When the cataract came calling

Today, the journey that began on April 19 is nearly over.

 Standing on the balcony, on the fourth floor of my son's flat in Hyderabad, my daughter in law, Roshini says, "look at those violet flowers below, Amma. Are'nt they nice?"

I see no flowers, let alone violet. Off we go to LV Prasad Institute, where the doctor declares,"Cataract..surgery to be done in three months in both eyes."

Back to Kochi immediately and to another Eye Institute. Diagnosis confirmed, the date is set for surgery the following week. Five weeks later, its the turn of the other eye. What conspires in between is interesting, irritating and enlightening. I bet no one will tell you this.

Cut to first day at the Eye Institute: A little knowledge IS a dangerous thing, I found out soon. "O cataract surgery...just five minutes and its..over..." and other comments come to you over the phone, in person and watsapp. Doubts that seem silly to other people keep nagging you. After all it’s your eye, even if it’s myopic beyond compare and added to it, cataract ridden. But doctors are busy and leave the PROs to answer your questions. Ms PRO shows you four options of the intra ocular lens that will henceforth be a part of my eyes. I am all ears. She says the first costs the least (Rs.11,000) but takes a few more days to heal. The three other options cost Rs. 23,000, Rs. 26,000 and Rs 34,000 . Which do you want, she queries. Whats the difference, I make bold to ask. "There is no difference. All three give you the same result." she says without an iota of doubt. "But then....why the difference in price?"

Different companies, that's all, she says, as if talking to a moron. The feeling was mutual. We said we will decide later.

'Later' came five days after that. This time, the gentleman PRO also parroted the same lines. I decided not to stomach it. So he went further: "When you buy a branded shirt and an ordinary one they look the same, only the brand name will be there, right?" he explained, eyes wide, looking into mine. I would not buy that.

"No. Not the same. The stitching will be different, the fit and the material too will be different. So now tell me how these three are different". And then Mr PRO hesitatingly turned to the computer and showed us all the differences, albeit many, which we would have never known, and we chose the best. 

I cannot be blamed surely for thinking that the commission for the last could be the least and the PROs were deliberately not batting for them. But I got my answers because I chose to be ‘bad’, according to many onlookers.

D-Day came and my fear almost killed me. Don't know why. One injection near the cheekbone was slightly painful, but that sealed it. Local anesthesia. And then they walk you to the surgery table. You can hardly recognise your doctor, with all those robes and gloves. It can be quite unnerving, seeing other patients, with surgery done,eyes bandaged and not scared at all. I tried to muster up courage, drawing inspiration from them. I was'nt very successful, the doctor told me later. The sweet doctor took charge of everything.  Eyes covered, it was all small noises, musical interruptions and one line conversations. I tried hard to be in savasana mode. I saw different hues, blue, red, black , some rounded forms in black and grey and what seemed like half an hour was maybe half of that, I will never know. "It has come out fine. OK?" said the doctor, as they asked me to get up.

Kind attendants calling you ‘Amma’ lead you away outside. An hour later you can go home because the hospital is really crowded with patients from all over the state.

No sleeping on the side of that eye, no bending, no lifting of weights,  no water in the vicinity of the eye and no cooking.

A tiny green basket covered the eye and yes, there was pain. One painkiller took it away. The night is scary. Will I take the basket off in my sleep and the lens too? Will I turn over to the other banned side and maim the eye? Dawnbreak came without much drama. Off to the hospital for that first review. When the nurse lifted the basket off my eye, mundane colours like that of the wall and her white uniform seemed beautiful, clear and had a freshness all their own. Awed, I cried out ‘Ayyoh”. I don’t know why really. But scared, the nurse thought I could not see. She gave me a mouthful when I said yes. The trees looked greener than ever.

But the weeks ahead tried my patience…two eyes with contrasting visions, eye drops at the drop of a hat (yes, they are that frequent), no reading, no talking much, no phone, a little TV and completely housebound, with dark glasses to hide behind. Certainly not the mistress of the house anymore, with someone else to cook, clean, shop and cut off from my family and friends, first hand. After five weeks, the same routine continues for the right eye, but healing and adjusting is quicker. My new pair of specs sit lightly on my all new eyes, myopia, a distant dream I had for close to 52 years, gone and only very little long sight.

Thank you Dr Sara Jacob, whose commitment, interest in her patients and pure professional passion are inspiring!

    

Eardrums go bust at weddings

Weddings are a source of joy: Beautifully decked-up brides, guests, good food and charming music. But the last one has dramatically metamorphosed into a tortuous experience. The Pollution Control Board would be scandalized at the kind of noise the musicians dish out in small halls or demarcated areas, designed for smaller decibels of sound. The ear piercing sound systems cannibalize the laya, thaalam and sruthi  of the music, making the output one big noisy torture with guests shutting out the sound with their palms to the ears. Sign language is a handy tool if you go for weddings today.
 Ah...there is the favourite cousin whom you have not seen for ages.. Laughter, embrace and surprise over, you ask about his children,  in sign language, as the blaring sounds drown your feeble voice even if your mouth is almost attached to his ears. A dumb charade follows and then both look into each others eyes, wring their hands and part ways, cursing the group of musicians who sincerely think they are entertaining the guests. Noise and music have a rather thick line separating them at these weddings.
That's when you want to know whether your sister has had the wedding feast. You do the motion of eating with your right hand and look at her, a big question mark writ all over your face. She shakes her head vigorously and we walk towards the queue. Smiling widely, all 32 in a helpless frenzy, we see second cousins and their children, all with the same smile plastered on their faces, hold hands, shake our heads and say bye with wave.
And then I muster up courage, egged on and abetted by my headache and like thinking cousins and confront the sound-in-charge plus the violinist, percussionists and the electronic nagaswaram player. Music is to be enjoyed, soft music, I sermonised. They shake their heads in unison. Wedding guests love to chat, but their voices are drowned in the blaring music, I added. They looked at me with deadpan faces. So, I turned to the sound-in-charge, can you please lower the volume, that we may all enjoy your music and talk too when we meet our relatives, I asked, almost pleading. He smiled the sweetest of smiles and nodded. Triumphant, I walked slowly away, relieved at the welcome silence. Ten steps away and as the proverb goes, Shankar was back on the coconut tree!
The cousin who told me he went up to them thrice and pleaded that the volume be lowered, now looked at me with an I-told-you-so-look! Vanquished, I enjoyed my lunch, which was served far enough to drown the 'music'!! Not for me another wedding. Why take the trouble to travel all the way only to have noise thrust down your very system? When, O when will  noise pollution be banished from weddings? And I wonder, does anyone enjoy the music when it's dished out thus?

Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Pinneyum

It’s after 8 years that internationally known  Malayali director Adoor Gopalakrishnan is making a feature film. Naturally, excitement knows no bounds. 

Pinneyum,  released today,  seen as a movie isolated from the fact that Adoor made it, disappoints. One misses the finesse with which his other creations like Kodiyettam, Vidheyan, Elipathayam or Nizhalkuthu was made. 

Pinneyum rolls on in the same low sruthi, with no spark of surprise elements anywhere. Not just that, the supposed realism is just not realism at all.  Dialogue delivery is not natural often.         

There is no  gradual build up to that one important decision in the protagonist’s life. With just a few hasty scenes, he and his family resort to a botched up crime  that gets resolved in an equally hasty manner. The subtle nuances of life in Adoor’s earlier scripts  are  missing in Pinneyum. Gone is the carefully crafted dialect in Adoor films. Dileep and  Kavya Madhavan are not fluent  in the Central Travancorean  dialect.

Acting honours go to Indrans first, then Kavya for that one last scene. KPAC Lalitha brought some sunshine into Pinneyum in a cameo, acting and saying her dialogues very naturally. The boy who acted as the murdered man’s son is very good, though he comes in just two scenes. Nedumudi Venu and Vijayaraghavan look at home in their parental roles. Dileep’s role and acting are nothing to write home about.

Why Adoor had to resort to an old and weather beaten crime story of the last century beats me. That he dealt with what happens to the family of the criminal afterwards, is something new all right, but that could have taken centrestage instead of making it look like an after thought. In the second half, things move at breakneck speed.  A few touching scenes involving Kavya, Dileep, and Indrans are positive points to note.I wish I had more positive things to say about the movie.

Very sorry about that, but it’s the truth.    

Pope Francis is so different

Read the Pope's book : The name of God is Mercy  

                                    A conversation with Andrea Tornielli….published this year.

What he had to say on corruption is so topical and easy to understand. He has an answer too to the scourge. Loved hat he had to say....so human, so full of goodness and humble, talking like you and me. All of us will benefit by what he has to say on corruption, not only politicians and businessmen. And all of us can play a role in eradicating it. This is what Pope Francis says:

"Corruption is not an act but a condition, a personal and social state in which we become accustomed to living. The corrupt man is so closed off and contented in the complacency of his self sufficiency that he does not allow himself to be called into question by anything or anyone.The self confidence he has built up is based on a fraudulent behavior he spends his life taking opportunistic shortcuts at the cost of his own and others’ dignity. The corrupt man always has the gall to say: It wasn’t me. My grandmother would have said that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.The corrupt man gets angry because his wallet is stolen and so he complains about the lack of safety on the streets, but then he is the one who cheats the state by evading taxes, or else he fires his employees every three months so he doesn’t have to hire them  with a permanent contract or else he has them  work off the books. And then he boasts to his friends about his cunning ways. He is the one who goes to Mass every Sunday but has no problem using his powerful position to demand kickbacks. Corruption leads people to lose the modesty that safeguards truth,  goodness and beauty. The corrupt man often does not realize his own condition, much as  a person with bad breath does not know they have it………………

."Corruption is a sinful hardening of the heart that replaces God with the illusion that money is a form of power. It is a work of darkness fed by suspicion and intrigue…….If we want to drive it out from personal and social life, we need prudence, vigilance, loyalty, transparency together with the courage to denounce any wrongdoing.If it is not combated openly, sooner or later everyone will become an accomplice to it and it will end up destroying our very existence…"

Kammattipaadam. Wow!

After the climax scene of Kammattippaadam, I sat rooted to my seat, hands over my mouth. That’s how hard it hit me. Rajeev Ravi has given us a slick movie, though it stretches to three hours. Mushy scenes, dialogues and pretty dolls have no place in Kammattippaadam. It’s life as you experience it, straight from Kochi and its underbelly. But there are  no hi-fi gangster’s molls or gory scenes. Yes, it’s a movie about thugs, but told from a very human angle, how circumstances make or mar people and about the greed of some that spell doom for others. Real estate tactics are real, you realize after seeing the movie and a silent chill goes down the spine. It’s still there!

The highest marks go to the casting director. Every single character,  right to the character with the smallest role, is picked painstakingly. For a minute I thought it was Dulqar Salman when I saw the teenage version of the character.

Kammattippadam is also the triumph of actors who can give of their best but are underutilized, of mainstream actors who rise above their movie image (read Dulqar. Compare his Second show with this and you see how he has grown as an actor or how much Rajeev has worked on him).

Vinayakan and Manikandan who play two brothers leave a lasting impression with the viewer. But my most  unforgettable character is Manikandan (Balan chettan) who has never ever wavered from the character he plays, thanks to the dialogues, make up, demeanour and even the gait.  This goes for most of the characters.  Make up or presumably the lack-of-it look contributes in no small measure to the success of the movie. That a dark girl is the lead’s love interest is a happy progress in cinematic history. The subdued love scenes are touching, without the lovers ever touching each other or mouthing cloying silly dialogues.

The intensity with which each character  mentally and physically  does his/her part as also the pucca timing makes the viewer forget how long she/he has been watching the movie (close to three hours).

The movie is s a free lesson for people who use drones irritatingly to show they have drones. Well orchestrated drone shots and shots that the situation demands, not scenes to show the locales, or unnecessary close ups, make the camerawork a technical joy. When you see the smoke of incense in one scene, I almost got the smell of it! There are so many shots which seem so natural but you know are magical, and come from an expert’s hands. Madhu Neelakandan is behind the camera, I find, not Rajeev.

The  flashbacks, though well interspersed, slightly jar. The female presence,  Amalda Liz and Shaun Romy, including Muthumani’s in a cameo (one really  cant say cameo because most characters have small, good roles) is realistic. The rustic folk lines, which can be called a song, during the funerals, is heartwrenching.

Dulqar Salman, a chance of a lifetime for you. Manikandan, sporting dentures, looked every inch Vinayakan’s brother. Josettan (?) who makes an entry with a bang, simply stole the show. Shine Tom Chacko is also a fine actor. Vinay Fort, P Balachandran (the story is his),  Suraj Venjarammoodu are some of the others. There are a few more who have done brilliantly. The body language  of all the characters: That’s one aspect which makes Kammattipadam  stand out.

 I am struggling to find minuses. Maybe some of the dialogues in the beginning could have been clearer! Thank you Rajeev Ravi!       

Airlift -- true or false? Both

Airlift. It really did lift my spirits. For reasons more than one. First, it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie, fast paced, though the ubiquitous song and dance numbers interrrupted the narrative, but excusable, we might conclude. Patriotism and humanism are in high doses...and why not? The story is all about the Indian diaspora during the Kuwait invasion of Iraq and how they were evacuated through the humane actions of one very rich man, Ranjit Katyal. Part fiction, part history, one doesn't know where one ends and the other begins, though the makers have safely declared that it is all just a story.
At the end of the movie, when people get up to leave the cinema, we are told via the writing on the screen that this man, the hero, Ranjit Katyal, is loosely based on the character of Sunny Mathews, who facilitated the evacuation with his friend. I felt cheated. Airlift tells the story of a supposedly unsung hero but this hero remains unsung, with his name changed to Ranjit Katyal. They should have given this info along with the credits in the beginning. His grand daughter wrote a post about him on her FB page. I found a picture of Mr Sunny Mathews too.(I really hope it's the right pic! Found it on the net) I would love to hear what he has to say about the movie though.

 I am indeed proud of the lion's share of Malayali  presence in Airlift. Director Raja Krishna Menon, Lena, Suresh Nair who co-wrote the script.  Pardon me being slightly parochial!
Airlift is special for another reason, its talented cinematographer, Priya Seth, one of the leading underwater cinematographers in the nation. Her tastefully portrayed belly dancing scenes, without showing the faces, is a first of its kind. T^he vast canvas...deserts, bombings....ships, fights....it was a nice feeling that a certain Priya Seth was DOP.
Acting honours: Yes, Akshay Kumar is good, very good at times, but just a few times, he overdid it. Prakash Belawadi as Georgekutty, Lena's husband, had a well written character role which he put across to the viewers, justifying every nuance of the role, the look, gait et al. Nimrat Kaur as Katyal's wife had a big role but nothing much to write home about. Inamulhaq   as major Khalaf bin Zayd rolled his 'r's well enough while addressing 'Ranjit" Katyal and had that quiet wicked demeanor.
Raja Krishna Menon, director, ah....let's hope he will give the seasoned film makers of Bollywood hot competition. For that he must stand on his own ground and not swim with tide. Airlift is not in the bracket of some Bollywood movies 'for timepass.'...worth the ticket money in a multiplex.