The first few days in France and a little later...
A couple of years ago I went to France. The first two days were terrible. I was missing India badly. Without much knowledge of the French language, I just sat at home and did what I did best: read up. Then, I managed to get internet at home and from then on, did manage to survive better. (That's probably the first time I became dependent on friends and the internet! Sigh!) I did not like the idea of a blog then and created a google group to which of course I invited none (the same way this blog remains undisclosed). Four pieces I wrote then are as follows:
First Post. It’s been 20 days since I arrived in France. I recently got my own Internet and so the hub of activities, of creating writing groups etc. I have read after coming to France: A House for Mr. Biswas, Eastern Philosophy and Time, Space, Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality. For 20 days, that’s not bad at all, right? Other books in progress are Working with Feminist Criticism and The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics and Gender. The reviews of each of these books will be duly posted. Not sure as yet if want to invite anyone here at all. It will be my own place, to write, to be.
In France, I learn a new skill everyday, right now with computer it seems, but when I first came, it was the new flush button, a different looking tap and every day I struggle with the microwave. My window opens to about 10 small trees and everything is beautiful. I am content to be all by myself, in this 10X10 room, with its two lamps, its small kitchen, table and bed. Its huge mirrors help me do yoga better.
As I stay here, I dream of my own house, maybe in Bangalore. A small house, with a small garden, a good kitchen and I think I could live a hundred years reading, writing and experimenting with different ways of being…
Good luck to me on my first post!
A House for Mr. Biswas. A house for Mr Biswas was really enlightening for me and opened up many new ways of connecting to life that I had long not been actively involved with. It reminded me most of my aunt's house in Mysore where we could go every summer to meet up with lots of other cousins from everywhere.
The novel has commendable sense of humour and captures a lot of the Indian approach to life with beautiful dignity. The struggles of a middle class family are portrayed amazingly well. Naipaul does deserve the Nobel after all!
I sat up many nights to finish this novel.
Tarot. Yesterday I discovered the tarot on the internet! at http://www.tarot.com/ ...one that you can draw all by yourself online. It was a good experience. I drew the cards many many times ...for all kinds of questions. And guess what it took me just one day to exhaust all my questions! I sent references to my friends and earned more Karma coins (yes, that's what they are called!). I then used up all the coins. This will become a new addiction with me, along with the daily horoscope that I already read. Tarot cards identify the situation you are in; tell you what attitudes you must have and much more, with considerable accuracy. They propose a 'how-to' way of relating to the world and yourself. This is refreshing, although one knows most of this stuff if one has grown up in India. To follow them as exercises you set up for yourself is so much fun and so very relaxing. These days everything seems to acquire constitutive proportions for me...is that a good sign? Will ask the tarot!
Water. I watched Water with my friend Vanessa Frangville last week (paying 6 euros, that’s 360 rupees! I am still calculating between currencies, of course!). But it felt good to watch it here in France. The film has bad acting by all; John Abraham and Lisa Ray are really bad, but Seema Biswas's stern-dignified looks were better. They too could not save the film however and Lisa Ray's character has no depth at all. The film has in it, the favourite political positions of Deepa Mehta, a Gandhian one, an unthinking follower of tradition, a modern one, and some other permutations and combinations...all defined by Mehta herself! So the viewer has really no scope for imagination! Madhu Kishwar's critical essay of Mehta's Fire which I translated into Kannada is still fresh in my mind. And Kishwar was unhappy with Mehta too.
For Mehta, it seems, evocation of shock and pity is all there is to what Indians can muster through they lives! My friend Vanessa understood this well and said she wondered about what to feel, knowing fully well that the film is meant to produce shock and pity. But she did weep through the film and so did the others in the audience. The bad life of imagined Indian widows or a French need for catharsis: take your pick. The film was shot in Sri Lanka, having wirnessed protests in India...wonder if it’s still banned in India!
I was ten minutes late for the film and had walked for almost an hour to get there and saw a new place in Lyon called Bellecour Square.
Music by Rahman is brilliant and wasted. Some scenes are moving. But the camera is too self-conscious; striving to create beautiful pictures and stills all the time! Sri Lanka looks grey in it. But my walk back home across the river was green!
First Post. It’s been 20 days since I arrived in France. I recently got my own Internet and so the hub of activities, of creating writing groups etc. I have read after coming to France: A House for Mr. Biswas, Eastern Philosophy and Time, Space, Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality. For 20 days, that’s not bad at all, right? Other books in progress are Working with Feminist Criticism and The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics and Gender. The reviews of each of these books will be duly posted. Not sure as yet if want to invite anyone here at all. It will be my own place, to write, to be.
In France, I learn a new skill everyday, right now with computer it seems, but when I first came, it was the new flush button, a different looking tap and every day I struggle with the microwave. My window opens to about 10 small trees and everything is beautiful. I am content to be all by myself, in this 10X10 room, with its two lamps, its small kitchen, table and bed. Its huge mirrors help me do yoga better.
As I stay here, I dream of my own house, maybe in Bangalore. A small house, with a small garden, a good kitchen and I think I could live a hundred years reading, writing and experimenting with different ways of being…
Good luck to me on my first post!
A House for Mr. Biswas. A house for Mr Biswas was really enlightening for me and opened up many new ways of connecting to life that I had long not been actively involved with. It reminded me most of my aunt's house in Mysore where we could go every summer to meet up with lots of other cousins from everywhere.
The novel has commendable sense of humour and captures a lot of the Indian approach to life with beautiful dignity. The struggles of a middle class family are portrayed amazingly well. Naipaul does deserve the Nobel after all!
I sat up many nights to finish this novel.
Tarot. Yesterday I discovered the tarot on the internet! at http://www.tarot.com/ ...one that you can draw all by yourself online. It was a good experience. I drew the cards many many times ...for all kinds of questions. And guess what it took me just one day to exhaust all my questions! I sent references to my friends and earned more Karma coins (yes, that's what they are called!). I then used up all the coins. This will become a new addiction with me, along with the daily horoscope that I already read. Tarot cards identify the situation you are in; tell you what attitudes you must have and much more, with considerable accuracy. They propose a 'how-to' way of relating to the world and yourself. This is refreshing, although one knows most of this stuff if one has grown up in India. To follow them as exercises you set up for yourself is so much fun and so very relaxing. These days everything seems to acquire constitutive proportions for me...is that a good sign? Will ask the tarot!
Water. I watched Water with my friend Vanessa Frangville last week (paying 6 euros, that’s 360 rupees! I am still calculating between currencies, of course!). But it felt good to watch it here in France. The film has bad acting by all; John Abraham and Lisa Ray are really bad, but Seema Biswas's stern-dignified looks were better. They too could not save the film however and Lisa Ray's character has no depth at all. The film has in it, the favourite political positions of Deepa Mehta, a Gandhian one, an unthinking follower of tradition, a modern one, and some other permutations and combinations...all defined by Mehta herself! So the viewer has really no scope for imagination! Madhu Kishwar's critical essay of Mehta's Fire which I translated into Kannada is still fresh in my mind. And Kishwar was unhappy with Mehta too.
For Mehta, it seems, evocation of shock and pity is all there is to what Indians can muster through they lives! My friend Vanessa understood this well and said she wondered about what to feel, knowing fully well that the film is meant to produce shock and pity. But she did weep through the film and so did the others in the audience. The bad life of imagined Indian widows or a French need for catharsis: take your pick. The film was shot in Sri Lanka, having wirnessed protests in India...wonder if it’s still banned in India!
I was ten minutes late for the film and had walked for almost an hour to get there and saw a new place in Lyon called Bellecour Square.
Music by Rahman is brilliant and wasted. Some scenes are moving. But the camera is too self-conscious; striving to create beautiful pictures and stills all the time! Sri Lanka looks grey in it. But my walk back home across the river was green!
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