In the initial portions of Homi Adajania’s Cocktail, Meera (Diana Penty) is a freak, a misfit in the modern world. She’s been dumped by Kunal (Randeep Hooda), her cad of a husband who took her money with promises of a life in London and now wants nothing to do with her. In a desperate attempt to convince him, she extends a photograph of them taken after their wedding, and he sneers at her “ghatiya Third World ke khayal.” Now in London, she’s homeless, friendless – and also helpless. Weeping in a washroom, she runs into Veronica (Deepika Padukone), a free spirit, the kind of sexually confident girl who picks up a stranger at a nightclub and positions his hand on her bottom. Meera – even that name is so traditional, so Third World – and Veronica, in that washroom, couldn’t be more different, but they’re linked by their attire. They’re both in pink – the colour of Veronica’s bra peeking out of her mini, and the colour of Meera’s salwar kameez and the clip holding her hair. They’re sleepover-ready soul sisters. They could be called Naughty and Nice.
Veronica, who’s loaded, takes Meera home and they become best friends. The surprise of Cocktail (written by Imtiaz Ali and Sajid Ali) is how slyly it toys with gender stereotypes. When Veronica hooks up with Gautam (an unconvincing Saif Ali Khan, playing the world’s least likely software engineer), Meera begins to feel crowded. She tells Veronica that she’ll move out. But Veronica dissuades her, saying that she’s a good influence and that she’s made their apartment a home. (In an unguarded moment that follows, they embrace, and then pull away awkwardly.) They’re practically playing house, with Veronica bringing in the money (and sharing locker-room information, like the fact that Gautam’s “awesome in bed”) and Meera rearranging the books on the shelves. (Gautam, meanwhile, does his bit for gender equality by dressing up in drag.) For a while, Adajania situates his film in a free-floating bohemia where no rules apply, and when Gautam insinuates himself between Meera and Veronica, we anticipate a gender-bender version of Jules et Jim, a romantic triangle redefining love for this generation.
But bafflingly, what we get is a gender-bending update on Sangam, right down to a titillating-for-its-time shot that showcases the heroine in a swimsuit. Gautam’s relationship with Veronica is simply the one between lock and key (all right, an extremely amicable lock and key), but in Meera he sees a soul mate. He transforms, under Meera’s gaze, from self-obsessed prick to soulful poet. He’s in love. And he thinks Veronica (whom he affectionately calls Veeru paaji) will understand this love, because they were just friends who brought along benefits. Veronica says, first, that it’s okay – but of course it’s not okay, and we’re trapped amidst tropes we never thought we’d see again: play-acting for the benefit of a haranguing parent (Dimple Kapadia), smiles through tears, two best friends splitting up because of a man (usually it’s two men driven apart by a woman), and sacrificing one’s love for the sake of the best friend.
There may be something to Adajania’s contention that however modern we become with regard to clothes and music and attitude, we’re still old-fashioned in matters of the heart, that we still hold on to those “ghatiya Third World ke khayal.” At first Meera appeared the misfit, with her prayers and her insistence on labelling the skirt-chasing Gautam obnoxious, but now Gautam and Veronica come off as the misfits – as poseurs even, affecting a nonchalance they don’t really feel deep down. As the film progresses, we see Meera partying with a beach crowd, while Veronica (who secretly craves parental affection) withdraws to spend time with Gautam’s mother. But the film is too hip to commit itself fully to these transformations, and we come to face with the real triangle here – of a filmmaker torn between the melodrama inherent in his material and a multiplex audience that has no interest in (or patience with) melodrama.
Some of Adajania’s updates work nicely, like the pre-intermission scene of Meera and Gautam kissing, with just the whisper of waves as accompaniment. (In an older Hindi film, this development would have jangled with a hundred violins.) But Cocktail is too long, too taxing – after a point, we know exactly what’s coming, and we just wish it came soon enough. Most of the high points belong to Diana Penty, who manages the considerable feat of upstaging Deepika Padukone in the same frame. Gautam, in an attempt to instil in Meera a sense of self-worth (she’s still hurting from being discarded by Kunal), calls her smile a social service, because it lessens the tensions in the world. He’s not very far off the mark. The memory of Penty’s smile, asterisked by a ghost of a mole on the side of her philtrum, may be the only thing lessening our tensions while enduring this film’s leaden latter half, flooded with today’s equivalent of Dost dost na raha sentiment. When Gautam proposes at the end, he’s almost teary, but we sit there dry-eyed, feeling nothing. And to add insult to injury, after these purported heights of transporting feeling, the film brings us crashing down to earth with an inexplicable blooper reel, which has Saif breaking wind. Maybe that’s his desperate bid to infuse fizz to this flat cocktail.
Copyright ©2012 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
rameshram
July 28, 2012
rangudu youre in love and blabbering. what’s a philtrum? and where did you find the word?
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venkatesh
July 28, 2012
Annan Rameshram : philtrum: The philtrum (Latin philtrum, Greek φίλτρον philtron, ‘love potion'[1]), is a medial cleft common to many mammals, extending from the nose to the upper lip, and, together with a glandular rhinarium and slit-like nostrils, is believed to constitute the primitive condition for mammals in general.[2] For humans and most primates, the philtrum survives only as a vestigial medial depression between the nose and upper lip.[3] The human philtrum, bordered by ridges, is also known as the infranasal depression, but has no apparent function.
BR : Enna medical journal lendhe word eduthingla… never have i seen this word actually being used. You are clearly smitten.
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Priya Sreeram (@priyasreeram)
July 28, 2012
nice review !
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rameshram
July 28, 2012
Thambi venkatesh,
The philtrum is derived from PHILTRON (“The Love portion”) which is why I wondered where the word came from, in Rangudu’s case. I speculated that he was obsessing intensely on someone’s philtrum..something that can happen if you atch films from the first three rows,and the object of your affection is ….larger than life….
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rameshram
July 28, 2012
(it happened to me accidentally when I was in school and we were forced to watch rathi agnihotri’s….. smile, asterisked by a ghost of a mole on the side of her philtrum ….in ullasa paravaigal. (but then we were young and impressionable…what’s rangudu’s excuse? 😀 ).
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Karikala Cholan
July 28, 2012
Venkatesh, did you even wonder for a minute that Rameshram has access to Google as do every tom, dick and harry? Ennamo neenga original’a andha word’a interpret pannina maadhiri scene podringa. Wiki lerndhu suttu potutu, medical journal, “never have i seen” adhu idhu’nu peter. Thu!
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Sal
July 28, 2012
I actually think the movie did so well because it married its (cringe-inducingly) old-fahioned gender dynamics with a hip, sleek surface. This way, largely conservative movie goers could enjoy the glamor of Deepika’s party-girl lifestyle and still get to smugly condemn her for it (one might call this sort of hypocritical movie-making Bhandarkar Syndrome). What really bothered me was how the film sells out its female characters. The friendship between Meera and Veronica that drives the first half and is much more fascinating than the dude’s equation with either ladies is totally sacrificed in favor of the love angles. Even the classic two-guys-one-girl version of this film would have ended with the men salvaging their friendship as melodramatically as possible. This one ends with a proposal nobody in the audience is interested in.
I must add, however, that, while I loved Diana Penty, Deepika was the true star of the film for me. She seems to have gotten over her “stayed up all night learning dialogue” style of acting, really loosened up, and embraced her own considerable sex appeal. I look forward to her future work.
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brangan
July 29, 2012
I am seriously beginning to wonder if my letting all comments through (provided they’re not too abusive) is serving any purpose any more.
I’ve always thought that allowing people to say what they want to say is what free speech is all about, and that censoring/disallowing comments is just not done. But a lot of the commenting these days seems to be just people getting off.
I’m not sure what to do about this. If I say “I will let through only those comments that are pertinent to the article,” then I lose the interesting digressions and banter. But on the other hand, there’s all this nonsense…
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brangan
July 29, 2012
Sal: Why do you say “(cringe-inducingly) old-fahioned gender dynamics”? As I wrote in the review, the most interesting aspect about the early parts of the film was how the gender roles were somewhat subverted. (Of course it was all shot to hell in the second half.)
But I agree about selling out its female characters. The setup makes us expect much more than what we end up with. That frank conversation on the park bench followed by the impulsive hug and the ensuing awkward drawing-apart is one of my favourite movie moments of the year.
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rameshram
July 29, 2012
Oh come on rangudu, Philtrum?! 😀 surely that’s a bit out there and not just “me getting off!”
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rameshram
July 29, 2012
Sal and rangudu,
I don’t think there’s a serious conversation to be had about the dynamics among the characters of cocktail any more than a vince vaughn comedy(say wedding crashers) can engender a serious discussion on man woman stereotypes.
Like I “got off” in frustration after watching the movie (see my review of the film:”Cocktail : I threw up” in one of those other threads) I was constantly asking “mumbai! what’s so wrong with mumbai?! ” The film would have been sahikkable (ie I might have kept my samosas and masala chai in) if Penty was a conservative chick from Goa , come to the Bandra nightlife and the film was full of memorable mumbai places. BUt Bollywood has a tendency to pull out any possiblity of sincerity out of a script and make the film , instead, about the stars and the production numbers in a way that you…..obsess on philtrums or youre out of there.
Well, good luck expecting more feminist orientated roles from Deepika pudukone. she aint no bipasha basu (whose career went somewhere fast from doing roles that were praised by feminists/ gender critics of Bollywood!
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hari
July 29, 2012
I agree with Sal, Deepika was total bindaas, and let her hair out for most part of the movie and I look forward as well. Let’s see.
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Gradwolf
July 29, 2012
TDKR review expect panarche, you write about Cocktail. Kya ghatiya third world ke khayal Rangan!
But I think Imtiaz Ali wrote one line and left the building. No way he contributed to this meh-fest.
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Jayanthi Sankaran
July 29, 2012
Have not seen ‘Cocktail’ as yet. You paint a very nice film review with your inimitable words! Now that I had read your review, I will see it!
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venkatesh
July 29, 2012
Karikala : Never did i say that i “originally interpreted” the word – i didn’t know the meaning of the word and looked it up – avalo dhaan and i actually have never seen the word used , edhulae enna peter and enna pan.
Why would you say something like this ?
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pr3m
July 29, 2012
I’m confused, did you like the first half cos of its gender bending roles?
Did you sort of equate it with Love Aaj Kal where Saif and Deepika leave their seemingly new age ideals for love?
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Utkal Mohanty
July 30, 2012
In response to critics and commentators who have called ‘Cocktail’ regressive and misogynist , I still don’t understand how is it regressive or misogynist to turn a woman away from the path of self-delusion and self-destruction to a world of sanity and wholesome relationships.
But before I actually come to Cocktail, let me mention TV program I saw recently , hosted by Sagarika Ghosh, on the Guawhati molestation episode. When asked if women should also be careful about how they should dress, a guest, Pooja Bedi, replied, “ Every generation have been pushing the boundary a little. There were women in burkhas. Then women gave that up. The ext generation wore sleeve-less . And so on.” I thought to myself, by her logic the height of this progress would be when women wore nothing at all! Since when less clothes or shorter skirts started meaning progress? I thought Churchill made fun of Gandhi because he wore less clothes!
If Pooja Bedi’s pronouncements as spokesperson for women’s emancipation can be excused ( I wonder why the particular channel keeps inviting her when any important issue related to women is discussed.) , the esteemed journalist writing in Tehelka does not seem to fare much better.
Let me quote from her piece. “Veronica, a flamboyant, sexy woman, at ease with herself, played by Deepika Padukone., ‘ she says. Sorry, Veronica seemed anything but ‘ at ease with herself’ to me. “At first, the film leads you to imagine it will be a cheesy but emancipated take on a new, modern sexuality, where consenting adults come together in relationships constructed on their own terms.” But isn’t that what it is, except that it is not all that cheesy as such. Does not Guatam lives with the woman he loves? Does not Vernica resist the temptation to win over Saif by emotional blackmail ( which at one point in the film, she could), once she knew Gautam loved Meera? Knowing well that their sleeping and living together was without pre-condition, holding him to ransom and forcing him to marry her just because he had slept with her would be equivalent to a village panchayat ruing that the rapist should marry his victim, won’t t? She pulls back ads any girl with some self respect would. But the feminist / progressive critics and viewers fail to take note.
“Gautam starts out with a casual, live-in relationship with Veronica. Predictably, despite the buzzy, warm vibe between them, when it’s time for true love, he jettisons her for Meera, “ she writes. Now isn’t that what happens quite often in the most ‘progressive” circles of society? John-Bipasha anyone? Isn’t that what the idea of living together supposed to be about? That your are not tied in? Which is more progressive? That you marry someone just because you have lived together with her for a certain amount of time? Or that , no, you had a honest enough relationship with someone, but now you think you love someone else and all should accept that? Isn’t that what happens in the end? Yes when two people break up, one is likely to get hurt more than the others. In this case it is Veronica , and she not being a woman in control of her life ( quite contrary what the writer of the piece imagines her to be) goes to pieces. ( But this kind of self-destructiveness is not peculiar to women. Devdas did that too, and died. Here Veronica does better and bounces back to normalcy.) But like true friends, Meera and Guatam support her, make her feel loved, and slowly she gains her self-esteem, to a degree higher than what she possessed before she knew these two. It was a charade then and all bravado. Now it was genuine self-confidence.
“Gautam — as much the playboy — is put through no such moral laundering. It’s the old axiom: sexually prolific men are virile; sexually prolific women are whores. A man like him can find true love, a woman like her cannot.” A double mistake here. First of all, she fails to recognize that, yes, there is a difference between men being sexually prolific and a woman sleeping around. (It has to do with evolutionary biology that has hardwired the instincts of men and women a little differently. The payoff for a woman to sleep around is less, because she can give birth to only one child, while a man sleeping around can father multiple children, almost without limits.. That is the basic instinct. Of course we do not live by our primordial instincts alone, and civilization influences play a role. But the basic biological compulsions will take thousands, maybe millions of years to evolve significantly. Perceptive artists divine the essential truth intuitively , more so than social scientists and columnists.) The second mistake she makes is in insinuating that, ‘A man like him can find true love, a woman like her cannot.’ The director shows nothing to lead us to that interpretation. Veronica will probably meet someone better than Gautam now and win his love. ( Just like there is the examples of John and Bipasha breaking up after years of living together, there is also the example of Tina Munim marrying Anil Ambani after a much publicized live-in relationship with Tina Munim. So both our society and our films do give women a second cnace as they do to men. Yes , it is harder for women. But that’s how it is. ) Yes Veronica has changed her ways, but how is that regressive? Does anyone here suggest that living in an alcoholic haze, pub-hopping, and sleeping around without a committed relationship, will lead to long-term fulfillment? Heck, why women, no sane counselor will advice that kind of a lifestyle for a man. You have all heard how Javed Akhtar confessed that the years he spent under he spell of alcohol are his only regrets in life. You have also read writer Jeet Thayil mention how the years he spent doing drugs were totally unproductive, and waste. Now he si clean and come out with his novel long-listed for Booker. And what if she switches short skirts for longer ones? Why are long skirts or salwar-kameez regressive compared to short skirts? I would like to hear one strand of reasoning in support of that.
In fact, the film’s regressiveness seems to be all in the writer’s mind. ‘The function of art may not be to reform, but surely it must, at the very least, unobtrusively prise open tiny new understandings, and nudge society towards greater humanity and empathy, ‘ she writes. And precisely that is what the film does. The film is remarkably evenhanded in how it looks at the two friends with totally different personalities. At no point are Meera’s ways shown to be superior to Veronica’s. ( Even the matronly Dimple says to Veronica, “ Tu ladki buri nhain hai. Bas dhang ke kapde pehna kar!” ) Meera’s small town ways are not made fun of or looked at patronizingly either. Veronica or Gautam don’t comment disparagingly about her clothes, or her religiosity. Each one to his own is how they share the common living space. Meera for her part is not your stereotypical small town girl either. She is nonjudgmental about the live-I relationship of Gautam and Veronica. She is not all uptight and a wet blanket when they go partying together. She does drink the occasional glass of wine, dresses spiffily as per her tastes, and shares I the fun. She works at getting a job. And , holy of holies, she has no qualms about pre-marital sex when it comes to herself. And she is no passive doll, incapable of making any first moves as the push she gives Gautam, saying ’Tum kyon nahin girte’ proves. Coming to Gautam, he does not lecture Veronica on her wayward ways. She does not imply that she is a bad girl, or anything remotely close to that. The film does not show his attraction to Meera has anything to do with her Indian ways. The way I read it, he too was tired of his anchorless life and was looking for someone opposite to his past life, some one more innocent, more rooted. Whatever it was, it was certainly not because of her longer skirts. And no, Veronica willing to cook lamb biriyani and wear salwar-kurta did not do it for him. ( Unlike say Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai.). It was just Veronica’s desperation. But why the desperation? For that we have to recognize what kind of a girl she is She is not really the wild at heart type, Her lifestyle is a reaction to her parental neglect and careless upbringing. That is why she bonds with Meera so well, who gives her a home she never had. Then she comes under the charm of Gautam and she fills fulfilled. But she has had it al easy and and not learnt the life lesson that you have to pay high price for things that you truly desire. Nothing teaches you that better than some hard knocks. Meeting Gautam’s mother stirs a yearning for a kind of family bonding that she never had. Then comes the hard knock. Gautam’s falling for Meera makes the ground beneath her feet cave in. In the film, the soundtrack plays ‘ Alvida, yaara alvida” and “O ishq ch vich kamli hoyi, Bhaaron hassi andron royi “ In my mind the lines that play are ‘ And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street, And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it. How does it feel To be without a home, Like a complete unknown, Like a rolling stone ?’ and ‘The lover who just walked out your door, Has taken all his blankets from the floor. The carpet, too, is moving under you. And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.’ She had kind of taken Meera and their ménage-a trios for granted. So that fact that Meera could steal Guatam from her completely shattered her emotionally and made her lose her self-esteem, setting her ona path of total self-degradation and destruction. But once Meera and Gautam showed her how much they cared for her, her self-esteem returns and she gets the grip back on her life.
So there are many refreshing departures from stereotypes and many insightful peeks into complex relationships, if one stopped looking at the film with glasses tinted with pre-conceived idea of what we want the film to be rather than what it is.
( Rangan, bringing in the Jules et Jim was the best part of your review for me, for what the fulm aims is the sophistication and subtlety of European cinema while dealing with man-woman relationship rather than the broad-stroke , message-oriented depiction Hollywood films.
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rameshram
July 31, 2012
Utkal
full of logical fallacies you can drive a truck through.
” turn a woman away from the path of self-delusion and self-destruction to a world of sanity and wholesome relationships.”
Youre talking about diana penty’s charecter right? because this was not deepika’s charecter at all…
” I thought to myself, by her logic the height of this progress would be when women wore nothing at all! ”
your fallacy. I think it would be progress if women CAN wear nothing at all without attracting prejudice and condemnation from people(like you?)
“Since when less clothes or shorter skirts started meaning progress? ”
Since when do you get to decide these things based on people’s clothes?
” Sorry, Veronica seemed anything but ‘ at ease with herself’ to me.”
occurs to me that you don’t count in this equation here. you might only be satisfied if “veronica” looked like a domesticated cow complete with a wide load and a demure bindi. that doesn’t mean its the best thing for HER..
“But isn’t that what it is,”
I agree with this the film only pretends to humor veronica while actually secretly laughing at her as an “unstable” and “lost” framing her in a 1960’s woodstock hippie chick frame which is both insidious and unfair. I threw up here repeatedly while watching the film.
“Now isn’t that what happens quite often in the most ‘progressive” circles of society?”
You wouldn’t know a progressive circle if it hit you on your head. and often things are less ….imaginative in real life than your fervid imagination.(sply in India)
“Yes when two people break up, one is likely to get hurt more than the others. In this case it is Veronica , and she not being a woman in control of her life ( quite contrary what the writer of the piece imagines her to be) goes to pieces.”
Precisely(for the former. ) these are INTERPERSONAL relationship, and ANYBODY could get hurt in them. So blaming “lifestyles ” for it is very …”anti-valentines day” of you. Also I think that the film sold veronica out by making her life go to pieces.
” It was a charade then and all bravado. Now it was genuine self-confidence.”
um… nope… the scriptwriter BROKE veronica quite deliberately.It was possible to make veronica NOT care that much about saif, but the scriptwriter quite deliberately made her an “inferior” charecter/backbone to the other girl. Asshole. (I’m not choosing side between the two women in the film, I can see injustice done to a charecter(for sickly “anti valentines day” reasons, so I throw up.
“Now it was genuine self-confidence.”
SO now that the unnattainable girl has been brought down to “our ” level, we reward her with “your selfconfindece is genuine” huh! Barf!
” but how is that regressive?”
The same way as when a heroine finally gets married, she switches to sarees from the micro minis and thongs she is seen in throughout the film is regressive.
“Does anyone here suggest that living in an alcoholic haze, pub-hopping, and sleeping around without a committed relationship, will lead to long-term fulfillment? ”
well duh! ever heard of Hugh heffner?
” You have all heard how Javed Akhtar confessed that the years he spent under he spell of alcohol are his only regrets in life.”
But javed akhtar is a mediocre talent who was a poser with or without alcohol. People like Kannadasan, OMar Khayyam, Sahir ludhianvi….have stayed in the alcoholic haze and have lived long productive creative lives.
“doing drugs were totally unproductive, and waste. ”
I watched a show where some people that produced important theories relating to superstrings attributed their creativity to doing powder coke. most hollywood screenwriters cannot write good screenplays without coke. attributing your lack of creativity to your drug habit is just an “adatheriatha thevidiyalukku…” etc
“Why are long skirts or salwar-kameez regressive compared to short skirts?”
because people pass judgements when they see skin (they call the woman names and slot her as having a certain type of moral charecter. something they never do with men…
“the film’s regressiveness seems to be all in the writer’s mind.”
I agree that’s why I barfed in the film often.
” The film is remarkably evenhanded in how it looks at the two friends with totally different personalities.”
No it isn’t it baits and swtiches in its attitude towards veronica. it pretends to be nonjudgemental before it becomes like a conservative delhi bride burner saas in its attitudes.
” At no point are Meera’s ways shown to be superior to Veronica’s.”
She gets the man. to a certain type of sick 13th century thinking thats “superiority”.
” he too was tired of his anchorless life and was looking for someone opposite to his past life, some one more innocent, more rooted. Whatever it was, it was certainly not because of her longer skirts. ”
Well there you go again! An “Anchorless” life is just “antivalentines day speak” for “he does not have my (deeprootedly conservative ) values. The arc of this argument seems to be that “long ago, your mom gave birth to you (be eternally grateful to her…or else!!!) in a family full of dadas dadis nanas nanis and others (pupes and buas) who were ALL schooled in the “indian” way which you ran away from, inspite of the fact that they loved you (you ungrateful wretch!) and then you wandered anchorlessly doing meaningless things like getting drunk and screwing “loose” women in mini skirts. …that was until you found a good girl that resembled your mother , whom you wanted to fuck, but she’s a nice girl and would only let you fuck her if you married her. So you saw the error in your ways, married her and roduced many babies for your mom to call grandchild, and for your siblings to be pupas and buas. Freud has a phrase for this – the madonna whore complex.
“And no, Veronica willing to cook lamb biriyani and wear salwar-kurta did not do it for him.”
Surely thats because she’s a …uh…slut? (Im joking here). By the time veronica cooks lamb biriyani, its already too late in terms of the romance in the story. this has nothing to do with conservative/ liberal frames.
” Gautam’s falling for Meera makes the ground beneath her feet cave in.”
Thats where they sold veronica out to the Noida matriarchy.
” a kind of family bonding that she never had.”
Yeah. the pupi and bua narrative again.
““ In my mind the lines that play are ‘ And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street, And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it. How does it feel To be without a home, Like a complete unknown, Like a rolling stone ?’ and ‘The lover who just walked out your door, Has taken all his blankets from the floor. The carpet, too, is moving under you. And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.’ ”
somehow feels like the Thakersay guy quoting the koran.
“So there are many refreshing departures from stereotypes and many insightful peeks into complex relationships,”
Where? everything you have quated so far is pretty mainstream cliche’d bollywood convention. it just reinforces your existing set of values so you get all emotional about it. if youre like me, and can see what the scrptwriter is doing you repeatedly barf in the film.
“bringing in the Jules et Jim was the best part of your review for me, ”
Spurious comparison. There is NO jules and jim (let alone francois truffuat) in this film.
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brangan
July 31, 2012
utkal/rameshram: I said, “we anticipate a gender-bender version of Jules et Jim, a romantic triangle redefining love for this generation.”
Meaning that at some point I thought the filmmakers MAY have wanted to do something along these lines. That they didn’t is clear from my next para.
Just clarifying… You may want to read the review more carefully if you’re going to pick out an aspect and talk about it.
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rameshram
July 31, 2012
Brannigan, I was not referring to your Jules et jim reference as spurious(this time..although ishan and Quartre cent coups was a stretch) I was talking about Utkal’s framing your reference as if you were comparing the film’s script to a subtly sophisticated european film…while you were, in reality perhaps doing the opposite.
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Utkal Mohanty
July 31, 2012
Rameshram : ” At no point are Meera’s ways shown to be superior to Veronica’s.” is what I said. ( Because she got Gautam , so what? There are better fishes in the pond for Veronica, and she will get one of them.)
She gets the man. to a certain type of sick 13th century thinking thats “superiority”.: is what you said.
And you are the one who is saying that Meera is shown to be superior. So in which century would that place you?
And forget about the logic, you do not have even your facts right. ” whom you wanted to fuck, but she’s a nice girl and would only let you fuck her if you married her’, you say. But she DOES let him fuck her without marrying.. while she is someone else’s wife.
” Gautam’s falling for Meera makes the ground beneath her feet cave in.”
Thats where they sold veronica out to the Noida matriarchy.
Really? Why can’t a girl like Veronica feel the ground beneath her feet cave in when she loses the one she loves?
Because she is a slut?
Now who is being stereotypical here?
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rameshram
July 31, 2012
“And you are the one who is saying that Meera is shown to be superior. So in which century would that place you?”
Im not saying this. Im saying that the MOVIE is saying this, and Im saying this is one reason I threw up…because I could see the movies medieval attitudes.
“But she DOES let him fuck her…etc”
Oh I wasn’t taking about the movie in that part of my comments. it was a gneralized commentary about attitudes.
” Why can’t a girl like Veronica feel the ground beneath her feet cave in when she loses the one she loves?
Because she is a slut?”
Please stop putting words in my mouth. I never said this. What I did say was that the emotional dive she took was not in keeping with her character. She came across as a very level headed happy person who knew what she was doing , in the beginning. and then she went to all needy and womanly, it felt more like the scriptwriter’s mother took over at that point in dictating veronica’s fate.
“Why can’t a girl like Veronica feel the ground beneath her feet cave in when she loses the one she loves?”
as if that’s the most logical thing that happens to people! Emotional upheavals are the exception , not the rule.Her ANGER was charecteristic. the DIVE was not.
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Utkal Mohanty
July 31, 2012
“as if that’s the most logical thing that happens to people! Emotional upheavals are the exception , not the rule.Her ANGER was charecteristic. the DIVE was not.”
I guess the director has to apologize for not making the film for the cool multiplex crowd for whom emotional upheavel is a dirty word.
“Oh I wasn’t taking about the movie in that part of my comments. it was a gneralized commentary about attitudes.
Oh, so the film has to bear the responsibility for attitudes of people not in the film as well!
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Utkal Mohanty
July 31, 2012
Rangan,
I agree the Jules et Jim parallel is bit of a red herring. I mentioned it only to draw attention to the European sensibilities of the film where the nuances of man-woman relationship is examined at close quarters without value judgment. The closer parallel is actually ‘ Vicky, Cristina , Barcelona. ‘
And Roger Ebert’s take on that film can be applied here too :
‘All the time, Allen gives us a tour of the glories of Barcelona, the city of Gaudi and Miro, the excuse being that Juan Antonio is showing the girls the sights. As Hollywood learned long ago, there’s nothing like a seductive location to lend interest to whatever is happening in the foreground.’
‘Allen has set out to amuse and divert us and discover secrets of human nature, but not tragically deep ones. He is a little like Eric Rohmer here. The actors are attractive, the city is magnificent, the love scenes don’t get all sweaty, and everybody finishes the summer a little wiser and with a lifetime of memories. What more could you ask?’
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Utkal Mohanty
July 31, 2012
Rameshram, What if the director had other ideals of a fulfilled human being than Hugh Hefner? Would that mkae him regressive.
Whaht if he thought that Omra Khyam, Sahir and Ghalib wrote great poetry in spite of alcohol or drug abuse rather than because of it? What is he thought that their careers would have been a tad longer without the alcohol or drug abuse? As would have been the case with Jim Morriosn, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix? What of the Aamir Khan ‘s Satyameva Jayate speaking about the perils of alcohol abuse? Does that mkae him regressive? Waht about the governmnet’s statutory warning I saw on the screen before the film, ‘ Smoking and alocohol consumption can be injurious to health.? does that make the government of India regressive?
Frankly the use of the word ‘ regressive’ kind of tires me,
What I am more amazed at is how the so called progressive critics and commentators perceive Veronica as a slut when none of the characters in the film, either in their words or action treat her as one. Not Gautam, not Meera, not even Gautam’s mother. The warm bonding that Dimple and Deepika share in South Africa does not show anything but a normal motherly feeling. ” Tu ladki buri nahin hai, zara gdhnag ke kpde pehna kar”, She says indulgently. That is not how you talk to a slut.
So where did the slut thing came from? Except from the critics for whom short skirts equals sluts.
So once again, who is stereotypical here?
And what is the typical Bharatiya nari the film portrays? One who dresses fashionably, has career as a graphic designer, parties, drinks and dances on the beach, has sex with someone who is not her husband, lives with a girl who is sleeping with her boyfriend, and does not raise an eyebrow? This is the typical Bollywood depiction of a typical bharatiya nari? maybe I have been living on Mars all these days!
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rameshram
August 1, 2012
“director has to apologize for not making the film for the cool multiplex crowd for whom emotional upheavel is a dirty word.”
He needs to apologize all right, not for that reason , though.
” so the film has to bear the responsibility for attitudes of people not in the film as well!”
yes. absolutely. specially those that riot in its name against valentine’s day 😉
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rameshram
August 1, 2012
“Would that mkae him regressive.”
Hypothetical. All I can say is tht many of this film’s views are indeed regressive.
” Does that mkae him regressive? ”
Ah But that is not what the director did! he just put in the said regressive elements into the film, I can’t give him a pass for the personalities institutions and ideals that are NOT in the film on your say so!
“Frankly the use of the word ‘ regressive’ kind of tires me,”
Of course it does! You must hear it all the time 😀
“progressive critics and commentators perceive Veronica as a slut”
If you are referring to me, you are putting words in my mouth yet again.
(BTW I think some of the film’s charecters DO perceive veronica as a “slut” but they also percieve themselves as “too nice” to Judge her to her face. I could point to places in the film, but frankly this line of conversation tires me.
“maybe I have been living on Mars all these days!”
Perhaps. MAybe the film was anti streiotype for “mars” where you live. here on earth …I barfed.
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vijay
August 1, 2012
‘I’m not sure what to do about this. If I say “I will let through only those comments that are pertinent to the article,” then I lose the interesting digressions and banter. But on the other hand, there’s all this nonsense…
”
BR, I am against any form of censoring or moderation. But then this is your space, so..
But as a suggestion(to help you out) I would say allow all the digressions and banter but edit out only those comments(or portions of those comments) that start getting to be a bit personal, at your discretion
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Fatema
August 1, 2012
Utkal, I have been harbouring exactly these thoughts and have been also arguing with friends who saw it regressive and misogynistic. Me giving the same reasons as you are. I didn’t think much of the film, much of the inherent complexity rather than being explored is lost in candy-floss exuberance yet regressive is a tag I’d never attribute to it, ‘irresponsible’ maybe but that is more because of the failure of the film to do justice to its characters than the way the characters were written.
Co-wrote a post on the lead characters of the film that may interest you – http://moifightclub.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/cocktails-veronica-meera-behind-the-stereotypes/
However, when I wrote that I had not heard of regressive being used to describe the film till then, only slut (Veronica) and goat (Meera) hence it doesn’t touch on it. It riled me to see how we equate a short skirt and sexual abandon to modernity and progress and the reverse with salwar-kameezes. Not any different from those who see short skirts as a sign of sluttiness I’d think but the seemingly intelligent ppl I was interacting with somehow missed seeing that…
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Fatema
August 1, 2012
Imtiaz Ali in one of his interviews said that Veronica is trying to be like Meera not because that’s the right thing to be but just coz she thinks maybe then she can get Gautam’s love because he has chosen Meera over her and is she becomes like her then maybe Gautam will love her too. It was so apparent and the film doesn’t push an ideology or judgement in anyway.
Also, it was far clearer that Veronica was doing it less for Gautam than to attain the love and security she had never got but now thought she could get through Gautam, not ‘with’ him, but through him. Like Nadi in her post (link above) so beautifully points out she doesn’t say ‘I loved you so much’, she says ‘Kya hain mere paas…’ I loved that detailing in Veronica’s character. And it came out brilliantly, if only we can see it without our fogged spectacles of the mis-understood concept of modernity and perceived gender bias.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 1, 2012
Fatema: Read your piece and I must say you have said the very same things i wanted to say, but it’such better writen, more organized. I just rushed throuigh to put my thoughts down before I lost them. But I really don’t understand why you say’ I didn’t think much of the film.’ Isn’t it the film that has given us these characters, with all their subtleties and stereotype-breaking moulds?
Just think of the subtlety and sophistication of the scene where she is trying to cook biriyani and the yogurt thing. As you have been so perceptive in pointing out , it is more in the manner ofa child playacting and throwing tantrums than the real thing. The whole staging of the scene, including Gautam’s reaction , is masterly.
With our permission, I am quoting the paragraoh on Meera, for the benefit of those, who are stuck on thinking of Meera as a typical ‘ Bhratiya nari’.
” ne would expect Meera to ‘Indianise’ the rootless Veronica and Gautam, and the film to an extent. Any other film would have done so and that’s where Meera’s character becomes independent of the demands of the story. It does not use her character to sell Indian values, which is what we are used to seeing. She is who she is but she also lets the two stay who they are. She draws the limits of her comfort but does not impose her will. Yes, she does lack a confidence in herself in relation to the larger world but not in her own values; hence, she does not shy from praying to her gods in the irreverent household she lives in but refuses to give friendly hugs to Gautam, even after they become friends. Yet, she straddles both worlds beautifully, allowing herself to change some and then drawing her boundaries tight. She keeps emphasising ‘Main aisi hi hoon’. She rejects an idea not because it scandalises her but because that is who she is and that is what she identifies with. That is what she does not want to change… She does not flee at the first hint of trouble, but then we know she is not the fleeing type. She leaves when she thinks that is the right thing to do. Right not because she believes sacrifice is a great virtue and as a woman she is supposed to be so, but because that is what she sees as doing the right thing by her friend Veronica, someone she has come to love like a sister.
It is a thin line Imtiaz Ali and Homi Adajania tow in keeping Meera just this side of stereotyping but they do it with an intuitiveness and maturity we aren’t used to. It is another thing that a lot of this is swept by in dialogues and the compulsive yuppie-ness of the film. Some more is in the over-weaning need of romantic films to be dreamily so. Extrapolating a bit, it is this strength of character that must have made the flighty Gautam fall in love with her, something the film should have emphasised rather than go on a romantic trip of ‘you are this’ and ‘you are that’. She grounded him, something Veronica (or any other girl) couldn’t do for him. Isn’t love after all, about finding a home for our souls to rest in? Gautam had to find it in Meera because she always chooses to remain who she is not because she cannot go beyond her boundaries but because she won’t. Choice is empowerment and what better symbol of strength than the ability to make it?”
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Utkal Mohanty
August 1, 2012
Cocktail and the fascinating dynamics of a ménage-e-trois
The most interesting part of ‘ Cocktail’ is the interplay of relationships between its three protagonists – Gautam, Meera and Veronica. Before Gautam enters the scene, the bonding between Veronica and Meera itself was quite fascinating. With little snippets like when Meera offers the dredges of milk to a sloshed but hungry Veronica to the time Veronica asks Meera ‘ pink or purple?’ before they hit the road for a night out. The great store that Veronica places on their relationship is evident when Meera volunteers to move out in light of the growing intimacy between Veronica and Gautam and Veronica replies, “ Who kaun hota hai hamare beech mein aanewala?’.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that a couple sharing an intimate relationship would resent the presence of a third person. But that quite often is not the case. Why? First off there is the intrinsic voyeur in all of us. Actually it is voyeurism as well as voyeurism in reverse. We want to exhibit our intimate relationship to the world and we want to observe our intimate moments ourselves. And that applies to men as well as women. Celebrities recording their sex tapes, in spite of the risks involved is case in point. Boys recording mms clips of intimate moments with their girlfriends and broadcasting t is an extreme form of it. Giant mirrors in hotels of pleasure are another examples of catering to this need for observing one’s own intimate moments. Basically, one does not want the moment of one’s extreme passion and most pleasurable relationship pas onto oblivion without anyone observing it. A third portion in the relationship serves that purpose. When Meera points to Veronica that she is not wearing pants and Veronica pointing to Gautam says, “ A few moments back, when he was in the room, even he did not have his pants’. At another point, she confesses. “ And the is awesome in bed’. These are details she need not have shared with Meera, and she does. Of course things can never remain at this level for long. The third person too develops her own erotic fantasies fed on these images and yearns to translate them to reality. This is exactly what happens to Meera.
Something similar happens to Mahedndra , Asha and Vinodini in Chokher Bali. Initially, Asha confides the details of her intimate moments with Mahendra to Vinodini. ( In Rituparno’s film version, Asha shows her love bites to Vinodini and Vinodini cattily admonishes her, “ Ask him to be careful. You may get septic wounds.!’ Quite expectedly, Mahndra ends up lusting for Vinodini.
The third person also serves another purpose – adding spice and breaking the monotony of a pure monogamous relationship. After the initial passion wears off two persons can only take so much of each other, and a third person helps as a kind of distraction and adding a bit of friction in the relationship necessary to keep it going. In simple words it adds a bit of drama to the affair which could otherwise get boring.
The sakhis in Radha-Krishan dalliance serve the same purpose. Lalita and Visakha tease Radha about various moves of Krishna. Radha , in turn, in the famous Manna Dey Bengali song Says , “ Oh Lalita, oke aaaj onnyo ghate chloe jete bolna’ ( oh Lalita , please ask him to go to another ghaat today.” In the Bollywod films of 60’s, the heroines , right from Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam to Asha Parekh in countless movies would have a close friend who would serve this purpose. Devars like Salman in in Hum Aapke Hain Koun..? or Amal in ‘ Charulata’ play a similar third point giving company to the bhabi while the elder brother focuses on his business activities. Such a situation is not free from danger as the developments in Charulata proves. Jules, Jim and Catherine of ‘Jules et Jim’ are another awesome threesome , whose brief interlude of blissful co-existence, as is always the case, cannot last for ever.
The triangle in Cocktail is interesting because all the three vertices have a fascinating relation with each other : Gautam-Veronica, Gautam-Meera, Meera-Veronica. And the behavior of all three once the triangle gets messy is sketched out with mastery detail and freshness, The Gautam-Meera passage from here on is a primer on the art of seduction. Meera is smart enough to know intuitively that being aggressive going to backfire as it will put her in the same lane as Veronica, and she cannot win on the home turf of the latter. So she waits for Gautam to make the first move and she waits till they are in a fresh territory, South Africa. The writing here is amazingly good, the best I have ever seen. When Gautam gives that big one about What Makes Meera Hot , ending his eulogy with ‘ Your smile is like a social service. Dekho kaise chaaro traf tension kam ho rahe hain” and Meera remarks, “ Hey you are good, no wonder tumse ladkiyan patti hain’, and Gautam replies that he is pleased with his own performance, but adds, the performance was so good because it was a natural one, meaning that , he meant what he said. This is subtle, courtship at its best. He tells Meera she should try it sometimes and then adds, ‘ But then you don’t need it. Tum par to aise hi log girte hain, idhar udhar’ . Meera senses that her moment has come. “ To tum kyon nahin girte?’ she says impishly and gives him a gentle shove. Standing in knee-deep water, Guatam says’ Lo gir gaya”. He has got his acceptance and they know now the passion burns equally on both sides, dono taraf aag barabar, and what remains is the final consummation, which happens during the rave party on the beach, preceded by the mating dance of Tum Hi Bandhu by Meera where she turns on her feminine charm full blast ,and the difference between her moves from that of Veronica should also be noted. As I have pointed out , there is no guilt about the pre-marital sex or the extra-marital sex ion Meera’s mind , quite contrary to the thinking of those who are trying to a paint her as a typical ‘ Bharatiya Nari’. Even Meea lets out her secret to Veronica, when she says’ Galti ho gayi”. “ To galti kar chuki hai aap already’, Veronica snipes in.
Gautam’s reaction to this situation is interesting too. In another extremely well-written scene, Gutam figures they should try to talk things out as he still likes Veronica and he would like all three to remain friends. He gives his line about “ Jab bade bade desh ek chhoti si table par baith ke paramanu vinash jaise muddo ka hal kar sakte hain , hum yeh chhota sa problem ka hal nahin kar sakte hain?’ Meer attempts to get up, saying. “ Gautam, I am out of this’. Veronica asks her to stay, “ Hey guys , what’s happening here? We are all friends!”. In the heart of her hearts she knows what is amiss, but she is trying to play cool. Of course the façade does not last long and she is shattered.
Imtiaz and Homi in their interview have explained Veronica’s behaviour from here on quite well. More than Guatam, it is the familial bonds and the world of normal relationships which she never had is what she is yearning for. All her pub hopping and sexual bravado was a façade. Deep within she wanted a knigt in white to come and rescue her from her private hell and loveless existence. With Meera stealing away Gautam from her is like the last straw floating away. Deepika portrays her neurotic behavior in this phase very well . I have said elsewhere how it is far more nuanced and broader in range compared to say Meena Kumari in Saheb Biwi Aur Ghulam. One moment she is wearing salwar-kurta tryig to cook biriyani, next moment she is showing Meera the door and finally when all the tricks fail, she tires her last ditch attempt at attracting attention by going whole hog on the path of self destruction and self-degradation.
Her redemption is also insightfully sketched. When she sees how much Meera and Gautam care for her , and how much they are they are willing to give up to save her from destruction, her self esteem returns, She quite sensibly realizes that it cannot be anyone’s fault that Gautam loves Meera and not her. So just when she can almost have Gauatm back she lets him go. She is whole now. By this sacrificial act she has risen in her own esteem as well in the esteem of Meera and Gautam. She can face life confidently now and she can make a fresh start.
In my mind there is o doubt that she w ill meet fabulous man sooner or later and give him all the love that she knows she is capable of giving. And she will receive love In good measure too. And why not? You are such a lovely girl. You have your problems. But which of us don’t? You are a lot of fun, with great energy level, and a big heart. We love you Veronica.
And we love you Imtiaz and Homi . Thank you for giving us Veronica. And Meera. And Gautam.
In that order for me.
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rameshram
August 1, 2012
“BR, I am against any form of censoring or moderation. But then this is your space, so..
But as a suggestion(to help you out) I would say allow all the digressions and banter but edit out only those comments(or portions of those comments) that start getting to be a bit personal, at your discretion”
BR, Im against all forms of censorship or moderation, but this is your space so…if I may make a suggestion,to help you, I think people that have very little to say about films and criticism…and the actual joys or lack thereof of watching arts? when they actually get down to sitting in front of the computer and behaving like the monitor was an idiot box, and whine like hijras when a suggestion comment or post is not to their taste, although they have very little constructive to say othervice? a federal agency with a congressional grant should be instituted so a special black ops force should hunt them down, rescue their tiny peckers from their overworked hands, cut it off and stuff it into their mouth.
When this golden day happens, I want to see a rogues gallery of pictures with some posters here featured prominently.
HAve a good day 😉
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venkatesh
August 1, 2012
Does this film actually deserve so much discussion ?
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rameshram
August 1, 2012
” ‘irresponsible’ maybe but that is more because of the failure of the film to do justice to its characters than the way the characters were written.”
FAtima,
That. regressive is how I’d charecterize that. Let me put it this way. If all the detailing is just a maze that leads , on the other end to a wicked witch that eats little children (for instance) while it may be a fun experience for the adults that negotiate the maze, because the wicked witch wouldn’t eat them, you’ll understand why children would find the place a nightmare, right?
Similarly, just because the guns aren’t trained at you or Utkal personally, if you said the guns are trained at NOONE, you’re being blind at best and insensitive at the worst. the film very much is an “anti veronica” film (ie it doesn’t want veronica to exist as she was in the beginning of the film) and to veronica I guess she would see it as regressive to her, no?
(just as a child would see the wicked witch as anti child, even if you argue that your children are safe from the wicked witch because you’d protect them and never let them into the maze)
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rameshram
August 2, 2012
nope.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 2, 2012
Rameshram: In the story of Ratnakar-Valmiki, the writer doesn’t want Ratnakar ‘ to exist as he was in the beginning of the story’ transforming him to Valmiki instead. So to Ratnakar ‘ I guess he would see it as regressive to him, no?’
Great dictum for good storytelling here: Characters should remain till the end just as they are in the beginning of the story. Or else it is ‘ regressuie’.
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brangan
August 2, 2012
utkal: I admire you passion for defending so passionately what’s essentially a minority opinion. This passion is the thing that sets apart a true film lover from one who merely watches movies.
But that said, I hope you’re more considerate in the future towards others when THEY are in the minority, defending THEIR opinions. I refer to your comments on my review of “Guzaarish”, for instance — a film that I found problematic but nonetheless with a certain amount of merit.
Your comments suggested that your (dismissive) view was the only way to see the film. One could argue the same way with you about “Cocktail.” Just wanted to point this out…
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Fatema
August 2, 2012
🙂 No but yes. No cause the film isn’t important by its own merits. Yes because despite its unimportance it has revealed few very glaring chinks in our own attitudes and perceptions and I think it is important to examine that.
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rameshram
August 2, 2012
Its somewhat maddening when he invents stuff I am supposed to have said simply because it would conveniently dovetail with his views. Also whothesexualintercourseisratnakarandwhattheintercoursedoesithavetodowithcocktail ?
tyvm.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 2, 2012
Rangan; I am not averse to looking at another point of view. And you can rest assured, I read all the rationale or associated thoughts that you present to give a sense of why you think of a film the way do.And that applies to anyone’s opinion. I am get around to agreeing with that view point or I may not. I expect the same with my writing.
But frankly, in this particular discussion, I am not so much concerned with whether someone liked the film as much as i did or not. But when someone calls the film ‘ regressive’, which has a more definite connotation, quite different from whether you liked a film or not, the social implications are more dangerous. I react to that a little more seriously, for I believe such superficial definition of modernity, ( short skirts is progress, salwar-kameez is regressive, pub hopping is progressive, bonding with ones relatives is regressive) is what gives the Hinduvta brigade its ammunition and creates its support base. I can bet no one from Hinduvta brigade is going to champion this film, a film that offers so much autonomy to women and is so non-judgmental about the way women conduct their life and sexuality. Anyone who is not for women’s freedom is not going to be very comfortable with this film. I can also bet that the regions in India where regressive films which restrict women to straitjacketed roles without any autonomy of behaviour or mere sex symbols, do well is not where Cocktail is receiving patronage.
Making that distinction is important in light of the Guawhati and Mangalore attacks.
( For example, none of the characters in the film , either in the beginning or at the end of the film, would be against Valentine’s Day celebrations. Not Gautam, Not Meera, Not Veronica. Not Mrs Kavita Kappor . Not her brother. )
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brangan
August 2, 2012
utkal: I presume to refer to some other critic? Because calling something “old fashioned” is very different from calling it “regressive”. I used “old fashioned” the title because it’s the name of a cocktail, but also because of the Sangam analogy I’ve made later on. It just means that the film is not as hip and modern as it thinks it is. But that’s far from saying it’s regressive.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 2, 2012
Rangan: I was not referring to you at all in my last post. My original piece was written as a reaction to the piece by Shoma Chaudhury in Tehelka. And some of the other comments were replies to post by Rameshram. There was a piece by Shobha De in similar vein. I was also a little flabbergasted by Chetan Bhagat writing in Times of India where he says he is disappointed by the protagonist’s choice of mate in Cocktail and exhorts educated young people to marry working women, quite forgetting that Meera is very much a working woman, more so than Veronica if one may say so.
As far as being ‘ hip and modern’ Imtiaz does not really aim to be one. Right from Socha Na Tha through Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal right till Rockstar and Cocktail, he is about people being true to their hearts and not considering fulfilling one’s heart’s desire as any kind of sin, even when it goes against traditional social mores or morality ( Having an affair with a married woman, having sex with her when she is in last stages of her fatal illness, experimenting with drugs and alcohol excess). He manages to flummox most critics because he does not fall into any convenient slot of socio-political ideology.
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rameshram
August 2, 2012
“short skirts is progress, salwar-kameez is regressive, pub hopping is progressive, bonding with ones relatives is regressive”
who said this? and for the record didn’t say that the reason the film was regressive was because it didn’t like deepika pudukone’s short skirts. there are other equally rideculous reasons why it IS being regressive.
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rameshram
August 2, 2012
“Anyone who is not for women’s freedom is not going to be very comfortable with this film.”
Anyone who IS for women’s freedom is not going to be comfortable with this film either, and they are not going to buy the halfway house you want to paint women into because that’s….plain …..yeah. regressive.
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rameshram
August 2, 2012
” But when someone calls the film ‘ regressive’,…., the social implications are more dangerous”
What?! and you say you’re not being anti valentine’s day?! Of course the social implications are dangerous to a regressive society. that’s the point in MAKING the critique. So in effect we just witnessed a gatekeeper of “society browbeat a critic into disavowing some “dangerous” social implications.
I thought you were “bored” with the word regressive, utkal, not afraid of its dangerous social implications!
I understand you want to put some distance between your (regressive) attitudes and the (even more regressive) attacks on couples in mangalore and guahati, but that’s just saying the lesser of the two evils is a virtue ( eg: I’m only asking for a scooter(as dowry), a truly exploitative person would demand a car).
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Fatema
August 2, 2012
Utkal – I didn’t think much of the film because despite having genuinely good strands to explore it goes the old-fashioned way, like BR pointed out. It takes the safe route, doesn’t push boundaries it could have (purely based on the material) and has the limited ambition of being just a heartfelt, yuppie love story when it could have done more. I am not questioning the choice of being yuppie but doing it at the cost of your story and characters peters the film down which Cocktail became by the end of it.
Also, so many cliches (hospital, partying-at-the-drop-of-the-hat syndrome etc) and then Mr Hooda’s character who one friend very rightly pointed out was walking around with the expression of “Main is film mein kya kar raha hoon” 😛 Jokes apart, his coming back was not required and even if it may have been it wasn’t used or explored in a way to credit the film with merit. He was merely used as a convenient character. Easy-way-out again.
There were so many moments, scenes et al in the film handled with sensitivity and quirk – very enjoyable but unfortunately they were mostly in the set-up, the first half. The second half had some in Veronica but it spiralled away with Bollywood’s habit of ‘dunno what to do with the awesome first half we have so let’s fuck it up”.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 2, 2012
Fatema: Agreed it could have been better. I agree the last 20 minutes were a downer. The Hooda character coming back was handled very messily. But these are the problems with most Bollywood films with and their ‘dunno what to do with the awesome first half we have so let’s fuck it up” attitude. But I found the second half right until Veronica says to Gautam, If you feel for Veronica what I feel for you, how can it work, aisa to nahin chal sakta, quite wonderful. Veronica’s neurosis and breakdown, with wonderful music like ‘ Jugni’ and ” Yaara alvida’ very creatively used accompanied by some great camera work, night shots of train with lighted windows etc. Frankly I haven’t seen such fascinating, nuanced and well-sketched women characters in Bollywood for years (Silk in ‘The Dirty Picture’ was the only one I can think of.) Bollywood which short changes its women characters into stereotypical slots so often, this was a refreshing change, as was Silk in TDP.
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soniajoseph
August 3, 2012
I’m entering this debate rather late, but this was a very balanced review. People were either praising this movie to the high heavens or burning it at the stake, so to speak.
However, even if you consider that Utkal and Fatema have taken care to elaborate on each point they make and Rameshram doesn’t, I must admit that he has a point in there somewhere between the scary witches and the repeated use of “regressive.” No one is saying salwar kameez is regressive and mini-skirts are progressive. The clothes as such have no magical properties and I have seen many a woman in hot-shorts who could slut-shame better than the most rabid “moral” policeman.
Utkal: “Characters should remain till the end just as they are in the beginning of the story. Or else it is ‘ regressive’.”
Characters should stay true to their overall essence. Especially since the genre is not “fantasy.” You cannot have Paan Singh suddenly becoming Dawood Ibrahim. That is how the Veronica transition felt. I didn’t see damaged, needy, self-destructive only child in part 1.
The story is written in such a way that Veronica is set up to fail and nothing in the beginning of the film trains us to anticipate this. In a sense, they created this confident happy woman and then after she was happy for long enough decided to destroy her completely. And then they create this mouse-in-London naive girl and turn her into a sort of Miss Confidence-Brimming-Over. Rewarding her. And for the man, whether its KKHH or Cocktail, he just needs to be XY, he is a destined winner. This is the age-old virgin-whore binary and we know who wins. My issue is not so much with the theme, who expects Bollywood to come up with something else? But the swagger that somehow this is new and this is different and socially relevant. This is just old wine in a new bottle. Meera is a Jaya Bhaduri/Hema Malini character in new clothes while Veronica is a modern Zeenat Aman/ Parveen Bhabi avatar. There is some eye-wash but who are we fooling here. There is a right and wrong kind of woman, according to the movie though no one has the courage to come out and say it.
Utkal:”More than Guatam, it is the familial bonds and the world of normal relationships which she never had is what she is yearning for. All her pub hopping and sexual bravado was a façade. Deep within she wanted a knigt in white to come and rescue her from her private hell and loveless existence.” *STEREOTYPE*
This movie may be entertaining but has nothing to do with the wide range and breadth of modern women IRL, whether we wear a hijab, or curse like a sailor or do not believe in monogamy or remember all the sacred days. For the record, I am personally closer to Meera than Veronica and noone has ever given me a hard time in India for preferring ethnic wear, enjoying the prep of good food or going to church. Life has been easy. But I have seen firsthand how difficult it can be when you move away from the script even a little bit. There are plenty of women, friends, relatives who are single, have open relationships, don’t want children and can down vodka like water. But they are happy. And don’t come to me with that bullshitty argument that somewhere down the line they live to regret it. I have seen many a professional woman content to spend her twilight years alone, reading and catching up on old hobbies. And they were rich kids. With their parents seldom around. When you ask them, they always tell you their only regret was having to listen to people harping abt their lifestyle. Movies like “Cocktail” help spread the stereotype. It comes so close to looking like real people, but then it isn’t. Like Rameshram’s witch analogy above, only a woman can know how threatening this film can feel because she will have to deal with the consequences of its mass influence. Men, who are inherently privileged, and women without empathy will not see the threat.
Utkal: “First of all, she fails to recognize that, yes, there is a difference between men being sexually prolific and a woman sleeping around. (It has to do with evolutionary biology that has hardwired the instincts of men and women a little differently. The payoff for a woman to sleep around is less, because she can give birth to only one child, while a man sleeping around can father multiple children, almost without limits.. That is the basic instinct. Of course we do not live by our primordial instincts alone, and civilization influences play a role. But the basic biological compulsions will take thousands, maybe millions of years to evolve significantly. Perceptive artists divine the essential truth intuitively , more so than social scientists and columnists.) ”
This is popular science at its worst. I am in this field, so I have some idea. There is this idea running around that men can’t help it as they are evolutionarily hard-wired while women are biologically monogamous. The truth is both sexes are not hard-wired for monogamy. The alpha woman may bed as many men as she chooses. In fact she may choose to bed a succession of healthy, virile men to increase the chances that whenever she gets pregnant the father is of good stock and then when she learns she has conceived settle for one of many stable types to ensure her child is well supported. There is plenty of historical precedent. Career mistresses among nobility, the Nair matriarchs. Alphas of both genders have many options. But we have overcome our biology for the most part and are capable of being decent human beings, so please. This is definitely some sort of evasive evolutionary biology claptrap at work here that helps enforce double standards. Sleeping around has been and always will be the same thing for both sexes but unfortunately women don’t have the means to go into a murderous rage and bash a man’s head in for it.
Oh now that that’s in the open, excellent job once again Bharadwaj and I agree with Fatemah’s summation. Cheers!
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brangan
August 3, 2012
soniajoseph: Excellent comment/thoughts. Thanks. For a change, there’s been an actual discussion about a film, thanks to utkal, fatema and rameshram. Feeling a bit reassured about my blogspace now 🙂
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Shankar
August 3, 2012
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I was struck by the skirts, salwar kameez comment. I don’t know how far this is true but a friend’s father opined the other day that in places like Bangalore, especially in big housing complexes, the owners are characterized by the western outfits they wear while the salwar kameezes are adorned by the servants!!
Shocking as it was to hear that, I’m now intrigued by that as well as the comments in this space regarding progressive vs. regressive. I’m not sure what to make of one single person’s opinion or if this were even applicable outside the cosmopolitan cities to any extent. You know I often hear some of my friends extol that our country is becoming really progressive…the proof that is offered is the bustling malls, bowling alleys and fancy restaurants. Until the power grid blows up and then reality sets in. It’s a bit like that, I feel. What exactly is being progressive? It depends on one’s viewpoint, I guess.
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rameshram
August 3, 2012
“even if you consider that Utkal and Fatema have taken care to elaborate on each point they make and Rameshram doesn’t, I must admit that he has a point in there somewhere between the scary witches and the repeated use of “regressive.””
TYVM! You see I AM a dude, and as such, even if I can quite clearly SEE it from a girl’s point of view (what can I say! I’m sensitive like that;) ) I cannot ELABORATE and speak with a woman’s voice….or should take over that role..SO thanks for piping up…so strongly. What the doctor ordered.
“The story is written in such a way that Veronica is set up to fail and nothing in the beginning of the film trains us to anticipate this. In a sense, they created this confident happy woman and then after she was happy for long enough decided to destroy her completely. And then they create this mouse-in-London naive girl and turn her into a sort of Miss Confidence-Brimming-Over. Rewarding her. And for the man, whether its KKHH or Cocktail, he just needs to be XY, he is a destined winner.”…”But the swagger that somehow this is new and this is different and socially relevant.”..” There is a right and wrong kind of woman, according to the movie though no one has the courage to come out and say it.”..”Men, who are inherently privileged, and women without empathy will not see the threat”
Bingo!
post more.
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rameshram
August 3, 2012
” but unfortunately women don’t have the means to go into a murderous rage and bash a man’s head in for it.”
you can cut off the guy’s penis 😉 options… HaHa! 😀
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soniajoseph
August 3, 2012
@Baradwaj: I must admit, I started out a bit peeved but hopefully tolerance and good sense prevailed. Thank you! I never thought I would totally go into essay mode over “Cocktail” though. Oh well, I guess there is always a first time. And I imagine any film that stimulates discussion at this level has done something right. 😉
On a side note, excited about your book. I was wondering when someone would do something like this with Ratnam. Not a big fan of his recent outings with Chota Bachan and stuff but I always maintained that noone can do romance in the subcontinent like he can.
@Rameshram: I agree about not hijacking female narratives but I also strongly believe in male allies piping up strongly and elaborately. 😉 Scolding aside, I agree with you perspective for the most part.
I believe that with most violent men, the violence is a spur of the moment thing. What I was lamenting was the lack of recourse to a spur of the moment violent outburst for women. Even castration in the heat of the moment would require overpowering the man somehow and most women will not be able to “in the moment.” I imagine it would require some serious cold-blooded calculation to carry it off. Like drugging him on the sly, tying him up and…. as the protagonist in a recent malayalam movie does. And I think most people when they cool down don’t feel the need to be violent because their partner cheated on them. At the most you feel like dumping them and moving on. The cold-blooded scenario is only justified ethically in case of a serious violation of our basic human rights. I was basically arguing that the statistically the number of women cheating may be lower historically not because of an evolutionary bias but because these women fear what their men will do to them when they find out and “see red”.
Though I must admit most women who saw that malayalam film were immensely satisfied with the results. 😉
@Shankar: If you are truly progressive I don’t think you would ever measure progress in terms of mini-skirts, bowling alleys or malls. In that case, Saudi Arabia is a very progressive country. The malls are getting bigger, there are plenty of bowling alleys and pool tables and the women dress quite skimpily beneath those abhayas. True progress, that!
I think what many people shy away from is that the girl in Guwahati could wear a bhurka and go into that bar and those men would still have molested her. They had made up their minds. My wearing a salwar kameez with dupatta pinned in place has never stopped sleazes in public transport. There are girls in UP saying that they don’t want to wear jeans and walk out after sun set and “tempt men.” I am totally ok if they don’t want to wear jeans or walk out at night but I do have a problem with the fact that they think it “tempts men.” Why not ban the men from stepping out after sun-set.
Progress is measured by well-lit streets, dependable electricity, dependable water, rations and food for poor people not being hoarded, people not judging you for living any way you please as long as you don’t harm anyone in the process, women being able to walk alone or use public transport in safety and educated people not burning their brides. Progress is definitely not a relative term at all. I think everyone knows this but since real progress looks like mannah from the sky, they settle for external markers like short skirts and bowling alleys.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 4, 2012
Soniajoseph: You say, “However, even if you consider that Utkal and Fatema have taken care to elaborate on each point they make and Rameshram doesn’t…” If you examine closely you would have seen that it is because many of his points are not based on facts or anything concrete. I am afraid, even your post has the same disregard for facts staring in one’s face.
“You cannot have Paan Singh suddenly becoming Dawood Ibrahim, “ you say.
Really? I thought that was exactly what happened in the film. A national award-winning athlete in the army becomes a dreaded dacoit!
I mentioned Ratnakar to Valmiki. Chandashok , the murderous warrior becomes the pacifist, Dharmashok. There are any number of stories, fictional and otherwise where the protagonists undergo drastic transformation. And I don’t think these transformations make the stories remotely regressive. Ennobling..inspiring..perhaps?
“Meera is a Jaya Bhaduri/Hema Malini character in new clothes while Veronica is a modern Zeenat Aman/ Parveen Bhabi avatar. “
I haven’t heard of a more blatant case of stereotyping. Come on! Which Hemamalini you are talking about? The rebel poet, Meera? The spunky Basanti? The docile Seeta, or the firebrand Geeta? Or the rakhel of Raj Bhadur in Lal Patthar? Which Jya Bhaduri? The knife-sharpener in Zanzeer? The brave cancer patient in Mili? Or the suffering wife in Kora Kagaz? Or the prostitute of Ek Nazar? Or Sujata, the mother of the killed Naxalite? Or the bubbly teenager of Jawani Deewni? Which Parveen Babi? The whore with a golden heart of Dewar? Or the intrepid press photographer of Kala Patthar? Which Zeenat Aman? Roma of Don? Or Rupa of Satyam Shivam Sundram? ( Well if Praveen and Zeenat has less variety, it is because of their limited talent. Someone like Rekha could straddle both or maybe more than two worlds comfortably, from Muqadar Ka Sikandar, to Silisla, from Umrao Jaan to Judaai , from Khubsoorat to Khoon Bhari Mang )
‘There is a right and wrong kind of woman, ..” Who or What in the film ever gave you that impression? Since you don’t believe in substantiating anything you say, let me at least reproduce a few lines of dialogue to demonstrate the opposite. Meera: “ Muhe sirf yeh clear hai mi tum dono ek hi kamremein rehta ho, ek hi toothbridh use kerte ho. Sahi galat nahin kah raha hoon. Mein shayad different hoon..” So no right or wrong for Meera. Mrs. Kavita Kapor: “ Itni badi ho gayi hai, phir bhi matragasti kerti phirt hai. Chal mein tujhe kucch khilati hoon’ Is this how a traditional woman from Lajpat nagar behaves towards a ‘ wrong’ kind of woman? Let’s take some wordless scenes. The scene where Gautam is bringing breakfast in bed for Veronica, or when he is braiding her hair. Is this how one behaves with a ‘ wrong’ kind of woman?
“This is the age-old virgin-whore binary and we know who wins. “ And who wins? Meera? Just because Guatam marries her? What in the film suggests that Veronica can not get another man ? And incidentally, it is not Guatam who does not not marry Veronica. It si Veronica who does not marry Gautam..even though she could if she wanted to. Because she knew he did not love her. Now what is regressive? Not marrying someone who does not love you? Or marrying someone just because you slept with him , even if he does not love you?
Actually I know what in the film gets the goat if so many women’s liberation fundamentalists. It would have pleased them so much if Meera and Veronica were portrayed as the standard stereotypes. But how dare Imtiaz show a girl like Meera , who looks like a demure, traditional Indian girl, but does not wince at seeing only booze bottles in her freeze, and nonchalantly starts looking for the milk bottle? And she does not hit the roof when she finds that Veronica and Guatam share a toothbrush and sleep together. In fact she goes around with them gallivanting all over the town. And holy shit, she can get a job as a graphic designer! And she also cooks and prays! Such a woman should not be looking so pretty in a short dress o the beach, dancing so seductively. And sleep with Gautam and feel no guilt about it.
And what about Veronica? Such a modern girl. What business he has yearning for the love of someone so dowdy like Mrs Kavita Kapoor? Or how can one forgive her for not being fulfilled with clubbing and one-night stands and look for a committed relationship? Has she gone nuts? Hasn’t she heard of Hugh Hefner – the patron saint of fulfilled individuals? And how can she go to pieces even if she has her best boyfriend and best girl friend getting together, leaving her out? And how dare she transform herself into a more sane avatar? Girls like Parveen Babi or Zeenat Aman never did that. They generally got killed, or went mad in real life.
“There are plenty of women, friends, relatives who are single, have open relationships, don’t want children and can down vodka like water. But they are happy. And don’t come to me with that bullshitty argument that somewhere down the line they live to regret it. “
But there ARE many more women in similar situation who are unhappy. Some of them visit rehab clinics. And I accept there can be women in such situation who can be happy. I mean there is this dancer, Sudha Chandran,..she does not have a leg. She dances very well with her Jaipur foot. We all admire her. She is doing great. But would it be wrong to advise a dancer : Please take e care of your legs? Well that’ s extreme. But the point is, showing a woman move from drunken binges and one-night stands to committed relationship if she feels like it is not regressive by any stretch of imagination. Because that is the prescription for a greater probability of happiness for most. The point to note here is that, in the film, she did not face any trouble at all because of her short skirts or drunken ways ( like Soniachopra’s friends apparently do in real life’ when they move away from the script’) , but when she finds out that the man she wants to settle down with, loves someone else. The film is far ahead of the real world when it comes to being non-judgmental.
And Rangan, while I will agree that the bit about both the women wanting to sacrifice was old fashioned dramaturgy, almost nothing else in the film was. Think about the scene where Gautam proposes that the three of them talk it out, laying bare the problem at its starkest: You love me. I love her. And she loves me to but wont admit to it because she is indebted to you” Can’t imagine Raj Kapoor saying that to Rajendra Kumar and Vyjayantimala.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 4, 2012
soniachopra: “This is popular science at its worst. I am in this field, so I have some idea. There is this idea running around that men can’t help it as they are evolutionarily hard-wired while women are biologically monogamous. The truth is both sexes are not hard-wired for monogamy..”
True. But the difference in degree is enormous.
I used to have a rule that I don’t discuss gender-differences with relation to sexuality unless he or she had read Richard Dawkin’s ‘Selfish Gene”. But let me sidestep that by presenting his ideas through a simple case study.
Let’s take a woman and a man. Over a month the woman sleeps with a hundred guys, the best available in town, in terms of genetic material and social standing, wealth etc. And the man does the same. And let’s assume they both are as lucky as they can be. That is to say, the woman gets a child from the very best man. And the man gets a hundred children from the hundred women she sleeps with.
Can’t you see the asymmetry? Yes, the woman gets the child from the best man. ( That is if she is lucky in the extreme. Even she sleeps with all the hundred during the period she was fertile , the probability carrying the child of the best man is one in hundred. ) But even so, how does that compare with the hundred of springs of the man? If you carry this over a year, the man could end up having 1200 children. And the woman , still just one. And there additional complications. If the men find out or suspect that the woman is sleeping with men other than him, they won’t be sure whose child it is, and the best man may not take café of the child. Maternity being a certainty the women will still take care of their children , even after knowing that he is sleeping with a hundred others. There would be some payoffs for a woman cheating if she has a trusting or adoring husband , in term of improving her gene pool. Wives of rich old men having affairs with young artists, singers or scientists fall in this category. But it is nothing compared to the payoff a straying man can have.
No, a better strategy for the woman would be try and seduce the best man available and be faithful to him ( Or at least pretend to be faithful to him.) And that is exactly what men and women do. Men are indiscriminate in being aroused. Women , not so easy. Playboy outsells Playgirl , by a very large multiplier I am sure. So it is with the number of men watching porn compared to women. And the number of men reading Mills and Boon compared o women. As we all saw in Vicky Donor, how Annu Kapoor offering all those girly magazines and DVDs, did the trick. With women you would be better of with candle light dinner, wine, chocolates and the orchestra playing Vivaldi, or a Cd with Farida Khanum singing ’ Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na karo’ or Barry White singing ’ You Are My First, My Lasdt, My Everything”. Yin the film ’ Astitva’, Tabu asks her husband Sachin Khedekar, “ Kya aurtat ka vaasna mard jk avasna se lag hot hai?’ She was implying , ‘ No;, but the answer is ‘Yes. It is quite different’.
So it is patently false to state that ‘ Sleeping around has been and always will be the same thing for both sexes .” Genghis Khan’s DNA being found in the )0.5% of world’s population or the NBA basketballer Wilt Chamberlain claiming that he had slept with 20,000 women has no parallel in he women’s universe.
But getting back to Dawkin , what he says in the preface or the intro chapter ( I do not have the book on my shelf, so I am quoting from memory) is that just because it is so does not mean that is is ideal or it is desirable , but it helps to first understand things the way they are. The thrust of civilization has been to rise above the biological drive. From Gandhian abstinence to hippie communes there has been attempts to subvert the design of the selfish gene ( Actually , as per Dawkin the gene has no design and you and I don’t consciously plan our behavior. It is just the particular aspects of a specific gene acting up.) But it takes millions of years fir any drastic change to happen in the genetic makeup of a specie. So when we look at stories from Mahabharata, or Madam Bovary or Anna Karenina and ask what has changed? The answer when it comes to the core erotic impulse, the answer would be, not much. Of course that does not mean we should not try to change things. But it is certainly helpful, while doing that, to recognize what we are up against. And we should be patient : it will take a long, long time for the basic nature of man and woman to undergo any kind of significant change.
The attempt to transcend biology is what has given birth to culture. Monogamy, Romantic love… are abstractions ( memes Dawkins would call them) to achieve this. Of course so are Free Love, Open Marriages, Serial Polygamy, DINKs and all that. With DNA testing of paternity, in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and even cloning , things could change in a million years. But then so would the physiognomy of men and women, the nature of our films, books and literature – they would be totally unrecognizable from our idea of them today – and we won’t be discussing Cocktail or anything resembling it – for our problems then would be totally different. .
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Utkal Mohanty
August 4, 2012
‘ Clothes’ for thought – related to ‘ Cocktail ‘
” Some of Silicon Valley’s best-dressed women, including Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Juliet de Baubigny, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm, declined to be interviewed about their style. But others said that dressing well (and talking about it) could help erode the stereotypes that repel some women from the technology field.
“It’s possible to hold your femininity and love of fashion,” Ms. Singh Cassidy said. “Now I feel not at all at risk that people would say, ‘How can she care about dressing well and run a billion-dollar company or be smart?’ ”
And though some Google employees rolled their eyes when Ms. Mayer appeared in Vogue and Glamour in her signature brightly colored dresses, with full skirts nipped at the waist, she said the decision was intentional.
“My willingness to talk about it is because I believe the way we’ll get more people into computer science and ultimately more women into computer science is by making it really clear that you can be yourself and don’t need to give up parts of yourself to succeed,” she said. “You can be into fashion and you don’t have to be the pasty white programmer with a pocket protector staying up all night.”
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brangan
August 4, 2012
utkal: Reg. “And Rangan, while I will agree that the bit about both the women wanting to sacrifice was old fashioned dramaturgy, almost nothing else in the film was.”
I think I differ from you here. Yes, there are scenes/moments that reflect a very refreshing and modern way of looking at things, but when the entire arc of the second half of the film is headed towards “old fashioned dramaturgy” then that’s the mood that drives your perception of the film.
For me, the first and the second halves just did not connect. The first half deserved a more “modern” second half. Or, the second half should have come from a more traditional first half. (“Traditional” need not be boring — just that after all that supposed taboo-breaking, we’re still stuck in the realm of “Sangam.” Well, except for the non-death.)
PS: “Sangam” is a film I like a lot BTW. There’s a lot of flab in the “let me show you foreign destinations” stretch. But Raj Kapoor’s obsessive love (he’s like a puppy that refuses to let go of a bone) and his craven jealousy — these are things that no actor or director has put so scarily on screen since then. The second half is full of fantastic dramatic highlights and they rise from the fact that the characters are so “old fashioned” and “traditional.” Had Vyjayanthimala been like Veronica, we wouldn’t have sympathised with her plight at all. Not because we’re judging her as a slut or anything — far from it — but because these emotions come bubbling out of nowhere. Either due to Deepika’s lack of talent or some screenwriting/characterisation mistakes, we run into a very different Veronica in the second half, and she threw me out of the film.
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rameshram
August 4, 2012
“in male allies piping up strongly and elaborately.”
first sister, manchikko (exuce me) I feel fairly uncomfortable signing on to any fight I didn’t start 😉 plus my serious interest in women seems over the years, to be limited to wanting to …um…make sweet love to them, Some women I know, trust me, can fight their own fights without my…. strong and elaborate piping. 😉
Also I have no trouble in finding the right words in copious quantities when I want to say something. In this case I’m just not sure I could strike the right note(I can hear this now..”of course you like her! shes a slut! what’s not to like” ) in standing up for Veronica(except to warn the veronicas of the world of “incoming”). I live my life with relatively few conditioned constraints and have learnt from life that you end up stuck in the quagmire if you have illusions tht you can play superman. at best one is a bodhisattva.
Also the under reported scandal about the male anatomy is how structurally WEAK the whole housing of man parts are. I am of the opinion that if women only had a clue, the number of rapes would drop exponentially. Im only half joking here.
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soniajoseph
August 4, 2012
@Utkal Mohanty. Don’t worry, I have read selfish gene and some more. However, many people in the evolutionary biology community do not accept Dawkin’s word as law. And recently, with the advent of proof to substantiate epigenetics, many of his pet theories are not holding much water anymore. He is an excellent popular science writer but please do remember, most of this is theoretical, not fact. Should I append the relevant references to this post? I can if it is required. Models and theories are constantly subject to revision based on new evidence.
Your argument stands on its head as far as proof is concerned. The very fact that by Biology women are limited as to how many offspring they can produce and also the fact that their child-bearing dynamic age is restricted explains away the Genghis khan and footballer offspring majority. This is called a retrospective study, attributing a cause for an effect after the fact. There was a study saying that eating raw fruits and veggies prevented colon cancer. This was a retrospective analysis based on what cancer patients self-reported. But when the same study was conducted by following a population for 50 years and closely recording their diet, no such effect was observed. 0.5% of Genghis Khan’s offspring populate the world. He was an aggressive warrior king who raped and pillaged. There were many like him back then. Why do his genes persist? We can only guess after the event. His seed motility? The strength of his army to spread further? His willingness to violate more women? A woman even if she chooses to cannot leave evidence of that magnitude. (30-40 children if she conceived every year that she was reproductive and did not miscarry once. I will concede there is the possibility of multiple births but not more than 4-6 of those 40 pregnancies. If you throw societal pressure to remain chaste and virginal and also the fact that men are physically stronger into that mix, the chances of that evidence reduce further.
It is the current understanding in the field that promiscuity is advantageous to both women and men but the cost when found out is higher for women because (a) their male partners are physically stronger (b) society labels them and makes their life difficult (c) they may have support for existing offspring withdrawn. Therefore, women have a reason to be more discreet unless you had a socially sanctioned system of polyandry. In such cases too female sexuality was carefully regulated by male brute force to keep the women in line. Think of this: Maybe the female Genghis Khans are not known to us because (a) they could have a limited number of offspring (b) they had more reason to be discreet (c) they were more likely to use abortifacients and birth control to avoid the creation of a scandal. Genghis, due to his sheer physical stature and maleness has nothing to fear. The point I am repeatedly making here is that Science has established that there is a benefit for both sexes but human society which is built along the strong versus weak sex dynamic will always make the cost higher for women to own up to it/even pursue it. Again, I repeat, your argument about the inability to face our biology is not supported by data within the field. Both genders face this impulse. It is just costlier for one of the genders to open up about it due to societal structures.
Again, in the next section, the numbers you mention, small problem there. You treat it as a pure number-of-prodigy calculation. The human brain has stopped making those hunter-gatherer calculations a long, long time ago. There is evidence in neuroscience that our brains evolve every couple of hundred years. Over the last 1000 years, Kings routinely had their offspring born of concubines or rival clan princesses terminated. The modern day cad knows well enough to pay for an abortion. Babies inspire fear in philanderers. At least for 600 years, humanity’s greatest impulse for cheating is no more complicated than pleasure. There is no complicated math regarding offspring at work here. Again when you call me out on numbers, please do yourself the dignity of supporting yourself with the same. I am the veteran of many a girls’ and women’s hostel (high school, engineering college) and have lived with desi and otherwise women here in apartments in the USA while I am pursuing my PhD. There are way more women reading Mills and Boones both here and in India than men. Statistics support my perception. Study after study shows that women prefer reading erotic material while men prefer visual stimuli like Playboy and Porn videos. They can be as traditional or party-loving as they like. A good 90% of them read Mills and Boones. I didn’t myself, but I understood the impulse. I personally preferred the dark, foreboding passion of “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre.” But there it is, women like to imagine things in their head. Men want to see it for themselves. There are exceptions: you mention that you enjoy Mills and Boons too, but overall this is the data. And this is explains the interest in candles and roses and all that. Again, here, we are assuming this is what works universally. There is no data to support the candles and roses, old Hindi songs and Vivaldi scenario. For some women that is their fantasy. For others it is preparing elaborate meals and pressing the man’s feet. For still others it is a whip and chains. For me personally, it was the extensive viewing of “Godfather”, “Roshomon” and Malayalam slapstick comedy. The range of “what women like” is diverse but what is magnified by the media is what a small subset of women prefer. What has recently been called the romance-industrial-complex. We are supposed to like certain things. A lot of women feel pressured to give in to these ideas. A number of friends recently wore gowns for their weddings though they felt quite frumpy because everyone convinced them that’s what all girls are supposed to like (this included their fiancés). I almost got pressured into getting a solitaire diamond for my engagement. Societal pressures can often feel insurmountable. I am not saying this pressure is restricted to women. Men too can be victims of this system. Men can’t show their feelings, women like pink, can’t do math, men can’t do classical dance. I think the attitude harms everyone equally in the long run.
We can continue with numbers further: In real life women in India get judged, whether it makes you happy or not. Your statistic in itself is judgmental because there is no such statistic. There is nothing to support the idea that more of these women end up in rehab or lead unfulfilled lives. In a social system where such judgment has been significantly reduced, where women have considerably greater freedom of expression such a statistic (if it exists) would change my mind about things. In India, with the holier-than –thou attitude a lot of our middle class possesses and even a good percentage of our upper classes, such a statistic would just be an unfortunate reflection of existing social attitudes. I am pleased to tell you that such a study was conducted here in the USA and it was found that there was no significant difference in the happiness of long-term single or married women since the late 70s. In fact marriage just bumped your overall wellness index a few percent. However, every child you had compensated for this gain. Only if you have more than 4 children do you actually regain the level of wellness and happiness you had immediately after marriage. Will that stop me from having children? No! That is my choice but I respect another woman’s choice to go down a non-traditional route without thinking there is a 90% chance they will land in rehab. Mid last century a study was conducted measuring the happiness and wellness of homosexual people in the long run. Surprise, surprise! Most of them were depressed in the long run and committed suicide. Studies begun late last decade show that they are about as happy as the rest of us on average. This reflects social change don’t you think. Where is the Biology in that? At all times in history a good 10% of each sex is gay, what happened? Social structures can influence the happiness and success that individuals achieve in their lives. Is that enough numbers to substantiate my claim?
OK, moving on to the Zeenat Aman vs Jaya Bhaduri comparison. I personally perceived a certain aura was associated with the roles they portrayed. Jaya Bhaduri was associated with the innocent-at-sea and Parveen/Zeenat with the cabaret. The few movies I have seen “Koshish”, “Guddi”,”Parichay” seem to reinforce this. And then when you talk to men of that age, I keep hearing, Jaya and Hema we can take home, Parveen and Zeenat are for funtimes. This is the only anecdote for which I don’t have data to support my thesis, so I concede that I may be wrong but this is the perception that I as a child of the 90s has inherited. The innocent, uncorrupted sari-wearing vs the western wearing drug haze enveloped malcontent. On this one point I may be wrong in identifying the actresses but the archetype is universal; just reinvented for each generation. The new generation of viewers would not identify with a “good” girl who crinkled her nose at the sight of alcohol. She would seize being believable. If she was swathed in sarees and salwars and wore bindhis, “Cocktail” would generate zero buzz. People would wonder at that happening in London. Like I said, the clothes have no magical properties. Diana Penty wearing shorts does not make her a mold-breaker. My argument is about a woman, who has no clue that her husband married her for her money, landing in London with no concrete plans and ends up crying in a rest-room: how did she suddenly become hot-shot graphic designer. She can be a conservative with a hint of street-smarts somewhere in the beginning if I am to believe the remaining transition. If Veronica had not seen her in that restroom, what then? She didn’t seem to have a clue. If they had told me that she got a job as a secretary or intern, then she moved around a bit, got into the groove of living in London, networked and then got the upgrade to hot-shot designer, I would have bought it. If I saw an insecure only child in Veronica I would have seen her craving the love and attention of Kavitha Kapoor. I didn’t see that in the confident, happy, kind person from the beginning of the film. She may have felt a strong affection for aunty and love for her son, but I didn’t see that Veronica collapsing after they chose the other girl. She would feel a bit upset, none of us want our heart broken, and then moved on. When I mean winning, I mean the unnecessary dragging of her character through a pile of melodrama that she showed no aptitude for at the beginning. And you may not see the inherent judgment in “Dhang ka kapda pehna kar” but many a girl in that situation will disagree. Also “Mujhe sirf yeh clear hai mi tum dono ek hi kamremein rehta ho, ek hi toothbridh use kerte ho. Sahi galat nahin kah raha hoon. Mein shayad different hoon..” the fact that you even bring this up, that you need to say “I don’t know if it is wrong” is suspect. We don’t care if you are different and we don’t care that we are different. We just are. And why act so innocent when you are going to bed him a couple of scenes down the line anyway, and behind your friend’s back. I have nothing against Meera. That would be like being against someone who is a good 70% like me. Except that I was just a tad less naive. The characters of Meera and Veronica could have been great, they could have been a paragon of female friendship where each expands their view and support each other. Veronica could feel anger at the betrayal, maybe cut ties with Meera, but this was a bit much, needless melodrama and character switches. And if you don’t see the Paan Singh-Dawood transition as odd, I am not sure how I will convey nuance to you but the basic idea is this: The dacoit that Paan Singh became and the don that Dawood is are essentially true to who they were to begin with. It is what they say in sociobiology, we change entirely every seven years but there is a narrative that connects the different people we are in one lifetime.
Finally, do not put words in my mouth. I never said Hugh Hefner was the ideal of all progressives. He is an old man with a taste for young blondes and it seems to be working both ways for him and his proteges. His life! That is not my expectation from my life and not my model for a progressive life. Sheryl Sandberg is a model and by the way she is a feminist hero. She helped take care of many incidences of sexism in her workplace quietly and without fuss. Inspiring! As is Maya Angelou, Michelle Obama, Sonia Faleiro, my granny and my sisters, my friends. Living a life of integrity without judging others: sari, salwar, alcohol or otherwise is a progressive ideal. The film is not ahead of the real world, it is just catching up, slowly.
And soniachopra? Twice? Have the decency to learn people’s names before you pile on them. As an academic, I would have cited the necessary references but I am in the middle of something right now, so maybe later.
@brangan: sorry I’m hogging your feed but he really was baiting me and I fell for it. 😉
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rameshram
August 4, 2012
utkal,
youre in denial. Nothing anybody ays will convince you that you DO indeed support the film(and support is the correct word here) for steriotypical reasons. Not only do you buy the striotypes(whife/whore slut/mother) whole hog, you also seem to somehow think if you take your frightful set of anti woman attitudes and give it a mod makeover you can fool the kids into supporting…um…mousy…
I think “it never happened” is the oldest defense in the books for someone in denial.
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rameshram
August 4, 2012
Soniajoseph,
pick your battles. like you say, utkal is pretty deliberately baiting you. it’s like after getting a thorough refutation from me, he repeatedly would put words into my mouth , mostly because (I think) he’s counting on people not reading the argument closely, and so, reading his “rebuttals” as if there is merit to it.
Sometimes repeating yourself is not worth the wasted breath..
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Utkal Mohanty
August 4, 2012
Rangan: I completely agree when you say:” For me, the first and the second halves just did not connect. The first half deserved a more “modern” second half. Or, the second half should have come from a more traditional first half.”
Let me tell you my viewing experience. First time I saw it with my sister’s son. We both liked it. I felt the distinct disconnect between the first and the second half, but with a bit of mental adjustment, I could like both the halves.
Second time, I saw it with my wife. she found it just okay. I found the first quarter not so exciting and felt the second half, strating a little before the interval, was the real core of the film. The breezy lighter section was there to lure in the multiplex crowd.
In between, my daughter saw it with her two office colleagues, and they all hated it. She tried to dissuade my son who is in college from seeing it. I said he should give it a try. He liked it. ( And when I put up my post on why the film is not regressive on FB, my daughter clicked ‘ Like’.)
The third time, I saw it with two women friends and a teenage daughter of one of them. The daughter liked it. One of the friends liked it, one did not. I liked both the first and the second halves, but was totally lost in the Randeep Hooda sections and I thought the sacrificial bits , especially of Meera, and the Delhi ending, were a drag. But I would see the film once again with pleasure. Mainly because I loved Veronica and Meera. And the sound and the cinematography.
The bottom line is no one liked it as much as i did. So I have been trying to think where exactly was the problem. And I think you have hit the nail on the head. The two halves are as distinct as chalk from cheese and it satisfies neither of the two types of Bollywood audience ( multiplex audience which likes he breezy stuff and the traditional audience which likes straight on melodrama.) I like the idea of Imitiaz trying to mix the two, in fact I desire it, but he has to do it organically, well mixed up, and not as two distinct styles in the same film.
I could forgive it because of my weakness for films with women protagonists and exploration of man-woman relationship , and creative use of music; but not so many others as I am finding out.
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rameshram
August 4, 2012
“First time I saw it with my sister’s son. …Second time, I saw it with my wife….In between, my daughter saw it …The third time, I saw it with two women friends and a teenage daughter of one of them. ….etc”
do ALL of them wear a burqua or only the unmarried girls that are your property? 😉
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Vanya
August 4, 2012
Wow. This review and the ensuing impassioned discussion did so much more for me than the movie did. Rangan: To some extent, I watch hindi movies more frequently nowadays only to better appreciate the discussions on your blog!
I just watched Cocktail, and for me the regressive second-half was the least of my problems with the movie. IMO, the detailing of each character was incredibly half-assed. I could rattle off 3-4 adjectives for each person, but beyond that there was no illusion at any point that these could be real people. Veronica was probably the best written out of the 3 in the first half, but we all know how that turned out.
But the biggest stumbling block was this. You’re shown this great chemistry between Veronica and Gautam, and then suddenly Meera and Gautam are in love by the interval. OK, I could buy the “Gautam was simply looking for a girl just like his mother” argument for 3 seconds, but at that point, there was nothing to suggest Meera would be drawn to him except for her self-esteem being rock-bottom (and were this the case, the movie could have been so much more interesting in the second half). The initial-revulsion-followed-by-love trope is only acceptable if there’s something new the movie is adding to it. And since the whole true love storyline wasn’t sold to me to begin with, I couldn’t bring myself to care about the characters’ trajectories — contrived or otherwise — later on.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 6, 2012
@soniajoseph: First off, my sincere apologies for not getting your name right. It is probably because of being in too much of a rush to put my thoughts down in words , but still that’s not a good enough excuse.
So if I am forgiven, I am compelled to try and respond to your points, because the issues are very important to me ( Cocktail engages me because it leads you the terrain more than any other recent Bollywood film s bar The Dirty Picture.)
To start with the points on the film proper: ( I think I will talk about Dawkin and the gender issues in the next post.) Most of the disagreements we seem to have stem from what you assume the characters of Veronica and Meera to be in the beginning of the film, quite different from what I read them to be. You see Veronica had no trace of neurosis or angst at the start if the film, and that she is a happy-go-lucky girl in control of her life. I beg to differ, purely on the basis of evidence provided in the film. Veronica says to Meera “ When I was born I did not know my parents I did not know them. And even after living with them for many years, I did not know them” And later to Mrs Kavita Kapoor, “ Dad he lives in his business. And mom, I don’t know where she lives.” That level of disconnect from her parents cannot be good for a girl living alone in a city far away from home. Her promiscuity under the circumstances falls into the copybook case of compensating the lack of attention from parents with a slew of boyfriends as she seeks validation of her desirability time and gain. Her moving around on the street with a six pack , opening can after can with dramatic flourish is a clear act of bravado than the action of someone who is merely enjoying her drink. A fridge stocked with nothing but motre bottle of alcohol and a near-empty carton of milk does not point to someone who has a grip on her life. This is clearly self-destructive behaviour. And it is nothing to do with her being a woman ( even for man it would not reflect a happy state of affairs. Eg Dilp Kumar in Devdas. Amitabh Bachcan In Sharabi, )
You mention of friends who can down a bucket of vodka and were happy. Possible. But I am sure there personality make up would be different. ( Just like all men drinking a lot do not become Devdases.) There is a Bengali idiom that describes these set of people: Jaate maatal, taaale theek. ( People e who belong to the caste of drunks alright, but they know how to walk straight) . Veronic a does not belong to that category. She is hiding a sense of hurt and deep insecurities. I thought her breakdown was very wel-mapped. At the discussion table she tries to put on a brave front “ Hey, come on. WE are all friends here.” “ You should be consoling me. But what the heck, I will console myself ’ Let’s party’ . But in her familiar terrain of the dance floor , where once she used to rue as a queen, her bravado slowly ebbs away as she realizes how she has been doubly, actually , triply orphaned. First the abandonment by her parents. Then by Gutam. And ironically , along with Gautam, she was losing her current anchor in life: Meera. Losing Guatm to Meera whom she never considered competition is also a big blow to her self-esteem as the queen of desirability. The subsequent descent to total destructiveness will be corroborated by any psychiatrist as very credible behavior, a form of clinical neurosis. Therefore, her shift is no bigger than that of the soldier Pan Singh to the dacoit Pan Singh for me.
AS far as Mera goes you say she couldn’t be that clueless. Actually she is not THAT clueless. She does take the help of the London police to track her husband. What would she have done if she did not meet Veronica in the washroom. Something else. But that would have another story. If you do not buy her being a hot shot graphic designer, I am with yiu there. Bollywood does careers badly. And not just for women. Guatam is laughable trying t pass of as a software engineer. There is not a code-writer bone in his entire body. Also the Randeep Hooda portion is badly written. The whole business of what kind of duping she fell prey to is not clear at all. But even educated , career girls do fall into such dubious marriages. It can happen. But yes, it is badly done, affecting the credibility of Meera as a character. ( Someone like Frahna or Zoya akhtar woud have shown her working on the computer letting us see what kind of design ssg=he does. They would have shown Veronica trying o choose between an array of lenses. But I can overlook this and still get the gist in a Bollywood film that is clearly non-realistic. Here, that kind of detailing would have helped.)
You say: The new generation of viewers would not identify with a “good” girl who crinkled her nose at the sight of alcohol. She would seize being believable. Precisely. That is called reflecting the reality of the times one lives in. You mention the stereotyping if Hem and Jaya. I have already mentioned the variety of characters they have played. And if Zeennat and Parveen have had less variety it is because of lack of talent. Even in Hollywood Scarlet Johnasson is the sexy temptress, Meg Ryan is warm, cuddly girl next door, and Meryl strep is the woman of substance and so on. In fact the stereotyoing is even less today in Bollywood. A Vidya Balan can play an angelic do-gooder in Lage Raho Munnabhai, a vampish sex siren in The Dirty Picture, a frumpy sister of Jessica Lal in ‘No One Kiled Jessica’ and a brave fighter taking on a terrorist in ‘ Kahani” . and I can bet that Deepika is not going to be sloted in Zeenat or Praveen kind of roles after this film. Firstly because of the changing climate in Bollywood and secondly no one thinks of her as a ‘ slut’ in the film ( I am talking of the audience here. They all like her image of a happy confident Veronica striding into the club with sexy swagger..they celebrate that personality. They also take her as a warm friendly girl who loves to be liked.)
You say even the mention of the word sahi galat by Meera is equivalent to being judgmental. Come on, we cannot live in that sanitized a world. She is saying there could be an angle of sahi glat here, but she does not that kind of an opinion. She is not even saying ‘ Mein nahin jaanta sahi ya galat.” She says, ‘ Sahi galat mein nahin keh raha hoon”.
Similarly, when Kavita Kapoor says. “ bas dhang ke kapda pehna kar’ you forget to mention , she had a sentence before, “ Tu achhi ladki hai’. I am emphatic that she does treats her like a spoilt daughter than a slut. She would advice her own daughter how she should dress, as would many mothers to their perfectly ‘ good’ daughters. It has nothing to do with her being a slut. ( More on this in my Dawkin section.)
At a global level , I don’t put much store by how a film ends and what kind of message it sends. You know how they sometimes shoot multiple endings for films and based on audience survey decide which one to use. So artistically, the ending is never the film for me. It is the body of the film that is the message for me. The emancipatory aspect of the film for me is that it creates an attractive character like Veronica who passes through a crisis and comes out stronger. In my mind she is not a loser. Not by a mile. The picture if her I have in mind is her dancing sexily in the club, paying Gautam in his own coin with her ‘ It’s his bun in my oven act” , her sense of humour and her ability to play the perfect prankster with “ Oh aap sab Gauatm ke friends hain. To I hues he is this side..” My heart also goes out to see her suffer the humiliation she goes through. That’s when I wish to bring her breakfast in bed and comb her tousled hair. It really does not matter if she cannot cook biriyani… with atht yogurt thing. Who knows , maybe she can cok better pasta. Or not even that. Maybe OI will cook, as long asghe keeps entertaining me with her Meera imp ersonations ( yes, I did afall out of love with Meera).. . or even Gutam impersonations .. ( To hum sab kucchh bhoola kar ek naya start nahin le sakte? ” Yes Veeru paaji, you are a total package… and I love the package. Tu si great ho!
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soniajoseph
August 6, 2012
@Rameshram: Aiyyo saare maapu! ( my turn to apologize) If it was just good old misogyny, I wouldn’t have fallen for it; but tell me I don’t have enough data and I’m prickly as a hedgehog. ( How dare he! I do everything in triplicates. With at least three controls. And three time points…..the horror! *Gasp* 😉 )
Total waste of breath for sure but immensely satisfying nevertheless for someone as anally retentive as I am. And I completely understand a preference for Veronica, she was super-kind and irreverant. If you dig her, totally get your choice bro! But for slightly different reasons. 🙂
I couldn’t help noticing a last barb at Utkal was difficult to resist.The purdah/ ownership tease was a bit much though the parading of every woman he knows as “Cocktail” lovers in a last ditch attempt to prop up the argument was really out there. However, will pick my battles and not snipe needlessly. 🙂
Most female self-defense classes I took did address the question of male structural vulnerability. Being petite, I prefer the liberal use of mace and multiple sachets of chilli powder.
@ Vanya: ya, I did think that was really off. Why? There was nothing to suggest she was even mildly interested. Some sort of justification was needed for that about-turn. His pick-up lines were still the sort eve-teasers used in the late 90s. And true about the discussion. Wish more people watched Malayalam films. Hosting a discussion like this for 22FK, Chaapa Kurish and Ee edutha kaalathu would have been fun: mainstream like ” Cocktail” and enough straddling the line to give meat to the debate.
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rameshram
August 6, 2012
@soniajoseph, The first telltale that he isn’t being sincere : He STOPPED talking to me (even with my addressing posts to him) once he saw he was getting under your skin. Second: does he come away convinced by ONE SINGLE point he may need to concede to you on sheer merits? (usually no. he just glides smoothly to another .He’s mostly constructing a lyrical narrative (often bereft of facts that would stand up to scrutiny) which he wants you to “fall for”. and he aims it at you because I would be useless in his flock of “captured” cows(because I’m a guy). In your case, I think he’s attacking what you see as your strength : the independent woman archetype. Third, when he runs out of arguments (or rebuttals) he BRAZENLY puts words in my (your ) mouth.
We all like to be thought of as reasoning, reasonable people, we should just learn when a guy is reasoning with you and when , au contraire, he’s merely singing you to sleep.I know it’s STILL fun to give the guy a dialectic rebuttal, but once all your bases are covered and you’ve made all your points you quickly lose any interest in talking further to him..
( My original rebuttal of utkal started with an “ownership tease”.Quoth “occurs to me that you don’t count in this equation here(of what’s best for veronica in life). you might only be satisfied if “veronica” looked like a domesticated cow complete with a wide load and a demure bindi. that doesn’t mean its the best thing for HER..” )
So in brief, 1. you have enough data 2. he hears you even if his strategy forbids him conceding your points 3. he’s uhhh…full of sh!t ie he’s arguing in bad faith because he has experience with people simply TIRING in these long posted arguments with him, and telling him he’s right.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 6, 2012
soniajoseph: You are still not very good with facts is what I notice.. ” though the parading of every woman he knows as “Cocktail” lovers in a last ditch attempt to prop up the argument was really out there”, you say. It is just he opposite is what I had posted. Let me quote from my post:
“First time I saw it with my sister’s son. We both liked it. I felt the distinct disconnect between the first and the second half, but with a bit of mental adjustment, I could like both the halves.
Second time, I saw it with my wife. she found it just okay. I found the first quarter not so exciting and felt the second half, strating a little before the interval, was the real core of the film. The breezy lighter section was there to lure in the multiplex crowd.
In between, my daughter saw it with her two office colleagues, and they all hated it. She tried to dissuade my son who is in college from seeing it. I said he should give it a try. He liked it. ( And when I put up my post on why the film is not regressive on FB, my daughter clicked ‘ Like’.)
The third time, I saw it with two women friends and a teenage daughter of one of them. The daughter liked it. One of the friends liked it, one did not. ”
So out of 7 women I have mentioned, 3 hated it, one did not like it. One found it just okay. Only two liked it. So “the parading of every woman he knows as “Cocktail” lovers ‘ is hardly what I am doing. Just the opposite in fact.
I like to do good science and never fudge facts. Truth is what interests me, not winning debates, not winning supporters.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 6, 2012
@soniajoseph: As to the Dawkins point of view being a theory and not fact, that would be true for any assertion in this field ( including Darwin’s theory of evolution) because no theory involving millions of years can be proven in a laboratory. We have to judge how good a theory it is by its logical consistency. You mention the instances of rape and pillage by Genghis Khan, but are silent about wilt Chamberlain sleeping with thousands of women, without resorting to rape or pillage. You mention the limited child-bearing age of women. But that precisely is another factor driving the different attitude towards promiscuity among men and women. To that I should add the dangers involved in child bearing, including risk of life. The payoff for indiscriminate sex for women simply does not stack up. Seed is cheap. Field is not. For aman what does it cost if he makes a wrong choice. He gets one useless offspring among thousand others. For woman , sleeping with a wrong man means a bad child among ten or fourteen . Then it is her body and life she is putting at stake. I would be very very cautious if I was a woman. ( The Saatch and Saatchi campaign for birth control got it right with their poster showing a man pregnant , captioned ‘ Would you be more careful if it was YOU that got pregnant?”
You say: The human brain has stopped making those hunter-gatherer calculations a long, long time ago.
You are right. Actually more right than you think. For even the hunter-gatherers themselves never made the hunter-gatherer calculations to start with. As per Dawkins, it is not as if human beings consciously think of these consequences. It is all about the pervasiveness of particular genes in a population that inclines men or women towards certain kind of behaviour.
His theory on this is as simple and elegant as E= mCsquare. Let me demonstrate it with an example outside of this sexual attitude terrain. Dawkins asks, ‘ Why is that fatal diseases or afflictions like cancer or blockage of the heart occurs much less in children, compare to say cold and cough which occurs equally frequently among adults and children? Let’s ay there is a gene called cancer causing gene 1 for that causes terminal cancer in children and cancer gene 2 that causes cancer in adults. In a population, people with Gene 1 will contract cancer as children and die before reproducing, while people with Gene 2 would have produced children before contracting cancer and dying. Over a million years there would be very few carrying the Gene 1 , and therefore very few children with terminal cancer. ( Remember a gene indicates the proclivity towards something and not a certainty, as the actual occurrence would depend on many other associated factors ) .
Now let us try the same exercise with proclivity towards promiscuity. Let us call the gene predisposing men to promiscuity as PGM and the gene predisposing women to promiscuity as PGW. Let us assume that to start with equal number of men and women have the PG gene. ( 100 of each for convenience, let us assume in a population of 1 million.) The 100 men sleep with 1000 women each each in their lifetimes and produce 1000 children each, and a total of 100,000 children with PGM gene ( For simplicity, we are assuming that the gene gets passed on to each child, which is not case) The 100 women too sleep with 1000 men each in their lifetime and produce 10 children each, or a total of 1000 children with PGW gene. ( A ratio of 100 to 1). Now reiterate the process over millions of years and you will land up with a population with predominantly PGM genes and negligible PGW genes. This is the broad picture..of course there is no single gene called PGM or PGW, it’s combination of various genetic propensities that incline men more towards promiscuity.
You say: At least for 600 years, humanity’s greatest impulse for cheating is no more complicated than pleasure.
Again you are more right than you imagine. It is not just 600 years, it has been so for 6 million years. Pleasure associated with sex is the way of nature ensuring survival of the specie. ( actually nature is dumb and has no plans of any kind. It is a metaphorical way of speaking. What really happens is this: People who have pleasure in sex gene indulge in sex for pleasure , produce children and the gene gets passed on. Please bear in mind, these are all oversimplifications for the sake of understanding. The genes are much more complex than that. ) No man or sleeps around thinking of having children, they do it for pleasure , but there are other factors involved. For if it was just matter of pleasure, there won’t be any passions of crime that keeps happening all over the world across classes. Pleasure in sex is not like having an ice cream which you don’t mind sharing if you have an extra cup. That is the why the hippie communes of the 70’s never worked.
Of course you are right when you say cultural factors are influencing behavior al the time. Genes can only predispose one towards a certain kind of behavior, acting on it actually will depend on social pressure, legal sanctions and cost-benefit calculations. As I said factors like birth control, artificial insemination, DNA testing can cause in behavior which will reflect in genetic changes in a million years. But as of now, one has to be amazed at the string influence the genetic impulses are! It is al fine talk of controlling primordial human urges.. but think of Vishwamitr a nd Menaka. Think of Italian PM Berlusconi and his bunga bunga parties, , think of Clinton who almost lost his presidency, or Strauss-Kahn who missed having a stab at the French presidency. It would appear all these men think with their you know what.
Yes, I do believe it is possible for culture to influence behavior. I am just pointing out the power of what we are up against.
“Most of them were depressed in the long run and committed suicide. Studies begun late last decade show that they are about as happy as the rest of us on average. This reflects social change don’t you think. Where is the Biology in that?”
I am with you 200% here. There is no biology involved here. Or biology is not the only or the most important factor. Given the biological imperatives, what subset of people are happy or happier in a society is more dependent on cultural factors rather than biology. Dawkins talks of natural selection deciding certain behavioural proclivities and concedes that how they act on those can very well be affected by cultural influences.
But when you say, “The point I am repeatedly making here is that Science has established that there is a benefit for both sexes but human society which is built along the strong versus weak sex dynamic will always make the cost higher for women to own up to it/even pursue it…… Both genders face this impulse. It is just costlier for one of the genders to open up about it due to societal structures, “ I disagree. Both genders face the impulse, but the degree of it varies. While I concede that it is partly due to social conditioning and the way society is structured, it is also due to the core asymmetry of sex droves between genders. ( That does not make one gender superior to others. But it serves no one’s interest in saying that there is no difference whatsoever between the two. I would rather recognize the difference and celebrate it. Apple and oranges are both fruits, but they are also different. What purpose would be served in trying to turn an apple into an orange? Equal opportunity to realize oneself, to be all one wants to be, to be happy…yes. But effacing all differences? Why? )
“Study after study shows that women prefer reading erotic material while men prefer visual stimuli like Playboy and Porn videos….”
Agree 100%. In fact the the position of ‘ men’ and ‘ women’ is wrongly interchanged in my statement about Mills and Boon. It is more women who read Mills and Boon ( And let me correct you. I don’t read M&B. Must have read one to check it out. But this is not very relevant.)
You say: “For others it is preparing elaborate meals and pressing the man’s feet. For still others it is a whip and chains. For me personally, it was the extensive viewing of “Godfather”, “Roshomon” and Malayalam slapstick comedy. The range of “what women like” is diverse.” agree once again.
You yourself have summed it up rightly: Study after study shows that women prefer reading erotic material while men prefer visual stimuli like Playboy and Porn videos
For women arousal is a total experience while for ,en it is more localized. I remember Van Veen from Nabokov’s ‘ Ada’ saying “ You women have central heating. We men only tiny fireplaces.”
“But there it is, women like to imagine things in their head. Men want to see it for themselves.”
Bang on.
That is why I am amzed at people’s naivety when they say why so much hullaballoo about in women showing skin when there is no such outcry about men showing skin. It is elementary . Display of naked body of men a does not have the same effect on women. ( I know women also inviteand pay male performers to strip. But that’s for a lark, not for arousal.)
So when some women say that what we wear is our business , my reply is, yes, for sure, but you can pretend to be innocent of the impact it has on others. Once again, I don’t for a moment think that it wrong to dress for arousal. As long as you are aware of it. So when Kavita Kapoor says ‘ Dhang ke kapde pehna kar”, it is not something out of hand. Nobody in nay culture believes that anything goes when it comes to dressing. There is always a time and place, and context. Even in USA or Europe , will it be okay to wear to office what one wears on the beach or in a dance club? My view on this is this. Any sensitive person has to be aware of what impact one’s action has on others. I hear some women say, if he is aroused let him deal with it. It’s not my problem. True, when the context is a mutually agreed one. When a guy goes to a dance bar, he knows it is a sexual theater, women will come dressed seductively, they will dance seductively. He will have to deal with it in a civilized manner. He can respond by showing his interest, make a civilized pass. He can channel his arousal to creative outlets, whatever. But a different arena which by common consent is not the right place for such transactions, needs a different dress code. I am not saying something terribly earth shattering. All smart women know that . it is just that I hear some misguided and naïve rabble rousers trying to say: What we wear is our business, that prompted me to make this obvious observation. It is like saying a man has the freedom to drink two bottles of whisky day, so anyone who advises me to drink less is against men’s liberation.
I will defend anyone’s right to wear anything, drink or smoke anything ( In my childhood days in my village we had people smoking ganja after bhajan session, even in my days at IIT in Kharagpur, there were government shops selling god quality ganja at reasonable price. All that is i gone. Now young boys in our village are drinking and wasting their lives. And I don’t understand why alcohol should be lefal and not ganja. ) But I also defend anyone’s right to propagate any kind of dress or food or drink. Burkha, mini-skirts, vegetarianism, no smoking, abstinence from drinking… as long as it is an individual’s choice. In the market place of ideas smart men and women will know what to choose.
And to Veronica, I would say, “You have the lives of Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse in front of you. And there is the life of someone like Madonna. You decide who is in control of her life better and what kind of lifestyle one needs to lead to be in control.
And Veeerupaji, actually make it Veronica, I prefer that, for a start, how about stocking your fridge with a bit of food?”
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rameshram
August 6, 2012
“Truth is what interests me, ”
maybe half of it…
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Vanya
August 7, 2012
+1 for a discussion space for Mallu films. I’ve slowly started watching them again the last couple of years, and like where the industry is headed.
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soniajoseph
August 7, 2012
@Vanya: Sure, what have you been watching recently? I should be able to get hold of some of my other chums and we could make a day of it. Funtimes!
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Utkal Mohanty
August 8, 2012
Since we are talking about women empowerment, must say there is something about Mary and Saina winning those medals makes me feel very very good.India must be doing something right for this to be happening. We just need to do more of those right things. Much much more.
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Fatema
August 8, 2012
Interesting that we all are for women’s empowerment but yet see the film so disparately. Well, I cannot help but agree with Utkal but what disturbs me is the insistence to look beyond, a sort of stereotyping the women in our own heads. But then I’ve already written a long post on that so never mind. The film is definitely at fault for not toeing its own lines of character depiction and dropping false notes and I can understand a mis-reading of Veronica and Meera but what I see happening with Cocktail is a certain ‘putting the cart before the horse’ syndrome simply because both exist somewhere in the same circumference. Agreed, the film isn’t confident about its female portrayals (I’d blame the blatant commercialisation) and neither does the actual love angles strike as significantly touching but willfully rejecting what it offers and categorise it in a space it does not fit in, is well, a malaise of our ‘progressive’ times. I saw it happen with Ishaqzaade too. Intriguing as much as disturbing, this impassioned, substance-less protest against something that isn’t there. Well, learning to live with.
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rameshram
August 8, 2012
I think what’s needed is a seriouls well thought out updation of the “love” Zeitgeist to take it away from the behanjees and give it to the women that are actually having…..er…love, so we understand and validate the actual consummation of love repeatedly instead of dwelling long and torturously on the waiting for someone to make a move and the endless fantasization, fetishization and mastrubation in the meanwhile.
The Urdu shayar style “love” has had its long innings, and now, we must all agree, belongs in the bahadurshah zafar past.
The new “love” story (where new means better, in this case) must be about a church mouse from goa, coming to london, smartening up enough to be social, stealing her friend’s boyfriend AND MOVING ON….without needing to start playing housy housy with him.
Not that I’d watch such a movie but I’d be pleasantly surprised if there were one like it.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 9, 2012
Would like to take a break from the gender equation issue, and talk a bit about the craft of the film. Basically I think I can do it best by playing ascene and sharing my thoughts on it rather than a make any academic pronouncements.
Cocktail: Lutna song
One of the most mesmerizing sequences of the film. I can see the film any number of times just to let the sight and sound of the sequence wash over my senses.
Love the sequence of shots right from the start of the song The shot of Meera on the right side of the screen as workday Londoners walk down the steps on the left of the screen. Then the shot of Veronica applying eyeliner , looking vacantly at the mirror..as the first line of the song ‘ Jai hi me tenu bahar dhunda ‘ starts.. then to the shot of the bottom of her bottle green gown and black strappy shoes. She looking at her cell phone, revealing bit of cleavage. She paces up and down, her bare back framed by the straps of her bottle green dress, framed to her right a white woman in a black dress and a pink hand bag is washing her hands in the basin, in the left of the frame a couple of girls are talking and laughing hoding wine glasses. Veronica turns around and hurls the phone at the mirror, shattering it to smithereens, as the woman in black dress saunters away. ( Andar tu e, bahar tu e, dekha har tha tera saya) She looks at her reflection in the shattered mirror. Shot of a train with lighted windows passing across the night sky, from right to left on the screen, then Meera’s sad face as she closes her eyes shut tight, holding back pain… shot of the escalator coming down vertically across the screen with Meera standing on it, cut to a shot of Veronica in her resplendent bottle-green gown sprawled on a slate-grey slab of a bed, …. Cut to a four-way street crossing on the middle of the screen..
Power guitar lead.. cut to the club lights …Veronica gulping down whisky from a bottle.. Veronica drinking beer from a can inside a car with two white males.. .. with a distracted look on her face.. one of the men sidling his hand across her thigh.. she looks away with a resigned expression.. ( Log charaag jaalate ghee ke, maine dil ka deep jalaya. Log gavaa dete dil ishaq mein, maine apna aap gavaya.) Shot of the ‘ Classic Car Club’ basement , with two red cars and two black cars criss-cross each other. The lights go off. Cut to blurring neon lights of London streets. Veronica’s anguished face out of a car window, her hair swept back in the wind. and so it goes on till the shot where the car comes from the left, hitting her, throwing her up in the air . ( not shown in the clip here) ( I really got a jolt there)..
Loved the lines ( Log charaag jaalate ghee ke, maine dil ka deep jalaya. Log gavaa dete dil ishaq mein, maine apna aap gavaya. ) Mention of a real thing like ghee adds a quaint texture to a lyric like this.
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Utkal Mohanty
August 9, 2012
Another great song which as another blogger Mihir Fadnavis : “listening to Arif Lohar’s Jugni in the bombastic theater speakers blows your mind. ”
And to quote Mihir again: ” The gorgeous London and Capetown locales supplement the film’s ludicrous characters – in fact if Cocktail were a music video it would be one of the best ones of the year.”
But frankly, lo at Veronica in these sequences. A slut? Does she like anything like a slut? And does anyone treat her like a slut? Na.
But if you ask me, what jarred to me, was the shot of Veronica prayig to idol left behind by Meera. Not that it si not possible, but it is bad artistic choice for me. just because Meera leaves it behind she does not have to start praying. And Meera leaving behind the idol was corny in the first place. She could be shown trying to be Meera…. but there could be a few things she did not try. It is ‘ dropping false notes’ like this , which as Fatema says, leads a mis-reading of Veronica and Meera, who are otherwise drawn with such loving detail.
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AA
August 9, 2012
A very interesting discussion there utkal uncle: remember me from satyamshot 😉
Will be good to continue this debate there..
Ps: some good points there soniajoseph — some good ‘edicational’ points there esp like
“But there it is, women like to imagine things in their head. Men want to see it for themselves”
And some others …cheers
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Fatema
August 9, 2012
Oops, “what disturbs me is the insistence to look beyond,” was supposed to be “what disturbs me is the insistence to NOT look beyond”
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AA
August 9, 2012
Wow utkal uncle : another uber analytical analysis of the psychodynamic relationships at play -under the lacing created for box office consumption …
This seems worth putting up @ satyakshot as well…
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Tina
February 8, 2013
Oh the gawd.
I never thought that the typical ethayum thaangum marumagal we see in tamil soaps actually existed. But Rangan sir, I tell you this. Should you be a marumagal, you would be one such.
What tonnes and loads and tonnes of poruamai. Not only did you let some (just some) sad, irrelevant comments pass through, but enna porumaiyya you have gone through and replied…you know, it takes a whole world of patience JUST to not be dismissive about comments considering a commenter’s history.
You are SO the epitome of patience.
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brangan
February 8, 2013
Tina: ROFL. So if, as some people predict, my writing career goes down the toilet, you’re saying I have other avenues? Phew! 🙂
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PN
November 13, 2015
I found a link to this review in some other newer review that I was reading, and it’s really good. Utkal sir’s arguments are so passionate and intense and filling to the brim with factoids – I can tell you he is my favorite commentator on your posts!
I remember when Cocktail came out that most of the women saying that the director was being unfair to Veronica were actually Meera’s themselves.
I, on the other hand, fatherless at a young age, untethered by social conventions, have been a Veronica for as long as I can remember. My excessive drinking was not because I could, but because I wanted to drown in it – to forget the incessant pain of my reality.
I have had a lot of men in my life, but it’s not because I am like Sushmita Sen – who seems to be a truly secure and happy person- whose family is her adopted children and for whom men are just fun, it’s because I am like Veronica, trying to fill a void that has been unrepairable.
I admire Rameshwaram’s defence of Veronica, but he’s wrong, just because she seems happy, confident and friendly doesn’t mean she’s not crumbling on the inside. You can ask any friend of mine and they will tell you that I am literally the “happiest person on the planet”, but I know the demons that eat me inside out when I am alone – it’s why I hated being alone for the longest time.
It takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength to accept that the man who cares for you, and who you could emotionally blackmail into staying with you because he’s inherently a nice guy, is in fact not the one for you. He loves you, but he doesn’t LOVE YOU. It is pyar, its not mohobbat. And no, he didn’t leave me because he thought I was a “slut”.
And yes, the Gautam of my life left, the Meera he found to replace me was not even as good as the Meera from the movie, but you know what? The experience has helped me grow and I know for a fact that I will find a better man than him, a man who deserves me, a man who doesn’t just care for me, but who LOVES ME.
🙂
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