Nov 14, 2007
Nov 10, 2007
Saawariya......
Well amidst the hype and hoopla to the "Saawariya" V/s. "O-S-O" brigade... the reader in me, found an opportunity to read a short story, which i may have never otherwise chanced upon!
I am talking of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story - White Nights... published in 1848 and supposedly the book based on which Bhansali made the movie.
Let's leave the movie aside for a while here... let me tell you what the book is all about. It's a story of an unnamed young man (yes, the protagonist has no name) who, by nature of being a shy, introvert and self confessed dreamer, meets and falls in love and even encounters heart brake in the course of four nights! you can call it a simple love triangle or a sad tragic drama… which ever way you look at it, the basic plot is way too simple to be understood! However, what actually does set the book apart, and might have caught on SLB’s attention is the treatment or rather the way in which the story is narrated and how the protagonist’s angst and anguish, his shy demeanor and complex emotions are highlighted, making him more human and realistic, than many other “heroes” we come across in the literary world!
It’s a touching tale alright, but every good book, unfortunately cannot be a great movie! Or rather most books should not be made into a movie, for the simple reason that, unlike in books, where the words tend to take the shape of the story, depending on the reader’s imagination prowess, movies, usually, leave nothing for imagination, making everything too obvious, and may I add a tad bit frivolous!
(and going by the reviews I read in the morning papers, and all across the net, Bhansali has left no stone unturned to make this ‘personal, intrinsic and deep’ story into a commercial and “bollywood” movie…. HOPE I AM PROVED WRONG!)
Here are some links on White Nights –
I am talking of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story - White Nights... published in 1848 and supposedly the book based on which Bhansali made the movie.
Let's leave the movie aside for a while here... let me tell you what the book is all about. It's a story of an unnamed young man (yes, the protagonist has no name) who, by nature of being a shy, introvert and self confessed dreamer, meets and falls in love and even encounters heart brake in the course of four nights! you can call it a simple love triangle or a sad tragic drama… which ever way you look at it, the basic plot is way too simple to be understood! However, what actually does set the book apart, and might have caught on SLB’s attention is the treatment or rather the way in which the story is narrated and how the protagonist’s angst and anguish, his shy demeanor and complex emotions are highlighted, making him more human and realistic, than many other “heroes” we come across in the literary world!
It’s a touching tale alright, but every good book, unfortunately cannot be a great movie! Or rather most books should not be made into a movie, for the simple reason that, unlike in books, where the words tend to take the shape of the story, depending on the reader’s imagination prowess, movies, usually, leave nothing for imagination, making everything too obvious, and may I add a tad bit frivolous!
(and going by the reviews I read in the morning papers, and all across the net, Bhansali has left no stone unturned to make this ‘personal, intrinsic and deep’ story into a commercial and “bollywood” movie…. HOPE I AM PROVED WRONG!)
Here are some links on White Nights –
-The E-book (although bit summarized, and I prefer the paper version :P) http://www.geocities.com/diwakerr/whitenights.html
-A beautiful commentary on the book (BIT TOO LONG!) http://www.storybites.com/dostoevskynights.htm
Nov 6, 2007
been almost a month since i posted something, and been over two months since i posted something that made sense...
its not like there is any dearth of topics for me to write... or i have been actually as busy or lazy as i appear to be...
there has been everything from 'absconding friends' to 'work mishaps' to 'unnoticeable adventures' happening ... while what they mean or what exactly happened, is another story altogether, what did not happen is the fact that i refused to gather the guts to write it down, to tell the people concerned, that yes i did get affected by what you did.... maybe some of them even did hurt me, and hurt me bad... but i somewhere could not stand up for myself!
what ever the case... its that time of the year to not only give back with a vengeance, but also to let go and move ahead... because better things might just be around the corner ;-)
Seasons Greetings
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