Me Love Me Some Monday

So begins another week of mishaps, misadventures, and hopefully, monsoon. Had a lovely weekend that began with the premiere of “X-Men Origins - Wolverine” in Bombay. Had the movie been about any other comic book character than Wolverine, and of course, Batman, I wouldn’t have cared so much. But to take one of the truly iconic figures in Comicdom, a character that is by far the most complex, tragic, dare I say it, Shakespearean of all Marvel heroes and pretty much piss all over him is all that Hugh Jackman has accomplished.
The script writers clearly did no research beyond some basic comic catch-up, ignored the main elements of the character’s personality matrix, completely distorted the man’s history, and in the end basically made a Bollywood melodrama. It was pathetic. Hugh Jackman, for whom I have an immense cinematic fondness, has revealed to me just how Broadway his sensibilities really are. People tend to forget that the man did an entire Broadway production in New York, singing and dancing to showtunes. The fact that he is a brilliant dancer and a fine singer are things he should be proud of. But please, keep your nancy sensibilities away from a character like Wolverine. But the damage is done, the shitty film made, and fans all over the world in a state of apoplectic rage. Well done, Hugh. Well done indeed.
The only thing that saved the night from being a completely disaster was the ray of sunshine sitting beside me. Had it not been for her, I would have come out of the theatre sulking and bad-tempered. As it turned out, she got more pissed off than me at the film, which I found instantly endearing.
From there we decided to ditch the group and share some coffee and conversation at a nearby after-hours spot. Again the trickster gods had a laugh at my expense by seating the world’s most pathetic male specimen directly behind me. Picture a man with a face like a starving rat and the voice of a whiny twelve year-old. This dumb shit was sitting beside a completely charming woman with an American accent complaining about the Indian Cricket team’s destruction at the T20 World Cup. She mentioned that the Pakistani team was doing well, good for them. And that was it! The fellow starting shouting obscenities and saying things like “Fuck those pricks. I wouldn’t piss on a Pakistani even if he was on fire!”
No one in the place said anything. My own impulse to evict the man out the front door was handcuffed by my date, who insisted that I behave myself. Which I regretably did. I’m disgusted by people like that man. Who hate so strongly for a reason as juvenile as a sport. And then have the nerve to get angry when they encounter hatred and racism in places like Australia. Hatred breeds only hatred. That is how the universe works. Whatever you transmit into the world is returned upon you tenfold. That asshole in the bar, one day, is going to get the holy hell beaten out of him by running his motor-mouth in a place where not everyone is so polite, or with a girl who abhors confrontations. And I pray I’m there to at least witness it.
There’s an article in the Hindustan Times today about the hypocrisy of racism. How we Indians can get so angry at a few brainless Australians beating up our fellow countrymen that we completely forgo all logic and reason and start tarnishing the entire continent of pretty decent, laid back people with the same negative brush. But then look at how we treat those Africans who are either working or studying in cities like Bombay. They get treated like thieves or criminals or worse just for being black. Nevermind the fact that Africans and Indians were the most enslaved people during the Time of Colonization. Let’s hate them!! Pathetic.
Saturday was all about green tea and my new stack of books. From which I can thoroughly recommend Geoff Dyer’s “Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi” and Milan Kundera’s “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.”
Sunday was another great day spent at the Del Italia in Juhu, Bombay. For a brunch that lasted almost six hours. Good food, good wine, great music, perfect weather, pretty women, pithy conversation - I am one contented son-of-a-gun.
And we come to Monday. A monday that began with great weather and the greater urge to be creative. Hence my current blog entry. And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I shall go sketch something or the other. This is how I wait for my films to begin, or release, or just stop breaking my heart. I write, I sketch, I dance around the town in search of women who wouldn’t mind dancing around me for a song. There’s a better life out there, but I’m quite happy with mine.