Cycling, Serendipity & Zemblanity

I had a potentially dangerous, but eventually funny accident last Tuesday while riding to the Leiden Students' Movie Night. At a fairly high speed, I was flung over the handlebars of my bicycle when the dynamo came loose and got stuck in the front wheel. Funnily, I landed on the grass, without a scratch. The front mudguard came loose and a couple of spokes in the front wheel were slightly bent. The bike had dutifully served me for over 2500 kilometers over the past six and a half months, but the time had come to move on - at least as far as recreational riding was concerned.

   

Re: Rocking the kasbah

Karan Thapar in his 'Sunday Sentiments' dated February 6, 2011, revisits the oft-debated issue of the socio-economic disparities in India. He reflects upon what the possible consequences of these injustices could be, against the backdrop of the current turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt. He suggests that India must watch her step, lest she should suffer a similar revolution. While the article does address extremely pertinent issues, the author’s analysis leaves much to be desired and a rather sour aftertaste.

Dhobi Ghat

Given Aamir Khan's recent movies, I expected the film to be melodramatic. I had read that the film was an ode to Bombay and expected it to be an aggrandized portrayal of the city. However, it wasn't either. It was a stitched collage - stories of seemingly parallel lives quirkily intersecting - weaving through the melancholy of Bombay. Incredibly, this movie did not tell what the city does to you or how it does it, rather showed it doing what it does to people. 


I liked the movie very much and was reminded of a line from New York Times' review of Arundhati Roy's The God Of Small Things in which it described the book as is "heartbreaking and indelible". The description could easily befit Dhobi Ghat, I felt.