Pittsburgh – The Seven-Year Sojourn

The swing in the porch rocks gently. A balmy breeze teases occasional tingles from the wind chime. Maple leaves glow into a fiery red in the afternoon sun.

For the umpteenth time, I try to pen my thoughts about bidding goodbye to Pittsburgh, in less than a month. Past attempts at this resulted in half-finished sentences. The words seemed silly, childish, sentimental, chaotic . . .

Frustrated, I threw down my pen or browsed the internet, in despair. How do I reign in the images that crowd my mind? How do I gather the memories that tumble out like a pile of clothes from a disorganized closet?

Do I start by saying how the past seven years have transformed me? Sure! I have become more organized, independent, efficient, confident . . .

But the words fade away. Instead, a sneering voice questions:

Organized? Have you packed the mounds of books that must be shipped to Kolkata?

Independent? Do you have a job, in Kolkata, to support yourself and your parents?

Efficient? Have you fulfilled your academic goals for the semester? Have you finished all those practical tasks required for your move back to Kolkata?

Confident? Don’t  your knees still shake at the prospect of public speaking? Don’t you still procrastinate tasks that look too overwhelming?

With a sinking heart I admit that all of the above are true.

Yet, I do feel an imperceptible change in myself.

 I don’t mean the changes that people typically associate with Indians, freshly back from the US. For that change, usually, amounts to a litany of complaints: it’s too humid, it’s too filthy, people are inefficient, nothing gets done on time, the political scene is a mess . . .

I know that I will not join this litany. I don’t make any arrogant claims of tolerance. Yes, I will feel frustrated and irritated by these problems. But I will overcome – just as I overcame the freezing, Pittsburgh winters, the excruciating work pressure and the merciless deadlines.

For Pittsburgh was not just about those pains.

Pittsburgh was about those professors, acquaintances and warm faces, who made “culture shock” an alien concept for this sheltered girl of 27.

Pittsburgh was about radiant Fall colours, glorious Spring flowers, melting city lights in the rivers,  picturesque hills and bridges and parks.

Pittsburgh was about my fascinating, American landlord who knows more about India than I will, possibly, ever do.

Pittsburgh was about those dear friends who reaffirmed a long-cherished belief that borders are mere shadow lines. Political, cultural, financial and national boundaries melted away at their human touch.

I don’t claim to be free of insecurities about the move. There are many nagging questions.

Would this degree earn me a job?

Would I be able to re-adjust to living with my parents after living away from home so long?

Do I know enough to justify my so-called qualifications to a potential employer?

Sunset at Schenley Park - one of Pittsburgh's many treasures

I do not have answers to these queries.

Yet, the word Kolkata brings thoughts of warm hugs, balmy breezes, yummy food and endless family gatherings.

So, have these seven years changed me? I believe they have. I can now embrace my insecurities, yet, hope to forge ahead.

And this optimism and the fond memories are the twin legacies of this seven-year sojourn.

The Changing Faces of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Season 3 just ended. A new season of Elementary is on. Time for the first post of 2014.

So, who do I prefer as Sherlock Holmes – Benedict Cumberbatch or Johnny Lee Miller? The answer is always the latter. Sharing the rudeness and arrogance of his BBC counterpart, Johnny Lee Miller’s Holmes is darker, grittier and more vulnerable. Miller is not given to eccentric flourishes like Cumberbatch. You will not find Miller leaping over the table in the middle of his best man’s speech. He won’t slap himself as he struggles to identify a potential murder victim at Watson’s wedding.  

Robert Doherty’s take on Conan Doyle’s sleuth facilitates Miller’s realistic portrayal. In the original stories Watson mentions that Holmes’s cocaine addiction nearly ended the detective’s career. Elementary takes this cue. In this series Holmes is undone by the two biggest threats to his deductive powers – drug addiction and love. He can’t resist the charms of the brilliant Irene Adler. Unable to solve her brutal murder, Holmes spirals into the drug world and ends up in rehab. Then comes the ultimate shocker.  Irene Adler was never murdered because she never existed. Irene Adler was Moriarty – the “Napoleon of crime”.

Defining love as a crack in his powerful magnifying glass, Doyle’s Holmes avoids it forever. But Doherty makes his Holmes suffer the consequences of this crack. In spite of the betrayal, Holmes writes to the imprisoned Irene/Moriarty. He admits to Watson that he hoped for Irene/Moriarty’s redemption. After all, planning crimes is her remedy for boredom just as solving them is Holmes’s. Cocaine, for Holmes, is an inferior alternative to the highs of deduction. If Holmes can recover from addiction, can’t Irene mend her criminal ways?

But Holmes makes a fundamental error in this assumption. In spite of breaking laws to solve cases, Holmes is essentially a moral person. And despite his anti-social attitudes Holmes serves people by upholding justice. Moriarty is the true psychopath and will never give up crime. Allowing this erring judgement, Doherty moves his Holmes significantly away from the original, but also makes him poignantly fallible and human.

Unlike Doherty’s Holmes, BBC’s Sherlock will never allow love to crack his powerful magnifying glass. His humanity shines elsewhere. As John’s best man Holmes declares: “I will solve your crime. But you need John Watson to save your life . . . Ask me . . . He has saved mine many times and in many ways”. Notwithstanding his constant proclamations, we know that John has cured Sherlock’s sociopathy. A sense of loneliness creeps into Sherlock as he watches John and Mary disappear among the dancing, wedding guests. His early departure from the wedding or his  blank stare at John’s empty chair, register as much. And in the final episode he embraces imprisonment – even exile – to protect a friend. No wonder Mycroft calls Sherlock a “dragon-slayer”. And as a heartless businessman who turns human beings into assets for his empire, Charles Augustus Magnessun is the worst dragon of the twenty-first century.

Both the BBC adaptation and Elementary depart significantly from Doyle’s original stories. Of course they can’t celebrate Queen and Country as unconditionally as Doyle did. In this world of global terrorism, even an MP can hatch a terrorist plot. Figures like Assange and Snowden raise terrifying questions about the legitimacy of governments’ actions. Thus in Moffat and Gatiss’s hands Mycroft Holmes is transformed. The man, who practically runs the British government, is no longer the brilliant but lazy and harmless brother of the detective. In 2014, he is a cold, power-hungry Secret Service officer, who preserves a despicable criminal like CAM because he does not harm the powerful. Mycroft Holmes can threaten to plant sinister materials in the computers of Scotland Yard’s officers if they reveal hearing Magnessun’s name at Sherlock’s residence.

This is not a chivalrous world. And Doherty’s damaged genius is a better fit for it. But in preserving Sherlock’s old-school heroism, Gatiss and Moffat provide a haven from this anarchihc world – a haven, Doyle called Baker Street. So, in the end, my head is intrigued by Doherty’s fallible detective. But my heart still lies with the dragon-slayer.

Qualifications of a "Lootera" (Man of 'Steal') 


• Foliage Man – Must paint leaves – in multiple colours 
• Ice Man – Must order bacteria to freeze while he tends to his lady love – no antibiotics needed after gun shot 
• Medic Man – Must remove bullet. Must inject medication into his lady love while conducting a wrestling match with her 
• Batman – Must climb to the topmost branch of a tottering tree – in a blizzard 
• Tailor Man – Must stitch his own wound and must tie a fluttering, paper-leaf to a branch 
• Granite Man – Must maintain a set expression while breaking his beloved’s heart 

Man of Steel is so yesterday 
Want to steal a real man? Get a “Lootera”

An Unholy Mix of Detection and Relationships - তাহার নামটি রঞ্জনা 

তাহার নামটি রঞ্জনা  - Rituparno Ghosh's last work bears the filmmaker's signature qualities - a story of relationships,exploring feminine psyche in its myriad shades. And this exploration adds a new twist to the detective angle in the tale. রাঙাপিসি, a quintessentially Bengali version of Miss Marple, uncovers an elaborate deception. Much like Agatha Christie, Ghosh turns traditionally disparaged, feminine, pastimes into assets. While Miss Marple combines her vast knowledge of village gossip with her keen powers of observation, রাঙাপিসি's deductive powers turn her knowledge of film gossip into an investigative tool. Christie's unpretentious, old maid outwits supposedly smarter people like a retired, Scotland Yard officer. Similarly,in Ghosh's film, রাঙ্গাপিসি's niece, the young, film-journalist, does not suspect any foul play. But it only takes a few clues for the tabloid-happy রাঙাপিসি to smell a rat. 

However, that's where the similarity between Ghosh and Christie ends. তাহার নামটি রঞ্জনা is not a whodunit. Depicting the two women in a dead movie star's life, this film explores nuances of human relationships and complexities of the female mind. A thinly disguised portrayal of the Uttam Kumar,Gauri Devi and Supriya Devi scandal, তাহার নামটি রঞ্জনা redeems the "other woman", রঞ্জনা. While the legitimate wife and family of মিহির কুমার (the film star) resort to despicable measures for acquiring his dead body, the so-called "other woman" embraces his memories. বাপ্পা (the film star's son) recognizes the shallowness of a wife's right and the depth of a mistresses's love when he tells his aunt that রঞ্জনা could have moved on, but she chose not to. 

Unfortunately, রঞ্জনা ’s scheme at the hospital mars her devotion. Switching turns with her twin sister, রঞ্জনা  allows everyone to believe that she kept a tireless vigil by মিহির কুমার's bed, for three long nights. Ghosh, of course needs this incident, to render the subsequent deception believable. But the incident leaves a nagging doubt that রঞ্জনা  might be the stereotypical, scheming “other woman”.

রঞ্জনা  does not have a profession and we never know how she met মিহির  কুমার . Lacking such vital background information, রঞ্জনা  becomes over-sentimentalized – as though, her sole mission in life is to keep her beau’s memory alive.

The same flaw weakens the story’s suspense angle.  How does রঞ্জনা  survive; albeit in a coma; when the police keep her under house arrest for at least two days after her suicide attempt? রঞ্জনা ’s twin flawlessly forges her signature, the moment she is mistaken for her sister. Ghosh proves his ability to write a good detective story by incorporating clever clues for রাঙাপিসি  to detect.But glaring logical gaps in the plot destroys this potential.

Smooth dialogues, peppered with subtle humour between রাঙাপিসি  and her niece and competent acting by the entire cast; testify Ghosh’s film making skills. However these merits fail to save the film. Mystery gets mired in a relationship tale and তাহার নামটি রঞ্জনা  ultimately loses its way.

Finding Calcutta

Buying fish in a muddy, stinking bazaar with Baba – coming home to Ma’s sumptuous cooking – popping chicken rolls and "shingaras" while navigating the city’s by lanes with friends – browsing through Tasleema Nasreen’s latest novel at Kolkata Book Fair. Rabindrasangeet – Sunil Ganguly’s novels – Satyajit Ray's recent piece in a "puja barshiki" (special "festival" editions of magazines) – arty films at Nandan – “adda”  (chats) with neighbourhood friends – ogling at college girls/boys at "puja pandals" while Nachiketa or Anjan Dutta’s songs blare over loudspeakers . . . 
These vignettes form the staple of many "probashi" Bengali’s (Immigrant Bengali)  reminiscence about Kolkata. They talk about the city’s vibrant spirit. Its magnetic charm draws these immigrants back (just for a few months) every year.

It has been almost five and a half years since I joined the so-called “probashi” clan. During the twenty-six years I spent in the city, I frequented the Kolkata Book Fair exactly four times. Rushed along by a restless mother, I never browsed through novels for hours. And most books that looked interesting usually proved too heavy for my pocket. My most enduring memory of Book Fair comprises of an unassuming student from an Art College who managed to paint my impossibly long name on a single grain of rice. Armed with a thin paint brush and a pot of black ink, he displayed a staggering calligraphic skill. Neatly picking up the grain with tweezers, he glued it to a strip of orange paper, placed it in a tiny bottle and closed  the bottle with a cork. And there I had it – my name "immortalized" on a rice grain – all for ten rupees.

Last summer I visited the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh. Sponsored by corporate giants of the city, the festival housed works of independent artists. Rows of tents were filled with beautiful, stained-glass artwork, paintings, gorgeous jewellery and garments. None of  them, however, were within my means. So I spent the day enjoying a free "tango" performance by a local dance group and lounging on the meadows of Point State Park with my friends. Snatches of "Blue Grass" and "Jazz" wafted through the air. 

My college life did not comprise of visits to the Kolkata Film Festival or Nandan. I haven't spent hours at the college canteen, drinking steaming cups of coffee and debating the artistic merits of the latest "intellectual" film 

(or "antel" movies, as many Bengalis sneeringly call them) . The few times that I went to College Street, I was more overwhelmed by the filth lying around Medical College than by the intellectual fare of roadside bookstalls. Honestly, I do not understand how one can gather "food for thought" while one is stifled by the stench around and is struggling to maintain one's foothold amid a jostling crowd. My college days were spent on long, lonely walks down Park Street; either pitying myself for being friendless or musing over the lectures of my favourite professors. I remember being thrilled at finding a sudden connection between the disillusionment of Hardy's Clym and Osborne's Jimmy Porter, while passing by beggars and crowds outside Music World or Flury's.  

I have not ogled at boys in college or at puja pandals. I was more enchanted by flavours wafting from food stalls outside the pandals than by hunks in their best puja outfits. I had no neighbourhood "adda" circle. All I knew about our neighbours were the ever-quarrelsome landlord and tenant in the opposite house or "বাগান  বাবু"/ "the garden man", (as Ma named him), who diligently tended to rows of potted plants on his terrace. I never holidayed or picnicked with friends. 

In fact, it was in Pittsburgh that I got the first taste of "hanging out" with friends. Since 2007, I have travelled to state parks, to the Niagara Falls,  to Disney Land, to small towns in Pennsylvania, to Lake Erie and to the Outer Banks. I have shared rooms with friends, cooked and laughed with them. And no. They were not all Bengalis. Hailing from different parts of the world, our only common denominator was that we were all students! If there is something called a "college life" then I have lived it in my late twenties, in Pittsburgh. Since the welcoming hugs at Pittsburgh International Airport in August 2007, this city has embraced me with open arms. I have made friends from various cultures, including my own. Some of them, hopefully, for life. And I have never received so much encouragement and warmth from professors.

Yet, when someone asks me if I would settle down in the US, I answer with a polite but firm "No". 
"You must be missing home", they say with an understanding smile.
"I miss the food - and sometimes, my parents"; I quip. 

But what do I really miss about Calcutta? There is no easy answer. 

Every time I discover something about my housemate from her facebook status - I miss Calcutta. 

Every time I have to send out party invitations at least two weeks in advance, because our diaries are too full - I miss Calcutta. 

Every time I look at bare trees and snow-covered sidewalks - I miss Calcutta. 

And every time I cringe at dishing out $30 for a hair cut - I miss Calcutta.

For me, Calcutta is not "Rabindrasangeet" or Sunil Ganguly or Satyajit Ray or "puja barshiki". I rarely ever thumbed through a "puja barshiki". And my knowledge of Bengali literature is embarrassingly minuscule. I have little to qualify myself as the "intellectual" Bengali from Kolkata.  

But . . .

Calcutta is the spirit to lie back and enjoy life instead of hurtling from one deadline to the next.
Calcutta is the spirit to derive as much joy from a roadside snack as from the comforts of a luxury hotel.
Calcutta is a way of life, as shaped over twenty-six long years. 
Calcutta is a worldview that evolves but never loses touch with its origins.

The last five and a half years have enriched me in many ways. But they haven't made me any more of a "probashi" than I was before August 2007. 







      

     

. Human Hearts.Not Bravehearts. Please

On 16^th December 2012 she was a 23 year-old, gang-rape victim from Delhi. On 29^th December 2012 she lost her battle for life in Singapore. On 29^th December she also became “Amanat”and “Damini”. In death “Nirbhaya” lived up to the essence of her name. She became “India’s Braveheart”.

Indians are ashamed and outraged. Demands for hanging or castrating the perpetrators are competing with prayers for Nirbhaya’s soul and a complete overhaul of security system in the national capital.

But while the nation vows not to let Nirbhaya’s death go in vain, another gang-rape victim lies at AIIMS in Delhi. Ironically, amid a nation-wide protest against Nirbhaya’s brutal rape, a 42-year-old woman suffered the same persecution three days ago. Worse still, the police initially refused to lodge her complaint accusing her of imposing false charges on the men.

Labelled “Amanat”, “Damini” and “Braveheart”, Nirbhaya today has morphed into a martyr for the unending crimes against Indian women. But what about the being who lies at AIIMS? Is she still in the hospital? What is her condition now? What about her rapists? 

A google search yields three crisp sentences from a three-day-old report: 

"Of the three accused, one- Dilip Verma- was arrested in Agra while the police are on the lookout for the other two". 

"A case of gang-rape under section 376(G) has been registered against the trio"

"The victim is conscious and undergoing treatment at AIMMS". (Yahoo News)

As the media tracks Amanat's journey by the hour an uncanny silence hovers over the case of the nameless victim at AIIMS. 

The silence is eloquent. It reveals a fundamental malaise in our outlook. The woman is either a victim or an icon. She is a martyr for her undeserved suffering. But she is never HUMAN. Why does "Nirbhaya" need tags like "Braveheart" and "Damini" and "Amanat"? Why does she need to be upheld as a symbol of superhuman strength and courage? Why can't she be an ordinary human being -  a nameless woman, even -  who suffered a heinous crime?

In a morbid turn of events "India's braveheart daughter" has drowned out the story of another tortured being.  Will an arduous battle for life alone give voice to the trauma of this woman? Will death alone transform her from an anonymous 42-year-old gang-rape victim into a national icon whose anguish deserves retribution? 

While every protester lights a candle for "Amanat" and screams for hanging her rapists, can someone please ask for a fuller report into the other woman's rape? Can we please hear voices calling for quick and severe action against her rapists as well? 

The 42-year-old may not have been bashed with an iron rod. She may not have to battle for her life in a hospital. But her case demands as fervent a call for action as that of "India's braveheart". Let not Nirbhaya's immortality drown out the mortal sufferings of another "India's daughter"

Crawling Through The Snow

The day after Christmas I hopped on a Meagbus at Union Station, Washington D.C. enroute to Pittsburgh. The weather office predicted heavy snow in Pittsburgh all through 26th to the wee hours of 27 December. As the car rolled into the Megabus station, icy rain poured down on the US capital. I steeled my nerves for what lay ahead in Pittsburgh. The bus entered the highway. Freezing rain changed into a steady snow shower. Flakes turned into glistening shards of water as they lashed against the bus window. Tall trees lined white hillocks on the left. Their bare branches stood stiffly against a grey sky. On the right, dark green pine trees peeked through a dusting of snow. 

Nearly three hours later the bus reached Frederick in Maryland, about 50 miles from Washington. This was the first rest stop. But as the driver pulled into a white parking lot, only transit passengers were let out. The rest were asked to stay on the bus. Close to Breezewood in Pennsylvania, along interstate highway 70, a blizzard broke out. Hissing winds merged with crunching wheels. Snow flakes came down faster than the wipers could flick them away. The bus started inching along. Beyond the windshield lay a white wall with three brown lines in the middle. Only after it started moving did I realize that it was a huge supply truck. 

“It’s comin’ down!” said the man in front, speaking into his cellphone. “This is craezy maen” he remarked in between nervous laughs. The woman in the next seat kept looking up from her book and glancing out. But a huge athlete across the aisle kept his eyes glued to his laptop. His outstretched legs were fitted with bright red sneakers which looked like the over-sized boots of a circus clown. A jutting chin made his yellowish-white face longer. Headphones pasted to his ears,   he glared at scenes from The Godfather. 

A few miles away from the Pennsylvania turnpike our bus came to a complete halt. Phones kept ringing as passengers updated family and friends about the condition. The driver's voice boomed over the microphone. An accident up ahead had halted all traffic.  For forty-five long minutes we sat on interstate highway 70. It was already past 4 p.m., the scheduled arrival time. Gradually we started crawling down the road. At 6.45 p.m. we stopped again. Fifteen minutes later, a new voice sounded over the microphone: "Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen. We stopped to change drivers. Depending on the roads, we should be in Pittsburgh within twenty minutes"

Those twenty minutes stretched to one and a half hours. At 8.15 p.m. the driver cheerfully announced our arrival into the city. On a parting note, he requested a round of applause for Mary, our previous driver. As the vehicle pulled into the city, we all cheered for the brave soul who had borne us through the blizzard. By now the six-hour journey had stretched to ten hours and fifteen minutes. But Megabus had kept its promise. Inching through a blizzard, it had carried us to Pittsburgh in safety. 

Why does Barfi score over Chaplin?

Barfi is replete with Chaplinesque moments. No, I don’t mean Charlie Chaplin. Although there is a fair share of that in Ranbir’s antics and the deliberately old world background score. I am talking about Anindo Banerjee’s Bengali movie Chaplin (2011), featuring Rudranil Ghosh in the title role. Depicting protagonists who laugh in the face of adversities, both movies uphold the spirit of Charlie Chaplin. While Barfi does it through a love triangle, sans bitterness, Chaplin achieves the comedian’s essence through a father-son relationship. Scripted by Padyanabha Dasgupta, a year before Anurag Basu, Chaplin shares many merits and flaws with Barfi. However the thriller angle in Barfi gives it an edge over Anindo Banerjee’s film

Artists at heart, Barfi (Barfi), Bangshi and Nimua (Chaplin), imaginatively fill up voids in their lives. The deaf and dumb Barfi proposes to Sruti by seemingly placing his beating heart on a tea plate. Bangshi and Nimua dip dry pieces of bread in water, pretending to enjoy a sumptuous meat curry. Two lonely, upper-class women, Sruti (in Barfi) and Rina (in Chaplin), discover simple joys in life through their interactions with the protagonists. Slapstick humour in both movies disguises pangs of poverty, making us smile through tears.

Superlative performances by the lead actors constitute another highlight of these movies. Effortless gliding from slapstick comedy to poignancy establish Rudranil Ghosh and child artist Soham Maitra as acting geniuses. Relying only on expressions and gestures in Barfi, Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra render physically and mentally challenged individuals touchingly real. Ileana D'Cruz is marvellous as a woman caught between the promise of a stable but insipid upper- class existence and the excitements of   Barfi's trampish life.

    
On the flip side, both films suffer from melodramatic moments. Barfi conveniently runs into Sruti in an over-crowded city like Calcutta. Romance is stretched to the extreme when Sruti abandons her comfortable married life for Barfi's hovel or when Jhilmil and Barfi practically die in each other's arms. Chaplin too ends on a needlessly dramatic note. Determined to fulfil the wish of his terminally ill son, Bangshi organizes Nimua’s birthday party instead of performing in the final round of a comedy contest. But as Bangshi entertains Nimua with his Chaplinesque antics in a darkened theatre; Rina dramatically walks in with press reporters and the entire crew of the comedy contest. The film ends with artist Bangshi finally getting his overdue appreciation.

   
Despite these similarities, Anurag Basu counteracts sugary-sweet romance with  Jhilmil's actual and fake kidnappings. Although the second half drags a little, Jhilmil and Barfi's escapades revive the pace. The plot gets convoluted. But Basu cleverly makes one of the characters retell Jhilmil's three escapes/kidnappings, clarifying it for the audience. Lacking any such angle, the pathos in Chaplin hangs heavy after a while. Comic attempts by some side characters appear forced. Rachita's inconsistent acting mars some genuinely touching scenes.

   
However, as we celebrate Barfi's official entry to the Oscars, let's not forget our regional cinema. Made a year before Barfi, Chaplin gives quite a competition to this Bollywood blockbuster. 

                                      Blurring Bounds               

I sit outside Chicago’s famous Art Institute. Exhausted after a hectic city tour, my mind teems with images of ancient and contemporary art and architecture. This city has turned the most mundane of objects into architectural splendours. A massive circular edifice houses a set of residential and commercial apartments and is fittingly called the Corn Cob. Whimsical steal webs conceal state-of-the-art sound systems, forming a sprawling outdoor auditorium at the heart of Millennium Park. 

Inside the Art Institute intricate neoclassical sculptures, opulent furniture and fantastically designed paper weights encapsulate centuries of human achievement. One is delighted, and awestruck by the marvels around. As I sit musing, the wealth of experience gathered over the last two days weighs down on me. And the "windy city" ironically feels devoid of air. 

Suddenly my reverie is punctured. “Would you like a paper, miss? Just a quarter”. I look up to find a dark man - a weary grin pasted on a sweaty face - his tired muscles almost refusing to stretch into a smile. “No, thank you!” I blurt out instinctively. The smile melts away – he drags his weary legs down the steps and accosts another man. This time he tries a little joke. The man laughs, shakes his hand but buys no paper. I see the lines on the dark man’s face deepen until they seem sculpted into his countenance – as fixed as the ones on the statues I gazed at the Art Institute. I wait in anticipation; fearful, that those lips will not peel back next time to reveal a set of white teeth – the forced signs of politeness will desert the man for the day. 

As his tired, intermittent grins gradually settle into a grimace, a lump begins to form in my throat. My eyes blur and the images become indistinct. I hear the dull roar of traffic punctuated by shrill honking. A shrivelled palm is thrust in front of me and a snot-covered child looks up whining for alms. “Sorry! No change!”, I exclaim and walk on. Her litany follows me down the familiar arcade on Park Street until it is drowned in the usual Kolkata bustle. 

A cold breeze stings my face and I can taste the brine at the corner of my mouth. I find myself back on the wide, clean steps of Chicago Art Institute. My eyes scan past the hobbling figure on the sidewalk to settle on a huge, middle-aged woman seated on the ledge of a shop-window. The empty McDonald’s cup looks absurdly small in her enormous hands. She could almost be a comic character out of a Disney animation movie until she thrusts the cup out at a passerby, asking “Got any change?” Some people dole out a few coins; some a pitying smile, while others do not even spare her a glance. Strangely enough, the triangular recycling sign hovers before my eyes. I hear distant voices – “Recycle plastic cups, recycle glass bottles – save the environment”. The chant has become all too familiar ever since I came to the US. But this woman gives a new import to recycling. I wonder if the environment-friendly people thought of this option.

City landmarks along Chicago river (top)
Skyscrapers by Lake Michigan (bottom)

The Chicago skyscrapers glisten against a blue summer sky. Huge flowerpots line the sidewalks while plush cars whizz by. It is a far cry from the busy, potholed streets of Kolkata with its snail-paced traffic. But I am not dazzled anymore. Chicago has lost the “glory and freshness of a dream”. Yet it has left something else in its wake – a strange intimacy. I am not a tourist anymore. I know the hobbling newspaperman, I know the beggar-woman, I know the callous passerby. I know the HUMAN FACE. The "windy city" has indeed lived up to its name, sweeping boundaries away. I suck in the cold air – long and deep. 
And . . .  FEEL . . . FREE!

Clearing the Victorian Fog: Doyle's Holmes vs Sherlock 

While I am in the Sherlock mode, let me jabber a little more about the series. I was just reading John Watson’s blog. Yes, the blog of John H. Watson actually exists and is replete with spin-offs from the original stories. My favourite is The Speckled Blonde! You guessed it right – it’s a cheeky twist on The Speckled Band. In 2012, the evil stepfather is not an ex-colonial officer but a cosmetics tycoon. The snake is a red herring, owned by the dead woman’s fiancé and the fatal weapon is a bubble bath. 

This nugget of a case encapsulates Sherlock's fascinating twists on the original stories. The sci-fi thriller version of The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best. Doyle's novel portrayed a world teetering dangerously between superstition and science. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (the writers of Sherlock) launch us into the terrifying milieu of chemical and biological weapons. The hound is no longer a fiendish beast covered in phosphorous but a nightmarish image created by the victims' own horrified psyche. Instead of a vengeful aristocrat we have a sinister scientist suffusing the 'moor' with noxious fumes that generate paralyzing nightmares. Exploiting contemporary paranoia about biological terrorism, the writers clear off the Victorian fog, distilling the essence of Doyle's novel. 

And they do the same for the super sleuth. Holmes is stripped off all the Victorian trappings except for his scintillating deductive powers. Sherlock fans will of course delight in the brilliant update of famous deduction scenes.Instead of a watch, Holmes spews Watson's life-history from an i phone with an impish touch at the end. Holmes is spot on about everything regarding Harry Watson - his drinking, his divorce, his tenuous relationship with John. He just misses one small detail - Harry is short for Hariette - Harry is Watson's sister and not his brother!

The creators do an equally brilliant job with the new stories. The Great Game gets my vote. An unknown criminal mastermind compels Sherlock to solve 'little puzzles' within strict time limits. If Sherlock fails, a random hostage will blow up. The fascinating aspect of this episode is to see Sherlock being kept on razor's edge by a sadistic adversary. The books provide an implicit assurance of Holmes's infallibility. But as the detective's analytic prowess is strained to its ultimate limit in The Great Game, the audience worries about his potential failure. Particularly tense is the scene where Sherlock declares a painting to be fake, but the villain refuses to release the hostage until Sherlock proves why it is fake. As the clock ticks on the screen, the audience waits in feverish anticipation, wondering if the detective can actually score over his antagonist. 

The anticipation is justified when we know that the antagonist is none other than James Moriarty - "the Napoleon of crime" as Doyle's detective had labelled him. Sir Arthur never fleshed out the schemes of Holmes's "intellectual equal". The series fills up this void with elan. In The Great Game, Moriarty makes Holmes dance to his tune by exploiting the detective's obsession with crime solving. The Reichenbach Fall depicts his diabolical intelligence as Moriarty nearly convinces everyone that Holmes is a fake.

Serial Killer; A Study in Pink (top); 
James Moriarty The Reichenbach Fall (bottom)

Unfortunately, Andrew Scott's performance shatters the menacing charm built up by the plot. His deliberately guttural voice and melodramatic dialogue delivery reduces Moriarty into a clownish, comic-book villain. In fact Phil Davis, who played the serial killer in A Study in Pink, would have made the perfect Moriarty. His calm but chilling ruthlessness, his arrogance, his razor-sharp mind, constitute the perfect ingredients for Holmes's arch enemy. 

Much like Moriarty's performance, the climax of The Reichenbach Fall is a downer. The fact that Moriarty bribes the staff instead of using a computer key code to unlock the Pentonville prison, the Bank of England and the Crown Jewels; undermines the power of this evil genius. Similarly, the plot of A Scandal in Belgravia is riddled with holes. It's utterly unconvincing that Sherlock would fail to detect that the dead woman with a disfigured face is not Irene Adler - especially since she had bared it all; walking in on Sherlock stark naked with red lipstick and red heels. In her dominatrix avatar, Holmes's THE WOMAN appears cheesy rather than seductively smart.

I hope that the writers fix these faux pas in the next series, for, episodes like A Study in Pink, The Hounds of Baskerville and The Great Game establish their smartness.  Meanwhile I will satisfy my Holmes mania with Sherlock's and John's blog. And of course with the good old memoirs of Dr. John H.Watson!  

P.S. Fellow Holmesians can access John's blog  here: <http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/>
      
  And for a real humbling experience browse through 
"The Science of Deduction": <http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/>

‘Cumberbitten’ but not ‘Sherlocked’

The ‘Cumber’ flu has taken over half the world now. Look no further than the Olympic opening ceremony and you will hear Benedict Cumberbatch’s deep voice declare: “Let the games commence”!  Commemorating the actor’s birthday on the 19^th of July a leading daily devoted an entire page analysing why so many girls have been ‘cumberbitten’. The BBC series Sherlock of course formed the highlight of the piece. As an i-phone toting, tech savvy, twenty-first century Holmes in a chic overcoat and scarf, Cumberbatch has supposedly transformed this ice-cold detective into the ‘sexiest’ thing on television. Frankly, I was rather amused to hear this.

Cumberbatch as Holmes (left); Sidney's Paget's illustration in the original stories (right)

I find Cumberbatch’s Sherlock quite melodramatic but definitely not sexy. His striking good looks are rather distracting – not quite Holmesian. In my mind’s eye, Holmes’s tall, thin form with piercing eyes and hawk-like nose, never quite spells ‘handsome’. And then there is Benedict’s breathless dialogue delivery. The actor and the writers tell you that it captures the lightening speed of Holmes’s deduction and his brilliant but utterly impatient mind.

However, the stories always paint a different picture of the detective for me. Yes, Holmes is edgy and debilitatingly rude at times. He cuts off Watson’s florid description of a lichen-covered wall with “cut the poetry, Watson. I note that it was a high wall”. But when it comes to retracing his deductive trail for mere mortals like Watson or Lestrade, he does it with a slow, deliberate relish. The series could have retained that aspect.  After all, the director brilliantly portrays Holmes’s supersonic deductive speed through the texts that flare up on screen, while Sherlock’s single glance culls a person’s minutest details.

Cumberbatch’s Sherlockian mannerisms too are over-the-top. Holmes has a touch of the dramatic. In the book he gleefully springs up from his chair after inventing a chemical test for detecting old bloodstains.And Watson tells us that he “bowed as if to some appalauding crowd conjured by his imagination”. But this twenty first-century Sherlock carries such eccentric flashes to the extreme. A Sherlock, who jumps up and down on the couch or sniffs up a client’s smoke rings, because Watson has confiscated his cigarettes; looks clownish; not delightfully eccentric.

I don’t want to carp. The series has many merits and not least of them is the Sherlock-Watson relationship. Martin Freeman is not the overawed, subservient sidekick of the black and white Sherlock Holmes movies. This new-age army doctor is more of an equal player with an assertive persona and a cheeky sense of humour. My  favourite is the scene where Holmes asks a puzzled Watson to punch him in the face.

Holmes snaps:  “PUNCH ME-IN THE FACE - didn’t you hear me?"

Watson retorts: “I always hear ‘PUNCH ME IN THE FACE’ when you speak. But that's USUALLY  SUBTEXT” 

The creatives transcribe Holmes and Watson's underlying affection with commendable subtlety. Particularly memorable is the scene where Holmes rushes to tear apart the explosives Moriarty had strapped on Watson. The  detective, who had proclaimed to Moriarty that he does not have a heart, morphs into a heartwarming friend the moment Moriarty leaves. As Sherlock awkwardly acknowledges John's bravery, one is reminded of  the scene in Doyle's The Three Garridebs when Watson is shot by a criminal and Holmes exclaims: "You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" Moved by this rare display of emotion, Watson remarks: "It was worth a wound - it was worth many wounds - to know the depth of loyalty and love that lay behind that cold mask"  
And it is this "depth of loyalty and love" that is revealed in the  final phone conversation between Holmes and Watson in the series. As Holmes prepares for his fatal leap in the last episode of Sherlock Season 2, Cumberbatch’s quavering voice and slight facial twitch, expose a carefully repressed human side of this consulting detective.Ironically, much like Holmes's sentimental side, Cumberbatch's acting prowess finds only a fleeting display in Sherlock. 

During his decade long career prior to Sherlock, Cumberbatch essayed characters that showcased his talent way better than this BBC series. In the series The Last Enemy he played Stephen Ezard - an obsessive, socially awkward, mathematician who is sucked into a political maelstrom. Shorn of exaggerated gestures, forming the  hallmark of "Sherlock", Benedict made Ezard's bewilderment and vulnerability terrifyingly palpable.And in Hawking, Benedict portrayed the scientist’s grit and agony with heartrending realism. Ironically, the performance that has made him a household name, lacks these very qualities.  

Finally, much has been made of the actor’s baritone. His deep, sexy voice hooks ‘cumberbitches’ even to  fifteen-minute-long car commercials. I plead guilty to the ‘sin’ as well. His incredible voice modulation can transport you to the World War I battlefield or to the verudous realm of Keats’s Nightingale, with equal ease. But his off-screen persona is no less impressive. His smartness and erudition stand out when he talks about his roles. Just listen to him speaking about the shattering of chivalric ideal during World War I, in one of his interviews on War Horse, and you would know what I mean. And of course one can’t help adoring someone who can respond to abuses like ‘horse-faced and arse-named’ with “that’s what I have been born and blessed with”. So at the risk of crafting the cheesiest sign-off, I admit that I am ‘cumberbitten’ but not quite ‘Sherlocked’! 

Laptop: a memorable montage; not quite a memorable movie

A few hesitant piano notes sound in the background, a cello groans into life and some random images flash across the screen. A despondent man rides in an open truck, surrounded by his belongings, a car cuts through lush tea gardens, a blind man taps his way through city streets, a child peeks at a stranger from his father’s embrace, a pensive boy lies alone on a train berth. 

And a few cryptic words appear discreetly on the montage – “shift”, “windows”, “vision”, “memory”. 

As the promo closes with the title Laptop, familiar keypad terms resonate with new meaning. 

Be it in terms of performances, dialogues, cinematography, editing or music, subtlety defines most parts of Kaushik Ganguly's latest movie venture.

A line, a word or a gesture, amply etches nuances of characters and relationships, as men and women from various social and psychological backgrounds momentarily intermingle. A lower-middle class father’s (Pijush Ganguly) joy after buying a secondhand laptop for his 

computer-student son, finds expression in a rather lavish purchase of mutton. A rude, overbearing tea planter (Saswata Chatterjee) exposes his softer side in a single line about his surrogate child: 

“ছুটে এসে যখন বাবা  বলে  জড়িয়ে  ধরে  . . . তখন  মনে  হয়  . . . আমার  ছেলে ”. 

A blind author (Kaushik Ganguly)   offers a unique “vision” of reality, claiming that his “characters” save him from loneliness. His subsequent rendition of “এই  লভিনু  সঙ্গ  তব  সুন্দর  হে  সুন্দর ”, enriches both the song and the scene.

Brilliantly understated performances from veterans (Saswata Chatterjee, Arindam Sil, Rajesh Sharma, Rahul Bose) and youngsters perfectly complement this nuanced screenplay. Special mention must be made of Pijush Ganguly’s breakdown, following accusations of stealing, and Aparajita Adhya’s quavering voice as she desperately asserts her husband’s dignity against Arindam Sil’s scathing charges. Kaushik and Ananya move effortlessly from tenderness to sentimental sulking to downright bitterness, capturing various shades of an undefined relationship between author and typist. Churni's artificial manner of speaking highlights her strain in maintaining the decorous veneer of a posh tea planter's wife. Gaurav balances the naïveté and street-smartness of Jion with perfect élan. His half-truths bring a smile while his helpless gasps following the exposé are heartrending.

Sirsa Roy’s cinematography and Mainak Bhaumik’s seamless editing create some lasting cinematic moments. A mundane close-up of milk blending in tea, suddenly morphs into a womb-image with an incessant heartbeat in the background. The author’s (Kaushik Ganguly) wonder about pervasive human fear of death, despite the everyday demise of our dreams and relationships, cuts to a long shot of Rajesh Sharma, a funeral truck driver. With Kaushik’s philosophical musings in the background, the camera slowly pans on Sharma, sleeping peacefully in the vehicle.  

Yet such crisp editing becomes a bane elsewhere in the movie, leaving several unanswered questions. We see Jion fiddling with the newfound laptop and staring at Raya’s (Ridhima Ghosh) photos in it. But we never know what exact information he derives from the machine and how. Consequently his discovery and pursuit of Raya remain completely unconvincing.

Glaring holes in the plot and unnecessarily dramatic twists further mar a potentially brilliant film. How does a poor driver (Rajesh Sharma) steal the laptop from a swanky medical clinic and that too from the director’s office?  Why does the clinic’s laptop contain information about the director’s daughter? The hurried pace of  the Jion-Raya track leave nagging queries in its wake. Arindam Sil orders Jion’s family to leave the city within a day and they conveniently move to their ancestral home in Malda. Such melodramatic twists destroy the otherwise realistic tenor of the film. In a bid to focus on the surrogacy angle, the writer rushes through the first half, ignoring significant details about the laptop’s initial journey. Thus despite many laudable elements Laptop remains a montage of a few moving moments but fails to be a memorable movie.