The joy of the climb to the top?

Seemabaddha - সীমাবদ্ধ, Company Limited (1971)

Screenplay, Music, Direction: Satyajit Ray
Seemabaddha is the second of trilogy of what is referred to as the Calcutta trilogy. I guess it must be depicting the changes in Calcutta society and the challenges faced the urbanites in modern times. Will wait and see what the rest has to offer...
It tells the story of Shyamal, a son of a teacher from Patna who manages to secure the prestigious Senior Management Trainee post in a British electrical company after obtaining his M.A. in English. Before starting the film proper, before the opening credits, we are introduced to the protagonist for the viewers to get an idea of his background and the change of his lifestyle that he is living.
After starting as a trainee in Delhi, Shyamal rapidly climbs the ladder of promotion and is given the post of Sales Manager of Hindustan-Peters fan division. Things are looking promising for him - a nice flat, 7 year-old son in boarding school, bought flats for parents, servant, working with English management, living their high life, managed to secure a big shipment to Iraq....

At the races

In midst of all these, his wife, Dolan's sister, Tutul (Sharmila Tagore) comes to stay in their flat. Tutul, a graduate from Patna, new to city life, sees how her sister and brother-in-law's life has changed, incorporating western life style seamlessly as their own. Alcoholic beverages flow freely, cigarette puffing all over the place, ladies also indulging at same level with their spouses in banter and drinks. Sometimes Tutul finds it awkward, especially when Shyamal's parents made an unexpected visit to the flat once. Tutul also cannot stomach the fact that it is alright to go the horse races.
Shyamal finds that he finds it easier to converse with Tutul as compared to his wife. Perhaps, it is because she is too engrossed in her own life style or maybe Tutul is more naive and impressionable. I gather that Tutul is quite impressed with her sister's choice of husband and secretly wishes that she could land up with a well to do and ambitious husband like her brother in law. (Or are they have something on? It is left to our imagination!)
Of course, as in any of Ray's film, none of the messages are put right smack in your face but through subtle inneundoes.
A little thing that I learnt via this flick is the significant presence of ethnic Chinese in Calcutta (through a scene at a beauty parlour). Oh, yeah! There were plenty of characters in the film with big, probably with fake  hair buns, like the one Amma and her contempories used to spot in RRF.  Quick Google search revealed that Chinese made big landings through ports like Calcutta and Madras in British India. Calcutta is the only town now with a Chinatown.

Sea IP Church, Calcutta.

When it seem like everything was going on just fine, it suddenly came to Shyamal's attention that the fan shipment to Iraq did not meet certain specifications. Rectification would take time, deadline would have passed and would incur great loss to his promotion and the company.
As he was casually discussing the problem with Tutul, which he had conspicuously hidden from wife, Shaamal gets an idea.
With the help of the labour officer, they devised a plan to start a commotion at the canteen over workers' dissatisfaction over the food served. It snowballs to an union strike.
It saves the company but at the expense of injury to an old faithful worker. Somehow, Shyamal is felicitated for handling of the strike, even though he started it in the first place and is made a company director. The injury and misery to the small men appears not to matter to the big men.
He feels happy but it appears that whatever respect he earned from Tutul seem to have vanished in this single act. In a symbolic gesture, when it was time for Tutul to leave, she leaves behind the watch that Shyamal had lent to her to use during her stay in Calcutta. Shyamal buries his head in shame. Guess, the climb to the top feels nice and we feel that we want to do it by whatever means. Our conscious, if we have one, will always prick us where it hurts us most!
A joyful depiction of subtle emotions in an intelligent manner, without the melodrama that we are fed day in and day out....

The ballad of a restless jobless man

Pratidwandi (The Adversary, Siddharta and the City, Bengali; 1970)

Even though this is said to be the first of the Calcutta trilogy and supposed to have been released in 1970, it was re-released in 1972 with another name, hence the confusion and the two names.
It deals with social issues faced the city folks of Calcutta.
The scenario at the beginning may be familiar to viewers of Tamil cinema of the 80s where social issues were the mainstay of the day. Unemployment, joblessness and poverty was the order of the day. The hopelessness, however, was not so hopeless. Our protagonist still could afford cigarette and have a decent drink for themselves!
As many Calcutta city dwellers of the 70s, the hero Siddharta Chaudhry is unemployed. He had to cut short his medical studies after the untimely demise of his father and join the rows of youths attending interviews. He finds it difficult to gain employment. His political views, leaning to the left, is not helping in his interviews either. During an interview, when asked about greatest human achievement of the 60s, he chose the fighting spirit of Vietnamese over the moon expedition! (And justified it too!)
Incessant unwarranted advice from friends and elders stresses him up. He senses a hint of sarcasm among friends on the fact that his sister, Tapa, is employed and is doing well in her career. Siddharta has another brother who is probably in some kind of revolutionary activity.

Back at home, the vivacious Tapa, a secretary in a big firm and is due for a promotion has big plans for her future. She was taking dancing classes and has dreams of doing some modelling. Accusations are hurled against her of having an affair with her boss by her mother and her boss' wife. Even Siddharta thinks so too.
Siddharta even goes to the boss' house just to find that probably there is no truth in any of them.
All through the film, there would be sudden change in frames, sometimes in a comical way. When our hero sees a pretty girl cross a road, suddenly the frame goes to his medical school days when his Professor is teaching his class the lymphatic drainage of the female breast! There are a few flashbacks like these during his conversation wit his siblings to illustrate their bond and how things have changed.

In a few recurring scenes, the director in his own way, chuckles at the antics of the Western tourists who seem to be fascinated with everything there including the view of a cow roaming the streets! Seriously, our hero is still searching for that meaning of life...
A friend who introduces him to the flesh of forbidden love but Siddartha chickens out.
On his walk home, a friend of his cousin, Keya summons Siddartha is help out during an electrical blackout. Love blossoms. Both try to ventilate each others' woes. Keya lost her mother when she was 7 and her father is due to marry after all these years.
Another interview... this time 75 candidates for a post of 4! A weary waiting candidate passed out. Siddartha, all this while had shown adversity to the rich and entrepreneur class, barges in the interviewers' office for a showdown, thus blowing his employment opportunity.
In the end, he decides to take up the job in Bularghat, a place far from Calcutta, that he never wanted to go and he also never wanted to work for a big enterprise, a pharmaceutical company. Keya had left for Delhi and had promised to write if he would.
Siddartha thinks he would like Bularghat as he had finally heard the sweet sound of a singing bird from his childhood that he always wanted to hear but could not. The End.
There are many issues highlighted here - inequality in job opportunities between sexes with women in the favourable position, the carefree live of the westerners and the bourgeoisie whilst the general public scrapes for a living and the tumultuous way of life in this densely packed city in the late 60s and early 70s with the aftermath of the Partition, the brewing of civil war and the infiltration of leftist ideology.

Rabid attachment to her furry little animals, still!

Heard an interesting podcast recently...
There was this 15 year old girl in Wisconsin in 2004 who became febrile and started losing her coordination gradually. Exhaustive medical investigative procedure came to zilch. And her condition was deteriorating. She was almost in and out of coma.
While engaged in small talk during the visit by her old paediatrician, the mother mentioned about their visit to the church the previous month and how the animal lover part of the girl helped a stranded bat in the church. The bat was injured was flying helplessly banging into the glass and missing the exit. Her Good Samaritan deed earned her a bite on the hand which the family nursed it as per a usual wound. That struck an alarm... Bats, bites, rabies...Unfortunately, rabies had 100% mortality rate. The doctors could not do much but put her in a dark room, minimise stimulation, supportive care and slowly ease her path to meet her Maker.
Left with Hobson's choice, the family kept on doing the only thing that kept them sane after seeing their springy teenager slowly withering away- prayers and more prayers.
Then an infectious specialist offered an experimental form of treatment. The rationale of treatment was that rabies does not actually cause structural damage to the brain. It paralyses the vital functions of the body before our own antibodies are able combat the offending intruder. So, if there was some kind of way to maintain vital functions and organs, the body can produce enough antibodies to fight the disease. They started antiviral treatment and ventilated here for 2 weeks.
After many tense, hopeful and false alarm moments, she slowly recovered. And she continued recovering till she finally passed college with flying colours, albeit not 100% yet. And she is now working with bats and other animals aiming to be a veterinarian!

Jeanna Giese

Unfortunately, the success of the same form of treatment had not been replicated elsewhere, although some success was seen but not 100%! So, what happened? Were the parents' prayers answered? After all they were all regular church goers but then why being bitten by a bat in the church in the first place? Is this some kind of divine mirth or divine comedy or errors of divine proportions? Errors corrected by sending of a healer with knowledge to rectify? A device to garner more support from congregation by flaunting of powers?
Is it because she may been partially immunised by a lesser strain of rabies? Or the current strain is less virulent? Literature had suggested people living in close proximity with animals reputed to carry the virus had survived in anecdotal unconfirmed reports.
We can all believe in what we want to believe... At the end of the day, she and her family kept their faith and it seem stronger now.
Another discussion point in the podcast is the use of this modality of treatment to be made available to all victims who had missed the window of opportunity to receive the immunisation or symptoms have emerged. Unfortunately, there is the cost factor which needs to be considered. Guess you have to be born in a rich family or country to be bitten by a rabid animal!

The other side of poverty?

Now, see the caption below. How often have we seen these type of pleas for help. We grew up hearing these type of melancholic wailing and sobbing and 40 years forward, nothing has changed. Still the same old, same old, helplessness and hopelessness. Something is just not right. These small people are walking the tightrope of life with no social safety net below them. That is why we have leaders to be their mouthpiece to demand their place in the sun, on earth. If you do not see any change, something is wrong somewhere in the system, the delivery or the subjects!

Now, just the other day, as my friend visited his usual den in his usual Chinese restaurant, the usual Myanmarese helper came to take his order. But this time, helper told him that that was his last day there and that he was to off to US with a green card and that one round of drinks was on him.

Picture blanked to save identity!

They sat down to hear his story. He landed in Malaysia as an UN refugee without the ability to utter a single word of English. He started helping around in restaurants, helping and doing odd jobs. On the side he started
learning English. He also started a provision shop to cater for fellow Myanmarese's needs. To further boost his income, he did some money-lending for a fee. At the height of his 'career', he used to earn up to RM20,000 per month; and that is excluding the bribes to the authorities (police and immigration) who harassed him incessantly, pilfering up to RM5,0000 in a month!
He was 28years old when he came and in 12 short years, he made himself a fortune and was heading over to  the land of opportunities. It only makes one wonder what he will achieve there!
Do one have to live in fear of prosecution to succeed in life? Are natives at a disadvantage compared to refugees? Do we have to be refugees to succeed? 

Nostalgia

Recently met a guy whom I last met more than 40 years ago. Yes, 40 years ago! When he was a skinny 20 something year old chap all sprung up to find a place for himself in the big wide world while I was also a skinny lad hardly able to read and write.

We were introduced to each through a common acquaintance and whoosh glazed the avalanche of memories like a flashback scene in  a movie! Of course the memories were patchy and sporadic. The more you tried to think about it, a few more just pops up. That chap was quite amused and sometimes embarrassed with some of the things that I remember about him during his weekend stay in my house.
They say that little things excite little minds, so the little things that he and my uncle did stick permanently on my mind. The sight of with face full of shaving foam was new for me then as my dad never used foam. They used to laugh a lot then while shaving. It was followed by a splash of aromatic liquid from a cute bottle which I came to know later as 'Old Spice' after-shave liquid.
For hair grooming, a little scoop of Tancho with the index finger, rub on the palms almost obsessively, slide over the hair, 10 minutes of grooming and viola you are ready to go. This part was just part of old memories of a bygone era as he had lost his prized crowning glory quite early in life. On the other hand, my uncle is still faithful to his Tancho Pure Vegetable Nourishing Pomade after all these years.
To uncle B, you sculptured the idea in my young mind of how a mach man should be - tall, intelligent, opinionated, articulate and suave!

Ain't nothing gonna stop 'em now!

Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock

So you think your job is tough, eh? Imagine two soft rock crooners in their mid 60s going round the world selling their songs, singing in the heat and glitz of stage spotlights, to entertain the ardent fans and for their supper and then the regular drummer does not turn up and call in very sick. You are stuck in a foreign country with a gig to fulfill and no one at the drums.
That is the turmoil that would have gone through the minds of the singing duo from Down Under who had fulfilled the needs of many a testosterone raged teenager to his impress his 'victim' on the day of the 'chocolate covered candy to give away'. And we are not talking about the 1929 Prohibition-era Chicago massacre!

63 and still rocking

Again to re-live good old care free days of the 80s - PFS and USM, we, a quartet, though half a century living and counting, decided to indulge in a little nostalgia.
The Aussie duo was around again and this time, literally at our backyard. So, Air Supply it was, live for the second time!
Performing in a spanking new 5000 seat auditorium with its state of the arts audio and lighting equipment was impressive. I thought the music was kind of overpowering the vocals or maybe it was just me, a tone deaf! Or is it some kind of musical trickery?

67 and still crooning for that elusive love!

The fact that it was held in a venue set up by a particular faith did seem to deter certain outwardly piety vibe emitting  individuals, on the whole, the audience ranged from the silver-haired to those who were not even in a meiotic stage of their existence! Perhaps, they were there after winning some lucky draw contests. (Unlikely though, way too many. Probably karaoke singing romantics)
The drummer's post was filled by our own Malaysian drummer Darren who did a more than decent job with the sticks.Kudos!
The whole was a night of nostalgia with the duo belting a mix of old and new songs. The audience were all deeply engaged in every lyric of the song, singing their heart out, more involvement than you had even during the singing of the national anthem during an open ceremony of a football game!
Then, the show was over and it was back to life, back to reality.
Hey, if these people can still go on doing what like best at this age and for 36 over years, ain't nothing gonna stop me from running all the way into the sunset.......

Business as usual?

This is how we do business in Malaysia?

3 years after last having a fun time at an Indian restaurant which offered nice food, nostalgic music and ambience, my wife and I tried to relive the moment. 

To our dismay, we found that the perfect hideout had transformed, not for the better but down turned for the worse. The duo who serenaded and crooned to the tunes of the golden era of the Hindi songs were no longer there. The duo hold a special place in our hearts as they had performed at our wedding reception. In their place was a small stage where young girls, probably from the slums of Mumbai, gyrating away to the recorded songs of latest Hindi movies in their strategically revealing costumes which were quintessentially Indian. Gone are are the decent Malaysian crowd only to be replaced by shady foreign working class characters who don shades even in the dimly lighted ambience of this shady joint! Looks like after Mumbai have outlawed 'Chandni Bar' type of dancing bars where girls/single mother stricken by poverty swayed their hips to the sway of flashing rupees to relieve their hunger pangs and the loved ones, had made it to our shores.

Well, we should have realized that this was the state of affairs of businesses in Malaysia. The owners would start something good, put their heart and soul into it, create a lot of hype about it. It will soon the talk of town. People would jam pack the joint and wonder they actually lived before, before the outlet was even around. The owners would start seeing ringgit and sen in all the patrons that walk through the front door. Then they would start thinking that they had the inherent talent at this business. Some bright spark would suggest that the owners perhaps should start opening branches.
Kaboom! Branches would spring up, supervision of services would decline and pretty soon cobwebs would growing at the entrance. The owners would whine and blame everybody from the ruling government to the corrupt officials to unreliable foreign workers to fickle minded customers for their failed business venture. Basically everyone else but themselves! They forgot that there is something called dedication and hard work before you can, if ever, be a zamindar, sitting cross-legged on an arm chair observing the world below working at auto pilot!