Dibyajyoti Sarma's Blog, page 41

The Power of Seven

To begin with, God created the world in seven days. There are seven days in the week, seven notes on the musical scale and seven directions (left, right, up, down, forward, back and center).
The Seven Seas is not just a brand of cod liver oil, it also refers to the earthly plain as a whole, the world surround by the seas. Hence, Divya Bharati danced to the song, ‘Saat samundar paar’ in the Bollywood film Vishwatma (1992).

Both heaven and hell have seven levels. The seventh heaven is the place of ultimate bliss whereas the seventh level of hell is the most depraved. This concern for spirituality led Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman to make his first masterpiece, The Seventh Seal (1957). In Japanese master Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), the seven warriors travel to protect a village from marauding bandits. The film was remade as The Magnificent Seven (1950) in Hollywood. The Indian version, the popular Sholey (1975), unfortunately reduced the number to just two. Back to Hollywood, Brad Pitt played Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, who spent seven years in Tibet between 1944 and 1951, in the movie (1997) based on the book Seven Years in Tibet.

In folk tale, Snow White had seven dwarves to look after her after she was betrayed by her evil stepmother. The Brothers Grimm has another fairy tale called The Seven Ravens.

It took JK Rowling seven books to tell the story of the British boy wizard Harry Potter. In George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, there are seven kingdoms in the fiction land of Westeros, all of which are constantly at war to gain dominance of the Iron Throne. In this fictional world, among other things, citizens adhere to a religion, featuring the seven aspects of the divine— the Mother, the Maiden, the Crone, the Father, the Warrior, the Smith, and the Stranger.

Talking about religion, Christianity lists seven deadly sins. These are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. This inspired the David Fincher neo-noir Hollywood thriller Se7ev (1995).

In Hinduism, there are the seven sages, the Saptarshi, the patriarchs of the Vedic religion, the ‘mind-born sons’ of Brahma.

Sophocles’ classical Greek tragedy Seven Against Thebes recounts the futile attempt to regain Thebes after the exile of the blind king Oedipus.

The seven years itch is a psychological term that suggests that happiness in a relationship declines after around year seven of a marriage. It is also the name of a 1955 Marilyn Monroe film, which was based on a play by George Axelrod.

In numerology, the number seven represents the seeker, the thinker, the searcher of truth. The seven doesn’t take anything at face value – it is always trying to understand the underlying, hidden truths. The seven knows that nothing is exactly as it seems and that reality is often hidden behind illusions.

The Gurgaon city at dusk, seen from the Rapid Metro stati...

The Gurgaon city at dusk, seen from the Rapid Metro station, Cybercity, Gurgaon…

One Part Woman

Writes Sharanya Manivannan on her blog/

Kali and Ponna, land-owning farmers in Thiruchengode, enjoy a completely happy marriage on all counts but one. Despite over a dozen years together, they are yet to have children. Theirs is a sexually-charged and mutually fulfilling relationship; it is neither for lack of effort nor of intent that they are unable to conceive. The couple perform countless acts of penance, entreating various deities – among them the half-male, half-female god on the hill attended by a Brahmin priest and the tribal goddess Pavatha of the same hill, to whom blood sacrifices are made. Ponna weeps at the onset of every menstrual period. Neither love nor their thriving land is enough to keep at bay the despair of being without offspring in their community. They are constantly on the receiving end of disparagement from the people around them: Kali’s sexual potency is the subject of sly and open taunts, while every slip or argument Ponna has with another is turned on her using her childlessness as an indication of her character or capabilities.
MORE HERE/

Beyond the Lights

On paper, the film sounds like a made for TV movie, about a rising young singer finding her true voice, beyond the glamour. On screen, it’s a terrific movie; you cannot turn your eyes from the film, and from its lead actress, Gugu Mbatha-Raw. And the song? Especially the Rita Ora song, Grateful.

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Beyond the Lights is a 2014 American romantic drama film directed and written by Gina Prince-Bythewood. The film stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Minnie Driver, Nate Parker, Danny Glover, and rapper Machine Gun Kelly. The film premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2014 and was released theatrically in the United States on November 14, 2014. In 2015, the song "Grateful", written by Diane Warren for the film, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
MORE HERE.

Mr Holmes

Sherlock Holmes rules, especially so in the recent years when he has been invented and reinvested many times over. Even if we avoid mentioning Guy Richie’s zany two Sherlock Holmes movies, starring Robert Downey Jr, we have the widely popular ‘Sherlock’ series in BBC, which made Benedict Cumberbatch a bona fide star. The series re-imagines Sherlock Holmes in a modern setting, where Mr Holmes uses the modern technology, computers, cellphones and what not, to solve crime.

Meanwhile, there is another American TV series, ‘Elementary’ with Jonny Lee Miller as a recovering drug addict in New York, with Lucy Liu as Dr Watson. She is called Joan. Even Holmes’ arch-nemesis Moriarty goes through sex-reassignment become a woman, and Sherlock’s love interest no less.

Interestingly, both Cumberbatch and Miller were part of Danny Boyle’s experimental stage adaptation of ‘Frankenstein’.

Now, we have movie, ‘Mr Holmes’, starring Sir Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes in his 90s. With Bill Condon (who made Gods and Monsters, among other films) directing, I am hoping that this one will finally out Sherlock as gay, with Dr Watson being his love interest. I would pay to see this.

According to what I could gather from the trailer of the film, Sherlock is retired, and Watson is gone. He complains how most of what Watson wrote to popularise him was exaggerated and so on. And, oh, there is a final mystery to be solved, and it proves to be difficult.

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Mr. Holmes (previously known as A Slight Trick of the Mind) is an upcoming crime drama mystery film directed by Bill Condon, based on the 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind written by Mitch Cullin. The film stars Sir Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes and Laura Linney as housekeeper Mrs. Munro. Principal photography began on July 5, 2014, in London. The film is scheduled to be released in 2015. It had been selected to be screened out of competition at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival and had its premiere on 7 February 2015. The film will be released in British cinemas on June 19, 2015.
MORE HERE.

What does a young, black police officer in Los Angeles, w...

What does a young, black police officer in Los Angeles, with an ambition to be politician, read?

These books, of course; at least before he fell in love with a would-be diva…

In the wonderful storybook romance, Beyond the Stars (2014).

Oscar Noms 2015: Best Original Screenplay

Screenshots from the video of the Oscar Awards 2015. The award went to Birdman.

Oscar Noms 2015: Best Adapted Screenplay

Screenshots from the video of the Oscar Awards 2015... The award went to The Imitation Game.

/"El Condor Pasa (If I Could)"I'd rather be a sparrow tha...

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"El Condor Pasa (If I Could)"

I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

Away, I'd rather sail away
Like a swan that's here and gone
A man gets tied up to the ground
He gives the world it's saddest sound
Its saddest sound

I'd rather be a forest than a street
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

-- Simon and Garfunkel

I'm sitting in the railway station.Got a ticket for my de...

I'm sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket for my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.

[Chorus]
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Every day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me,
The movies and the factories
And every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be,

[Chorus]

Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.

[Chorus]

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"Homeward Bound" is a song by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel from their third studio album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966). Produced by Bob Johnston, the song was released as a single on January 19, 1966 by Columbia Records. Written by Paul Simon, the song was composed in 1964 during his period in London, England. Away from his love interest Kathy Chitty while touring clubs, Simon felt depressed and homesick. He first penned the song on a scrap of paper outside the Widnes railway station in Widnes. "Homeward Bound" was the duo's second single, the follow-up to their enormously successful breakthrough hit "The Sound of Silence". It performed very well domestically, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, remaining on the charts for 12 weeks. Internationally, the song performed best in Canada, where it hit number two; it was also a top five hit in the Netherlands. MORE HERE/