April Review of Art (specifically novels movies and music)

  

In the past few weeks, there has been a considerable amount of time to ponder over everything when my surprisingly busy law school life and the attached attachments to it came to an abrupt but necessary end. 

This end also brought to me a stark realization that I had a lot of books, movies and music to catch upon. They have, again to my surprise, taken a very far backseat in my bus. It took considerable effort to complete my first novel when I am used to reading lawbooks or caselaws. The SLS library unfortunately never had any fiction. 

Though ironically the first movie I saw was a visit to the past, the Nolan movie Interstellar. I have come to empathise more with Cooper who had to leave his daughter to save the world. It also reminded me when I first saw this 5-6 years ago I wasn't this emotionally sensitive, even though I always knew all Christopher Nolan movies were fathers going back to their daughters. 

Almost on cue, the trailer for the Odyssey dropped, yet another Nolan story where the father goes back to his family. 

Anne Hathaway is there again reminding me of her famous quote from Interstellar, “love exists beyond space and time” . It produced the same thought and reaction I had when I first heard it 6 years ago “you got to be bullshiting me”. Though today I have from credible sources or from sources who claim to be credible that there are certain practices in Tantra through which that is possible. Ie if you say some mantras and do some poojas you can indeed make love beyond space and time. But I digress. 

Anyways all this space exploration prompted me to finally watch Project Hail Mary. It was profoundly moving. I know for a fact that at least a million people wept when Rocky broke his protective barrier to save Grace. In fact people were so moved they were saying the nastiest things under the reviews which said Hail Mary “ was a popcorn movie ”. Such is human emotion. 

Speaking of moving through human emotion, I managed to see Hamnet. From the very beginning you can see the images being set up, for the final reveal. Of old trees, of unknown birds, all appealing to our subconscious mind, all leading up to that Oscar winning scream of Jessie Buckley. A scream that triggers a memory that is definitely older than us, older than trees, probably the scream that the first Mother let out when it lost its child. 

Equally profound is how Shakespeare tries to sublimate his profound grief into his play. In the play he tries to take the place of his son, so that he dies instead of his son. Mirroring the act that any person who has ever loved tries to do, to take on themselves the pain of their loved ones. So that they do not suffer anymore. Give them to me, Shakespeare prays. 

Such fast emotions and visions finally convinced me to watch the Turkish movie ‘The Wild Pear Tree’. A movie that I have been trying to complete since it was released way back in 2018. It is profoundly slow, one might call it, an extremely boring arthouse film. It involves a son who can't wait to leave his town and a father who is in a sense a problematic dreamer. Ie he is digging a well in a field where there is no water. By the end of the film, the son also joins his father in digging the well. I also finally understood the father because I too will most probably dig a well in a patch where there is no water, just to prove to the world that hope will never fail me. 

While revisiting movies, I  had the opportunity to reread “Never let me go” , one of the many masterpieces of Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. It was a tough read then, it is a tough read now. A story about clones who are raised to be organ donors who don't grasp the gravity of their situation. Whose deaths they themselves describe as “completions”. As the book ends a couple of clones try to prevent the death of their companion by trying to prove to their superiors like the innocent children they once were that they were in love and hence they cannot be separated. Their plans don't work out. And that is what stays with us as the book ends , of being adults who still play the same moves that we had in our childhood not knowing what else to do in a rapidly changing, unforgiving world. 

I also read Amitabha Bagchi's 5th Novel “Unknown City” which had been pestering me to read it since January. A brilliant examination of brilliant people who were not as smart as they thought they were. Tumbling through their effervescent relationships without bothering to pause, to think maybe I should really examine myself. A story about people who spent their life thinking through it rather than living it. Any 23 year old will feel second hand guilt at the sheer carelessness the characters show in their day to day lives. 

Though I am not going to write about it here, I found two other books that were very interesting during this period. One is ‘Red Birds’ by Muhammad Hanif and the other is ‘A Far Field’ by Madhuri Vijay. A far field I have yet to complete while red birds is a minor miracle. 

Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Eleventh Hour’ is a welcome addition if you, like me, have a habit of reading short stories. It involves people who can't wait to die and people who want to stay even after death and a touch of magical realism in between. I was personally satisfied with it primarily because I finally got a hang of Rushdie’s prose. I remember my head going in circles when I first read Midnight's Children, trying to make sense of his sentences and metaphors. I am finally happy to have acquired the intelligence to understand Rushdie’s magical realism, though people remind me that if Midnight's Children was a hard read, you might be stupid. I agree stating that I also didn't like Murakami's Norwegian Wood either, by that point they call me weird. 

In music I found that the season is resplendent with heart rendering melodies, soft yearnings as per usual. I suggest ‘Renegade’ , a song by Taylor Swift when she was in a band with Bon Iver( yeah they have a band) which was new information to me. If you want something more cathartic, I suggest the great Chris Stapleton's rendition of the American National Anthem at the Superbowl. I assure you it will blow away your mind and you will finally understand why the US can't stop bombing everything that they see. I also wanted to add something soft here, but I will go ahead and add a song my mom has been listening to recently. It is called ‘Sneham Née Nadha’ a lesser known song from the Malayalam movie Charlie. Extremely potent I tell you if you have anxious mornings like my mother has . 

To end this unusually long rabble, I want to come back to Law, specifically two cases which I had to read way back in February . One involves a mother who has petitioned for medical termination of her child (Merin Jose vs UOI). The child if born would have severe heart problems which will progressively worsen in a financial and mental nightmare till it ends as every such story ends. In MTP cases the psychiatrist has to examine the mother to make sure, among many things, that she will not suffer in the aftermath of the termination. The psychiatrist notes that the mother is making the decision to terminate the pregnancy in extreme mental pain, but she does not feel guilty. Because in her heart of hearts she believes if this child is born it will be an act of selfishness and not of love. Yet the formidable pain of losing a loved one remains. A very moving picture of courage, of a person who has to let go and does not allow the pain of loss cloud her judgment. 

The second case is Mini R. K. Vs State of Kerala which is the story of a young wife who has lost her husband and is trying to get a compassionate appointment. What is striking here is the endless empathy of Justice Nagaresh as he turns to his legal prowess to help another human. Justice Nagaresh retired recently sadly. Such people remind me and remind us to try again even after immense failures, to be more empathetic.