Dog day afternoons, a sentimental misanthrope, and two books about animal rescue

[My latest First Post piece touches on two dog books -- though this is only tangentially a books column]
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On the spookily quiet afternoon of Sunday, March 22 this year – during the “Janta curfew”, two days before the first lockdown was announced – I was walking to the chemist’s shop in my colony. Almost no other humans were visible, apart from a few in their balconies, frowning down at this curfew-violator; it was so still I thought I could hear leaves fall from trees some distance away.

Worried as I already was about the pandemic and what was likely to come (you didn’t need to be an epidemiologist to know that extended lockdowns lay in our future), the full implications didn’t hit me until I passed a well-known vegetable vendor’s tent – always bustling with activity, now closed for the day – and saw the man’s dog sitting all alone, looking lost.

Here was this familiar white creature, his open and affable face seemingly lined with stress. This was the first time he was spending hours on end with not even one of his people around, and with no human sounds within earshot. He must have been very disoriented.

Subsequently, when the lockdown began, my thoughts turned to the many street animals in our neighbourhood who had been adopted or befriended by shopkeepers or roadside retailers or dhaba-wallahs: people who would no longer be around to put out food and water and, just as importantly, to pat and pamper the animals. The dogs in the nearby multiplex complex. The dogs left in parks that had been summarily locked up (this being before animal-welfare teams got into action). The wilder dogs on the periphery of the residential areas, much less accustomed to human kindness, who used to scavenge in the rapidly emptying garbage dumps. I had a few sleepless nights listening to urgent cries in the distance as terrified dogs strayed into other territories and fights broke out (and as my house dogs became watchful and tense in response). It wasn’t until I had got myself on animal-feeder WhatsApp groups, got in touch with other concerned people in the neighbourhood, made a couple of trips with bags of food for stranded animals in the areas I knew well, and got a movement pass through Maneka Gandhi’s organisation, that I felt more at ease. Anything I could do would be a tiny drop in a deep and dark ocean, but at least there was a sense of purpose.

What was more surprising – speaking as someone who has often casually described himself as a misanthrope – was that during this process I also found myself feeling sentimental about my own species, and becoming very annoyed by the online memes that went “Humans are the virus, Covid is the vaccine” or “We are the most destructive species – nature thrives without us”. Partly, this is because I have never had a rose-tinted view of the natural world anyway; I think Tennyson’s “red in tooth and claw” is, if anything, an understated description of the countless random cruelties inherent in nature. But my growing concern about humans was also a result of my relationship with street dogs over the years. Since these are very social animals – who not just depend on people for food but also genuinely like being around us – I had access to this vantage point: how sad and empty a human-free world might look through the eyes of a creature that has evolved socially alongside us over tens of thousands of years, become one of our most steadfast companions, emotionally enriching many of us along the way.

As a lovely, unexpected plot development in the new web series Paatal Lok has it, dogs can be our guiding lights, bringing out the best in us – people can find personal salvation in caring for dogs, it can even help them stay out of harm’s way. One of our most steadfast helpers, Ravi, who has been spending 10 to 12 hours on the road every day feeding and medicating injured animals during the pandemic, believes that this work has helped keep him safe – not so much for mystical reasons but because it gives him a sense of fulfilment and duty, prevents him from falling into despair or homebound ennui, keeps his spirits and immunity levels higher than if he had been cooped indoors for two months. It sounds pseudoscientific, but I hope there is something to it.

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The many experiences of the past two months also had me revisiting a couple of books by and about people who discovered a new dimension in themselves and found their senses sharpened through animal rescue. Pen Farthing's One Dog at a Time: Rescuing the Strays of Helmand is about a British soldier who became involved with dogs while he was posted in Afghanistan, battling the Taliban (and therefore supposed to be concerned with more “important” things than stray animals). And Steven Kotler's A Small Furry Hope: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life is about the experiences of the author and his wife Joy as they started a sanctuary in New Mexico for dogs with special needs.

The scale and scope of the two works is different. Kotler's is more wide-ranging, touching on the philosophical and scientific aspects of the human-animal relationship. He does of course tell a specific story, looking at the minutiae of dog care and the many daily challenges: e.g., is it better to go for high-quality but expensive dog food, or to compromise just a little on quality but take the risk that this will lead to medical conditions requiring costly care? However, he expands the canvas too, delving into such questions as the nature of altruism, where our urge to help other species comes from, and why grief caused by pet loss can be so complicated and intense.

Farthing’s book, on the other hand, is more functional and soldier-like in the writing, and is determinedly about the here and now. His concern for one dog – being used in a savage dog-fight by the locals – gradually snowballed into something bigger, until he found himself stretching military rules to provide shelter to a group of animals, and eventually making attempts to have them transported to a makeshift animal shelter in north Afghanistan. This situation – finding the time even during a war to do something for helpless creatures – isn’t unlike the situation some animal-lovers find themselves in during the current pandemic, where they are told that they have their priorities mixed up.

The experiences of Kotler and Farthing are different from my own in the specifics, yet many times while rereading these books I found something that struck a chord. “Joy once told me of an exhilaration unlike any other she’s ever known that comes from seeing a dog reborn,” writes Kotler, “In the psychology of altruism, that rush is known as helper’s high.”

Meanwhile, Farthing writes: “I couldn’t just walk away. My problem now was that the dog with no friends and I were becoming mates […] As I gave him what was probably the first bit of compassion he had ever been shown, I wondered whether I had done the right thing for him and the other dogs. I’d given them a totally unfounded trust in humans. When I was gone that might not be the best thing for them.” This is something that many people who expanded their animal-feeding operations specifically for the lockdown period are thinking about: how long is this sustainable, and what happens to these animals when things return to relative “normalcy”? What about all the irresponsible speeding drivers, endangering the animals who had begun drifting towards the middle of the roads when human movement ceased?

In the end, both these books are about people transformed. They are versions of the parable about a boy throwing starfish back into the sea, one by one; each rescue might seem insignificant in the larger picture, but makes a world of difference to that one creature. Much in these pages should be very familiar to anyone who works with stray animals, constantly balancing the need to make a meaningful difference with the knowledge that there will always be many failures and hopeless cases. And the possibility that everything might go south at any time, leading to a potent sense of loss. Yet we keep at it, doing what we can – there is no real choice.

[Earlier First Post columns are here]

Bookshelves past: The Famous Five, not by Enid Blyton

From the Land of Long Ago. This series of Famous Five adventures was written in the 1970s, a few years after Enid Blyton’s death, by the French author Claude Voilier. I remember devouring a bunch of them at a go and realising that they were very different in tone from the original Blyton books — less cosy and provincial, more cosmopolitan and action-packed — though it was nice to encounter the familiar characters again. My favourite in the series was Five Versus the Black Mask, which I read out to my mother and was disappointed when she wasn’t astonished by the identity of the masked criminal. (These days, of course, anyone who wanders around mask-less is instantly identifiable as the bad guy.)

Anyway, my big revelation on pulling these books out after decades: the English translations were by Anthea Bell. Anthea Bell! The legend who, in addition to her celebrated work on Asterix (which I never read as a child), also translated many "serious", grown-up books I read later in life, like Sebald’s Austerlitz and Szpilman’s The Pianist. Quite pleased, with hindsight, that I experienced her work so early without even knowing it at the time. 

P.S. These were bought at between Rs 17 and Rs 19 — from Teksons, South Extension, I think; this would have been in around 1983-84. Anthea Bell also translated another Blyton spin-off, a series of new adventures for The Secret Seven. I have a few of those too, though I don’t remember reading them.

Lockdown chronicles contd: Pratima Devi

An update about Pratima Devi a.k.a. the “kutton waali Amma” of PVR Saket: I went to see her this morning and was glad that she was looking relatively well. A few extra tarpaulins are in use to keep the worst of the Delhi sun away. Some of the dogs have mange and other related skin problems, and aren’t getting as much medical attention as they need these days, but nothing terribly urgent. For now.

I had posted a few weeks ago about a white Spitz/Pomeranian who had been abandoned near Pratima Devi’s shack (Facebook link here). This dog had seemed very unsettled and scared then – didn’t look like he would survive for long in this environment – but in typical style she has made him one of her own, and he is very attached to her now. (Don’t miss the other fellow sunbathing on the chair in the background in the photo.)

That might sound like a sweet story, but just to reiterate something I have said many times before: it is ghastly how many people use this old woman as a dumping ground for dogs; she makes sure to sterilise every dog precisely because she wants to keep the population under control, and at her age it is too much of a responsibility to start looking after new litters of pups. It was particularly sad to see a St Bernard – of all dogs – who had recently been abandoned. In this heat. (Naturally, he has been given a haircut. A picture of him here with Pawan, who is helping Pratima Devi with the feeding and medicating.)

P.S. Pratima Devi’s son Sapan is going back to his village in Bengal next month – it has been chaotic there after the cyclone, but there’s also another problem, one that I have heard expressed many times in recent conversations: the fear that many villagers have of those who are returning from cities, potentially carrying this terrible new disease that can’t be meaningfully treated in rural areas if it spreads there. Reena, who manages my mother’s flat and has family near Nischintapur in Bengal, tells me she has been on the phone nonstop with worried relatives who are asking her (because she is the city-dwelling oracle who MUST have the answers) what is to be done about all these migrants who are returning home from metropolises as far-flung as Chennai and Bangalore. Do they “isolate” them, for how long… and where?

 

P.P.S. here is a very short video of Pawan -- not in very good health himself at the time -- rescuing a dog from a deep drain. This was a few weeks ago.

An online class about Aakrosh and Bhavni Bhavai

There’s a thing called "Zoom", on which you can see many small talking human faces if you’re thus inclined, including your own. Thanks to Basav Biradar, who invited me to participate in one of his Indian New Wave cinema classes, I used this for the first time a couple of days ago. It was a fun session that covered a range of subjects and reminded me how much I miss teaching film criticism/analysis (or really, just discussing films with a group of engaged students).

Basav and I figured it might be interesting to discuss two 1980 films — both debut features by important directors — that dealt with caste oppression in very different ways: Ketan Mehta’s Bhavni Bhavai and Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh. This gave me a chance to rewatch the two films close to each other, making it easier to appreciate the similarities as well as the differences (and the similarities within the differences). Was struck again by Nihalani’s use of Om Puri (something I wrote about earlier in the context of Ardh Satya, Aghaat and Party), and how he employs Puri’s remarkable face as a canvas in Aakrosh. (In that sense, this director-actor relationship was almost as intense as the ones between Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, or Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, or Orson Welles and Orson Welles.)

Some of the talking points during the Zoom class included:

- the use of the folk-theatre idiom in Bhavni Bhavai
 
- how “serious” actors respond to absurdist or slapstick comedy (obligatory Jaane bhi do Yaaro reference here)

- the breaking of the Fourth Wall — and the denunciation of the movie viewer as smug and apathetic — in films like Bhavni Bhavai, and the endings of Nagraj Manjule’s Fandry and Saeed Mirza’s Arvind Desai
 
- Nihalani’s use of extreme close-ups to create a sense of claustrophobia or entrapment

- the meaning and function of the famous dual ending of Bhavni Bhavai, with gentle idealism making way for savage, no-punches-pulled activism (as the angry Mohan Gokhale character tells the singing sutradhaar, “too gentle is your river / too slow is its flow / we won’t live forever/ it’s now or never”)

- how a person from an underprivileged group might turn on — or become contemptuous of — his own origins after reaching a position of relative privilege (e.g. the Amrish Puri character in Aakrosh)

- what makes the structure of Aakrosh like an investigative thriller in places? My answer: the Naseer character Bhaskar is for long stretches the only “active” figure in the film, the only one constantly pushing ahead, trying to learn and uncover new things, immersing himself in his case much as he plunges joyfully into the sea in the film’s opening sequence. (Not very unlike the Ayushmaan Khurana character in Article 15. And of course, if Aakrosh were made today, Bhaskar too would be dismissed as a “Brahmannical saviour” in many quarters)

- The use of Hindi in Benegal's and Nihalani's films, the shift away from Urdu dialogues that were associated with a grander, less "realistic" film aesthetic, and how the studied naturalism of the New Wave films was linked to their use of language

- the politics of representation in both films, and how even the “parallel filmmakers” could become formulaic or create their own star system.

And probably a few other things I have forgotten. Anyway, the discussion went well, I think, and I’m toying with the idea of starting informal online classes myself. Anyone who is interested or has suggestions about what to discuss, get in touch. Otherwise I’ll go rogue and do something like best Norwegian horror films made before World War 1 or something such…

[Related posts: Nihalani's Aghaat and Ardh Satya; Party; Bhavni Bhavai]

Animal-feeding at the Indian Garden Park, contd

[Earlier post about the Indian Garden Park here]
 
The feedback I often get on my animal-feeding/animal-rescue posts is that it’s heartening and inspiring to read about people like Ravi and Manoj and Pratima Devi and the many others who are doing so much good work. This is true, of course, but it’s important also to remember that all this is a drop in an ocean. For every heartwarming story about an animal being saved, there are dozens of other depressing cases where no meaningful help could be provided: with RWAs and other residents impeding rescue efforts, or the practical difficulties of getting hold of a frightened/timid animal that needed medical aid, or weak pups dying of Parvo. 

(Too many grisly stories to list, but it was particularly sad to hear yesterday about a resident Mother Dairy cat — who had delivered kittens just 3-4 weeks ago — being run over late at night by one of the many irresponsible drivers who are letting out all their pent-up lockdown energy by zipping wildly down the roads. The kittens had only recently opened their eyes and were very dependent on the mother; a local cat-lover has temporarily taken them in to feed them, but I don’t think she will be able to keep them for long.)

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that at times like this, one has to still keep sharing the good stuff when possible. Here are some images from the latest feeding expedition to the Indian Garden Park. My Dogs in Saket project collaborator Moutushi Sarkar and I went along with some food, but organiser-in-chief Rohit Chakrabarti had gathered a number of others together this time. Youngsters from an NGO, as well as volunteers who work for the German Embassy. A couple of them had come from as far as West Delhi, and it was great to see the reserves of compassion and empathy they have at their age. When I was in my twenties, despite my mother being such an animal-lover, street animals were on the periphery of my consciousness — I would never have taken this much time out for them.

There is a video below of a few dogs swimming, hippo-like, in their private jungle pool. And another one of a dog eating directly from a young feeder’s hand, while another dog observes and learns (these forest animals take some time to get used to the feeders). And the photo, a nice composition by Rohit, has the alleged co-authors of the Dogs of Saket book that is in cold storage for now (unless one ends up self-publishing.)

 


 

P.S. As always, anyone who is interested in coming along to the Indian Garden Park, most welcome. Rohit tells me there tends to be a feeder shortage on Wednesdays.

A beginner's guide to the best of contemporary Malayalam cinema

[A couple of weeks before the first lockdown was announced, I was to begin a video series for the recently launched Cinemaazi project. That is obviously up in the air now, but I’m doing some writing for the website. Here’s the first piece, a shout-out for some excellent films from what is arguably the country's most vibrant cinematic culture today. Most of these films are streaming on Prime Video or Netflix]
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“You don’t know my story, manager,” a young African footballer named Samuel haltingly tells his club manager Majeed, “Our life… not like your life. You don’t understand.” Samuel goes on to describe the crippling poverty back home, and his efforts to build a better life for his family by coming to India where athletic foreign players are in high demand. But now he is stuck in a small Kerala town, unable to return because his passport is lost and there are ongoing investigations against refugees.

The 2018 Malayalam comedy-drama Sudani from Nigeria centres on the cultural disconnect, slowly yielding to friendship, between manager and player – and in fact this disconnect is written into the film’s very title: Samuel is Nigerian, but some locals reflexively think of Africans as “Sudani”, not realising that Sudan and Nigeria are different countries. Eventually he stops trying to explain the difference.

If that generalisation makes you chuckle, remember that there are many educated north Indians who think of south India, and south Indian films, in similarly amorphous or broad-stroke terms. Even someone who is sensitive enough, or politically correct enough, to avoid terms like “Madrasi” (which so many of us Hindi-film viewers used in the 1980s) might remain uncertain about which state speaks Telugu and which speaks Malayalam; and even someone who identifies as a movie buff might think of Tamil and Malayalam cinema as interchangeable. (A friend, a critic from Tamil Nadu, once told me about how a Mumbai-based employer assumed that he would understand Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam without the aid of subtitles.)

None of this is said smugly – I speak as one who has been implicated himself. Though I began exploring many sorts of international cinemas in my early teens, “south Indian films” remained a big gap on my viewing resume. Consequently, my recent encounters with contemporary Malayalam cinema have been both daunting and exciting, and a reminder of those teen years spent with subtitled films: navigating one’s way through cultures one knew little about, learning about the oeuvres of this or that director, cinematographer or music director, gradually identifying and warming to actors as one saw them across a number of roles.

Going on such a voyage of discovery in one’s forties is more unsettling, very different from scampering to film festivals and Embassy libraries as an adolescent; even the most enthusiastic and open-minded film buffs tend to stay in comfort zones beyond a certain age. But some of the processes, the connecting of dots, stay the same. For instance, my reason for choosing to watch Sudani from Nigeria wasn’t just that it was available on Netflix (many fine Malayalam films are now): it was that I had lately become familiar with the work of the wonderful actor Soubin Shahir, who plays Majeed here. Watching him in the film’s trailer, and then in the first scene, was reassuring and provided an entry point.

Through watching many fine films from the state recently, I have been learning about both the cinematic idioms and aspects of local culture and daily life depicted in them: from the forms that religious practice takes in Keralite Christian and Muslim households to how men drape the mundu – folded up or worn full – depending on occasion and whom they are speaking to. But of course, this is very much a work in progress, with many discoveries yet to be made. With that caveat, here are some films to get you started:

Kumbalangi Nights
Even those who don’t follow “regional cinema” may well have heard of Madhu C Narayanan’s much-acclaimed Kumbalangi Nights. This is a good starting point for the untrained viewer, because it is a warm, accessible, narrative-driven film with lilting music, a terrific mix of comedy and drama, and super performances by some key actors. The story centres on the rough-hewn Saji (Soubin Shahir again) and his three brothers, living and squabbling together in a Kochi village. Theirs is a caveman existence in some ways, which has a lot to do with the fact that there is no moderating female presence in their lives – but as this slowly changes, their emotional lives undergo a shift too. What really sets the cat among the pigeons, though, is the nearby presence of a more seemingly balanced sort of family headed by the fastidious Shammi (Fahadh Faasil), who thinks of himself as a “complete man”.

The contrast between Saji and Shammi – two very different sorts of patriarchs in very different situations – lies at the heart of this story about masculinity, family ties, the class divide, and what it means to be civilised or savage. Kumbalangi Nights is one of those deceptive films that achieve narrative complexity without seeming to make much of an effort. When you think about it afterwards, you might think mainly of the funny scenes, many of which centre on Faasil’s performance as the control freak who starts short-circuiting like a defective robot when his authority is challenged; but when you’re watching it, it is impossible not to feel the emotional resonance of scenes like the one where Saji realises he needs to go to a psychiatrist and cry his heart out. Or the delicacy of the romance between the mute Bonny and a visiting American. Or an unforgettable little image of a Bluetooth speaker playing gentle music in a messy house late at night, glimpsed from the lake far outside.

Ee. Ma. Yau and Jallikattu
Lijo Jose Pellissery is one of the bona-fide auteurs of contemporary Indian cinema, a director who leaves a distinct visual and aural stamp on most of his work, and the last few years have seen a spate of acclaimed work from him, notably Angamaly Diaries, Ee. Ma. Yau. and Jallikattu. Here’s something I find fascinating about Pellissery: on the one hand, he clearly puts a lot of thought and craft into his shot compositions and gives the impression of maintaining rigid control over his mise-en-scene – in this, he belongs to the tradition of directors like a Victor Erice or a Stanley Kubrick. And yet, there also seems plenty of space for the loose, serendipitous moment; for the way in which the interplay between two or more actors might change the dynamics of a scene.

The first Pellissery film I watched was Jallikattu, an extraordinarily ambitious account of a village hunt for a runaway buffalo, co-written by the acclaimed novelist S Hareesh. Here is a film full of hypnotic images and sound design, starting with a striking montage of people in various stages of sleep or wakefulness, and insects going about the day’s work at dawn – and ending with a sequence that makes explicit the link between this story and primitive humans hunting for food. But my favourite Pellissery film so far is Ee.Ma. Yau, a lovely portrayal of death as both comedy and tragedy.

Pellissery is known for the fluidity of his long takes – the camera weaving in and out of spaces, encompassing the actions of a number of different characters – but what’s equally seamless here is how the narrative moves between hysteria, farce and deep sadness. I haven’t seen many other films that manage to be so funny, dignified and mournful at the same time, often achieving all these things within the same scene (depending on which part of the crowded frame you are looking at). There is genuine loss and grief, but there are also marvellous depictions of the more performative versions of grief – most notably in the lamenting of the dead man’s wife Mariam, whose her histrionics become like a tragi-comic chorus running through the film.

Virus
 Aashiq Abu is another of the most respected Malayali directors and producers, and his 2019 film Virus – a taut dramatization of the challenges facing medical professionals during the Nipah outbreak – is one reason why. Virus is, obviously, a very topical film in the current moment – perhaps even more so given the widespread admiration for Kerala’s efficiency in handling the Covid pandemic. But thematic relevance apart, this is first and foremost a superbly structured film, bringing the quality of a well-paced investigative thriller to a real-life tragedy. It moves from the small picture to the big one, incorporating the personal stories of many individuals infected (or affected) by the virus, as well as what the nature of the spread tells us about the society in which it occurs. It is chillingly familiar in its depiction of the panic caused – even within the medical fraternity – by a disease about which not much is known; and yet it offers hope too.

Most movingly for me at a personal level, Virus is also about the connectedness of life beyond the human world – a theme that runs through many major films and novels from Kerala, where the many components of the natural world are a constant, humming presence in the background, sometimes making it to the foreground as well. This film may have my favourite ending of any Indian film I have seen in the last few years – a mystical scene involving a baby fruit-bat that has fallen off its tree. Without underlining anything, the scene offers a small reminder of how both human strengths and vulnerabilities are inextricably linked with the planet’s other living creatures, our place in a larger ecosystem, and the many ways in which we can harm and help each other. It also reminded me of a beautiful, graceful moment in Ee.Ma.Yau., an image of the souls of two men, a dog and a duck all preparing for a final journey.

Uyare
Among the films that are relatively conventional in their telling but derive their effect from a powerful performance, a good example is Uyare, about an aviation student named Pallavi (played by Parvathy Thiruvothu) whose life and career threaten to fall apart after an acid-attack by her boyfriend. The metaphor of a woman “taking off”, refusing to be tethered by a patriarchal world, is perhaps a little too obvious: that’s inevitable in a story about a pilot struggling to be accepted in her profession while also caught in a nasty relationship that culminates in an insecure man disfiguring her face. But along with its big-message moments, Uyare also has some sharp little observations about the world that its protagonist has to negotiate. Such as the scene where one of Pallavi’s male colleagues is bemused by the signs outside a toilet, and she explains that the single “Blah” is supposed to represent men while a nonstop “Blah blah blah blah blah” indicates the ladies’ room. (“Because men talk only when necessary – at least, that’s what men say.”) Which genius thought this up, the colleague asks, and she replies, “I don’t know, but it must have been a man.”

Scenes like this are lightly played, but they add up like jigsaw pieces that go into the making of a more sinister picture, one where women are first gently patronised and then oppressed or bullied with force. And Parvathy’s intelligent, sensitive performance – unafraid to move between strength and vulnerability – is a big part of the film’s effect (her performance as an unobtrusive but efficient contamination-tracker was also central to Virus).

Vikruthi and Maheshinte Prathikaaram
There is also a subgenre of slice-of-life stories built around a seemingly everyday incident that spirals into something big, and eventually reveals things about the characters and the society they belong to. Two good instances are the 2019 Vikruthi (Mischief) and the 2016 Maheshinte Prathikaaram (Mahesh’s Revenge). The former is based on a real-life story about a speech-impaired man, Eldho (wonderfully played by National Award-winner Suraj Venjaramoodu), who becomes the butt of scorn after he falls asleep on a train in exhaustion and a fellow passenger takes a photo of him. While Eldho is obviously the object of the film’s sympathy, what Vikruthi does expertly is to intercut his story with that of the man who is the agent of his humiliation, and who also gets to experience what it is like to be persecuted – this narrative structure eschews a straightforward victim-oppressor tale in favour of a nuanced examination of how two paths can collide with unfortunate results, and how an instant-gratification, technology-driven society is quick to judge people on very little evidence.

Maheshinte Prathikaaram is another many-complexioned film that seems unobtrusive to begin with, but slowly grows into the story of a man who must move towards a moment of private reckoning. Fahadh Faasil plays a photographer who gets humiliated in a street brawl and vows not to wear slippers again until he has had his revenge. You’d think a premise like that could make for a straightforward action drama or a straightforward slapstick comedy, but the storytelling is unconventional and detour-laden, and (much like Kumbalangi Nights, Ee. Ma. Yau. and many other films) the film milks whimsical humour from sombre situations. (Funerals, for example, can be both romantic and funny.)

There is a climactic fight sequence and it’s superbly done – it is messy, realistic, comical, but also conveys what is at stake for Mahesh, how his whole sense of self is at stake. And yet, after all that is over and the task has been accomplished, the film ends on an almost sheepishly charming, down-to-earth note. Want a story about a seemingly ordinary man caught in a slightly-unusual situation, told with heart and depth? Here you go.

Unda
 One of the by-products of a cinematic culture that is moving from personality cults towards more grounded and realistic representations is that there are slyly affectionate inside jokes about older films and actors. For instance, Maheshinte Prathikaaram has a scene where a character, watching a film on TV, holds forth on the relative merits of superstars Mammootty and Mohanlal: the former will play any role, he says — a tree-climber, a tea shop owner, whatever – but the latter is great because he will only do “top-class” parts. (The reference won’t be immediately clear to an outsider, but this is a dig at Mohanlal’s tendency to play upper-caste characters.)

In this light, it’s intriguing to observe the friction within a film when a superstar of yore gets cast in a relatively non-showy part. In the 2019 Unda, Mammootty plays Mani sir, the leader of a police unit that is sent to Naxalite territory in Chhatisgarh for election duty. These cops are clearly out of their depth here, as lost as the “Sudani from Nigeria” was in a Keralite town – they struggle with lack of resources and information, language barriers, the hostility and suspicion that comes their way from the locals, and the note of terror that is struck with every uttering of the word “Maoist”.

It’s amusing to see Mammootty billed as “Megastar” in the opening credits of this film, where his role is so subdued, and where his character even becomes paralysed in a moment of crisis, unable to issue a command. He does briefly get to be the super-cop action figure in the climax, but the dominant image for much of the film is that of an avuncular man in a check-shirt, buying Parle G biscuits to distribute among his unit; or his eyebrows furrowing with concern and incomprehension when people speak urgently in Hindi in his presence.

In general too, Unda might be too quiet for some tastes if you go into it expecting a story about a police-Maoist confrontation. Like the Hindi film Newton, which covered similar ground, this is a slow-burn film, and that is part of the point. Those mythical demons, the “Maoists”, are notable mainly by their absence: wait and wait for them, but like Godot they might never show up. Instead there are other, more palpable dangers: in the cultural disconnect between this police unit and their setting; in the blatant and casual election-rigging by local politicians and their goons, which the police are expected to look away from; in the persecution of poor indigenous people. By the end, we will see that this is a story about the many ways in which people can be adrift, in a land that both is and isn’t their own.

[An earlier piece about Kumbalangi Nights is here. And here's one about Virus]

Feeding diaries, contd: dogs and nilgai in the Indian Garden Park

I have lived in Saket for 33 years, but it took a lockdown-driven crisis for me to visit the Indian Garden Park (just 300-400 metres from my house) for the first time. Eleven acres of forest land, not too well maintained (which is of course the case for many such spaces in Delhi) but good for long walks, and some interesting terrain: sloping paths, little ruins, sudden inclines and gullies (this area was originally part of a fort).

 

For the first month of the lockdown, a resident named Rohit Chakrabarti began going to the park every day with heaps of food for the 30-odd dogs trapped inside. In the past few weeks, a few others have been helping out; and with the help of Maneka Gandhi’s team, the main gate has now been opened for designated feeders coming at specified times. 

I am not looking to develop regular bonds with new groups of dogs outside the many I already know and feed outside two flats in Saket (and on the route between those flats), but it was nice to get some feeding done yesterday. Not so nice to see that some idiotic youngsters have made a habit of breaking the clay bowls in which water is left for the animals. And not so good to hear about the dozens of pups who have died of starvation/dehydration/parvo here in recent times, despite the feeders’ efforts. (But that is one of the inevitable sideshows of these times; on my walk this morning, I saw a large monkey lying dead near a parked car.)


There are nilgai in the Indian Garden Park too; in the video here, you can see Rohit feeding one. Shy animals, as you might know, but extreme hunger overcomes that after a few days. 

Anyone here who lives in the vicinity of Saket/Sainik Farms/Saidulajab and feels like coming across one day with food for the dogs, let me know. It takes around an hour, and it provides some good exercise. (During the last two months, I have averaged around 12-13K steps per day, but I crossed 20K steps yesterday thanks to the park visit – and wore out my last decent pair of shoes.)

Rafael Nadal in 2013: an essay for a Sportstar book

[Earlier this year, during that strange and unfathomable time when sports tournaments were being played around the world in crowded arenas, a new book celebrating 40 years of Sportstar magazine was published. The format had 40 writers doing essays about a key year in the career of 40 sportspersons. My piece is about what I consider Rafa Nadal’s best year, 2013, and I was very excited when Sportstar asked me to write it. Having been an avid reader/hoarder of the magazine during my cricket-watching years more than two decades ago (especially when someone like Nirmal Shekar or R Mohan wrote a piece about one of my favourites), it feels warm and fuzzy to be IN a Sportstar for the first time. Not to mention that Sachin Tendulkar and I are, ahem, co-writers here — and rival co-writers to boot, since his contribution is about Roger Federer! Back in 1996, I could never have guessed that such a thing would come to pass.

At the same time, without getting into sordid details, problems cropped up with the book – among other things, the production was delayed and delayed again and then again, and the essay had to be reworked more than a year after I submitted it. Won’t focus on that here, though. Here is the piece]
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If you’re a sports lover who has pledged his troth to a player or team, you get used to moments of euphoria coexisting with moments of soul-crushing disappointment. Especially in a tense, oscillating match such as a Grand Slam final, where each hard-fought point, each rally ended with a decisive statement of intent, can make a big difference – not just in terms of who wins the current game, but for the psychological stakes involved.

In my most unforgettable sports memory, elation was preceded (for just a split second) by dismay, and the dismay was caused by a misunderstanding – the sort of misunderstanding that any long-time fan of Rafael Nadal might be prone to.

It’s that game, and that point at the end of the third set of the 2013 US Open final between Nadal and his most dangerous opponent ever, Novak Djokovic. Rafa has a break point that is also a set point. The rally stretches on, both men first playing cautiously, then speeding up the pace, turning defence to offence while sustaining a level of intensity that only their matches can produce. Djokovic’s forehand targets Rafa’s backhand, seems about to wrest control, but then Rafa gets the ball on his stronger side and lets one rip, smashing a forehand deep in the deuce court – so deep that, watching on a non-HD TV, I think the ball has gone just long; and meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I see Rafa looking like he has awkwardly fallen to his knee.

It’s all over, I tell myself in the time it takes these perceptions to coalesce: Djokovic will go on to win the game and then the set; and now it looks like Rafa’s famously fragile knee is in trouble, too; yet another injury in a career obstructed by them?

In another microsecond, I knew what had really happened. Rafa had caught the line with that blazing forehand; Djokovic, flailing, hadn’t been able to handle it; and Rafa, who had stumbled a little after hitting the shot, allowed himself to get down on that dodgy limb and celebrate with a mighty fist pump. Cut to his family and team in the stands, his girlfriend and dad exchanging goofy, disbelieving grins, the latter holding his head as if to stop a vein from bursting, like he had at the end of the 2008 Wimbledon final, like so many Nadal fans have done so, so often.

(Here is the point in question. The video embedded below has the full match.)




It’s hard to explain how much was at stake in that point, and what an incredible set this had been – a seesaw and a roller-coaster thrown into one. With the match tied, Rafa had fallen 0-2 behind in the third, and he came perilously close to going down two breaks; Djokovic was in one of his terrifying runs of form, reminiscent of 2011, when the brilliant Serb won six straight finals against Rafa. But Nadal held, broke back to make it three-all – and then went down 0-40 again before holding to reach 5-4. Then came that final game, with Rafa winning four straight points to steal the set. And Djokovic wilted, going down tamely in the fourth.

That game, that point, that moment, summarises what I think of as Rafa’s greatest season – which may be an unpopular view, because others will point to 2010, the only year in which he won three Slams, and still others to 2008 when he played that extraordinary Wimbledon final to dethrone Roger Federer and became world No. 1 for the first time after three straight years of tailing his older rival.

But 2013 is extra special for many reasons. In terms of the quality of competition he stared down, it was certainly superior to 2010 – there were far more triumphs against top-10 players, including three very satisfying wins against Djokovic. Two of those came at Slam level – the classic five-setter in the Roland Garros semifinals and the US Open final – but just as pleasing was the hard-fought win in the Montreal Masters semifinals, one of Rafa’s many high points during the most impressive non-clay run of his career: sweeping the three big autumn tournaments in North America – the Canada and Cincinnati Masters followed by the US Open. This is something that even hard-court masters like Federer and Djokovic haven’t done, and I rate it among the highest of Rafa’s achievements.

Then there is the fact that the 2013 season began with Rafa slowly, very slowly making his way back from one of his many demoralising injury layoffs. He didn’t play the Australian Open, opting to find form in small South American clay tournaments in February – losing the Vina del Mar final to world No. 73 Horacio Zeballos, then working his way up until he was confident enough, and ready enough, to win the Indian Wells Masters, beating Federer along the way and Juan Martín del Potro in the final. These were still baby steps, of course, on the road to the form that saw him beat the dominant Djokovic in vital matches later in the season.

So, 2013 for the win? I think so. With 2010, 2008, 2019, 2017 and his breakout year 2005 (first Slam, four Masters 1000 wins) coming a close second (in more or less that order).

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There are some obvious things to be said about the experience of being an obsessive Nadal fan, and some of them were on view if you saw the expressions on his team’s faces at the end of that third set. They were probably thinking exactly what I, and millions of other Nadal fans, have thought thousands of times over the years: How did he pull that off?

Having followed him match by match, tournament by tournament, since early 2006 – pacing up and down in front of the TV, pausing between points to refresh the chat page on whichever tennis website I’m logged into at the time – I know all the mood swings. You feel exhausted, almost like you have played the match yourself. You wish, at moments, that he were a more efficient, balletic player like Federer – so that, win or lose, at least the match would be over quickly and you could get back to what remains of your life. But you also appreciate what he means when he says, in interviews, that “suffering” through a match is often more important than the final result. And that he can take nothing for granted, not even against the lowest-ranked opponent.

And there are the deflating blows that come with realising that his body has let him down yet again, just when you felt he was on the cusp of a big achievement or was rounding into peak form – as happened when he had to withdraw after two rounds of the 2016 French Open.

But for a diffident fan like me, following Rafa has also been a matter of constantly being surprised in good ways: the goalposts for what is possible have shifted and shifted and shifted again. Back in 2006, I was surprised when he beat Federer in the French Open final (after barely squeaking through in the marathon Rome Masters final they played a few weeks earlier, and struggling through early rounds at the French) because I thought it was pre-destined that Federer would complete the Roger Slam. Then I was surprised when Rafa won his first non-clay major in 2008. (One persuasive narrative back then was that Djokovic, who had just won the Australian Open, was set to be the true all-court successor to Federer.) I was surprised when he won a hard-court major at the 2009 Australian Open (after playing a five-hour semifinal), surprised when he made a brilliant comeback in 2010 after a disappointing few injury-afflicted months, surprised when he overcame his 2011-2012 setbacks against Djokovic. 

I was astonished when he returned to No. 1 in 2017 after two strife-filled seasons where it had seemed clear that he was in a sportsman’s final twilight. And most recently, when he took back the number one spot from Djokovic near the end of the 2019 season (a season that had begun with the Serb conclusively overpowering Rafa in the Australian Open final) – and then rounded his year off by helping Spain win the Davis Cup in its new format, all the while celebrating and encouraging his countrymen like a teenager in the arena for the first time.

To describe sports fandom as a roller-coaster ride would be to imply that the object of that fandom is mercurial or inconsistent, burning bright but briefly. But with Rafa, the greatest and most improbable of his legacies – one that most observers would never have predicted a decade ago – involves longevity. In 2014, he became the first male player to have won at least one major in 10 consecutive years – an achievement largely determined by his mastery of the clay at Roland Garros, but no less impressive for that. As of December 2019, he has been in the top 10 for over 760 consecutive weeks, never falling out of that hallowed space since he first entered it in early 2005 – and is almost guaranteed to break Jimmy Connors’s record of 787 weeks.

This wasn’t supposed to happen! These are achievements one expects from the more “efficient” great players, like Federer or Djokovic or Pete Sampras.

Given how accustomed Rafa’s fans are to “suffering” with him, it feels almost poetically appropriate that when I first began putting together notes for this piece, Nadal was in the midst of another injury-related setback. With Djokovic having made his own comeback, and generally appearing less prone to recurring injuries, who would bet on Rafa continuing to be dominant in his mid-thirties?

But after everything that has happened from 2005 on, who could bet against it? For many of us, watching Rafa make repeated comebacks and play tireless defence-to-offence against a sportsman’s biggest nemesis, Father Time, has been more fulfilling than watching all those close matches against his biggest flesh-and-blood rivals. His playing style won’t let him continue for more than another three or four seasons, some commenters (including some of us gloomy fans) were saying when he was still a teen. Look how that turned out.

Lockdown chronicles – a reunion of old foes: a man in a mask and a dog in a muzzle

More about animal-care. I wrote five years ago about the wonderful incident of the black dog in our colony who made it all the way back to Saket after running away from Friendicoes, where we had sent her to be spayed (the post is here, for anyone interested). This dog, who still doesn't have a name apart from a generic Kaali, is the mother of my Lara, and as a result I feel a strong connection with her – even though she only sometimes came to our lane and I didn’t see her for days or weeks on end. In the past year or so, now that she is very old, she has settled down a bit and is being looked after by a nearby resident; I give her some paneer and biscuits whenever I see her.

Kaali developed a nasty, festering ear injury a few days ago, and once I realised how serious it was, I called Ravi and Manoj, who do so much animal-feeding and rescuing for us during these locked-down days. With the help of a guard, we managed to get her leashed and into an enclosed space (which can be the hardest part of these missions), and for the past three days extensive treatment has been underway. Anyone who has seen a deep ear injury in a street dog will know what I mean when I say this was a touch-and-go case. The initial cleaning resulted in the evacuation of literally dozens of big dead maggots – a day’s delay and they would probably have burrowed into her brain. But Ravi, as usual, with limited resources, carrying his own very basic medical kit everywhere, did a great job. Chances are she will recover fully in a few days.

Two things about this: 1) When I was a child, probably right up to age 11 or 12, my stock answer to the question “What will you be when you grow up?” was “A veterinarian.” (Then, of course, I got older and wiser and the answer became “a chartered accountant”, which seemed the practical thing, and which is what I still tell anyone who asks me the question today.)

Very often in recent times I have felt like that childhood dream has been belatedly realised – that I have become, if not anything like a full-blown vet, at least an acceptable apprentice. (My most damaged and troublesome dog Chameli has usually been the conduit for this.) And never has this feeling been more pronounced than in the past few days: no surprise when one is administering various sorts of medicines at regular intervals, cleaning deep and ugly wounds, and assisting in the removal of clusters of maggots from delicate places. My mother, who smiled proudly whenever I said “a vet” as a child, would have liked hearing about these adventures.

2) As I mentioned in that old post, Ravi was Kaali’s nemesis in 2015 – he was the one who took her to Friendicoes for her operation, she escaped from him and would bolt, snarling, every time she heard the sound of his car when he tried to find her. Now, five years later, their paths have crossed again in unexpected circumstances, and it feels like things have come full circle – it’s a tale that has redemption, grace, forgiveness, all those grand and inflated human themes. She has been terrified during the treatment, but there’s a more resigned, senior-citizen look in her eyes when she sees him, as if she’s saying, “Well, I can’t run away from you all my life, and there isn’t much life left now anyway, so let’s get on with this.” (Meanwhile, Ravi tells her elaborate stories in a steadily comforting voice even as he does the treatment: things like “Haan haan, Friendicoes mein woh Chhotu abhi bhi aapke baare mein poochte rahta hai – woh kahin phirse toh nahin bhaag gayi?”)

Today, after we removed her muzzle and leash and set her free, I was surprised to see her walking back towards him and wagging her tail a bit, even though she had been shrieking in pain when her ears were being cleaned. Displays of trust like this make many of these situations seem worth the effort.

 

[More about Ravi and Manoj and their efforts here]

For Vimla Srivastava, in admiration

Had put this on Facebook around a month and a half ago, but wanted to share it here too. Shortly before the first of the lockdowns was imposed across India, I got news about the passing of someone whom I had never met and had only interacted with on email (a few brief exchanges over five years), but who I’m certain must have been a positive inspiration to thousands of people over her long lifetime. Vimla Srivastava Jauhari — teacher, humanitarian, animal-lover. 

In March 2015 I received an email from Vimla ji: 83 years old, from Hardoi district, UP. She had read about Pratima Devi/Amma — the “dog mother” of PVR Anupam — on my blog, and wanted to know how she could contribute a small monthly amount for her. “I know that Delhi is a rich place and there must be financial help for Pratima Devi,” she wrote, “But I am a pensioner and can part with a fraction of it every month for her cause.”

I sent Vimla ji the account details for Pratima Devi (remarkably, she thanked me for doing this!) — and starting that month, she arranged for a fixed amount to be transferred every month to the account. Most of our subsequent interactions were limited to her sending me yearly notifications that the transfers were continuing; I gave her updates about Pratima Devi and the dogs, sent photos. Once in a while, she would also send a general note, share a video link about environmental damage and so on. She followed my blog and Facebook posts occasionally, and asked how my mother was doing during the cancer treatment.

During one exchange, when I intended to write “Thank you for your continuing assistance”, I accidentally wrote “…for your continuing existence” instead. When I mailed to correct this, she replied:

“Your mail made me laugh...each healthy day (existence) granted by GOD after 80 is a blessing, no worries.”

Around a month and a half ago, I received a Facebook notification saying that Vimla Srivastava had passed away after a heart attack. I’m sure she will be missed and remembered by many people who knew her at much closer quarters, but I’m glad to have crossed paths with her, even if only in this distant way; though we never even spoke on the phone, it feels like a personal loss.