A string of flops

I knew my luck with reading material and movies was going to run out soon enough. I didn't think it was going to be so soon. Lately, precious time has been spent on disappointing books and movies - instead of lamenting about each one, I thought one might bundle them all together.

It is true that just as no good books or movies are alike in their 'brilliance', similarly, no two are identical in their inability to live up to expectations. Starting with Ms Woolfe, Night and Day was left half way. On my way back home from work one evening, with a clarity that is seldom experienced, I realised that life was too short to be wasted on clearly purposeless ramblings with neither sense nor direction. I dropped it promptly.

Since then, I have drifted disconnectedly through Marquez's Memoirs of my meloncholy whores and Maugham's Cakes and Ales. Memoirs... a bitter disappointment. It has left nothing whatsoever behind, neither pleasant memory nor agitated questions. Nothing. Maugham on the other hand redeemed himself partially by the end of the novel in Cakes... The end was worth waiting for indeed. I still wish he had kept to the tightness throughout the novel - it gives the appearance of being crisp, but is in places rather woolly.

On the movies front, I recently saw Banaras and Bachna Aae Haseeno. BAH was a mighty waste of breathe. Why do people not realise that if you want to do something different, you must do it differently? Oh well, I disliked it thoroughly and the only thought I remember gripped me throughout the movie was - how do these women survive when they are so thin?!
Banaras I am a little hesitant to trash outright because it was such a genuinely novel attempt. Treatising on spiritualism is never easy, making a film on it, highlighting its links with the hindu traditions and culture in the backdrop of the life of a holy city is a clear challenge. And while the makers of this particular movie did not pull it off entirely, in bits it was exceptional. I have never been a huge fan of Urmila - she, in my opinion, is just a shade above average. And she was good in this movie. I can't for the world figure out what prompted the film makers to cast the absolutely useless Ashmit Patel in the lead role, nor why Himesh's music was so much rubbish, but I am willing to forgive these mistakes for the attempt itself - a commendable attempt this one.