DARK KNIGHT RISES

When Bob Kane created Batman, he would not have imagined that some day a guy named Christopher Nolan with his cortege of actors, writers and technicians would come along and give a new meaning and identity to his super-hero so profound that it would be rated no less than the creation of the character itself! If reaching the top is difficult, staying there is furthermore difficult. Having scaled new peaks with his last two Batman movies I was under the impression that he had reached the top and if he just stays there with the current one, that itself would be a success. But as the quote of a car maker goes “Make the best car in the world. Then improve it!” he betters his own track record with his latest offering “Dark knight rises”. Having praised the movie, it doesn’t mean that it has unseen action sequences or eye popping CG works nor it has an entirely new story. But it has a new take on the Batman and his story, nice effort to link all the loose ends that arose due to the introduction of new characters and their back stories and a reemphasis on why Batman is, the way he is and why he does things that he does. If not for anything I admire the movie and its director for having brought a superhero subject to that of an intense drama where the protagonist is faced with all the dilemmas and confusions. A superhero is made only by the presence of a super villain and here there are two! The director makes us face them who are on the wrong side of moral and ideological turpitudes. As one of the line goes in the movie “any one can be the batman” and for a brief duration I was the batman! Yes, yes I know that your idea of batman doesn’t exactly match with a guy who is 5.6 with a paunch and of Indian origin. But hey! That’s the magic of the movies and I really felt it. Though the hero gets beaten, deceived, robbed, chased at and even mocked at he doesn’t waver from his sole objective, that of saving Gotham city. In one scene when the catwoman tells him that he has given everything to the city and need not bother about it anymore, for which Batman replies “Not everything, not yet”. This line pretty much sums up the movie. The same applies to the director as well. When I thought he had given everything in the first two installments, he comes up with this third movie and he says “not everything, not yet”. The one disappointment for me was, although the performances were top notch, their screen time was less due to infusion of new characters. But I think one can overlook this little blip. But on the positive side, the grave and imposing voice of the villain Bane, curves of Anne hathway, surprises in the form of Marion and Gordon lewitt and the last but certainly not the least; the music by Hans zimmer truly take the movie to a higher plane. It’s better to watch the prequels before you watch this movie as there are lot of references from its earlier stories. VERDICT: The dark knight rises and you better make way for him!

My thoughts on parenthood

The best way to make one understand the intricacies of a task or difficulties of a responsibility is to allot the task or to entrust him or her with that task or responsibility. The same person who had complained earlier will begin to appreciate those who preceded him while at the same time trying to make people understand who are about to follow him. This is what that has happened to me during the past one and half years of my life. Let me give you some rough statistics to give you an idea. 4 marriages of my close friends and cousins +1(Mine) 4 deaths in my relatives' circle. 3 new lives delivered into this world from my friends' & relatives' circle. +1(My own) Lot of movie watching. Numerous outings. Countless arguments and counter-arguments. Lots of moments of disappointments, happiness, sorrow and pure joy. No movie has ever and will ever showcase such multitude of scenes that blend seamlessly, and the best part is that you are the actor and the audience! During the course of the above events I had been the actor, going through the emotions, enacting my part(pretty badly :-)) I felt joy and sorrow to varying degrees. But now when I look back, amazingly I neither feel sorrow for my relatives' death nor, even to the birth of my own son. This doesn't mean that I have assumed the role of audience and enjoying the act. No I haven't reached that stage yet, but it simply means that I am a bit insensitive albeit with some help from the passage of "Time". Having strayed for a while, let me return to the first sentence of this blog. My idea of bringing up a child is, as you have rightly guessed "zero". Let's come to one understanding. Though almost all have or at-least had both parents, our knowledge or idea of how to be a parent falls well short of the finish line when one becomes a parent. Whatever changes or steps I wanted to take to my parenting style by looking at my own parents or others' turns out to be highly unimplementable. Let me give you one example. For once I decided not to show too much emotion; either joy or anxiety towards my kid. But when I tried to stick to it, the feedback was that I am not as happy as a typical father should be, that I don't love my kid as much as other fathers love their kids etc. To top it all, how could I manage to stay in Chennai, away from my kid for so long! Had it been someone else he would come to his kid every weekend (invariably some examples from the neighbourhood follows :-) ) So the situation made me partly understand the intricacies of being a parent. The result is that I consented to buy considerable number of dresses, one cradle for the kid. Added to that before I left for Chennai, I held him for a solid 15 minutes in my hands, played with him, made some funny faces and believe it or not, made him sleep. So I guess, that's how one evolves. Though my point of view is right for me, it doesn't seem to be appropriate for the situation. You can either create friction in the process of convincing others or you can simply assess the situation and adapt accordingly. Is this the solution? Well I don't have any answer for that. But one thing I am sure of is that it depends on the individual and the situation. It doesn't matter if you are a son, a husband or a father (For all those feminists! Please replace them with "a daughter, a wife or a mother) the situations are different and the contexts specific. Respecting the diversities, enduring the unintended or the unwanted, enjoying the pleasures of life like parenthood and last but not the least surrendering to your wife are keys to a happy life :-). If someday I can catch all this action by being an audience then my life's purpose is achieved. Tring, tring, tring... Guys get up! the boring monologue is over.