The King's Speech: Or why I want to fight the tyranny of romantic love

I came out of the theatre last night after watching The King’s Speech feeling... literally... breathless. Colin Firth played the stammering King George VI so convincingly that every time he stuttered on screen, he would engulf me into his breathlessness, suffocation, shame and desperation. Since the whole film is about words trapped inside his throat struggling to come out, I felt like I had spent an hour-and-half locked inside a windowless cell struggling to breathe. Little wonder that he won the golden globe last night for the best dramatic actor of the year.

Now that I am happily married and sorted, I find my choice of films greatly diminished. I enjoy films about people, their predilections and preoccupations. But the only emotion that Hollywood (and Bollywood for what its worth) thinks worth exploring is romantic love. Only, I am fairly happy and conflict-less regarding that aspect of my life and would prefer to engage in dramas beyond that. 

Which is why The King’s Speech was a lovely change. The King was happily married, like me. His conflict was essentially occupational – as royalty, his biggest responsibility was public appearances and speeches, and a stammer essentially rendered him useless. And can't we all relate to that feeling: haven’t we all, at some point or the other, felt not up to the job given to us?


We all have a life beyond love. Our relationships extend to brothers, sisters, friends, parents, colleagues, children, and most importantly, ourselves. And yet, such few films ever look at the vicissitudes of these relationships.

That made me think of my top 5 emotional, human drama films that were not about romantic love (yes, in case you are wondering, I just finished Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity).

The King’s Speech – because it is so fresh in my mind.

In Her Shoes – because it looked at the love between sisters, one of the most ignored relationships in films, and managed to say something interesting about it. As one of three sisters, I connected to it immediately.

The Darjeeling Ltd – because it was about brothers and that intangible sibling bond that can survive so much upheaval, distance and long periods of non-communication.

Taare Zameen Par – Ok, I concede it was a grossly exaggerated, Bollywood-style, emotional drama. But the struggles of the bright but dyslexic, misunderstood child made me cry by the bucketload.

Lost in Translation – Because it was about the most important relationship in our lives, the one we have with ourselves.

If you have any additions, suggestions and deletions you are most welcome to share.




***
Virginia (see comment section) has reminded me of Little Miss Sunshine and Royal Tenenbaums. Royal Tenenbaums was definitely a contender in my mind, but I decided to go with The Darjeeling Ltd for look at sibling relationships. But missinng out on Little Miss Sunshine was definitely a gaffe on my part. All the same, I can't decide between LMS and In her Shoes, so need help through your votes.

 Of the following two, which should make it to the all time top 5 emotional drama films?

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  In Her Shoes
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  Little Ms Sunshine

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Free vote poll

Otolith Group and the bane of being intellectual

Otolith III at Tate Britain

I wrote an article about The Otolith Group, the British artists who were nominated for the Turner Prize this year and are now showing in India. It was commissioned to me by TOI Crest in October, I actually did it in November and it is out in January - talk about gestation period.

You can listen to the entire interview here, if you have the patience for it. Despite my misgivings about my voice, I am putting it out there because I really enjoyed interviewing them. Besides, raw date is all the rage these days, you know. What with Wikileaks and all.

Interviewing The Otolith Group by chetna prakash

Guardian called their works "unabashedly erudite". Some other papers, were less charitable calling them pretentious. I could sense Eshun's blood pressure rise up a notch, when I asked him the question. And he went on a lengthy explanation about the difference between complex and incomprehensible, and why should their works be about one simple idea, in the first place. Wouldn't that be boring?

When did we turn into a society where one has to defend oneself for being erudite and intellectual.

Look at Barack Obama, throughout his presidential campaign he had to constantly play down his excellent education, his obvious intelligence, his articulateness. And in contrast, Sarah Palin was constantly playing up her gal-next-door credentials, her homilies and claims to common sense. She still does, and it seems is still very popular. While Obama is still struggling to get himself heard and understood.

Another obvious trap is to be entertaining. As Andrew said to me while we were discussing our favourite film critics, you must be funny. Being intelligent is not enough. You must be entertaining. That's the only way you can get your point across. But isn't there a joy to engaging with the difficult, figuring it out and feeling good about it. What's wrong with being sincere, anyway. Isn't that a good thing?

Obviously not. Otherwise, The Otolith Group would have won the Turner Prize.

A funny, funny world we live in.

On Cultural Stereotypes: Immigrant parents, Amy Chua & Jack Straw

I just can’t seem escape Amy Chua and her Chinese mothering tips.

First, my mum-in-law sent me Chua’s essay – Why Chinese Mothers are Superior – published in the WSJ last Saturday, in which she rhapsodised over the benefits of the strict, demanding parenting exercised by immigrant families in America. She credits this parenting style for Chinese (and other immigrant) kids outperforming American kids in general. Then, The Times, yesterday ran an interview with Ms Chua, and today, the Independent, discusses the merits-demerits of Chua’s dictator-style parenting model. And just a few minutes ago, New Yorker uploaded a piece inviting three Chinese-American high-achieving women to give their views on Chua’s assertions.

What I find really interesting is that none of the four articles above mentioned the dreaded words: “cultural-stereotyping”. They discuss the merits and demerits of Chinese-style parenting. But none of them point out that asserting that there is something inherently different about the way a minority community brings up its children – and worse, that the parenting style has definite consequences on how such children will relate to society around them – amounts to stereotyping.

Contrast that with the furious response met to Jack Straw’s statement that young Pakistani men are sexually repressed and are made to think that white women are easy. Thus, they are likely to prey on them. Almost every respectable newspaper in town, and every respectable British-Asian community leader, was discussing the perils of cultural stereotyping even before the merits of Straw’s accusations could be judged.

Why is it that if no one has problems believing that the strict parenting practiced by immigrant parents results in high-achieving immigrant kids, it is unacceptable to suggest the opposite: that if immigrant kids grow up with the notion that white girls are trashy and easy, they may act on that belief. (I don’t have a problem with people picking holes in Straw’s argument – and there are many holes to pick. But I have a problem with the discussion being scuttled under the bogeyman of what “cultural stereotyping” can do to immigrants.)

What the responses to Chua and Straw say to me is that the press and minorities are perfectly fine with stereotypes, provided the stereotypes are positive!

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Stand-up comedian Russell Peters on another kind of strict immigrant parenting.

Vogue and our schizophrenic Indian lives

Vogue vagueness

New year, new article by me – this time in the Vogue magazine. It is a profile of the British Indian restaurateur Geetie Singh. Unfortunately, it is not a terribly good article. It seems I had a particularly bad bout of my on-again-off-again sickness COMMAtitis and littered the copy with all sorts of misplaced commas. As for the magazine’s copy editor? Perhaps, he is a fellow sufferer.

So I am really hoping that most women pick up the issue for the same reason that I ever buy the magazine – to look at the ads. I remember my first look at the British edition around the time the buzz around Vogue’s possible entry into India was growing. I was transfixed – but mostly by the advertisements. Beautiful women in the most gorgeous clothes and accessories made by brands I had only ever seen as fakes in India: Donna Karan, Hermes, Chanel, Calvin Klien.

The articles were as visually stunning as the ads and referred pretty much to the same brands – in fact, it was difficult to tell apart the articles from the ads. It rendered a visual consistency to the magazine and converted it into a stunning temple to fashion. So much so, that by the time I turned the last page, even I – a girl so stubbornly proud of her frizzy hair, kurti, and baggy jeans – was feeling a deep yearning to be slim, beautiful and Chanel adorned.

But this is where I find the Indian Vogue diverging from its international counterparts: its incredible paucity of beautiful ads. To begin with, of the 67 full page ads in its latest issue only 3 refer explicitly to clothes – Levis, Monisha Jaisingh and Ritu Kumar. The largest chunk of the ads, 17 to be exact, belong to Indian jewellery stores: the Manubhais, Nothandasses, Gehnas, Shristis etc etc. And no, the ads don’t show smart, modern everyday wear. It is all heavy, traditional, stone-studded, ready-for-wedding wear. Jewellery is followed by watches (9), furnishing (6), skin products (5) and hotels (4). After this it all goes random with whiskey, chocolates, mid-range Australian wine, hairbands, yachts and even realty companies all finding a corner in this Indian temple to fashion.

What makes the magazine experience surreal is that articles and photo shoots – especially, the photo shoots – continue to refer to D&G, Nina Ricci, Christian Louboutins, Roberto Cavalli and gang as if the Nanubhais and Nothandasses never happened. 

To me this gap between the ads and the articles of Vogue says a lot about the wide gap between the reality, pretentions and aspirations of middle class India, and the resulting schizophrenia. We already believe that we are a world superpower without acknowledging the illiteracy, poverty, dirt, pollution and corruption endemic to our lives. Instead, we simply ensconce ourselves in air-conditioned bubbles inside our flats, cars, offices, malls, restaurants, hotels and nightclubs dreaming our rose-tinted dreams of a time when Nina Ricci and Christian Louboutin will be just down the road.

Maybe, that time will arrive. I only hope that the road leading to these stores will not be jammed with traffic, beggars in tatters, dust and pollution.