Chewing it over

Eve must have had a moment or two of hesitation and indecision before she bit into the apple. A moment or two when she weighed her options, thought about what it might be like after ... hell, thought about what it tasted like and if she would like it.

I currently feel like Eve must have, with all this Twilight frenzy around. And which smart-ass decided to put an apple on the cover, I'd like to ask.

It's sort of been on my radar for a bit, it isn't really something one can ignore, what with all the posters popping up in your face as you amble in the city and enough people on buses and trains reading copies of the blighted books.

However, thus far I have resisted. I read Stephen King lampoon the writing* and what other bits I read about the book and the movie said it had an annoying whiny heroine and the acting was bad. I like my heroines to be feisty and spunky and my movies to be convincing. So that's pretty much ruled it out for me so far.

But, I find that I'm slowly being drawn to the edge. I've read enough moxed reviews by now to confuse me into this "To bite or not to bite" state. Pitu says she liked the movie. Twisted DNA's opinion intrigued me even as I gave in to hilarity. The Bride weighs its pros and cons and I do think she makes a fair point. Agent Green Glass isn't very impressed and Metrostudent, on the other hand, is recovering from a forced outing to view the new movie and doesn't feel so kindly towards it:

Verdict – Bella gets herself a new fella (YAWN – AGAIN). He’s not a drug-seller. The Title of ‘New Moon’ is yeller. Please hide this film somewhere where we can’t see it – like a coal cellar.

Sheer brilliance that, I say!

Marina Hyde, one of my favourite Guardian columnists, warns that resistance is futile. The commenters are pretty evenly divided between loving it and hating it. Oh and there's enough feminist musing in there.

"I've seen so many people, usually feminists, say the books are anti-female and promote weakness in woman and in my opinion, that is the total opposite of what they do. Bella is a very strong character, who in the end, saves everyone, including Edward. Most girls Bella's age feel insecure about themselves, but Edward never tries to make her feel that way, he thinks she is WAY too good for him. I've never been able to figure out why people hate twilight so much. You don't have to like it, but what's wrong with a love story, that also promotes abstinence before marriage and family unity. As a mother, I love it." is the response of one woman.

A few comments down someone else says "I do think the whole thing is interesting, but I lack the heart and soul of twelve year old girl." and continues with "I'd like to think the attraction was looking at boys' naked bellies, but sadly I really think it's because these days teenage girls have turned into World of Warcraft playing nerds. I don't really think encouraging abstinence among teenagers is such a good thing. There's nothing worse than awkward ageing virgins in their 20s, or God forbid, in their 30s."

There is also all this talk of Taylor Lautner's abs ("... the main attraction of the new film is Taylor Lautner's amazing abs" ) and Robert Pattison's dishy looks("I'm a 21 year old heterosexual male and I can appreciate that Robert Pattinson is indeed a very pretty fellow") (and I can see the google searches landing people on this page now ... you eye-candy hungry people, you!). Now, I don't give two hoots about Taylor Lautner's abs or Robertson whatsisname (On one of those days when my tongue was more scathing than usual, I was heard to remark 'Bite me?! I'd ask to see a dentist's certificate before I let him so much as smile at me' ... in all fairness, I just wanted to use that line :P) ... but it's making me wonder if I should. I mean, the guy looks like a boy-band member what wit his laal lipstick and too much foundation and last time I checked it was babyface wtchoocallim (Nick Carter, yeah I know his name, rite of passge and all that jazz) ... he was wearing pink lipstick (although it might've been enhanced with photoshop) point being ... I am actually paying attention to teenage sucker phase thingy.

Hell, I even checked out the Guardian's photo-narrative on the new faces in the new movie and the comments about people forgetting red-eye reduction functions on new cameras and something about "another of those blighters" cracked me up but it told me the movie has Dakota Fanning, who, other than having grown up into one helluva cute teenager, shares her name with one of my favourite songs.

I'm not exactly going about kissing posters of Robert Pattison on the underground ... but I'm very nearly sucked into this whirlpool of silliness.


Forget Twilight, place your bets. Will I bite? Will I get bitten? Fate, is it written?



*not that I have a very good opinion of Stephen King and not that his opinion matters much ... be as it may that he's considered a good writer, I find his constant allusion to his work and his belief in his greatness rather tiresome. I prefer authors who possess a modicum of humility.

The Evolution of Racoon-Man

I've been people watching a whole lot lately, on the tube.
It's astonishing how every single person there seems to have dark-circles, puffy eyes and papery bags under their eyes. Even the tourists!*
I'm just wondering, what if dark-circles and puffy eyes somehow become an element of evolution and our descendants sport ghastly bags under their eyes?!
Worse, what if people suddenly accept dark circles as a norm and the next thing you know someone's coming out with eye-bag glitter and jewellery!

*Shelly (not her real name), my housemate, says it's 'Transference' — even if you're calm as such, all the surrounding tension and stress can really get to you.

Put-downable

It occurred to me that over the years I'd heard some real gems in the way of put-downs. Some of them are downright mean but they make me laugh when I think of them and let's face it, mean-funny is something all of us have known, at some point or other.

"Ivna mukha nodidre moor dina oota seralla" (He has a face that would make you lose your appetite for three days). Courtesy a childhood friend who had started junior college then, commenting about all those road romeos found leering at girls outside her women only college.

"Yaar iva hanigi maarava?" (Who's this guy? Looks like one of those comb-sellers on the street). This one is courtesy the family. Ma happened to use it the first time she saw Hrithik Roshan and elicited a 'That's HRITHIK ROSHAN ma!' reaction from a very scandalised brother. She continued to refer to him as 'Rutvik' for a while ... I am pretty sure she did that just to annoy us :P

"Vadak tambigi" (literally 'broken tumbler'). Another family contribution. Most often used to refer to Sunil Shetty by one of my uncles.

"Humara standard itna low nahi hai ki hum tumko bhav dega". The younger sister of a friend, when some random guy tried to chat her up.

"Would you date a dinosaur then if you were mentally compatible?". The brother to some guy who'd been droning on and on and on about mental compatibility. You may be sure 'mental compatibility' is one term we never use in any relationship talk :P

"Why?" One of my cousins. A rather good looking girl, she frequently had guys approach her and do the "I know of you through so and so blah blah blah blah blah blah ... can we be friends/will you be friends with me?" routine. Unluckily for them they never had an answer to her rather simple and (fairly innocent) query.

Edited to add:

"Chatri nan magane!" Okay I don't really know the meaning of this one (help? someone? translate pliss?) and I'm not entirely sure but it might be offensive. This one cracks me up BIG TIME thanks to the scene that I associate with it, stuck in my mind indelibly.

I must have been in third standard. In my class were two kids. Rakesh and Shilpa. Shilpa was a chubby cheeked, somewhat short, usually calm and collected little girl. Rakesh was the quintessential school-boy imp ... always upto mischief, annoying other people. Rakesh and Shilpa had the misfortune of being seated next to each other that year. They seemed to get on okay most days, a skirmish here and there did nothing to make the teacher separate them.

Shilpa used to carry an umbrella to school rather religiously. And she'd tuck it in that space below the desk where we used to keep our schoolbags. One fine day, Rakesh was having a case of itchy hands more than usual and simply could not stop fiddling. After he had attempted to manhandle Shilpa's umbrella for the umpteenth time, she really lost it and yanking it out of its place brandished it over his head and scolded "Chatri nan magane!"

The normally rambunctious Rakesh was reduced to shocked disbelief and his face grew really small. To this day, "chatri nan magane" evokes that face of his, as Shilpa is brandishing her umbrella and reduces me to giggles. What was I doing all this time? Oh I was sat at a distance wathing the tableau ... evidently I was observant AND have good memory.

Knowing

"Sometimes the mystery is better than the knowing, wouldn't you say? Sometimes the journey is better than the destination"

The last thing you'd associate with such profound philosophy is swearing. Or maybe one does. I can't say for sure.

As swear words go, 'Limone' doesn't do too badly. In fact, I think I can recall the usage of 'Lemon' in some Regency book or other as abuse. It wins also due to its inability to make me laugh while swearing at someone — unlike 'Paperskull!' or even 'Hog Dandruff!'

And whilst we're on the subject of swearwords, here's to the chap who taught me beauties such as 'Anoncephalus', 'Gluteus maximus' and 'Gluteocephalus'.

Happy Birthday Treetop!

Of Firsts

It's easy enough for us present day humans — we know a dream's a dream. Or a nightmare. We can deal with those ... thrashing about, screaming, waking up drenched in sweat or continuing to sleep blissfully with only a beatific smile to punctuate the sequence. And very often being woken up rather rudely just as something pleasant is about to happen. But wake up we do, eventually, knowing whatever it was was only a temporary interlude — sometimes remembering, sometimes forgetting.

If you're me, you also wonder which really is the dream and what is reality.

But what of the very first human who had the very first dream? What did he/she react like?

Or are dreams something that have been programmed into the brain patterns of our animal ancestors such that the first human reacted the same way that we do?


P.S: For those still interested (I'm looking at you especially, Catty), I've picked up The Tale of Genji again. It's going really slow I'm afraid, it's not exactly a page turner and all the footnotes and things keep distracting me. Not to mention the fact that all Genji seems to do is sleep around and behave like a little boy. I know, this is what I signed up for but it'll take a while to finish. It's a 1100 odd page book, the last one I read this size or close to it was World Without End and Amazon tells me that was only 816 pages. But I've got pretty haikus and phrases to keep me interested. I would tell you I'm making notes as I go along but I am not. I like to read when I read, not fuss about making notes and nonsense. So in that sense the 'review' is going to be from the heart and straight off the bat, and take ages. Maybe the next ten years. If I'm not dead by then. Or lose my copy. Or something.