Friday, October 19, 2007

Movies, Books and me..

Life was going on.. steady and at ease when lo i went off to meet a dear sweet aunt of mine and her hubby whom i was meeting for the first time.. Some people, i believe are met just to attain a cause. N this time I'm sure that was one of the purposes of my visit to their home.. Abundance of knowledge, encyclopedia of books, movies and again knowledge... what do i say.. but i was simply mesmerised by the depth of knowledge he possessed(my uncle). Geography, History, of India, Us or the entire world..Even the dates were known by heart to him.. And he is a doc by profession..So count in biology too..Also equally knowledgeable is my aunt..About books, economics what now.. in their midst i felt glad to admit that i am a kid and was pleased to be treated like one.. And from there i now have a whole new list to to be read books and to be watched movies..
N a few impressive ones i already saw from their collection are -

A Passage to India - A beautiful movie by David Lean adapted from E M Foster's famous book A passage to India.. It gives us a view of British India. How the British lived in India and later a clash between the Britishers and the mob.But unlike a movie on freedom struggle, this movie has a good story line and its mysterious till the very last reel.Truly awesome was the performance of Alec Guiness as professor Godbole.Also impressive were the dialogues which were apt and crisp.A good movie involving and Indian doctor, a young British lady tourist, her old adorable companion called Mrs Moore and how their nice little picnic turns into a nightmare..


Mississippi Masala - A lighthearted movie about an Indian family residing in Mississippi.. Its a story abt forbidden love between the Indian girl played by Sarita Choudhuri and an African American played by denzel Washington.. Must say i have become a fan of the director mira nair, especially since her other movie Monsoon wedding too had been exemplary. The best thing about the movie was that it didn't have any special or great story line or anything much different form other romance movies, but still it was cute in its own simple way and i liked the girl a lot.
She played the character remarkably well.. :)


After movies it time to mention a book, the author of which I'm reading for the first time And I'm just speechless by his total grasp on his entire plot and layout.. He seems to have a mental picture of each day of his characters and with tremendous ease he flip flops between the past and present making drowsy readers jerk and flip back pages.. not that readers can doze reading his book..The person I'm talking about is Mr. Amitav Ghosh and the book is The Shadow Lines which won the Sahitya Akademi Award, India's most prestigious literary award.. Rest of his books are in my to-be-read list and his non-fiction books like In an Antique Land are also much appreciated..

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Someone's on a movie/reading trip.

Hey passage to India reminds me of the movie starring Steve Granger and Eva Gardner, not sure what it is, but it sure was captivating.

Maddy said...

i remember seeing MM but somehow it was a bit too dark for me..passage to india is still to be seen, have to do it one of these days, have the book though!!

abcd said...

Thanks for the recommendation.
It seems like an interesting one to check it out.

Devil Mood said...

Passage to India was on TV here the other day but I didn't watch it :(
I don't know what's going on with me but I don't have the patience to sit still watching an entire film nowadays!
Maybe I'll read the book instead ;)

Sam said...

Although I haven't seen any of the mentioned movies but Amitav Ghosh is one of my favorite authors.. The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide are two of his books that I've managed to read so far, will read the one mentioned by you next!! :)

diyadear said...

j,
yup buddy.. no other work..
maddy,
well guess mirch masala days r over for u maddyji he he ;)
PG,
hey long time gal..
DM,
yes the book will be interesting too..
sam,
how did u like the galss palace?? have heard thats good too

Anonymous said...

surprising enough...
just today i bought this book, "passage to india" along with 4 other collections :)
tc...

Keshi said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIYA HUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGZ!


I gotta see that Passage to India then...seems like a good one!


Enjoy ur day hun!
Keshi.

Nanditha Prabhu said...

watching movies and reading .....something i love to do....reading i manage to do at every spare time I able to muster..but movie is afar off dream .i will surely get hands on the book u suggested!

Maddy said...

how can i let that comment go...well - hopefully not!! whether it is cheeni kum or mirch zyada at the moment i am not sure...

Lotus Reads said...

I want to meet your uncle, he sounds so interesting!!! I would love to converse with him. "A Passage to India" is a beautiful movie indeed, infact, I am going to put it on my netflix queue to watch again. "Mississppi Masala" is also a "must-see" and while you're putting that on your list you might want to add "Bhaji on the Beach" which is a Gurinder Chadha movie (of "Bend it Like Bekham" fame).


You'll have to let us know all your thoughts on "Shadowlines", I haven't read it as yet.

Have a wonderful weekend, Diya!

Lotus Reads said...

And, a very happy birthday Diya! Have a truly wonderful year ahead, may all your dreams come true!!!

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