Sometimes
you feel you are better off with a bout of illness here and there. The
privileges are many, and without murmur. Coffee, tea, or breakfast, is at your
bedside table on time. And, an extra cup of coffee that you hitherto had to
muster courage to ask for is supplied without a grumble. Should one ideally fall
sick more often, you begin entertaining unwanted thoughts.
It
is during such periods that you catch up with things that you had wanted to do
for quite some time. First I debated if I should inaugurate some of the novels
that I had picked up indiscriminately at the 2013 Annual Library Book Sale in
the US, at 20 cents apiece. A little awestruck, my son and d-i-l asked me politely
if I really meant to carry them all to India. Yes, I replied, in an unguarded
moment.
On
our next visit to US, my son promptly gifted me with “Nook”, the e-book reader,
right at the airport itself when he received us. What a pre-emptive move. “Got
the message,” I reassured him with a side-glance, and he smiled, bringing to an
end the acquisition of physical copies.
These
books stay untouched by hand since then. Still, on hindsight I feel proud of
this well-arranged collection in the bookshelf that I specially had the
Interiors design. Happily, more often this display misleads my uninitiated
guests into believing they are in a litterateur’s abode.
No
time to brood. I selected one of Stephen King’s, the murder mystery master.
While reading the pages, I began to feel literally the stink in my room as the
father-son duo delivered a gruesome death blow to the wife/mother whose body they
threw in the deep well outside their house, where it lay rotten. To make up the
reason for the stink, the father-son covered the well top with a light wooden
plank and had their cow mount it only to fall deep in the well. They convinced
those in the vicinity that their cow accidentally fell in the well and since it
could not be saved, they shot it, and hence the stink. “Not my cup of tea, I
said to myself,” and picked the ginger tea instead that Aunty just served me
hot.
Why
not try movies? After all, I have paid for one of the high-end all-encompassing
packages to Tata Sky. It is during this browsing session that I encountered a
flash that arrested my attention, “Movies You Must See Before You Die”. That
was an interesting challenge. I might as well try it.
The
first it was an old movie, Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese, the renowned
director, featuring Robert De Nero. It was nice to see Robert De Nero in his
late twenties – at least that was what he looked like. The movie was okay, but personally
I wondered if it could qualify for one of the all-time greats. But then these
movie selections are subjective. One man’s meat could be another man’s poison.
That said, I liked Robert De Niro’s another one, Man of Stone, where he acts as
the legendary trainer of the Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran.
Then
I watched Al Pacino’s “Recruit”, although I am not sure it was from the
“….before you Die” category. But it was engrossing, with Al Pacino playing a
customary powerful role.
By
this time, Aunty has lost her patience, and didn’t want it to be ‘my way, all
the way”. She selected a movie, “The Confession”, a Netflix presentation featuring
Alec Baldwin and Ben Kinsley – a father murdering three hospital staff in a row
for the death of his young son caused due to negligence. A gripping movie of
psychological warfare between righteousness and legality.
V
V Sundaram
Maple
3195
15
Nov 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment