A REVIEW FOR THE SAKE OF REVIEWING IT.

Written on Facebook on April 13, 2009 that welcomed 19 comments. :)  Please click the link :  http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=91573975897

I liked Slumdog Millionaire for the following simple reasons and I had no intention to rationalize it too much:

1. I understood Indian culture really well.
2. The actors played their roles at their best.
3. The plot was more not on what you see on screen but on the unseen possibilities that can come to someone who’d had so much suffering in his life.

The popping of Arvind’s eye out was a representation of cruelty to children. Nitin, my Indian friend who’s based here in Manila, told me that it was one of the scenes he considered ridiculous in the film - as far as he knew,nothing like that was ever happening in India. But who are we to know?

On my birthday last week, I was in a conversation with some friends and told them about what Nitin shared with me. Goo said it probably hasn’t happened in India but how evil people can do cruelty to children and make them beg for alms in the streets probably was the reason why it was shown that way.That was the situation in the form of exaggerated scenes in the film such as taking off the eye of the small boy. He added that for all we know, such violence really occurred - only, no one has come up to tell the tale. I’d like to hope there really was no such truth in it.

I’d say Salim and Jamal were victims of violence . Their wretched childhood was formed in mishap - perhaps, too tragic to believe. I know little of the discrimination BETWEEN all religions in India ( Hinduism, Punjabi, etc…) and Islam - but when I was there, I had observed how the majority considered our Muslim brothers a distinct community. Perhaps in the recent days, Indian society had accepted them openly but in Slumdog Millionaire, it was traumatic. They were alienated. When their mother was killed, I believed it was back in the 70’s when Amitahb was still young ( Now, he had aged and still is one of the greatest actors of Bollywood.)

Further so, the power of destiny portrayed between Latika and Jamal made my heart shrink! Oh, tell me about being a hopeless romantic. Their story was violence-stricken, that if you relate yourself with it and make-believe that it was also happening to you, you’d wonder how you would have survived . Everything was uncontrollable, beyond their freedom to say NO to it. It was manipulated by the hopeless situation they were in that led them to such tragedy. I didn’t think they ever had freedom at all until Jamal won the 20 million Rps. and Salim had to sacrifice his life for them after asking Latika for forgiveness.

Wow. I still felt the enormous grief in the make-believe lives of the characters. The film, in itself, was high-strung from the beginning till the end credits when it said,” D. It was written!”
Note: Anyone who has feedback to correct the facts that I may have represented incorrectly specifically that on Muslims in India, please feel free to comment. Thank you!

http://charisseinhersoultrain.wordpress.com

“AKO LANG.”

Friday, March 13, 2009 at 1:30am

The first I took time to play the CD “Ako Lang” in the car on the way home from Katipunan was on Tuesday evening. And song after song, I realized ,”Wala ka nga’ng itatapon ni isa ( there’s no track wasted ).” Each song was a chapter in Jim Paredes’ life as himself, freely flowing. And I have always believed that when one knows the story behind the creation of each song, it has the power to allow him to appreciate it even deeply.

The hardcore sentimental me had tears wanting to fall down as soon as the lyrics of the 3rd track came out clearly as it played! Hahaha. It was called “Lumisan Na Siya.” I explained to a friend today that it was the kind of track that you would love listening to when driving on a highway on the way to Tagaytay, Baguio or Batangas “na humahagulgol (bursting in tears)!”

Tthe 5th captured me, nonetheless , because it was a song he wrote for his wife Lydia and children Erica, Ala and Mio. When I was browsing through the list of tracks, I asked if it was mellow - he said yes, and that’s the song only he can sing because no other man will have the same names of his wife and children. Made sense?

“Live Your Own Life,” if I can recall, was the one he played during our workshop which he wrote for his daughter as she began to face her world and “Thank You,Mama” was a personal tribute to his mother.

I liked that it was limitless in the scope of creating what materials he recorded. To quote Jim, “Naglaro ako sa album na yan.” And that playground, actually, was like a sandbox where kids played and threw sands at each other! He played, too, with the musicians who collaborated with him. I think Ugoy-ugoy was it. This was Jim Paredes’ playground in the form of these 10 songs he wrote in 1996 and 1997. Original Filipino sound that had that calming effect of a lullaby according to my sentimental standard.:)

Thanks,Jim. If for anything, we take the inspiration from the fact that you’re walking us through this road. How much longer would it take on this journey doesn’t really matter at all, as long as we all share the connection under one premise. This album is your gift.

THE SURPRISE OF LIFE.

(For  my ADOBO FORUM column - Arizona Fil. Forum newspaper in March)

In this world where all electronic gadgets function with microchips and toys can be most complicated than they had ever been 25 years ago, I was - for some strange reasons, lately- hit by a myriad of retrospection coming from friends and anecdotes that branched out from certain conversations! And somehow, they evoked memories with their power - like to wash them back from the sea to the shore to form the sand.

A few days ago, I wrote something about an airplane. Not about how it was made or if it had the engine that can par at launching a space rocket - it was about childhood wonder, a snap in a conversation that was focused on how nice the linguine looked with all the shrimp toppings! Grinning, I suddenly had the inspiration to put the scenario in black and white and thought about my generation when we were children contented in measuring happiness by counting the dragonflies we caught and innocently kept in our bottles.

It may sound too shallow but I regaled catching the attention of people close to me, when I published the journal online, who said they felt the same and were once again thrilled by the thought of it! In essence, all I want to put to light many times over is that simple joy can come from unexpected circumstances. We don’t have to pay for it to have it. Come on,the world is overflowing with its virtual presence - only, there’s too much loneliness and grief brought by poverty, unfair social discrimination, war and crimes. What we have to know is that we can always find that state of bliss in the simplest situations, whether or not we get reminded by the memories of airplanes and dragonflies.

Please read on the piece I wrote two days ago and remember how it used to be. I am, after all, the sucker for anything nostalgic from childhood and I use that to empower me in my reflections on life as an inevitable,vicious cycle.

* The previous article was called HOW IT USED TO BE.*
(Written on Tue 1:46pm ;March 3rd.)

HOW IT USED TO BE

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 12:46pm

When Aris posted a link to Paulo Coelho’s new book and had the excerpt, the part about what happens inside an airplane caught me. There was an epiphany of something that went on.

Last night, I was having a quiet dinner with a friend outside a nice restaurant near Channel 7. I was expressionless when she pointed at the sky and told me there was an airplane passing us by; perhaps miles distant from Tomas Morato,vertically . I stared up from where we sat and she said”, Do you remember when we were children? I’ve been in an airplane many times but nothing can replace the wondrous feeling of looking at it fly, with its lights beaming, from the ground. Do you remember that, Cha?”

And I said,” Yeah…I remember how it felt…Yeah…” And it transported me back to my childhood. Memories that come back that way are ever so beautiful, spontaneous. I’m sure Peaches and Erica will look at it with the same innocent guilessness because we grew up in the same neighborhood where airplanes seemed so near from the ground where they took off and landed.:)

Thank you, Aris, for unconsciously reminding. Imagine how simple joy can bloom from simpler, unexpected events in our lives!