks). This has been on my list.

(Key Driver - Creative ME, Create Something, Self Sustenance, Family time)

• Writing - This year I did 75 posts and plan to double it at 150 & DARE - 300 posts

• Photography - This year I focused on candid photography and had a lot of good shots, next year buy a good camera and take a course and also do wildlife photography. 

• Painting - Last year experimented with oils, watercolor - acrylic.

(Key Driver - Family, Home, Sustainability) 

• Cooking - Experimented with lot of veg dishes and few non veg dishes (which is my forte), next year focus on Bengali recipes (especially the ones which baba used to make like pithe) & vegetarian, salads, soups 

• Gardening - Grow my own herbs & graduate to vegetables. 

• Declutter - Reduce to only the basic needs and give the rest - Re-use, Re-cycle

• Zero Waste Home, Vacations, Travel.

• Cycling - No goals, just cycle around as much as I can so it can be my default transport, Also use public transport as much as I can

Overall, my principle for 23’ would be to lead a slow and mindful life. Be more compassionate. Meet more friends, relatives physically. 

Smile More and Spread the Smile.

Adieu 22: My philosophy and principles

I think sometime in 20-20, when I was alone in Mumbai in one of those philosophical musings, most likely around my birthday when I got into a huddle with myself, I had laid out the AOM (Pronounced Om) principle. I have been steadfastly following it and I keep going back to them when in a corner or my mind is in turmoil.

A - Accept the past.

O - Optimistic about the future. 

M - Mindful of the present.

This year I had these 5 principles I followed & I will continue 

1. Gratitude: I owe my existence to my parents and my success to my family, relatives, colleagues, maids, drivers - anyone and everyone who has touched me in some way.

2. I love myself: The first principle is crucial - Only if you love yourself can you love others. Don’t judge yourself harshly. Shit happens all the time.  

3. Don’t Worry Be Happy: It’s pointless to worry, but it’s also automated, when the chemicals fire you are helpless. Most challenging,but I am on it.(Thanks Bobby Mcferrin)

4. Be Resilient: Setbacks will happen, the faster I get going faster I can move forward

5. Persevere to reach my goals. What gets measured gets done.

Adieu 22: Creativity & Connections. Conflicts and Dilemmas.

I have written so much copy (for which ad agencies hate me), sms and subject lines that punchlines are second nature to me. Since this is the 2nd last post I wanted to write about year 22. What did it stand for me? In appraisal we always wanted to put our best foot forward during the time of appraisal because we knew that this will be top of mind for the appraiser - it’s a different matter that some of them had an elephantine memory and dug out all the skeletons from my cupboard and laid it bare. 

For me these are the 2 things which stood out this year.

Creativity: 

With the available of time I explored various things which I always wanted to:

• Painting, I loved the process of drawing a painting, how the lines get formed in a white page then slowly it takes shape and finally the colors give it a life of its own. It's the nearest I have come to be a creator. I have a long way to go so 23 will be a year of finding my rhythm and style in painting.

• Photography, thanks to my continuous travel across hills, grasslands, beaches, lakes I explored it to my heart's content, using my phone. Sometimes the pictures and story come fused and at times while you are editing the photos a story form like the shots i have shared above. 

• Cooking is the area which i dabbled into but more in the area of exotics like non-veg dishes but I tried making simple thing like bhindi, louki, beans poriyal also lot of interesting non-veg like chicken, dry fish etc, Next year I want to try seleti food for which ingredients may be a challenge - let's see. Well baba is an inspiration in this case - he brought Assam to where he stayed.

• Directors from across the world and their thinking and style and storytelling. It’s a fascinating world. Thanks to MUBI and Jai who conducted these film meetups during the year where he shared his encyclopedic knowledge on movies.

• Long List of post retirement reads: Harry Potter & Tolkien is in process. GOT is in the pipeline.

Connections: 

I met a lot of people during my family trips. My first creative partner to my relatives, mama’s mashi’s and their families. Youngest (2 month old) to Oldest (82 years old). It was a lot of fun making these connections and looking at life from their eyes. Guiding some for a better job prospect or someone who is looking for a job. Sustainability crusaders in Assam and Delhi and Himachal of course. Talking to unknown people in flights, trains, taxi’s - cab drivers to cooks. The net take out was that you need to just step out with an open mind and a world awaits you. But you have to take the first step. I am happy I did that.

This is a big challenge: Conflict Management

This is still the biggest problem all around me. Hindutva/right wing led conflicts in India, border conflicts with China. Burma, Pakistan, Ukraine - Russia war will be 1 yr on 24th Feb. Human vs Wild, Corporate vs nature. The list is endless. How does one read/see news these days? I don't. But you can ignore what’s happening around the world but what about your locality and your home. It’s difficult to ignore the increasing gap between have and have nots. 

We want to help but we are tied down by various things - inertia being one of the most well accepted reasons. We all enjoy living in the bubble and I am no different. This is a challenge I am trying to overcome as I find it too messy - Not sure I want to get into it.

& Lastly this is the big Dilemma

Dilemma of the year is the choice between middle path vs fanatic. The people whom I met in sustainability are fanatics in a positive way. They are OK in starving vs buying something in plastic. They think, do, eat, breath sustainability - whereas I am a preacher of the middle path. I think that's a more balanced way than going fanatic. I am happy with the choice but progress is slow, you  tend to take the easy way out and don’t look for solutions. When you are pushed to the wall, you don’t have a choice. But do I want to go extreme ?

Adieu 22: Learnings from my solo trips

A new way of life began when I took 2 long trips to finish some long pending work, meeting families and working with friends. There were very important life lessons on these trips which I thought I will pen down, because these have changed me and my outlook on life. 

You can plan as much as you want but be prepared for the same to not work exactly the way you had planned, so be ready to enjoy the change. Accept. Go with the flow. 

There were so many open-ended items in all my travels that after a point I stopped planning for “What If ?”. Taking connecting trains in foggy winters, staying in houses where I have never stayed before, surviving on food that was available (this is my biggest bug bear because of my weak stomach), Uber canceling even though I booked it the previous day, train tickets not confirmed and no place to stay. It all worked out in the end. That constant reassurance which you give your mind clams it to a point where you don’t need it anymore. 

Joy of connecting with unknown people - say the first ‘Hi! Where are you headed?’

The beauty of speaking to an unknown person or a person in transit is that there is no past and there is no future to that brief relationship. You both just revel in the proximity of the brief moment you are thrown in together with nothing in common except the train or the flight or the bus like Aamir famously mentioned in Dil chahta hai - All 3 of us are going to Sydney, you me & the plane. 

I had a long and deep conversation with a wife who is carrying a bag full of food and (this is unbelievable) raw fish for her husband from Cal to Agartala and how she likes painting and has changed fields from art to science but still struggling to find what she wants. 

I spoke to a 2nd year student in DU and what she is studying - we exchanged thoughts on film scripts & books and how she wants to be a professor like her mother and come back to the hills. I helped a doctor couple take some shots of Himalayan range on my flight to Guwahati and the wife explained in detail how the hills were formed.

The Pause. Reflection. Finding your story. 

I shot and shot and shot. It was like photography in overdrive. One of the famous words in our family lexicon is ‘composition’. This was my patented word when kids were growing up, the wife was guarding them and I was the family jester/photographer. During my trip I realized how much I love it and how a story forms in my mind before I shoot a picture / pictures. In travel you will find these stretched times when you cannot do much - like when I was waiting for the baraat to come and I had nothing to do, so I walked and found a place where paddy fields were stretched as far as your eyes could see and at the horizon there were mountains. It was a beautiful place and I just loved the tranquility and peace and the scenery was so beautiful that it reminded me of Vincent Van Gogh and his trips to fields where he would set up his aisle and draw. I could relate to probably what was going in his mind when he drew - at times the natural beauty can be an inspiration. 

Extra effort to explore and maintain connections.

Early morning walk / run at the beach, lake and taking some lovely shots as well. Catching the kachori with tea in a shop which opens at 6am, juggling time and convenience of the person you want to meet and meet him. All of this requires extra effort & extra understanding especially if you are traveling with your family (the wife in this case). It’s not easy to get a balance but you have to be ready to settle with what you can do. After the trip you appreciate the connections you have made but you have to still work at keeping them alive. But at least a beginning is made and you know that the extra effort was worth it.

Adieu 22: 4 months of retirement - Reflections.

This was the long awaited change which was due from the day I turned 50. After a lot of thinking and re-thinking it finally happened on 31st August. You can get off the train but you can still feel the rumbles of the departing train when you are standing on the platform. My 4 months are something like this. When you are running for 25 years,it takes time to get into a new routine. 

What Next? 

When I look back at the last month before my last day. I was already planning what to do next. And I think that pressure continued for some time till I met a few friends who had been through this and had gone through similar withdrawal symptoms. I think it was more to answer my family & people around me and less to me. 

Long back I had read this article in HBR ‘What’s your story?’ - the summary of the article was that, write out your story when you do that you clarify to yourself how your life story is shaping. I may not write but often I do this exercise when I walk early in the morning. 

If you ever listen(or read an interview) to a good founder of a start up - you will see how clear they are of their idea and the genesis and its impact etc. More than the no’s & their success I always loved their confidence, commitment, belief on the idea, some of them can be as esoteric as rockets being sent to space or idli batter. Their ikigai is very clear. Mine is still hazy. 

The idea that if you are earning you are worthy

You can see it in the eyes of most of the older generation - read my parents age. I don’t have any quarrel with them because they have evolved from a generation of lack and we are the generation of too many choices and all of them are not necessarily wise. But the new generation or my generation folks welcome the idea that I gave more importance to my life goals than a corporate goal. It’s not that you I for acceptance but any different choice will give raise questions and i have to be ready to answer it - if you want to be social.

How much do you need ?

This is a follow up question to the earlier one.

Not much really. I did the math (because this is a constant debate with my finance minister aka the wife) and if you have your own house you can live luxuriously in 50K even in a city like Bangalore. With eating out and movies thrown in. The larger expense is only in travel, education and renovation, appliances (which are once in 10 yrs) etc. Yes, there is a corpus needed for medical emergencies and other saving instruments. Having done that, you actually don’t need much. I remember when I was in college I had told someone, give me a basement with music, CD’s and DVD’s and I will never come out of it. There was no internet in those days and no mobile - I can say many teenagers are carrying everything (I needed then) in their pocket.. 

Having a goal is important

It’s important to have a plan or to be clear on what you want to do, it’s easy to be easy - which is fine but you will soon get bored. Humans are wired to get a sense of achievement / finishing a task, this has been proven scientifically. Without a sense of purpose you are lost & days will just pass by. I am at the other extreme end of this spectrum where I plan my day / week / month and year. Something I picked up from Stephen Covey’s workshop & this has been my way for 15 yrs. 

Have a daily schedule / habit

I make it a point to sit at my desk every day at 10 this itself brings in the focus. There is no pressure to perform a specific task, except those I have chosen to do and I do it my way. This daily habit of checking in is very important as it brings in the discipline needed to get things done. Work will automatically happen.

Being in touch with the past

Friends can become a great enabler. One thing which disappears from your life when you retire is the circle of colleagues but it also gives you time to curate your friends list. It’s important that you be in touch with some of them who were more than colleagues. It will not be easy but you have to cultivate them - since they will be busy like you were. I am not a natural at this. Like I mentioned above I am more of a basement guy who is cocooned in his own world. I am still trying with some help from my friends 🙂 

Take your family along

They will be a great sounding board and encourage you in your journey. Sometimes it will be difficult for them to understand your choices. Let it be, nothing is perfect.