If Slumdog Millionaire deserved the global recognition it got, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas should be accorded no less. Unlike the graphic templates we are used to with films set in and around Nazi Germany, Striped Pyjamas provides us a vantage point unlike most in its genre. Its explorations of human vicissitudes amidst crises open us to possibilities of orientation to human situations without overt reference to violence –despite violence's palpable imprint.
Seen through the eyes of Bruno, the eight year old son of a German officer in-charge of a concentration camp, Striped Pyjamas is an exploration; in a profound sense of the term. Bruno’s love for adventure books inspires him to explore, a childlike instinct which leads him through questions that push him beyond his circumscribed limits. The answers do not seem critical to the screenplay. Rather, Bruno takes you along in his playful yet profound adventure: you skip along eagerly through the woods of discovery, playfully eavesdrop on an adults-only screening, long for atonement after slighting a friend, and even find out that a shower is never always just ‘another’ shower. Pushing one beyond the familiar modernist urge for a neat and structured end, Striped Pyjamas’s motions unsettle popular notions. The resulting ambivalences pry through the in-between spaces that, according to one cultural critic, bear the burden of how we grapple with notions of ourselves and/in culture.
While both movies were released around the same time –Slumdog in January 09 and Striped Pyjamas in November 08 (source: IMDb)– Striped Pyjamas went under the radar. Maybe the current economic climate helped Slumdog sell its rags-to-riches story better.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Chin Day Celebration
Chin-Mizo and other hyphenated people group expats in SoCal met to celebrate the 61st anniversary of the Chin Day.
I'm sure the organizers had their best intentions to line up a talk on "Chin Migrants in India." A very gracious Dr. Hrangkhuma tactfully deflected the title's problematic implications to suggest the underlying commonalities that should/could be better celebrated. All in all, a great evening of fun food and reconnecting with like folk in the area.
I'm sure the organizers had their best intentions to line up a talk on "Chin Migrants in India." A very gracious Dr. Hrangkhuma tactfully deflected the title's problematic implications to suggest the underlying commonalities that should/could be better celebrated. All in all, a great evening of fun food and reconnecting with like folk in the area.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
"I am a 'Decider'"
The Obama dispensation has fueled much postmortem dissections of the preceding Bush idiocracy. Stand-up fare almost misses Bush for all the ready-made fodder he never failed to deliver. Not that I am particularly invested in such an indulgence but rather that the much publicized Bushisms seemed, in a wry manner, to put some of my thoughts in perspective- here's my shot at a systematized reflection.
Having fended for myself over the last three decades, I almost got to consider my solitude as a conclusive self-definition. A psychiatrist friend once sized me as overtly gregarious and yet innately introverted. I seemed to have passively internalized his evaluation while always conscious that another part of me wanted to break the mold. Recent run-ins to make longterm connections fell flat with each failed connection seeming to thicken the mold.
While on a teaching stint at a theological college in Aizawl, a rather unassuming Kimi walked into our faculty meeting. Nothing significant transpired beyond the perfunctory student-teacher interactions. But images from that first encounter remain as fresh as ever. There was that one time when a student's mother passed away and we had to rush to the hospital. It being an emergency, Kimi jumped behind me on my bike. I admit I was tempted to apply that strategically timed brake; but resisted. Kimi was always that forbidden allure. Academic protocol would just not let me step beyond our bounds. (As a disclaimer, these details should never crop up on my résumé!)
I moved across continents and solitude could not have been more palpable. That’s when I called Kimi to greet her on a Christmas in 2006, well, also to reconnect with someone who had once made me skip a few heartbeats. Over a few tri-monthly calls, I popped the question where angels feared to tread. Protocol, academic and/or societal, always limited full expression of the innermost longings. My phone bills though were a little more telling. An invitation to participate in a symposium at Kolkatta provided me much needed funds and all the legit excuses to make a trans-Pacific detour to Aizawl to meet Kimi for the first time, now no longer a student, as my partner. The phone calls intensified in frequency, length, and tenor.
One year down the line, we decided to make public our mutual commitment before friends and family through marriage. Though not as neatly contrived as a syllogism should be, the structure of these memories I gather seem to fit in neatly with Bush’s sill(y)ogism. Long term commitments are decisive moves that one grapples with and hopefully perseveres to see through. I, for one, am a decided-er!!
Having fended for myself over the last three decades, I almost got to consider my solitude as a conclusive self-definition. A psychiatrist friend once sized me as overtly gregarious and yet innately introverted. I seemed to have passively internalized his evaluation while always conscious that another part of me wanted to break the mold. Recent run-ins to make longterm connections fell flat with each failed connection seeming to thicken the mold.
While on a teaching stint at a theological college in Aizawl, a rather unassuming Kimi walked into our faculty meeting. Nothing significant transpired beyond the perfunctory student-teacher interactions. But images from that first encounter remain as fresh as ever. There was that one time when a student's mother passed away and we had to rush to the hospital. It being an emergency, Kimi jumped behind me on my bike. I admit I was tempted to apply that strategically timed brake; but resisted. Kimi was always that forbidden allure. Academic protocol would just not let me step beyond our bounds. (As a disclaimer, these details should never crop up on my résumé!)
I moved across continents and solitude could not have been more palpable. That’s when I called Kimi to greet her on a Christmas in 2006, well, also to reconnect with someone who had once made me skip a few heartbeats. Over a few tri-monthly calls, I popped the question where angels feared to tread. Protocol, academic and/or societal, always limited full expression of the innermost longings. My phone bills though were a little more telling. An invitation to participate in a symposium at Kolkatta provided me much needed funds and all the legit excuses to make a trans-Pacific detour to Aizawl to meet Kimi for the first time, now no longer a student, as my partner. The phone calls intensified in frequency, length, and tenor.
One year down the line, we decided to make public our mutual commitment before friends and family through marriage. Though not as neatly contrived as a syllogism should be, the structure of these memories I gather seem to fit in neatly with Bush’s sill(y)ogism. Long term commitments are decisive moves that one grapples with and hopefully perseveres to see through. I, for one, am a decided-er!!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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