Desires last 60 days; lust 30.

Bangalore Days (Malayalam, 2014)

The stories of the silver screen and fairy tales make us believe that it is worthwhile to grasp that one chance at love. They convince us that it the single most crucial fight that one has to win. Overcoming that would translate to eternal bliss. It is happiness afterwards, forever and ever. Err... wrong answer.

In a very entertaining way, combining the scenic backgrounds of Kerala and Bangaluru, as well as the pleasing youthful features of the good looking actors, the story tries to tell us in a subtle way that it is not all hunky-dory when and especially after one finds love. It is an eternal struggle to keep the flames alive. Even if the ember stays aglow, there are too many interferences that threatened its harmony. In modern living, with the relaxation of rigid social restrictions that used to prevail and the scream of empowerment, no one can be pinned down anymore. Everybody is free to do what he (or she) wants. Is that daring to be different, to empower oneself, defiance to status or plain lazy to uphold the age-old agreed norms that rock the whole fabric of marital bliss? Or is it that the desire to defend the holy institution of marriage that makes one overlook or tolerate the many imperfections of the other?

Prince Charming turned out to be a loafer?
Like the Tamil proverb goes
'Desires are for 60 days, and lust is for 30 days'.
ஆசை 60 நாள் மோகம் 30 நாள் 

The story revolves around three cousins (Kuttan, Arjun and Divya) who are close as thick as thieves sharing an unforgettable childhood and the same sense of humour. 

Arjun, a son of an army man, went wayward after his parents divorced. We get the sense that he attributes his failure in life to his parents' separation. From a top student, he ended up being a dirt-bike racer and an occasional mechanic. His love interest turns out to be wheelchair-bound paraplegic. The positive thing about the film is the paraplegic character actually had a positive. Unlike a typical India movie where a far from 'perfect' person will usually sacrifice her life, here she is paved the way for a possible happy experience. 

Happy forever and ever?

Kuttan is a goody-two-shoes who followed all the pointers given by his parents and is a software engineer. One day, Kuttan's father disappeared from their home. He left a note citing his desire to find peace and purpose in life. A subsequent letter clarifies that he actually must be enjoying himself in the laid back beaches of Goa, away from the smothering of his wife, Kuttan's mother. Kuttan also realises that his mother, though meaning well, could be quite a pain in the neck when she moved in with him.
Meanwhile, Kuttan is also finding love, naively thinking that a nice traditional Kerala girl would be ideal. His first love, a stewardess, proved disappointing. She used him to get back to her ex-boyfriend!

Paris Laxmi
A French Malayalee
started dancing
Bharat Natyam at 3.

Divya, the only female of the trio, undergoes an arranged marriage to Shiva. After the wedding, Shiva and Divya move to Bangalore. By a twist of fate, her cousins land up in Bangalore. Divya soon discovers that her husband is far from intimate. Their marriage goes through a tailspin. Soon it is found that Shiva keeps a dark secret from his past.

The rest of the story is in trying to tie up everybody's life to a resolution and a happy ending. Inserted subtly into scenes are cryptic messages which tend to answer itself. One visible message is how Indians tend to parrot Western's way of dressing and embracing their culture while the Westerners look highly at the Indian way of living and cannot wait to immerse into them. 

At the end of the film, Kuttan, who was looking out for a typical Bharat Natyam dancing Malayalee with long pleats for matrimony, found one in Michelle, a Caucasian girl fitting the above description!

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More than a pretty face!

Bombshell: The Story of Hedy Lamarr (2017, Documentary)

“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” Hedy Lamarr. 

I bet you did not know that the image of Snow White that we have in our minds, thanks to Disney's classic cartoons, is based on the features of the then dubbed as the most beautiful woman of the world, Hedy Lamarr. Even Catwoman's representation is of hers. There was a time when every actress wanted to spot her similar hairstyle, centre-parted dark hair. Beneath the beauty that she possessed, there remained an inventive scientific mind waiting to create something new.

This Viennese daughter of a Jewish banker, Hedy Kiesler, was a free-spirited lass when at the spur of the moment acted in a dirty German film, 'Ektase' which bewildered her the rest of her adult and professional life. She married an arms merchant (to the Nazis and Mousillini) soon after her fame at Austrian movie set later. Things took a turn after Hitler and his Jewish-hating propaganda took centre stage. Her father, her idol, succumbed to a heart ailment. She staged an escape plan for herself. Swapping clothes with her maid and stitching her money and jewellery in her tunic, she made a dash out of Vienna on a bicycle.

Hedy Lamaar ©Pinterest

She landed in London where Louis B Meyer (of MGM) was scouting for talents. Contracted, she made her debut in a 1938 Hollywood film, Algiers. Struggling through the stereotype that the cinema world gave her as an exotic seductress and the ghost of Ektase, she had her ups and downs. Despite her gruelling schedule in Hollywood, in the nights, she worked in her small lab at home.

It was at this juncture that her full potential as an inventor came to fore. She is said to have given Howard Hughes, the eccentric billionaire inventor, the idea for a brand new design for the wings of his planes. During the heights of WW2, when most Hollywood actresses were content with making special appearances to entertain the US Army and to sell War Bonds, she and a composer-pianist, George Antheil, were busy inventing. When the Navy was paralysed by the German U-boats which could jam the Naval torpedoes, they came up with the idea of a 'frequency hopping' system which could bypass the German interference. They patented this invention, but the Navy was not keen to use this design for a non-military layperson.

Her beauty was also her gilded cage. Perhaps, the feminist she was and the intelligence that she possessed proved too overwhelming to many of her partners in her many (six) failed marriages. She is best remembered as Delilah in 1945 'Samson and Delilah'. Her mega production, The Loves of Three Queens, could not be distributed as no distributors wanted to take it.
Her later life was a sad one riddled with court cases, depression, drugs, plastic surgeries and more surgeries. She spent her last few years as a recluse.

Her 'frequency hopping system' is the basis of GPS, Blue Tooth, Wi-Fi and military satellite technologies. In the later years, she was given due recognition for her discovery.

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