a portrait of cezanne

And... is she a Muslim now? I was asked yet again by another breathless adult examining me, as if, for quirks. After all I had said, implied and explained. No, I shook my head. There really was no need. It was the 1980s, you see, and they got married before I was born, that was probably the only criterion then I suppose. Ha Ha, he laughed and looked at the girl next to him. That's a nice one. (We allow jokes here, he had assured me). Not even from your mom's side? Maybe a bit, I said, shifting in my seat rather blatantly. See, he nudged the girl beside him, it's always from the girl's side, and laughed and nudged her again and winked at me.
We were trying to decide if we should go to Sodepur- outside Calcutta- to help a few victims of a fire. It would be a nice thing I thought. I would get away from my daily grind here, at least. And Sodepur was not really close to Nandigram.

I don't know why, but I found myself uneasy on Nandigram. Violence on live television is slightly strange and in someways, I thought, more disorienting than John Woo, or even Oldboy violence. The second round of polling at Nandigram was accompanied by violence. A television camera crew managed to capture most of it, giving it a terrified Fernando Mereilles-look, in all probability completely incidental and imagined by me. But the violence itself was played out without much drama or fanfare. It was very mundane. A policeman appeared in front of a thatched hut surrounded by a small mob and pulled a man into the shaking frame of the camera- almost as if he hadn't noticed a camera there. He thrust him back with a short jab of a wooden stick, and as the man fell, the policeman swung back and hit the man on the forehead with the huge stick. I noticed a slight crack on the stick. The injured man fell back and hid his face. Another mob had arrived at the scene. Now, the scene looked set for some drama. More policemen arrived with more wooden sticks. They started assaulting the mob without much direction I thought. The camera was shaking violently and before they cut off- I could see a small puddle of blood on the dusty ground.

Shoaib Mansoor's 'Khuda Kay Liye' is not as easy a complication as it looks. I had a bad feeling halfway through the film that it did not just mean to show how complicated things were post-9/11. It actually tried to send messages across. Although I have a tendency to completely ignore all attempts of this sort, I managed to see through a few things here and am trying to formulate an opinion. It won't take very long. I'm supported by terrible acting, uninspired editing, shoddy direction, imposing music, misplaced cinematography and let me not begin with the script right now.



Cezanne was hailed by Matisse and Picasso for being the bridge between 19th century Impressionism and early 20th century Cubism. The above portrait was done by Francis Picabia, a DADAist.