I'm getting eccentric ideas. Now I fantasise about making a short quick trip to the four corners of India. Trip just for the sake of being in those places. Not for any sight seeing or anything. Just stay overnight, or two nights, and move on. Some Eastern point in Arunachal Pradesh in the East, Kanyakumari in the South, a very Western point in Gujrat in the West and as far up in Kashmir (or maybe before Kashmir) as can be gone safely in the North. How does that look like? Any takers?
So - how much time and money would it all take? Of course, the journeys would by the cheapest train fares possible. The total time maybe 13-14 days, counting two nights per shift, and two nights per city. And total fare maybe thus: 4000 (total travel, with each shift @650) + 250*8 (@250 per night for halt in the cities) = 6000, + 1000 for miscellaneous = 7000. And if I stay for two nights only in the alternate places, then subtract 2 days and Rs500, making it all within 11-12 days at 6500. If I stop by in Delhi in my cousin's place while returning from my last city at the Northern point, for 3-4 days. That makes the total 16-18 (or 14-16) days.
Cool, eh? Maybe some day, when I loose my sanity over churning out freakish codes, I should open up a travel agency!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Scribbles: 20th April, 2007
I wake up. The phone is ringing. I look around - its is bright and the day has begun. I try to guess the time. The sun is coming in through the blowing curtains of the window beside my bed. It is about nine o'clock I guess. The mobile is still ringing. I pick it up. A friend of mine has called. Regarding some technical stuff of some installation of some software. Duhh! I give the instructions in a sleepy way. They always remember me in such needs. Satisfied with what I said, he hung up.
I fidget in the bed a little. I curse the sun disturbing my sleep. I draw up the curtains properly. And I go back to sleep.
The phone is ringing again. I am again disturbed. And this time, it is the landline phone. Sister comes in and picks it up. Its for her. I curse the day. I go to sleep. I relapse in a half-wake slumber.
Its hot. My sleep breaks again. The hot winds are coming in through the windows. This time, my sleep has slipped of naturally, not due to some interruptions. I know I must pull my lazy ass out of bed. But I still keep lying. I'm extremely lethargic. Lazy. Sulking away in the bed.
I fidget. I'm not comfortable. The mind is not at peace. It wanders lazily. Some words - from the Gayatri Mantra - somehow comes in from nowhere. What was it they said? "Tath savitur varenyam"? A vague uneasiness encompasses me - some vague recollections of feelings I had while I had watched the sun rising with those lines running through my mind. Something larger than life, powerful, magnanimous. While I had felt the sun running through my veins.
I get up. What is the nature of the feeling I'm having then? Remorse?
I fidget in the bed a little. I curse the sun disturbing my sleep. I draw up the curtains properly. And I go back to sleep.
The phone is ringing again. I am again disturbed. And this time, it is the landline phone. Sister comes in and picks it up. Its for her. I curse the day. I go to sleep. I relapse in a half-wake slumber.
Its hot. My sleep breaks again. The hot winds are coming in through the windows. This time, my sleep has slipped of naturally, not due to some interruptions. I know I must pull my lazy ass out of bed. But I still keep lying. I'm extremely lethargic. Lazy. Sulking away in the bed.
I fidget. I'm not comfortable. The mind is not at peace. It wanders lazily. Some words - from the Gayatri Mantra - somehow comes in from nowhere. What was it they said? "Tath savitur varenyam"? A vague uneasiness encompasses me - some vague recollections of feelings I had while I had watched the sun rising with those lines running through my mind. Something larger than life, powerful, magnanimous. While I had felt the sun running through my veins.
I get up. What is the nature of the feeling I'm having then? Remorse?
Monday, April 16, 2007
The Old Question: The Book or The Movie?
Yesterday, I happened to be in a discussion, where the comparison between a movie and its book came about. The question, inevitably, rolled on to how the movie based on a book, and how the book in original, compares to each other. Which is more expressive - the book, or the movie?
As I have always maintained on this issue, there can be no comparison between a book and its movie. The question is absurd. They are in completely separate domains - on what frame of reference can you exactly measure them up? It is like asking which is more expressive or superior - the paintings, the songs or the pure instrumental music? Which is more useful - physics or biology? Can anyone answer them?
The argument followed, that one has always found the book to be much more satisfying than the movies. Whenever the person has gone to a movie of some famous book he has read sometime before, the movie hadn’t satisfied him as much as the book. But that is obvious, isn’t it? In books, the author banks upon the imagination of the reader to create much of his sensitive effects. The same scene, described in same words, would lead to different visual imagery for different readers. The author specifies much, but there exists a lot of space for the 'unsaid' things, space for personal life and psychology to get identified with the theme. And it is precisely the 'unsaid' things, which when we realise, feel, through the lines of the author - which makes us feel most deeply, and gives us the most satisfaction. Now these things - this visualisation of something by the reader - this experiencing of the same situation in similar yet delicately different ways based on our own personal psychological profile, always happens in a way which is the most comfortable and likable to our own psyche. Given the freedom, from any skeletal framework in the book, the mind will always conjure up an image which is the most appealing for the person. Any other form, which might be more comfortable for others, would suit a little less. And books have precisely this advantage over films - in books, we have a much larger freedom in our perception, identification and visualisation of the theme. Whereas in films, the scope of visualisation of our own images is hugely diminished or changed or doesn’t exist at all. The director has to put forward his visualisation, and he has to bank on other kinds of expressions through which the audience has to appreciate the film. Instead, you should find greatness through other situations, expressions and treatments, which only if you could keep yourself open, you would be able to perceive.
Now, you might say, don’t films provide this space for manoeuvre? Doesn’t the same scene appeals to us in different ways? Yes, it does. It has to - since it is the 'unsaid' things - the things we come to feel/realise - which moves us most deeply, films and any other form of art has to provide that space of manoeuvre to appeal to anyone. But when a film is based on a book you have read, the spaces of manoeuvre offered by the film can be more constrained and totally different from those provided in the book. And that is exactly where the conflict occurs. The film will, of course, appeal with a lot of subtleties, but the places where these are placed, are more likely than not, not the same places where you had the maximum freedom in the book. And so if you try to exactly recapture your experience of consumption of the book from the movie, you are bound to fail miserably, since much of what you had imagined has been replaced by how the director imagined such scenes.
So, in conclusion, I'd say that though a movie can be based on some book, it is in itself an entirely new creation, and should never be 'compared' with its inspirational source. Books and movies are two different forms of expression. Movies have only our eyes and ears through which to reach us. Books have the total freedom of directly appealing to our intellect and simulate whatever simulation of all the five senses is most appealing to our persona. Each of us perceives the same descriptions and events in the ways most satisfactory to our mind. And this freedom of visualisation gives rise to a huge mistake people make when going for the movie - they tend to re-capture their experience of the book from the movie. But that is never to be, since the constraints of expression through a movie will inevitably lead to changes in what the users are shown and in what things they are allowed the maximum manoeuvrability for imagination, feeling and perception, compared to what they had in the book. Instead, to enjoy to the movie for what it really is, one should take it as something original and entirely new – and should open himself up for a new experience.
As I have always maintained on this issue, there can be no comparison between a book and its movie. The question is absurd. They are in completely separate domains - on what frame of reference can you exactly measure them up? It is like asking which is more expressive or superior - the paintings, the songs or the pure instrumental music? Which is more useful - physics or biology? Can anyone answer them?
The argument followed, that one has always found the book to be much more satisfying than the movies. Whenever the person has gone to a movie of some famous book he has read sometime before, the movie hadn’t satisfied him as much as the book. But that is obvious, isn’t it? In books, the author banks upon the imagination of the reader to create much of his sensitive effects. The same scene, described in same words, would lead to different visual imagery for different readers. The author specifies much, but there exists a lot of space for the 'unsaid' things, space for personal life and psychology to get identified with the theme. And it is precisely the 'unsaid' things, which when we realise, feel, through the lines of the author - which makes us feel most deeply, and gives us the most satisfaction. Now these things - this visualisation of something by the reader - this experiencing of the same situation in similar yet delicately different ways based on our own personal psychological profile, always happens in a way which is the most comfortable and likable to our own psyche. Given the freedom, from any skeletal framework in the book, the mind will always conjure up an image which is the most appealing for the person. Any other form, which might be more comfortable for others, would suit a little less. And books have precisely this advantage over films - in books, we have a much larger freedom in our perception, identification and visualisation of the theme. Whereas in films, the scope of visualisation of our own images is hugely diminished or changed or doesn’t exist at all. The director has to put forward his visualisation, and he has to bank on other kinds of expressions through which the audience has to appreciate the film. Instead, you should find greatness through other situations, expressions and treatments, which only if you could keep yourself open, you would be able to perceive.
Now, you might say, don’t films provide this space for manoeuvre? Doesn’t the same scene appeals to us in different ways? Yes, it does. It has to - since it is the 'unsaid' things - the things we come to feel/realise - which moves us most deeply, films and any other form of art has to provide that space of manoeuvre to appeal to anyone. But when a film is based on a book you have read, the spaces of manoeuvre offered by the film can be more constrained and totally different from those provided in the book. And that is exactly where the conflict occurs. The film will, of course, appeal with a lot of subtleties, but the places where these are placed, are more likely than not, not the same places where you had the maximum freedom in the book. And so if you try to exactly recapture your experience of consumption of the book from the movie, you are bound to fail miserably, since much of what you had imagined has been replaced by how the director imagined such scenes.
So, in conclusion, I'd say that though a movie can be based on some book, it is in itself an entirely new creation, and should never be 'compared' with its inspirational source. Books and movies are two different forms of expression. Movies have only our eyes and ears through which to reach us. Books have the total freedom of directly appealing to our intellect and simulate whatever simulation of all the five senses is most appealing to our persona. Each of us perceives the same descriptions and events in the ways most satisfactory to our mind. And this freedom of visualisation gives rise to a huge mistake people make when going for the movie - they tend to re-capture their experience of the book from the movie. But that is never to be, since the constraints of expression through a movie will inevitably lead to changes in what the users are shown and in what things they are allowed the maximum manoeuvrability for imagination, feeling and perception, compared to what they had in the book. Instead, to enjoy to the movie for what it really is, one should take it as something original and entirely new – and should open himself up for a new experience.
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