Even before he could reach the station, his heart had started to play hockey in his chest. “Why is the train so late”, he kept muttering, every second seemed to him like an hour, “When will Indians Improve. They are all lazy and KAMCHOR” he shouted which startled his neighbor and he moved to a respectable distance. “Only an angrez can run this country, all the railway babus should be lined up and shot on their chest, when will…this train…” [...]
“So!” I burst into a forced smile, “Where have you been for all these years, you just disappeared, vanished like an old film.” “Film, flame, all old story!” He said slanting his head to his left in style, “But what about you!” He grabbed my cheeks and pulled it to right and left, “Still a bachelor! han.” “I am into turbines now.” “Turbines haan, good, But it's time for you to change” he muffled casually chewing the juiciest chunk of my poor lobster. “Beyond a certain point” he continued, “Its all dirty politics and you are stuck with the label ‘Senior Engineer’ for all your life...right boy.” “Actually, I am quite happy!” I responded softly with confidence. “NOoo you are not.” he gave me a stern glance. “To be happy means to be in control, to be your own demon, to have the power to make and break things. “Happiness!!!” he paused opening his eyes as wide as he could, “Is the growth and maturing of all that which empowers you and makes you feel strong and godlike.” I kept sipping my vodka and smiling back at him unable to make any sense of his contentiousness. [...]
What is a ghost, but a memory trying to escape the boundaries of its time, a memory that has by a mere accident become one with its surroundings. A delicate repeat of events in its minutest detail that arise, appear and in its rising gathers itself into the same and familiar. Time on the other hand is certainly a mystery, and still, it is only memory that holds time and oblivion within the very same region, and it does so by letting each shine forth in its own light. [...]
What's good about the film is the internationalization of our Bollywood archetypical film formulas: Two brothers (lost in Kumbh mela archetype) discovering their identity and topped over by an over the wall rescue from the sure jaws of death has always worked in our films; It is a happy feeling to know that the international audience is also enjoying what we have savored for all these years. And then the nauch of Basanti in Sholay where the villain Gabbar aka Aseef in this case makes Sohrab the son of Hassan dance to the infectious tunes of classical music to the point where the ghungroo breaks and shatters. [...]
In several ways, the book dangerously misleads, and does so in its own seductive way. It charms you in as it slips through its liminal gap its US specific Neo-Imperial world picture. In doing so, it sets about to pass in the counterfeit by filling its page with such gross misrepresentations and all done on such grand and massive scale that one is left wondering at the actuating politikreal of the author; often one gets the feel that one is reading a new genre, the ‘new age’ American novel, like the ‘new age’ spirituality of Deepak Chopra, a chick-lit or rather a choc-lit verity of it; even eclipsing the sentimental high tide of ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’. [...]
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