Don't play with it

I had an awesome weekend.

I didn't go to the Jhandi but I still got my seven curry. What is seven curry you ask? (Don't worry, I know you're thinking it... I didn't know myself) How my mom explains it, it's simply different dishes in portions. Each dish you call it a curry. For example, stew eggplant, curried katahar, etc... each is a "curry." So if someone comes to visit and asks you, "what curry you cooking?" - simply means - what dish are you making today?

I love Jhandis. I can't understand a single word in the prayer, nor am I Hindu so I don't need to understand it... But I love the whole cultural experience. I get to wear my shalwar... Hopefully someday I'll have my own sari.

And most importantly, with all Indian celebrations, there's always a LOT of food involved. That naturally is my most favourite part. The dishes don't have meat - but it tastes so good you don't need meat. My favourite dishes are anything with katahar in it. Why? Because katahar tastes like chicken. I remember the first time I ate it I asked my mom how come she said they don't cook with meat yet I'm eating chicken. *frown* She thought it was funny...

Anyways... After the prayer they give you this little brown paper bag that has all sorts of yummy goodies in it - generally sweet treats. There's a little bag of fruits such as a slice of apple, a banana, dates, prunes and grapes. Then there's a bit of prasad, rote(I'm not sure how to spell this one), pera, mithai/kumar, etc... And then there's the wide range of Indian dishes such as dhal puri (roti), various curries, stews, etc. as well as desserts. Yum.


What awesomeness did I do instead? I chilled with snooks and watched a couple movies. As usual, the ones I pick turn out extra sucky and much to my annoyance, in contrast, despite my reluctance to watch a pile of action movies, he always picks out the ones that are really good. All I could do at the end was mumble and mutter and grumble to myself.


I picked out  'Burning Bright.' Honestly, it wasn't awful but it wasn't that great either. It was like a 10 minute plot that got dragged out into a full length feature film. In a nutshell it's about this young woman and her autistic brother who get trapped in a house with a tiger during a hurricane. Sounds absurd? Not quite. How the movie explains itself is plausible enough... but it's not involving enough. Straight-to-dvd? Yes. Would I watch it again? Umm.... sadly to say, yes, just because of the suspenseful gasp moments with the tiger (and I cut through half of the movie and apparently we missed some exciting parts according to reviews on IMDB). The tiger was absolutely gorgeous and they used a real one(or three). But... the plot just didn't have enough to carry the whole film.



He picked "Salt" and "Knight and Day." I loved 'Salt.' It was very entertaining... nice plot line and development. A little love story, a little action, and lots of woman power - what's not to like? Tagline question is 'Who is Salt?' In a nutshell she works for the CIA and is accused of being a Russian spy. After reading through some reviews on IMDB some people seem to have gone too indepth with their analysis - going on and on about the Cold War, the impossibility of the movie, blah blah blah. It's just a movie, chill, an entertaining one at that.




 'Knight and Day' was alright. I think I almost fell asleep at some points, but that could be because I was tired as well. It had a similar action/romance trend to 'Salt' but (to me) less involving. However, it was more comedy and had a much lighter atmosphere and considering all the hype from the two action/suspense/thriller movies we watched prior, so that could be the cause of my prejudice. Maybe if I watched it in isolation of the other films and wasn't a tad sleepy then perhaps I would've loved it. I generally love all of Cameron Diaz's movies. Some people are after some powerful battery Tom Cruise's character in the movie helped create. They try to kill him, Cameron gets fenced in all the excitement inadvertently.

I saw the most delightful film tonight, 'Crash'. Not in its entirety unfortunately, but sufficient enough to recognize it's poignance.

Two of the issues that I feel most passionately about are that of racism and discrimination. This movie encompasses these issues in such a manner than if i find it impossible for the coldest person to leave not having been touched, atleast a little.

Prior to watching it i heard several reviews that didn't seem to work in its favour. The movie sounded like a series of random events that lacked direction and purpose.

Au contraire. The movie makes plenty of sense. The end ties up all loose ends, with a pinch of life's cruel irony, and a dash of the harsh reality and truth.

It breaks the barriers of stereotyping, racial classification, and cultural biases. At the end of the day, when it counts we can't hide behind those. We're all common on the inside... with a common conscience and that annoying thing called humanity.

At the end of it all... i believe it just says 'try humanity for a change'.

~~~

I got into several arguments during the course of the movie... One of which went something like "thats all fine and dandy, so long as it doesn't affect me".

What is that supposed to mean?! "So long as it doesn't affect me". Little Black Book covered this whole issue of lives being a spectacle. Often in today's society people complain about how impersonal the world is becoming, how unneighbourly we are as a people, how inhumane we can be as a nation. Yet, you find that these same people do nothing to make it less impersonal, more humane, more neighbourly. Everyone is too absorbed in their own lives and problems to bother with another beyond the mere gossip and speculation level because it doesn't affect them directly. We can turn on the tv, probably feel a twinge of sadness at the news, then turn off the screen and sleep soundly.

In LBB, it made the point that we all like to spectate on someone else's life for entertainment and then leave and continue merrily with our own lives... but in a single instance that should the odds have the situation reversed and you're the spectacle, we demand that people understand and sympathize and empathize... quickly forgetting that we were part of that uncaring, untouched, unaffected group.

In Crash, another argument i found myself hearing that 'i'm being idealistic and that is the real world... don't be foolish'.

That is the real world because we make it that way. We created these problems, these stereotypes, these different phobias... and now that it's blown into something far greater than we can handle we remove our hands from the pot, sit back and point fingers of responsibility other than ourselves. I'm sorry but i don't believe shooting the hitchhiker was justified because you thought he was going to kill you due to paranoia. The conversation was easy going, now because of a stereotype and racial classification you suddenly feel threatened and decide to shoot the person in self defense. SELF DEFENSE is only a defense when reasonable force is used to protect oneself. That, my dear, is unreasonable in my book. Furthermore, if you felt so threatened, why pick the hitchhiker up to begin with. If we went around killing everyone on a mere whim of feeling slightly threatened and felt justified... where's the justice in those innocently killed? Furthermore, one might argue that indeed the hitchhiker was a bad person. He stole, he hustled, he had a gun. BUT he had an epiphany, one that every human is entitled to... one that i believe every human stumbles upon at some point in their life... one that enables change. He recognized his demerits and decided to turn his life around... Who knows what could've happened? We'll never know, because he was killed.

Good things have come from people with not so great beginnings and ambitions... as one of the calypso/comedians (i can't remember who exactly) artists from the show at the Trade Center said last night - he came from the ghetto and look where he is. Not everyone fell from the lucky true and landed on the road to rightness every branch down. Not everyone had the right people guiding them into the right paths... To pass judgement is not fair.

Furthermore, my stance on the subject is to beg to differ with those who merely want to blow hot air on the integral issues with the world. They're wasting oxygen to discuss the issue with such indifference. By such you absolve all rights to speak of the problem if you can't be part of the solution or offer one... One cannot exist here on earth as if by oneself.

P.S. as a last note on the movie talk... while it is true that I live in the Caribbean and am not directly exposed to racism to the extent portrayed in the movie, one cannot delude oneself into believing that it does not exist. Being ignorant about the matter doesn't mean that as a black person you won't get a D.W.B.(driving while black) somewhere else, or as an indian person you won't be stereotyped and classified automatically as a muslim terrorist, or being a jew, etc etc etc... Ignorance is not an excuse that shall protect from the harsh reality.. Nor does it aid in you helping fix the problem.

*sigh* maybe i am being idealistic...
Just watch the movie.
It's good.

~~~