Looks like the blog will be on hiatus until end of the week, due to somewhat-foreseen life reasons. No, that’s not an excuse. Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, San Diego, the Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks are involved, as are mid-first-quarter work goals.
In the meantime, go check out pal Dhritiman’s shiny new blog. Known in certain circles as Vrikodhara (and shame on you if you’re Indian and did not get the myth-reference) his Livejournal was one of the best-kept secrets in my world. I don’t think you can pronounce the name of his blog correctly unless you’re Axomiya, heh.
Or go write your own. Generate content. Fuck the signal up, make some noise.
True story.
Around 2001 or so, I heard rumblings about a Japanese film called Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi. It was not quite the pre-Internet era, just the time when you would pay through your nose to browse. But the illustrations I saw in those few stray magazines were good enough for me to go look for more information online (text-only, of course, for faster browsing). So I read all I could about Sen To Chihiro. This was years before Japan really got into my skin, but I was enthused. Happy that something non-Disney was getting recognition around the world.
Then someone mentioned a new animated movie that was coming out. Something so good that it had even been nominated for the Oscars. I was a little miffed at this. How can something as good as Sen To Chihiro be overlooked in favor of something with a name as bland as Spirited Away? Never mind that I had not seen either film, I was just taken aback at the injustice of it all. This may sound ridiculous now. (Sure does to me) It was some time before I realized that the two movies were the same. Oh well, so it goes.
I passed on the dubbed screening of Spirited Away a few days ago, opting instead to go for the Japanese version two nights ago, at the Egyptian. And I have arrived at the conclusion that Spirited Away is a flawless film.
I had a conversation with a friend a few hours before watching it. She found the film too dark – I disagreed. No denying that there are moments of darkness in the film, but nothing more than most children’s literature, where the oft-used plot pivot (as I had talked about in my review of Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet) is the loss of family, probably the only primal fear that a child has. The scene where Chihiro’s parents undergo their transformation, therefore, is visceral. Their squeals are like fingernails clawing on a blackboard, and her shriek of horror is terrifying. Another scene that creeps me out is when we hear Yubaba’s raspy voice for the first time along with a closeup of her lips, calling Chihiro into her inner chambers. Brrr.
But every serious moment in the film has its counterpoint, every note of menace balanced by an undercurrent of humor that unknots your stomach. The malevolent sorceress becoming a whimpering bundle of maternal concern in the middle of a conversation about skinning this impudent little human girl defuses the tension in an instant. Once you realize that the villains are not as omnipotent as they seem, that rules govern this magical world, you relax a bit. Chihiro’s parents aren’t going to turn into bacon, and the little girl will find a way.
Is Chihiro the perfect Miyazaki heroine? I find the character refreshing, sans pretension or the mores and genre responsibilities thrust upon other Ghibli heroines. Chihiro is grumpy, scared, out of her depth. And yet, despite moments of weakness, she copes. She demonstrates remarkable levels of ingenuity and spunk, be it when facing down the sorceress Yubaba or dealing with stinky river gods. She finds remarkable levels of courage in herself when wanting to make amends for Haku’s transgression. Now that’s a heroine for you. The way she is animated is unreal – observe the way she petulantly hops from one foot to the other, whining at her parents to hurry up. Or the careful manner her feet make their way down the tall stairs down to the steam room.
It goes without saying that all the Ghibli films boast of exquisite visual palettes. Spirited Away takes this design opulence and cranks it all the way up to one hundred and eleven. The bath-house of eight million gods is inhabited by the most curious characters, the human-looking ones characterized by extra-large heads and a distinctive look, the non humans… The first time we see the non-human guests of this otherworldly resting place, they are blurry blobs. Then they materialize out of nothingness, charcoal-grey misty forms coalescing into a procession of monsters, spirits and kami of various shapes, sizes and emotional dispositions. Every single one of them feels made of a million stories.
And that, to me, enhances the experience of a Miyazaki story. There are no helpful sign-posts telling us what to expect out of these characters or what archetypes they represent. We do not know who No-Face is, or what attracts him to Chihiro when he (she? It?) feels her human presence on the bridge. There is absolutely nothing we know about the three bouncy heads in Yubaba’s boudoir – other than that they bounce, and that they like to eat, when they get a chance. It is a wonderful universe, this Other Realm, and it’s gratifying to know that we will perhaps never know all these stories. We won’t, but that does not mean they never happened. Wouldn’t a lesser film-maker have succumbed to the temptation of leaving a stray wink at the audience, maybe a fleeting glimpse of a beloved forest-god with a leafy umbrella, or a deer that walks on water? Hell, I would pay money to see a whole movie starring the soot creatures and Kamaji in the boiler room. Or the adventures of miniature Bo and bird-Baba, squeaking their way through this wonderland.
The main piano theme that opens the film is probably my favorite Hisaishi composition for Studio Ghibli. Though I find the first few minutes of the film undeserving of the background score that plays, the music a little too overbearing for the proceedings. Probably because I dislike Chihiro’s parents as much as humanly possible. The orchestral violins in the soundtrack rise slow, sweeping into a crescendo as Chihiro gets more and more agitated and as the world changes, . There are the playful chirps and twangs that Hisaishi employs, motifs for different characters. A dream-team, the director and his composer!
A few last memories – the scenes in the evening, where we see lights and lanterns being lit slowly. The unending stretches of water, and the sound of the train moving through it. And the sound of crickets.
If there’s an afterlife, I want it to be like a Miyazaki film.
Once upon a time, when I felt like it, I would paint. And I painted this for a dear friend. I was especially happy with the Totoro cameo.
I am a bit of a biryani snob. Oh, all right, I am an awful biryani snob. I am of the opinion that the Only True Biryani is made in Hyderabad, and you find the best biryani in selected joints in the Older parts of the city. Yes, I am so full of it that I consider Paradise – a restaurant that is usually posited as the go-to place for biryani in the city – to be sub-standard. Paradise was good once upon a time, but now it’s gone all mainstream, catering to tourists and skimping on the spices and the chicken.
You could say that I am to biryani what the Jack Black character in High Fidelity is to music.
My friends know about this fine quality of mine, and they usually take it into account when they speak about this dish in my vicinity. The majority of them roll their eyes when I launch into one of my scathing diatribes on it. Some are taken aback. The vegetarians get the worst of it. “I just had some biryani for lunch“, one of them may say. “No, you didn’t”, I respond. “You had pulao. Or maybe spicy rice of some sort.” “You are rude and obnoxious, and you should go jump off a cliff.” “I will, someday. But you did not have biryani for lunch.” And then everyone but me rolls their eyes. Another lady and I were talking about cooking at home, and when she mentioned that she had cooked biryani for her husband a few days ago, I gently corrected her. She not-so-gently asked to something anatomically impossible. We agreed to disagree.
My reaction stems from the fact that it is a devilishly tough food to cook. The spices have to be in the right proportions, and the different layers of the meat-spice-rice have to be carefully added. Even the cooking time matters, and so does the time that you eat it after cooking. A little too less, and the heat messes with the taste. A little too much and you are having oily rice. And if you do not control your water proportions, you have destroyed the dish.
The worst biryani I had was the Bay Area, in 2007. That particular dish got every single thing wrong – the final product did not taste, look or smell anything like biryani. It hurt even more because expectations were high. Not only because the place came highly recommended by local colleagues, but the fucking dish cost $15.99! I shall remember the tonsil-humping, soul-crushing experience to my dying day. I finished every bit of it, though, even though I whimpered inwardly. Just to remind myself to take future recommendations about this specialized dish with a sackful of salt.
To this day, whenever I go to a restaurant and am about to order a biryani, my default mental state of mind is “I just ordered myself a pulao, it will be basmati rice that’s been fried with some spices and meat, and in all likelihood, it will taste and feel like something-that-is-not-biryani”. Having adjusted expectations that way, every dish becomes slightly elevated in quality from that unfortunate Bay Area sample, truly the apogee of the biryani-pulao orbit.
But sometimes I falter. Last year led to another near-catastrophic experience at a Pakistani restaurant. It was called Bilal’s, and that apostrophe in the name should have given it away for me. Authentic sub-continental restaurants have null or low apostrophe usage. A few months of non-indulgence made me order a biryani and be fairly optimistic about the results. When the waiter laid the bowl down in front of me, I did not have to eat any of it to realize the end of my hopes and dreams. A few stabs of the fork confirmed the non-biryaniness of the rice dish. My companions commented on my sigh and the look of dejection. When I explained, they rolled their eyes. I sighed some more.
My friend Sasi is a little more understanding of this fussy nature of mine. Probably because he’s a biryani connoisseur on his own, albeit a more tolerant one. He is more willing to take biryani of the non-Hyderabadi kind in his stride. Thanks to him and his wife Shilpa, I found a few good places in LA. A great restaurant in Artesia whose name I forget, but where we dropped in for lunch 15 minutes before a screening of The Girl In Yellow Boots. We gobbled up the piping hot rice in 10 minutes flat, not wanting to miss the beginning of the film and also trying to savor every bite, every tiny explosion of flavor. Later on, we figured we should have just finished the biryani in peace – the movie sucked beyond belief. Then there is Zam Zam, a small smoke-filled hole-in-the-wall place on Washington Boulevard. It is open for business only between Friday and Sunday, and biryani is available between 2 and 6. Chances are they will run out if you are not there by 5, or if you do not call in advance to let them know you’re coming. The biryani’s sublime, as are the kababs.
All of last month, Sasi has been tantalizing me about the pulao recipe that he and Shilpa perfected over a few weeks. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I was vegetarian in January, and could not pop over to their place when invited. The kind souls therefore invited me again today, and this time, I had, as they say in Axomiya, one leg braced to jump across. A 30-minute wait at the bus stop did not faze me, and when I got there, sources (my nose and eyes, and Sasi’s hesitant explanations) confirmed what I had suspected – that the pulao was more of a biryani-in-waiting. As in, the only reason they were referring to it as pulao was because of my heightened suspicions/expectations at the definition of the word.
It was biryani. It was awesome biryani. I may have had the first non-Hyderabadi restaurant biryani that tasted like the real thing.
This post came about because this historic experience had to be recorded.
Yes, Monsieur. I am one of those exceptional beings and I believe that, before today, no man has found himself in a position similar to my own. The kingdoms of kings are confined, either by mountains or rivers, or by a change in customs or by a difference of language; but my kingdom is as great as the world, because I am neither Italian, nor French, nor Hindu, nor American, nor a Spaniard; I am a cosmopolitan. No country can claim to be my birthplace. God alone knows in what region I shall die.
I adopt every custom, I speak every tongue. You think I am French, is that not so? Because I speak French as fluently and as perfectly as you do. Well, now. Ali, my Nubian, thinks me an Arab. Bertuccio, my steward, takes me for a Roman. Haydée, my slave, believes I am Greek. In this way, you see, being of no country, asking for the protection of no government and acknowledging no man as my brother, I am not restrained or hampered by a single one of the scruples that tie the hands of the powerful or the obstacles that block the path of the weak. I have only two enemies: I shall not say two conquerors, because with persistence I can make them bow to my will: they are distance and time. The third and most awful is my condition as a mortal man. Only that can halt me on the path I have chosen before I have reached my appointed goal. Everything else is planned for. I have foreseen all those things that men call the vagaries of fate: ruin, change and chance. If some of them might injure me, none could defeat me. Unless I die, I shall always be what I am. This is why I am telling you things that you have never heard, even from the mouths of kings, because kings need you and other men fear you.
This is what I imagine what Edmond Dantes would look like, if there was any justice in this world.
New Year Resolutions are trite. If you talk about them, they do not last more than a few weeks. If you do not talk about them, you make excuses and cave in. The solution, for me, was to tell some friends, people who are no-holds-barred with their criticism and liberal with their scorn, and just dive right in. And it worked!
Blogging
Once upon a time, I made a bet. There were six of us at a table, or maybe seven. We were having a South Indian breakfast at Yatri Niwas, Hyderabad, and somehow the topic of blogging came about. The pretty girl sitting next to me commented on how I never updated any more. This was in early 2010, the nadir of my blogging regularity. Foolishly, I claimed that I could, if I put my mind to it. The number ‘two hundred’ came up, I have no idea why. I would write two hundred posts that year, and if I hit that number, the people sitting around the table would take me out for breakfast wherever I wanted to. If I did not, I would take them out instead, and pay for their flight tickets to wherever I was – economy, not first class. The big guy with the glasses chuckled into his filter coffee, the dark guy smiled and continued puffing at his cigarette. The girl and the other couple at the table, the ones a little more used to my deviousness, tried to figure out the loophole in my argument.
“What if you make one-line posts?”
“OK, fine, all of them will be at least 500 words or more.” (I will confess that at that point I was thinking of how a picture is worth a thousand words, and mentally evaluating the inherent mirth in putting up half a picture for a post)
“You’ll just paste your old articles every day, won’t you?”
“Maybe one a month, but only if I have nothing else to talk about.”
The big guy with the glasses laughed out loud. “Are you seriously saying that you will write 100,000 words this year?” Incredulous, and rightfully so. “Of course I will”, I replied. “I can, if I want to.”
I bought breakfast for them the next year. Well, for some of them, the big guy could not join us. And thankfully, the rest of them were all in the same city. I managed twenty posts that year. I skipped the Challenge for 2011. Blogging was dead, after all. Time to move on, and all that.
This year, I am in a country many thousands of miles away, the pretty girl is in another country too, and the rest of the Breakfast Round Table are in different cities in India. If I take up the challenge (and I have, yes) and lose, I will have to pay for flight tickets. But. BUT. Regardless of whether I win or lose, I get to see them again. My deviousness knows no bounds, eh? And just to make things more interesting, I have been trying to update every single day, just to see where I falter. It works well, because I see that if I miss a day, the next post gets even harder to write.
29 posts in 31 days, and no cheating.
Learning Spanish
Yup, that’s the other long-term goal this year. My goal was to finish 10 Pimsleur lessons by end of the month, and I did. I admit that people on the bus may have been a little freaked out at the sight of a brown guy with headphones going “¿dónde está? ¿dónde está el Hotel Colon?” in the back, but they soon got used to it. Possibly because I get profiled as a Mexican anyway. Instead of saying “No habla espanol” when old ladies at bus-stops ask me for the time (how do I know they ask me the time? Because they helpfully point at my watch, smart-ass) (and I learnt that it’s technically hablo and castellano), I now say “perdón, no entiendo”. Which confuses them even more.
And I guarantee you that this initiative won’t turn out this way. Why? Because I need to be in good Castellanic shape in order to go meet Magda again talk to my soccer-mates in Sevilla, the next time I am there.
Driving
With all my complaints about cars and driving, I found myself at the DMV this month, getting myself a driving permit and joining a driving school. The main impetus for this is a friend’s visit next month. The non-main impetus is to just get off my lazy ass and get a little more used to driving in the US. I can handle a car, but it’s stupid to not be able to go road-tripping when I feel like it. I will probably sit for the driving license test next week. And then I rent a car and head to Vegas. I am even making myself an On-the-Road Mixtape, hoo ah!
Vegetarianism
‘Drea the Awesome, Roomie extraordinaire and Ardent Non-Meatarian was talking, one fine day towards the end of December, about her January Jumpstart. For one month, she and a friend avoided alcohol and turned vegan. I had this bright idea of trying to be vegetarian for January too. Part of this was bravado. Some the conscious realization that I had consumed way too much meat this last year, my carnivorous impulses reaching a frenzied peak in November and December, when meat plates laden with chorizo and jamon were set upon with as much enthusiasm as possible. And yes, some part of it was just an experiment to see if I could.
And I totally could. Well, I caved in one day at a party, where I had some shrimp fried rice sans the shrimp, and some eggs at a breakfast because I was starving and that was the only form of nourishment available. The rest of the time, I cooked myself copious amounts of miso soup with tofu and mushrooms, lots of Axomiya vegetarian cuisine for dinner, a great deal of investigation of what ingredients were present in the grilled vegetable tortilla and the falafel sandwiches served next to my office (The answer: pretty fucking tasty ingredients if you were really hungry). I had things I never knew existed, like avocado rolls and fake (shudder) hot dogs. I made myself the awesomest broccoli in the universe which, I swear, would renew your faith in Brocco, the god of tasteless things.
And obviously, the first thing I did on the first of February was to head to Dinah’s, office standup be damned, and order myself a well-deserved helping of huevos y bacon. Applaud, goddamnit!
