The Broken Bridges of Choice

The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

Language: English

Length: 135 mins

Starring: Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood

This movie was on my must watch list for tooo long. I always avoided this movie cause it was about love torn apart by fates. Maybe it is better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all as the saying goes…

A very sensitive subject of extra marital affair (or must i say love in middle-age post marriage) and how children come to terms with it, is dealt beautifully. The beginning of the movie actually gives away the end, but still you will remain glued till the end.

Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep) is Italian war bride, who now lives in Iowa as housewife. She leaves behind a will saying that she must be cremated and her ashes thrown off Roseman Bridge. Her shocked children are forced to come into terms with her last wishes and her past. She leaves behind a letter and three journals among other things.

She writes

“But as one gets older one’s fears subside. What becomes more and more important is to be known. Known for all that you were during this brief stay. How sad it seems to leave this earth without those you love the most ever really knowing who you were.  It’s easy for a mother to love her children, no matter what. I don’t know if it’s as simple for children …”

as she tries to put her “affairs” in order.

The movie is told in series of flashbacks, coming back to show the slow acceptance of her children.

Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) photographer from the National Geographic comes to Iowa to cover the bridges of Madison County . He is lost in the country roads and seeks out the help of Francesca to go to Roseman Bridge. She volunteers to take him there since she gets confused while giving directions with the forks and the turns. A steady friendship blooms into love within the next day. It is just four days that they get to be together, but their love lasts a lifetime. And that love seems so right.

Meryl as Francesca is a lost soul in search of love, look into her eyes and you will understand her needs. When some love song plays on the radio, just follow her actions and you will get to understand her much better. Her eyes, they speak volumes. She gained a few pounds to look like a middle aged housewife. She was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress in a leading role for her wonderful performance. The movie is directed by Clint Eastwood himself. The chemistry between the leads is too good.

You will probably understand when Francesca makes her decision to stay back:

“When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you’re expected move again only you don’t remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself.”  

I think this will apply to every married woman.

“But love won’t obey our expectations. Its mystery is pure and absolute”

It never has, it never will.

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I generally think that it would suffice if I tell I m doing PhD in Computer Science. Some people let me off the hook without any questions. Others, I have no idea why they choose to ask these kinds of specific questions: What is the topic of your research? How is your research going? Published papers?

I answer in the easiest way, say cryptography or coding theory and try to get away, it is the broadest topic I can say. Maybe next time I should try digital signature, stenography or cryptocoding. Then the questions descend on me. Cryptography? What is that? What do you do? I try to explain the most simple, Caesar cipher (key is 3, ‘a’ becomes ’d', ‘b’ becomes ‘e’ and so on) and say things like encryption and stuff. I just increase their confusion. The thing that strikes a chord is simple. I ask if they remember Arvind Swamy from Roja, who works as a cryptologist. It clears the air, suddenly people understand cryptography better. Maybe I must be thanking Mani Ratnam for this.

Between a Fort and Glasshouse

Joined PhD and hectic months followed! Wanted to review “Remember me”, but couldn’t, will be doing it sometime soon. Making new friends over here. I just find i m not that open and affectionate as I used to be. Some innocent question from someone and I feel the walls I have created all around me. I just answer in some wishy-washy way, and change the topic. Defenses are so unlike me, I used to consider myself an open book. I just found out I m being ultra careful in letting anyone close, I have this reserve which is rare, but strangely feels like its a part of me.  Over the years all of us build defenses, become more careful not to let someone too close. The question remains to be a fort or a glasshouse, sometimes an open book, sometimes a hardcover. To find the right mix for openness and secretiveness seems to an elusive recipe for happiness.

I quit Facebook a month ago. I was so addicted i thought it was impossible for me to stay away from facebook, but i m happy and away from it that my sis was wondering about deleting hers What a positive influence i m! Three cheers to all the walls.

Why does it have to feel so fine to be guarded and careful then to be open like you have never been hurt. To laugh with all your heart. To let go all of the past. To forgive others because in that process you will forgive yourself for all your mistakes. Why doesn’t the pain of betrayal ever get washed away? Like changing seasons, why doesn’t innocence return the way spring does?

I m anyway ending this on a positive note with a fwd SMS i had got some days ago “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down. After all isn’t life about bouncing back …

Silent sufferers of Domestic Violence

Most often we will come across atleast one article every month in some leading daily about the misuse of Domestic Violence by women. But the truth is for every case that comes to light, there are many other women in the background who chose to suffer in silence. I think sharing of personal experiences can break down a lot of media constructed myths about modern women.

The Domestic Violence Act protects women who are in a martial relationship or live-in relationship. It conveniently ignores other relationships outside marriage. So daughters are not protected against violence in their own birth place or mothers in their son’s house. I found this major loophole after i told my dad(he had slapped me (first and last time)) in my anger that i would file a DV complaint the next time he raised his hand. He didnt talk to me the next week but he has not raised his hand again.

Since I have never been married or been in a live-in relationship I cant give any first hand personal experience. But been close to many married women who have shared their tale of woes. I have closely watched women who suffer in silence,  been with them, felt their pain, their helplessness, noticed their shortcomings, their false sense of security. I have seen educated women who work as teachers who get hit by their husbands and lie outside that they got hit in the gym, rather than say that her husband threw the table at her.

In my neighbourhood I have seen sambar and the kadai fly cause the salt was a bit more, keerai poriyal thrown out of the house cause it was cooked on a Friday. A clerk comes home drunk late in the night and abuses his wife so loudly that the whole colony wakes up and watches.  A Professor who doesnt send his PhD in Chemistry wife to work. A Beautician who was a beauty, whose husband used to bang her head against the wall suspect her infidelity due to her beauty. A doctor who cut his wife’s long locks while she was drugged to sleep. I know too many tales of these kinds that i can fill up a whole page. I m not talking about emotional or sexual abuse here, just mentioning the physical abuse part.

The truth is all the above mentioned women are still in the same marriages. None of them have used the Domestic Violence act and come out of the living hell called marriage.

Women are easily intimidated by men, forced to stay in the marriage. A sheer show of physical strength is done by the man to make the wife silent. In most case men can’t stand a talking woman. When words are available why throw around things and intimidate a woman into silence. No real human will ever beat or emotional abuse another. He will know how to treat another human being with respect and love.

I know women who stay in violent marriages just because they have children, their children’s future seems more important to them than their own future. Women who say i would have killed myself if it had not been for my kid. Women who bear humiliation and torture so that their child gets a better morrow. Women who think what the society will think of them and do to them.  Women whose silence is hardly noticed, whose sacrifice hardly acknowledged. None of these women will walk out of their marriages. They are the silent sufferers.

Every face has a story to tell. Almost every women you know hides behind her facade, but her life story might have lots of pain and silent suffering. The maximum you can do is to listen to their stories, their pain and be a little more understanding. Share your stories to let the others know that they are not the only ones in pain, and that even if they walk out, they can live on their own, be happy and have an independent future.

‘Dzire’d Drive

Car driving and women! Much has already been said about this. Facts and statistics are lined up against women drivers. And almost every second person has a negative opinion about the capacity of women as drivers. When my parents wanted me to learn driving and asked me and my sis to a select a car. We gals went for the heart car, Swift dzire . For me it was the only car I wanted, I loved it too much since the minute I saw it. As I started canvassing my parents about the dzire, advice came from all unsolicited corners. Some told Alto was the best for gals, a small car is safe. The worst that i heard was “Swift is a fast car, i doubt if a gal will be able to handle it!”. Imagine what they would have thought if they knew i was planning for Swift dzire! Some even sent me links from youtube about woman trying to park her car for half an hour.

Learning driving was a nice experience. I had gone to Durga driving school in adyar. I was put under every trainer! And each of them told i m confident and bold. maybe it was more of my charms. Frankly i had very little road experience. Nowadays my happiness comes from going rounds in the dzire. And i find driving is a separate world, beautiful and serene. If someone says “i  love my car” these days; it makes complete sense to me. It took a good amount of time for me to convince my parents, that I can drive a swift dzire! My driving licence and the car came on the same day! so much of a coincidence!  The guy who gave the driving test after me failed!

Just came across this link. Hope it sets somethings right!

Car is just a machine, thankfully it doesn’t have intelligence to differentiate between a man and a woman. Let people not do that, they can’t generalize driving skills based on gender.

Adaptation movie

Adaptation (2002)

Language: English

Length: 114 mins

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper

I stumbled upon this movie due my awe for Meryl Streep. ‘Julie and Julia‘ was wonderful, it made me want to cook again! ; ) Meryl Streep is a class of her own. (Everything about her amazes me her age, her acting, her marriage and her energy on-screen). Well, this is basically a movie review of Adaptation, not a blog post on Meryl Streep! : D

Guilty that i have not read the book ‘The Orchid Thief‘ the movie is based on, i planned to watch the movie. When i started watching it, I was a bit irritated and stopped it! But then the space constraint of my laptop (where only 10 GB was free and Adaptation.avi was 1.3GB (I was like if i watch it I can delete it)) drove me to start again. A few mins later into the movie and i was glued. : ) I watched it twice! Beautiful performances by Nicolas Cage as twins and the supporting actors Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper.

The movie is truly original piece, unlike the usual Hollywood start nice and happy ending movies. The screenplay was very different, innovative and interesting, it was one of a kind. The whole movie is told from the script writer’s point of view using his struggle to convert a book about flowers into a movie. And it was wonderful to watch the hardships of screenplay writers. As the name of the book suggest, it was about the orchid particularly the ghost orchid.

John Laroche (Chris Cooper)  is caught at the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park along with local native american tribe while they are ‘taking’ away ghost orchid and the ensuing trial captures the attention of journalist Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) who works for the New Yorker. She gets interested enough in John and Ghost orchid to go ahead and write a book. : )  While Susan is caught in an unhappy marriage and John is recovering from his divorce, friendship and romance follow during the writing of the book. Though Susan ends the book with a beautiful line ”Life seemed to be filled with things that were just like the ghost orchid. Wonderful to imagine and easy to fall in love with but a little fantastic and fleeting and out of reach.“

The Screenplay writer Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) undergoes a writer block while trying to create the screenplay that remains faithful to the book. The movie shifts between Charlie’s life (his interaction with his twin brother David,again Nicolas Cage, girl friend and others) while writing the screenplay and as he reads the book Susan’s life while writing the orchid thief is portrayed. Charlie calls his twin brother to help him out. How they follow Susan and what they stumble upon is for you to find out. ; )  Just a hint “Should one be lucky enough to see a ghost orchid all else will seem eclipsed. If the ghost orchid was really a phantom it was still such a bewitching one that it could seduce people to pursue it year after year and mile after miserable mile.” The native american actually use the Ghost orchid as an illegal drug. Please see the movie. : )

I m not sure if i fell in love with the script or the dialogues. Maybe both. I wanted to share a few memorable sayings from the movie which was interesting:

“There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”

“What I came to understand is that change is not a choice. Not for a species of plant, and not for me.”

( People generally say don’t change, be yourself; but only those of us who have the ability to change survive better. Look at nature; all those species that have survived are those that have adapted.)

“Yeah but it’s easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever’s next. With a person though, adapting almost shameful. It’s like running away“

“I’ll tell you a secret. The last act makes a film. Wow them in the end, and you got a hit.”

” It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn’t have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want. …. That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you.”

“It’s over. Everything’s over. I did everything wrong. I want my life back. I want it back before everything got fucked up. I want to be a baby again. I want to be new. I WANT TO BE NEW.” (Who doesn’t?) : )

The end of the movie is not that happy, but do watch, don’t avoid because of the not so happy ending!

Twilight Saga Eclipse

Watched Twilight saga Eclipse!
Something i wanted to do since the day the movie released. Being the die hard Twilight / Edward Cullen fan i am.

I had already reread the book ‘Eclipse’ twice. Call it the height of joblessness. I had seen the movie ‘Twilight’ before i had read the book. And the movie was better than the book. But Eclipse fails to even be as good as the book. It is a major let down for anyone who has read the book.

The tension that should be present between Jake, Edward and Bella given the love triangle is absent. The tension is too diluted. Somewhere along the way the screenwriter and the director have failed in their attempt to make eclipse a movie. Edward’s attempts at possessiveness is completely removed. What makes love beautiful than that? Somehow Bella’s character is not portrayed the way it should be. Anyways the second half of the movie is better!

But any twilight fan will watch the movie and will like it despite its flaws. Its certainly not better than twilight, it lacks that magic, but better than new moon in certain places! So enjoy!

Best Romantic Movies

I enjoyed almost 6 months watching romance movies, I just thought I must share what I loved! Being the airhead and a typical piscean women, I downloaded movies because an actor was handsome or the actress was cute. And now I m trying to put up a list of good romantic movies. I m missing out on all the classical romances like Gone with the wind, An affair to remember, Casablanca, When Harry met sally and so on …

1. Dirty Dancing

Lovely for the dancing, wonderful for the sexual tension between the leads, breathtaking chemistry. The best dance finale ever. You might have to watch it for just that last dance “The Time of my life” or for baby’s line “I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you” or for the lake scene.

2. Save the Last Dance

White woman-black man romance. I searched for this and found the movie. Rare and beautiful movie. Clearly shows the insecurities other people can feed into a relationship. It is more of coming of age drama, than a rom-com and it is predictable but still it is enjoyable and moving.

3. Notting Hill

The perfect romantic comedy/musical, has a lovely soundtrack. “When you say nothing at all” stays with you a long time after the movie is over. Handsome Hugh Grant and stunning Julia Roberts have a beautiful chemistry. She will win over you with just one smile. An actress-writer romance, a love that stands all odd. Something that can happen only in movies . The most touching part is when Julia says “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

4. Never been Kissed

An inspiration for hopeless gals like me! Drew Barrymore who is a reporter and in her twenties is made to go as a undercover student to high school. She struggles to fit in. A romance between her and her English teacher develops. Movie is not so great with comedy but is nice with romance. Climax of the movie is really wonderful!

5. Sleepless in Seattle

Comes with a wonderful tagline “What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the only someone for you?”.  The lead pair never shares the screen until the last scene and still the chemistry between them is terrific and it maintains. The best of Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan pairing. An eight year old son tries to bring back his father to normal after his mother’s death by taking help from a radio show. He plans a meeting with Meg on the roof of the Empire State building, books his own tickets to New York. Has several reference to Cary Grant‘s “An affair to remember”.

6. The Proposal

A boss-employee romance under very different circumstances. A role reversal of kinds. A domineering lady boss and her personal assistant. He is forced to fake engagement with her, so that she is not deported to Canada. Sandra Bullock’s performance is beautiful.

7. 10 things I hate about you

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. The lead gal differs a damn lot from the normal heroines and damsels in distress and is my favourite. Watch the fireworks when two outlaws are set against each other. This movie also has an interesting supporting cast and romance!

8. Serendipity

You may or may not believe in fate/density. But this movie will give you a rethink. You have to see this movie to understand that life gives some signals, to pick them up or to leave them is our business. Sometime fate takes an upper hand in life. Sara believes in the hand of fate and everything starts with pair of black gloves. This movie is what love is all about. The magic, the romance, the unknown, the search for soul mate and the density. I don’t want to spoil the suspense!

9. The Wedding Planner

Matthew McConaughey and J Lo pair up in this romantic comedy. A beautiful first meeting between them where the hero saves the heroine’s life err I mean shoe. A short romance follows. Only later for J Lo to find out that she is the wedding planner of her own crush’s wedding. What ensues is series of misunderstanding and a romance. Who gets whom in the end is for you to watch!

10. What happens in Vegas

This movie is just for the laughs. Too drunken and after a sham marriage, the couple hit’s the jackpot. When they apply for divorce, the judge forces them to stay together for 6 months or threats to tie the money to litigation. Forced to stay married, each tries to push the other out of the marriage leading to several comical situations.  But the movie is predictable in many places.

Life goes on… and i want to track it

Life goes on … Completed my post-graduate degree! Three beautiful years just flew by. And now I m entering a phase in life which everyone says will be the best in life. Research. PhD in Computer Science. I just wanted to convert this long death blog into a half alive one. planning to keep recording all the crazy thoughts, musings and happenings in my life, so that a few years down the lane when I turn back and wonder how the heck did the years pass so quickly this will be a beautiful memento.

I have changed too much to continue posting my musing on feminism or people, maybe developed a higher level of tolerance and acceptance or just grown numb and I fondly hope it is the former. Two years of being the representative for 60 museum samples does wonders to your psychology of handling people.

At the moment I m into too many things. Learnt car driving, got driving license and my new found passion seems to be zooming around in dzire, the other is cooking, that too mushroom and paneer dishes Cooking seems to be a great stress reliever. Neck deep in James Bond movies, personally I think Pierce Brosnan is the best 007 Started reading “The Lost book of Salem” by Katherine Howe. It is based on the Salem witch trails, was interesting till what I have read.

Will be joining college this week, life will start a routine that I must follow. The past six months of my PG was project semester; most of it was spent in my house. With too much time to kill and no work, I developed a sudden liking to English movies. It started with handsome Cary Grant’s black and white movies, Audrey Hepburn’s beauty mesmerized me and then I got pulled into the Disney dream world of happily ever-after’s. hmm, I mean rom-com and Disney movies I m practically enough to know that happily ever after doesn’t exist, neither does prince charming nor am I any damsel in distress. Call me a cynic!

More later!

What to do?

What do you do when you don’t know which port your ship is heading for? What do you do when u have absolutely no idea — Where your life is heading? What your goals? What and whom you desire? What you are passionate about? Years of People pleasing you hardly have any idea what you want (not need)? Their needs have long become your needs, their dreams yours. Sadly it is decision time now, for you can’t live your life according to other people’s dreams! And no longer can you fool yourself, that next one year decides your life! In that hazy mist of many dreams, will you be able to find out your dream, hold on to it, even when everything and everyone is against it! Will you follow that dream? Will you ever find your inner voice, your talent, what you like doing? When will you start doing what you want, and not what is expected of you.