Cannibal Romance

Overheard: the Romantic Lady Killer Man singing this


My Lady d'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
And you will be my fill, yes, you will be my fill.....

The Curious Case of the Missing Indian Jasoos

Amidst yesterday’s hauls which included yet another Dr. Gideon Fell mystery by John Dickson Carr was this: The House of Fear – containing 2 stories of the Imran series of detective fiction by Ibn-e-Safi. Translated from the Urdu of course.

With a quote by Agatha Christie thrown in for good measure, just in case you needed more reason to buy this book – apart from the fact that it is finally available at all. Tip of the hat to Jubin George for spotting this in the section where it was inadvertently kept – the heavy duty literature section which he usually haunts. Instead of the Crime/Mystery section where it belongs. But I digress (so what’s new?). The point of this post is not debate the literary merit of mystery and detective fiction, so let’s move on.

From the time I read my first Hardy Boys book in higher secondary – While the Clock Ticked, which also happened to be my first ‘English novel’ – I have been in love with the genre of detective fiction. The crime – a corpse or a robbery or both and more. A detective (a pair or with a sidekick) seeking out evidence. The red herrings that the author throws in. The linking together of various clues. The dénouement! Of course from here on it was but a natural progression to Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. The discovery of Poe and finding Auguste Dupin. Reading about Simon Iff. The Dorothy Sayers books. No, for the purpose of this post, Dirk Gently is NOT a detective. But Asimov’s Black Widowers series is detective fiction, even though there are no crimes to speak of, but still problems solved. Current favourites being Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse, Andrea Cammileri’s Salvo Montalbano and the aforementioned Dr. Gideon Fell. So on and so forth.

From a larger perspective, you could separate out Crime/Hardboiled fiction – Chandler, Hammet, Spillane et al and police procedurals and lawyers – from pure detective fiction of the private investigator or problem solver/trouble shooter kind who follows clues not procedures or rules of his own making. And feature in more than a couple of stories. The Holmeses, the Poirots, the Miss Marples, the Peter Wimseys etc. But if you’ve noticed there are hardly any Indian detectives on this list (the title of the post was a dead giveaway right? Drat! I’ll never make it as a writer of detective fiction.) But wait. There are!

Flashback to Doordarshan in the late eighties and we had Rajat Kapoor playing Byomkesh Bakshi – not a detective but a satyanveshi, a truth seeker – and his Dr.Watson, Ajit entertain us with some amazing stories. Then Ray’s Feluda happened. Good fun. Yes, Gajarchand, I mean Detective Karamchand was also there, but since he was born on television not in a book, he doesn’t make the cut. So we have Saradindu Bandopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi and Satyajit Ray’s Feluda. Homegrown Indian sleuths. Whose exploits are available in English. 2 volumes to each detective. And now hopefully House of Fear will see Ibn-e-Safi’s Imran being taken forward. That makes it three. Yes, there is Ibn-e-Safi’s other hero, Colonel Fareedi, but that’s more spy game than detective fun. So we’re still left with three. Ain’t there no more Indian detectives? Premendra Mitra’s Ghanada is again not so much detective fiction as it is tall stories and adventure stories. And all these were ages ago. Byomkesh in the early 20th. Feluda in the 60s & 70s. Imran in the 50s. Isn’t there any Indian sleuth in modern fiction???

Inspector Ghote!!! Yes. But wait. No. Sorry. The author is British. And Manjiri Prabhu’s Sonia Samarth series is basically chik-lit in the guise of detective fiction. With astrology thrown in for the cool factor and the exotic ingredient when selling to an unsuspecting western(ised) reader. Is the problem then one of unavailability in English? Which would give the detective a mainstream audience? Byomkesh and Feluda were both written in Bengali remember, and Imran in Urdu. I think not. Even if one were not able to read the stories one would still be in the know right? That so-and-so detective exists. Syed Mustafa Siraj’s Colonel Niladri Sarkar for instance. Originally in Bengali, and to the best of my knowledge unavailable in English. But while I may not have read any of these stories, I know they are there ready to be translated should a publisher see the commercial value in that and welcomed by eager readers in India and elsewhere. Perhaps there are some gems of a sleuth hidden away in Oriya? Marathi perhaps? I don’t know. If you do. Please let me know. Would like that. Yes, admittedly there is a rich tradition of pulp literature – but the protagonists there tends to crime and sensation. Or perhaps I need to change my strict. But that still does not explain the missing detective in modern Indian fiction? True, Amitav Ghosh's Calcutta Chromosome can be fitted under this, but it's a one-shot. Can Indians not write mystery/detective fiction? That probably brings us to the question – if we love detective fiction, why should there be an Indian detective? Is there a need really? Of course there’s no need. But it is still a different thing to read about familiar places, familiar phrases, to see familiar names in a genre that we so like. So where is the homegrown Indian jasoos? Exhuming Dame Christie, re-animating her and asking her – since she claims to have ‘knowledge of detective fiction in the subcontinent’ – is not an option. She’s be horribly out of date. Or perhaps not.

We like. You like?

In case this has been slipping under thine radar, this here blog is another to which the Bekku makes a contribution to (or rather tries to) Here it is and its still there: Covers We Like

I am a lot of things! I am Everything! (almost)

…sadness drips and dries

like paint on my mind’s wall

to a cacophony of chaotic cries

Life, uninstall.

There! That has makes me a Poet. Moving on…..

I have a camera. I take photos. That makes me a Photographer.

I have given my voice to 4 radio spots. So I am a Voice Artist.

I have used Windows Movie Maker to make a video. So what if it’s a slide show? That still makes me a Filmmaker.

I have plasticine at home. So I am a clay modeler, ooops, Sculptor.

I have attended a few quizzes, now that is a straight ticket to Quizzer-hood.

I am a Blogger. But obviously. So what if its dead for all practical matters?

So where are we now? Lets recap.

Poet. Photographer. Voice Artist. Filmmaker. Sculptor. Quizzer. Blogger. I am turning out to be quite the thing since bread came sliced. But moving on.

I have written short stories. One is up on this blog, called Status Quo. Look for it if you wish. And some more. So that makes me a Story Writer. Now if I can get this and the few other I’ve written laid out in Garamond, get a few copies laser printed, bind it with some random image on the cover, I will be Author too.

Yeah…oooh….lala aha yea….sadness drips and dries sssss

like paint on my mind’s wall……hey yeah

Cacophony! of chaotic cries

Life, uninstall. Uninstallllll yea yea yea yea

(sung to what? A 2-chord progression. A Minor and E major. Simplest)

Look ma! I am a Songwriter too! I am a Guitarist too since I can actually play these 2 chords. And if Justin Beiber is a singer so am I. Anyways Singer-Songwriter is way cooler and kvlt than plain jane ‘singer’.

I know a bit of ProTools and can splice things together in Audacity, does that make me a Sound Engineer?

I know enough Photoshop to apply random filters and bring it together in CorelDraw or Illustrator. I have Shutterstock access so I can download and alter cool vectors to pass them off as mine. So in one shot that makes me an Art Director and Graphic Designer.

In this calendar year I have read 39 books to date. Yep. This year I am keeping track. So I am an Avid Reader.

I have been atop Kudremukh peak. Proves that I am a Trekker. I have spent a few or more hours walking around the Valley of Flowers. So I am a Hiker. Just need to get my BSA SLR into shape and trawl around. Note to self: Become a Cyclist soon. 2nd Note to self: Attend freebie try-before-you-buy workshop on Cocktail Making, Salsa, Kalaripayatt. Wouldn't you like to be called a Dancer? A certified Bartender?

I have a Bajaj Pulsar. Not so often I take it out of the city which I guess makes me eligible for the Biker tag. What else? What else?

Poet. Photographer. Voice Artist. Filmmaker. Sculptor. Quizzer. Blogger. Author. Singer-Songwriter. Guitar player. Musician. Sound Engineer. Art Director. Graphic Designer. Avid Reader. Trekker. Hiker. Biker. I am Everything! Let me take a few minutes off now to download either a CK Prahlad book, and I will return as Management Consultant. Or perhaps I will look up Kotler on Wikipedia an become a Marketing Strategist and Brand Consultant. Ah, there’s so many things I can be. Be back soon.

Of vengeful virgins and corpses that wear pasties

Once in a while along comes along a book you pick up just for its cover art alone. Doesn’t often happen to me. I go for what’s in between the covers. And sometimes I don’t need to rifle through the pages. As a friend once told me, I seem to have the ability to judge a book by its covers. Yep. I do. And modesty is not one of my virtues. But coming to the point, it’s rarer still when you have an entire imprint each worth picking up for the cover art alone. And yes, Hard Case Crime happened to me some time ago. As a fan of hard boiled crime and pulp fiction, it was but natural that I check them out – books by Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Ed McBain, Max Allan Collins, what’s not to like. And one by, beleiev or not, Arthur Conan Doyle (The Valley of Fear). I do suggest you give them a look-in too, if you’re into hard-boiled crime and pulp or just like double-crossing, dangerous, skimpily clad hot women on your covers. But to be honest, some of the best books I’ve read in the Hard Case Crime series are the ones I picked up for their covers alone, and not going by the author or the plot or even the really neat by-lines that they have.

Case in point:

What a cover! The title was a bonus. C’mon it mentions nipple coverings and a dead body. What could be more pulp than that? No clue about the author who is the self-appointed ‘Burlesque Mayor of New York’ Jonny Porkpie. I really had no expectation whatsoever from the book per se, but when a book starts with a short letter to the publisher from the author (reproduced below) you know it’s gonna be a good ride.

Dear Charles,

Well, here it is, as requested, in all its obscene glory; a complete and mostly accurate of the events that led to the closing of a certain bar on Eleventh Street. I’ve played it as close to the truth as I can, but you know me; I might have throw in some slight exaggerations, the odd embellishment or two, and several completely fabricated erotic scenes. I just couldn’t resist.

In other words, it’s all true except for the stuff I lied about.

Best regards,

Porkpie

Know what I mean? And a good ride it was. And to labour a point, take a look at this:

Cover art that’s got the virgin mentioned in the title and a stash of cash. Pulpy! Crimey! But it turned out to be darned good read. Classic pulp crime of the double-crossing kind with a not-so-typical, yet expected twist-in-the-tail ending. Not to give away the story or play spoiler, but by the end of the second chapter, let me assure, the girl is definitely not a virgin! Though to her credit, she stays vengeful till the very end of the book, in more ways than one. But a virgin, not a chance!

So coming back to the point. Judging these books by the covers alone, they were good. And what lies n between them, even better! Check out the entire Hard Case Crime series and their awesome covers HERE. See what I told you, I can judge a book by its cover. is The Bekku awesome or is The Bekku awesome?! And no, a few paragraphs is not enough time for The Bekku to learn the subtle art of modesty.

Take a look at the complete Hard Case Crime series and their awesome covers here.

Ghatotkacha & Me

Somewhere in my family photo album is a photograph from the time when we were in Bidar. A faded picture of me at about 4-5 years sitting on my uncle’s lap on a reddish sofa and he’s reading out to me or rather taking me through a book. It was obviously a special occasion when my uncle came visiting, hence the photo I presume, and he was coming from large magical city called Bangalore. And my uncle always came bearing gifts. And this time was no different. It was my first ever comic book. A collected volume of 10 Amar Chitra Kathas which is what he is taking me thorough in that photo. It also happened to be the first ever English book I ever laid my eyes upon. The inexplicability of the strange words and strange language meant that I understood not a thing, but this was very well compensated for by the loads of pictures and characters that the volume contained, each panel a doorway to a new adventure.

Jumping and bouncing on a sofa is a lot more fun when you are in the middle of the battle of Kurukshetra riding a chariot. Pillow fights with your sister are more enjoyable when you are fighting Duryodhana with a mace. Broomsticks find their real calling when they are arrows. The neighbour’s pesky Pomeranian is a lot more tolerable and infinitely more fun to have around when you are Babruvahana trying to chase and capture the pesky horse from Yudhishtira’s Ashwamedha that has strayed into your territory. And of the whole volume of ACK, none was more enjoyed or leafed through or lived and relived than the Ghatotkacha comic. In fact that’s what I would say was the first English book I ever read, consumed, inhaled. And my first comic. The cover showed a colour illustration of Ghatotkacha taking to the skies with Shashirekha in his hands, her cot included. A thoroughly enjoyable story with lots of magic, asuras, shape-shifting legions and flying clothes. I remember shedding a tear or two when Ghatotkacha dies. Flashforward a couple of years. We have shifted to Gulbarga. I am in my second standard. All grown up. Grown up enough to make my own bows and arrows from branches, twigs and twine. Old enough to walk on my own all the way to school, and take my sister along with me too. But she is still Duryodhana and I am whoever catches my fancy. My class has enough dushasanas and ravanas for me to fight with. There’s also new games like kirket and football to play now, and trees to climb and fall out off. And there’s now a new box at home called TeeVee for dinner-time entertainment. Thus the hindi lessons begin by professor Doordarshan. One fine sunday, my father tells us we’re going to a film, Maya Bazaar. What’s it about? I ask. Not that it mattered. Well, it’s about Abhimanyu, and Krishna and Ghatotkacha my father says. Ghatotkacha??? Let’s go! And so we do. Film starts. It’s black and white!!! Not a new film. And it’s in some strange language that I cannot follow. Turned out it was the Telugu original. But none of that mattered once the film hit its stride and Ghatotkacha made his appearance. There was magic! And fights! And Ghatotkacha becoming big and then small. Yay! Opening his mouth and all the food jumps right into his mouth. And the song, ‘Hoho hoho ho ho…..’ brought much glee (vid below). Having been brought up on stories from the puranas and mythology, and the staple reading being Amar Chitra Kathas, this was like the best! I remember sitting transfixed and clapping my hands in glee. So what if it was Telugu? I knew the story inside out, and my father kept interjecting now and then with some additional info. Ah. The joy. Ghatotkacha spiriting away Shashirekha. Then changing to her form and taking everyone for a ride. Lovely.
 The story is simple. The Pandavas are in exile. One of Arjuna’s wives Subhadra and her son Abhimanyu are staying at Dwaraka with her brothers Krishna and Balarama. Now Abhimanyu and Shashirekha, Balarama’s daughter are in love with each other having been betrothed in their childhood. But times have changed. The Pandavas are paupers and Revathi, Balarama’s wife is no longer kicked about marrying her daughter off a pauper’s son and instead pitches for Lakshmana, Duryodhana’s son and the prince of Hastinapura, exactly what Shakuni wants. As any husband with a naggy, greedy wife Balarama agrees and anyways Duryodhana was always his favourite disciple. Realising what’s afoot, the trickster Krishna makes sure the miffed Subhadra and Abhimanyu are taken through a particular route. Enter Ghatotkacha! All angry and miffed at seeing two intruders in his territory. A battle ensues – flying arrows and all – between Abhimanyu and Ghatotkacha till Subhadra intervenes after Abhimanyu is defeated and the men realize that they are cousins, brothers. Ghatotkacha being Ghatotkacha agrees to help and with his retinue proceeds with due alacrity to Dwaraka to sabotage Shashirekha’s marriage to Lakshmana Kumara. Much fun and joy ensues, including a hilarious scene where Shakuni gets a taste of his own medicine in dice and Lakshmana Kumara quite simple some bitter medicine. Lots of mirth and joy ensues for the viewer. And of course all ends well with the lovers united.

The thrill of watching Maya Bazaar continued for a while. For the next few days, I was Ghatotkacha. And try as I might, the anna sambar never jumped off the plate into my mouth like at the end of this awesome song here:


Flashfoward to Karwar a few years later. I’m pretty good at cricket, and marbles. Older now, in the 5th standard. Have beaten up enough boys for a concerned parent or two to drop by home to complain to my father about my violent ways. In my defense, they deserved it for having mocked at me because of my shaved head. Teachers’ pet at school. Holy enough to play Joseph in the school’s Christmas play. Weak enough to faint while trying my first header while playing football. And role playing game is now playing Fauji with guns. One fine sunday, my father tells us we’re going to a film, Maya Bazaar. Yay! I jump to go and get ready. Another pleasant surprise awaits at the theatre. It is in Kannada. The dubbed version. Now I can hear Ghatotkacha go ‘Hoho hoho ho ho…..’ in kannada! For the next days, I was ghatotkacha again, and the fauji guns became maces and some got turned into bows when I chose to be arjuna. And as hard as i tried, the darned food would still not float into my mouth!

Flashforward many many years. Maya Bazaar still remains a favourite watch. I’m all grown up. Approaching my 30s. Old enough buy my own VCD of Maya Bazaar, the Kannada version. Even managed to catch the play Maya Bazaar by Sri Venkateshwara Natya Mandali (Surabhi) from Hyderabad. Fabulous as it was, as much as I enjoyed the play and Ghatotkacha’s role was played amazingly well, I still missed SVR’s portrayal.

And here I sit here today, all set to go watch the original Maya Bazaar in the theatres again, this evening! In colour!! Even the new trailer is giving me goosebumps:


Looking forward with as much joy if not more. Is it the movie? Or is it a way of reliving me as I was, and used to be? Or as I wish I could be? All that I know is that I have given up even trying to get the food to float and jump into my mouth. I’m not Ghatotkacha.

Suryange torcha?

Literally that would mean ‘don’t show torchu to the sun-nu’. It’s a series of aphorisms (?) in Kannada slang whose closest English equivalent – in terms of import – would be ‘Don’t teach your grandfather how to f**k’ or more politely, ‘don’t try to teach the teacher’ or in certain cases/context ‘don’t bring coals to newcastle’. Very handy when used well. Disregarding the force-fit ones (Artistgey sketcha?, Autogey stand-a? etc.) here are my favourites, in no particular order:

1. Suryange torcha?
2. Conductorgey ticketa?
3. Ravi Chandrangey remake-a?
4. Hajaamangey haircut?
5. Gomateshwarangey show na? ….and *drum roll*….
6. Deve Gowdagey sleeping tableta?

Take your pick. Use liberally. Prefixing ‘nimmajji loafer…!’ to any of the above, optional.
If you have more, feel free to add on the list, leave a comment. Variety is spicier and all that.

The long and winding road….

Sunset on the road. Somewhere between Hubli and Yellapur. It was a nice evening on the extended road trip, and somehow, some quirk, and the film exposed maybe a tad too early and the processing just gave this a nice natural green/orange tinge. Ah. The joy of film. Circa: February 2005. Camera: Analog Canon EOS 300.

A random pic from the travel archives

Looking out at snow capped mountains not far away from my room...
Location: Manasarovar, Tibet. Circa, Late 2008. Camera: Canon EOS 300 Analog.

It ws a dark and stormy night....

I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. If you're going to read this, don’t bother. After a couple pages, you won't want to be here. So forget it. Go away. Get out while you're still in one piece. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. All this happened, more or less.

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. Call me Ishmael. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner. I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids. For a long time, I went to bed early. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Mother died today.

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. It was the day my grandmother exploded. In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. I was 50 years old and hadn't been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them as I passed them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility. I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a woman—even on non-sexual terms—was beyond my imagination. [But] It was love at first sight. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings? Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.

A screaming comes across the sky. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They shoot the white girl first. We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. It was a pleasure to burn. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me. They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them. It was like so, but wasn't. Where now? Who now? When now?

Already guessed what it’s all about? Reads quite nicely don’t it? It better! Because the above is a ‘story’ written by stitching together some of the most famous opening lines in literature. Opening lines only. Except in a couple of instances, only the first sentence or the first few words. Look them up. Ah yes. The title of the post too. The classic evergreen opening from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford.

Next up? A story using famous ending line? Maybe. A song on the same line? Maybe. Maybe not. Once is enough. Next time, new experiment.

About Time

He had reached by 1840. But his team was already late by a long time. They were supposed to join him a long time ago in this house, at 1845 in fact. He looked surreptitiously at the dial concealed under his carefully constructed jacket. The luminous numbers read 1850. But on second thoughts a slight delay like this was hardly a wave in the ever flowing tide of history. But what they were about to do now would definitely cause a few ripples. The mere thought brought a smile to his face. Time to right some wrongs. And anyways, the delay had given him enough time to put a lot of things into place.

After what looked like eons, he looked again at the dial. 1855. Time was definitely running out now. Alone he could at most get things started – but that would happen whether or not he was physically present at this point. It needed his team to give him the strategic numbers to win. 1856. He smelt something burning, like burnt optic transmitters. They were here! About time. But instead of his entire team, all he saw was his deputy staggering towards him. If that wasn’t enough cause for worry, he was wearing a uniform which wasn’t just horribly dated but was that of the imperialists! “Someone got it horribly wrong” His deputy told him. “We reached in 1755, looking for you. But they told us not to worry if we didn’t find you and changed the side we were to fight on. We won. Nothing’s changed. I’m here to take you back. Nothing’s going to change. We could try again. Live to plan again and come back.” The words barely registered. The implications. 25 years of his life, and all the careful planning to change history, wasted. His team sent back a 100 years further back than was planned to help the other side win. Why? Why? But who? And now that he was being taken back to his time, nothing was going to change. The other side would rule for another 2 centuries, leaving his land and his ancestors in shambles and as slaves forever. “Hey, let’s go” his deputy said, “About time.”

Part 2 of Past coupla weeks or more, give or take

And those were some of the books and tv series.....

Part 1 of Past coupla weeks or more, give or take

Well been too busy. As usual. And too lazy to update. As usual. Busy with life, work, short trips, appointment with mr. walker of blues fame, a farewell party or two, etc. etc. but why bore you with details. Actually the more interesting parts are best told in person. So instead The Bekku is taking the easy way out and talking movies, tv and books in the past 2-3 weeks which have contributed to keeping the devil’s workshop out of business for a while. especially, back to the regular average of 2-3/week, so that’s comforting. Well here goes….of what I can remember top of mind….If i don't remember the rest of them, am sure there are more, it's probably because it wasn't worth the bother in first place.

Idiocracy

The title says it all. In a distant future, the morons have taken over the world (but can't really blame you if you think that's the scene right now ). Sample question from IQ test in the future as shown in movie: “If you have a bucket with 5 gallons of water and another bucket with 2 gallons, how many buckets do you have?” You don’t need to be a genius to know this is a must see.

Girl Next Door

Sent my best friend and me scurrying for Elisha Cuthbert pics. Nice-of-age college flick. Smart but boring boy gets a new neighbor – super hot chick who is a porn star. Need I say more?

Knowing

Alex Proyas doesn’t disappoint. Ya, the same guy who gave you Dark City and I, Robot. Interesting twist to the old apocalyptic prophecies and such like yarn. Slow in bits but ultimately worthwhile. Watch maadi. Don’t miss that clever touch at the end and all that it implies, which makes that one scene larger than the story of the movie itself.

Push

Would’ve worked better as a 3 episode TV miniseries. Actually I think it was one – going by the production values and the feel of the film - till they decided to edit it down to movie length. Regular people but with powers hunted down by shady agency. Heroes anyone?

Black Dynamite

If you aren’t a fan of blaxploitation films, you might miss out on the little touches that make this such an awesome spoof-cum-homage such a nice enjoyable film. But you still can enjoy the jive talk, the neat look, the women and old 70s exploitation movies, this one’s for you. Once you get past that niggling feeling that you are watching namma Prabhakar in an afro. Don’t let the poster mislead you, it’s a new movie. See what I said about homage to movies past?

Bitch Slap

More exploitation fun. Could’ve been so much better considering it takes it cues from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And blaxploitation films. Hot chicks, guns, cars guns and lot of skin – all the ingredients are there. But still, missable unless you know who Russ Meyer is and like his stuff (as in now! Not after you do a google search).

Fantastic Mr.Fox

Wes Anderson scores yet again with an amazing stop motion retelling of Roald Dahl’s classic tale. Go watch!

Iron Giant

Very nice animated movie about an Iron Giant (duh!) who crash lands on earth and befriends a small boy and their adventures thereof. For children aged 8-80.

Avataar

Sure you could do with more written on avatar ya? Though must say the sfx ‘n the 3D experience was good fun – both times! If you haven’t seen it already, go watch Pocahontas!!! Or maybe you are waiting for the Director's Cut with the extended alien sex scene. You perv, you.

And at this point The Bekku gets too lazy to type and just dumps the JPGs of TV series watched and Books read and loved. Too much trouble to type and arrange and format stuff. In part 2.