14 stories that inspired Ray

      I bought this book at the Kolkata Airport last time I was returning from India. Edited and translated by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, this book comprises fourteen stories by various authors that Ray transformed into great cinema, some of which are world renowned for their universal and timeless themes.

"Devi" or "The Goddess"written by Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay as "Devi"

"Kapurush" or "The Coward" written by Premendra Mitra as "Kapurush"

"Agantuk" or "The Guest" written by Satyajit Ray as "Athithi"

"Goopy gyne Bagha Byne" written by Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury

"Teen Kanya" , that is a triptych comprising of three short stories, all written by Tagore:

"The Postmaster"

"Monihara"

"Samapti"

" Mahapurush" written by Rajshekhar Basu as " Birinchi Baba"

"Jalsaghar" or "The Music Room" written by Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya as "Jalsaghar"

" Mahanagar" written by Narendranath Mitra as "Abotaranika"

"Parash Pathar" or "The Philosopher' Stone" written by Rajshekhar Basu

"Sadgati" written by Munshi Premchand

"Shatranj ke Khiladi" written by Munshi Premchand

"Pikoor Diary " written by Satyajit Ray

   I think this is a must read for literary as well as cinema fans, because firstly, it is a sheer joy to behold a motion picture that is based on a book or novel that one has read time and again, with it's own private visions in a reader's mind. Secondly, it provides Ray fans with a glimpse of the great director's interpretation and rendition of such classic stories that he translated to celluloid. The themes that he chose range from the joyous to noir, mundane to profound, dramatic to slice-of-life, and all of them resonate with a global audience.

On the joys of reading and rereading the classics, and why there are so many multiple screen adaptations

           The past few weeks have been full of reading. I stumbled across Donna Tart's excellent 1992 book "A Secret History" when I was checking the literary references in the movie, " Dead Poet's Society". Hailed as a modern classic, the book is a first person narrative of the macabre experiences of a Californian fresher, who joins an elite university in Vermont, and befriends a clique of students who study Greek literature under a very enigmatic professor. Pretty soon, the academic idyll is shattered with the death of one of these friends, and the ensuing repercussions is what constitutes the bulk of the narrative.
In fact I was so besotted with the reviews and references of this book, that I actually went to Popular to buy the book when I could't get it online. Alas! After I combed through most of the shelves, trying to look beyond the " Fifty Shades of Grey" and other modern bestsellers piled up in eye-grabbing patterns, it was time to ask my brother to send me an e book. The moment he sent that, all I did, apart from lab work, was to read and savor the book.

       

                               
 Around that time, Thomas Vinterberg's adaptation of the Thomas Hardy classic " Far from the Madding Crowd" released. There is an interesting memory associated with this book. I had won it in a creative writing competition when I was an undergraduate, but had not read it until recently. There are two versions already adapted for the big screen, one in 1967 (starring Julie Christie) and another in 1998.

  

Which sort of made me think why the classics have the power to draw us back to them again and again, and how each time, they speak new things, altering our perception of them, and the associated memories while reading them. I have not seen the previous two movies, but the 2015 one starring Carey Mulligan as the intrepid Bathsheba Everdeen and the extremely handsome Matthias Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak left me spellbound. 

And that set the tone for Thomas Hardy, and I went ahead and watched " Jude" based on his other novel, " Jude, the Obscure" as well as " The Return of the Native", and was left transfixed by the modernity of the respective heroines Sue Bridehead and Eustacia Vye. D H Lawrence revered Hardy and was inspired by him, and probably that's why both these authors' predominant themes revolved around class issues, repression of freedom and sexuality, and men and women suffering due to these shackles of society.

                        I know Jane Austen is a universal favorite, but I'm more of a Bronte' sisters' fan, especially "Wuthering Heights" and " Jane Eyre". And the fact that there are so many screen and theatre adaptations spanning decades is a testament to the greatness, timelessness, universality and popularity of theses classics. Jane Eyre has close to 10 movie adaptations, my favorite being the 1996 version directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane and Mr Rochester. The more recent 2011 version directed by Cary Fukunaga starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender is good too. Its the same with " Wuthering Heights" too, with close to 10 adapations for the big screen as well as TV series over the course of five decades.
        The surprising aspect is that each adaptation of these classic tales, as much as each reading or re-reading of the same brings out something new each time. Little details spring to notice, and certain issues become more noteworthy for their everlasting influence.

                          I think we reread and love to revisit the classics for the simple reason put forth by Italo Calvino, that " A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say". Most people are initiated to read the classics at a young age (my assumption), sometimes by enthusiastic adults or as part of the school curriculum, or as abridged books, and hence it is but natural that those books become an inherent part of childhood memories, some still fresh in the mind, some tucked away in the hidden folds of memory. The same book, when read as an adult conjures up the memories of childhood, at the same time, in the light of maturity that comes with age, highlights some other aspects of the book. Moods too have so much to do with how a book is perceived.
             While this is applicable to most books, classics have their own niche in this scheme of things. They are timeless, for one. Pick any Shakespearean tragedy or comedy, and extrapolate that in the contemporary travails of society or life, you will find instant resonance. Pick any heroine from a Thomas Hardy novel, and instantly, a likeness with your personal struggles as a woman in today's world will appear. And think about when these were written. The sixteenth century. Or 1860. We talk about sexuality and openness today. Read Lady Chatterley's Lover, written by the brilliant D H Lawrence in 1928, and feel the passion of his views on repression of sexuality and class discrimination, and in a snap, you will be able to relate to it, despite a difference of more than 8 decades. Little Women, published in 1880, which I read when I was 11, then at various stages of my life time and again, continues to bewitch me, soothe me, transport and transcend me. Maybe that's why we read them over and over again.

My 10 best classics are:

1) Little Women
2) Lady Chatterley's Lover
3) Great Expectations
4) To Kill a Mockingbird
5) Far from the Madding Crowd
6) Rebecca
7) Gone With The Wind
8) The Thorn Birds
9) Wuthering Heights
10) Jane Eyre

Of course, the list is endless.
Here is a list of 100 best classics from the Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction

Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson: nostalgia overlaid with respect

      Today, for no reason except maybe nostalgia for my school days, I recalled my English Lit classes conducted by our school principal, Mr O A Joseph. Eng Lit classes were always special for me, as there are two things that make life special- a great idea, and someone great who understands, shares and resonates with you on the same plane to discuss and expand on that idea. That was Lit classes for me- great literature and O A Joseph Sir.

      Even though there were several works that we were taught, ranging from Shakespeare ( we had The Merchant of Venice at that time in ICSE), stories by stalwarts like V.S.Naipaul, O'Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Roald Dahl, Katherine Mansfield, D H Lawrence....the list goes on, entire novels like Great Expectations, poems by all the great and well known poets, somehow, Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson remains by ONE TRUE INSRIRATION and MEMORY of those long ago classes. I'm sadly not in touch with Joseph Sir any more, but I'd like to dedicate him this poem after all this while. 

Sir, if it hadn't been for you and the way you taught me this poem, my life might have turned a tad bit different from the one that I'm currently pursuing and the plans that I have for my future. The memories of those long gone days still evoke the best that life has offered me yet.Wherever you are, please know that I will never forget you, nor what you taught me. Thank you so much for being you. 

Ulysses 

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Jungle Book.....in theaters October 2015

    Such awesome news! Disney is coming out with a screen adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" in October, 2015!! And look what a smashing ensemble cast has been brought together under the helm of director John Favreau:

Idris Elba as "Shere Khan"

Ben Kingsley as "Bagheera"

Bill Murray as "Baloo"

Scarlett Johanssen as      " Kaa"

Lupita Nyong'o as        "Rakska"

Neel Sethi as " Mowgli"

Christopher Walken as "King Louie"

and Giancarlo Esposito as "Akela"

Can't wait to see one on my childhood's favorite stories come alive on the big screen with such a superb star cast......

Lessons in Forgetting

       I just began reading " Lessons in Forgetting" by Anita Nair. It has already been adapted into a critically acclaimed movie released in 2011. 

       I was watching bits of the promos and trailers on you tube when I chanced upon the title credits of the movie that is done in sand art. It is in a way, a visual retelling of the actual tale, as it depicts how carefully a single father brings up his daughter, only to let her go when she finds her own wings and her own ways. Sadly, the world is not such a safe place, and soon, the free spirited daughter gets caught in a vicious web, and despite everything, the father is simply unable to extricate her from the quagmire.

The subject himself, or his legacy?......

                    I have been planning to write this post since a long time. Given my fascination with books, it was natural that my thoughts wandered off to the lives of authors/artists who wrote/created such everlasting, eternally inspiring books/art. Maybe the recent death of one of my favorite actors, Robin Williams also made me ponder more about these issues, because the more you probe, the more you discover the truth behind such great artists who exemplified in their respective fields, had larger-than-life personas despite personal lives that simply failed to live up to the grandeur of their work.

                    Which also brings me to the next existential dilemma- are you known for what you did and achieved in your lifetime, or simply how well you led your life? Or, lets put it like this: 

What is more important? The legacy of the subject or the subject himself?

Well, here are some insights into the lives of some of my favorite authors/artists:

D H Lawrence: 

                 " Lady Chatterley's Lover", Lawrence's last great work,  redefined sexuality and ushered a new paradigm in the representation of sexuality in literature forever. The book was written by him in the last three years of his life ( 1927-1930) when he was suffering with acute tuberculosis. The book was banned in the US until 1959 and in England until 1960, when the ban was lifted and Penguin Books was allowed to publish it.

                I've read the book countless times, seen the many movie adaptations that it inspired, and each time, the experience has been very, very satisfying and, ahem, invigorating. Yet, what is unimaginable is envisioning Lawrence awaiting his imminent death, with a wife he seldom spent any time with, capable of generating prose that, almost a century later, can still evoke such intense feelings. It is, nonetheless, a credit to his genius that he turned a death-bed work into a generation defining piece of literature.

Here's one of his quotes:

“When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels turning in the
cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,
and passion will make our bodies taut with power,
we shall stamp our feet with new power
and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like
burnt paper.”

Vincent van Gogh:

                     No life can be as tragic as the one Van Gogh led. An inimitable artist whose body of work needs no words of introduction, he was, perhaps, the saddest, loneliest artist ever to have lived to create such astoundingly beautiful paintings, yet not living long enough to see the huge impact that his work would cause in the art world. He was, at different stages of his life, a victim of temporal lobe epilepsy, bipolar disorder , hypergraphia and suffered from lead and thujone poisoning. He checked himself into a mental asylum at St Remy after he partially mutilated his own ear. He finally committed suicide by shooting himself. In the ten years that he painted, he produced some 900 paintings that were never really appreciated, but within 20 years of his death, became famous and were sold for millions. 

                   I am an ardent fan, and sometimes, when I see his paintings, the kaleidoscopic visuals that create the illusion of movement and change, I wonder what went on inside the head of this brilliant, gifted man who never found peace, solace or tranquility that so define his works.  

        

Enid Blyton:   

       

                Now, this one is something that's even more bizarre. I mean, the mere mention of Enid Blyton brings to my memory the insane amount of time and love I had for " The Famous Five, " The Secret Seven", "Noddy", " Shadow, the sheepdog" etc. Our school's junior library had a stock of all these and I recall the moment I opened one of her books, it was an instant transportation into a world of adventure, fun, magic, friendship and all things associated with childhood's innocence.

              And that is the reason I call this bizarre, because when I recently happened to see a biopic based on her life, called "Enid", with the acclaimed British actress Helena Bonham Carter playing the titular role, I was struck by how utterly different this writer of children's classics was in real life. She was a far cry from the matronly, bookish, mild and good natured author I had envisioned. She was this prim, stylish, savvy business woman, who had a tight rein on her two daughters who were perpetually afraid to even appear in front of her. And she had a troubled marriage, which made her even more self-centered. At the precise time that she created her most popular character of "Noddy", she was in fact in the throes of a divorce. Now imagine that!!

      Maybe, as the cliche goes, real life tragedy does indeed provide fuel for creativity and spontaneity.

William S Burroughs:

Imagine someone who came up with:

" The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do."

Now that is food for thought! Burroughs, the writer. Burroughs, the man who was a conundrum personified. The man who was the founder of the "Beats", whose work ranged from surreal to nostalgic, autobiographical to anarchic, and who revelled in drugs and bisexuality, and was grimly unapologetic about it all. Now that's a real man for you.

I did know about the "Beatnik" writers, essentially Jack Kerouac's On the Road and stuff, but it was while watching Anthony Bourdain's acclaimed travel series "Parts Unknown" on CNN in an episode on Tangier, Morocco, that I came to know more about this unconventional writer who gave us the Beats. And pioneered the modern graphic novel form.

So imagine this guy, who actually shot his wife during a drunken game, and was a drug addict throughout his life, was a bisexual, and this featured in his literary style of the cut-up technique, wild, surrealistic satire and essentially an inspiration to modern day cyber Punk. A life of complete and absolute abandon with no regrets. And yet, highly respected in select circles and an important counterculture figure of the seventies.

There! I finally wrote about these figures!

There are quite a few other people I think about, but lets call it a day for now. :)

But it does tell mere mortals like us that, despite all these struggles and vicissitudes, pain, loss and failure, we can rise above all these through what we do and create and the legacy that we leave behind for an increasingly chaotic world to come.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage-Haruki Murakami's latest book

After the insanely odd yet mind bogglingly brilliant IQ84, it's time for Murakami's latest offering. Just can't wait to read it.

There's another version in Italian, but I love the graphics.

Larry and Friends: an illustrated take on ethnic diversity & racial harmony

I just came across this amazing new illustrated book for children that is an ode to the existence of cultural harmony and acceptance of ethnic diversity in none other that the cultural melting point of New York, estimated to be the most linguistically diverse city in the world today, home to more than three million foreign-born residents who speak over 800 languages. The book is illustrated by Ecuadorian-born, New-York-based illustrator Carla Torres, who partnered with Belgian-born, Venezuelan-raised, New-York-based writer Nat Jaspar to bring the project, funded on Kickstarter, to life. 

      In the story, Larry, the American dog invites all his friends for his birthday party. His friends belong to different countries and are a diverse ethic group, and each character has been illustrated beautifully to represent nuances from his home country. I was simply left smitten by Larry's wonderful group of friends. Here they are:

Larry, a juggler from Brooklyn

Magda, the Polish Pig, a tightrope artist

Henrik, the Irish Hare

Cecelia, the Peruvial Llama

Gugu, the African Zebra, lead percussionist at the Apollo Theater.

Sumita, the Indian Elephant

Coqui, the Puertorican frog, a violinist

Fu, the Chinese Dragon

Laila, the Iranian Cat, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History

Ulises, the Greek Owl, a chef who bakes a cake for Larry

Jin, the Korean Fox

and two of my most favorite ones, 

Rimshi, the Tibetan Yak ( I simply loooooved him.......)

and, finally, the very cute...Ashki, the Native American Buffalo

In the end, they all have a blast!!!

Can a tale be any better with such heart warming characters and such wonderful detailing??

Hats off....Carla Torres.......