Movies, Dinner, and Running with Wolves
A roundup of all the conversations I'm finding poetry in.
Dear reader,
As a kid, I always thought my grandfather was Amitabh Bachchan’s brother. They didn’t look too much alike, but they had the same leonine voice, fierce temperament, and not-so-secret softheartedness.
The room would shake when he laughed, and my world was always better with him in it. Which is why I was inconsolable whenever Amitabh Bachchan’s characters died in a movie. I would go check on my grandfather to make sure he was still there after the credits rolled, and heave a sigh of relief - but that feeling of loss and uncertainty would remain.
This week, I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with another family. The food was simple, the group was small - but it was a shining evening nonetheless. In between talk of healthcare and business - the conversation turned to movie making.
We talked about the usual stuff: which films we enjoyed this year, which ones we didn’t. The profitability of cinema theaters, and the demands of production. Our hosts’ nine year old daughter casually mentioned that she heard I’ve worked with Shah Rukh Khan - and I ended up clarifying that I had once written a script that found its way to Netflix India (and that was about it).
We started discussing storylines and plots that bordered on the fantastic, when one line in the conversation stood out to me:
“You need to remember that movies are usually based on real life. It’s always coming from one seed of truth.”
And happily, this little girl nodded her head in agreement.
That’s the thing, right? Art is usually based on life, and we are so scared of trying to understand art. When I was her age, I was reassuring myself that Amitabh’s on-screen blood was made of ketchup - because we all know, deep down, that what we see on screen may in fact be real.
So we deep dive into work, we focus on the things that keep us safe and controlled, and 60 years down the line we wonder why we stopped feeling alive.
It’s the freezing hold of fear that traps us. Fear of possibility, fear of the unknown, fear of danger, fear of greatness, fear of living authentically.
So in the spirit of venturing outside of our safety nets, ears pricked and feet ready to run, here’s what’s feeding my heart:
Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I was under the impression this is another pseudointellectual collection of micropoems, so I never read it earlier. Turns out it’s a collection of ancient myths, deconstructed and analysed through Jungian psychology. In other words, old stories picked apart to give us clues on how to live better.
Tash Sultana: An Australian musician I’ve admired for a long time - drop into my favourite album of theirs, Flow State. Or watch the video that launched her career.
Killer Soup: Ever wanted to kill your husband and reconstruct his face onto your lover so you don’t get caught? Yeah, me neither. The plot thickens, over and over and over again. Konkona Sen’s performance is riveting (but no opinions on the story yet - I’ll be watching the last episode tonight!)
Hoping you dream and build all your plotlines to fruition,
Kaav.