Jasmine’s Aladdin

“I won’t be silenced
You can’t keep me quiet
Won’t tremble when you try it
All I know is I won’t go speechless”

Who doesn’t know the story of Aladdin? I have read Aladdin at least thrice; played the game innumerable times; watched the Disney movie at least once and before I talk about the latest, I had the privilege to watch a performance in the theatre a couple of years back. This was an entirely different and wonderful excitement. Imagine watching the actors performing live before you and singing the song on stage whilst doing all the action that is an intrinsic part of the story! When I look back at it, I am filled with wonder at the stage settings and the special effects that were created to transport us into another world.

Today I am talking of another magical experience. I watched the latest Aladdin movie based on the Disney story. Obviously a musical, it makes our imagination go on a roller coaster ride along with the lead characters. Such a simple story line yet what a lot it has to say!

We have the clear good and the bad characters(Of course Aladdin steals and tells lies but these are accepted grey areas of goodness); we also have the incidents growing progressively towards the climax of a huge battle; the natural movement of the evil overpowering goodness and then getting reckless with the power and strength of invincibility is very well crafted. Even though you know who will win, the moment you enter the world of Agrabah you are again the puny human tossed in the waves of uncertainty. So there we are sitting at the edge of the seats praying that Aladdin wins. Then of course innocence wins, and we go home happy and satisfied.

How then does the narrative offer us something new? The most famous song ‘A whole new world’ of course is a timeless classic :

“..I’ve come so far
I can't go back to where I used to be”

How well it mirrors each of our lives! How many times have we tried to go back to that space where we were the happiest but are never able to recapture the magic? The romance embedded in the lines:

“...a thrilling chase
a wondrous place
for you and me”

Makes even the heart of an ancient person palpitate with the thrill of first love. I believe that the success of Aladdin over the years is because it touches the intrinsic core within an individual and mirrors some facet or the other that is lying dormant within us.

Though not authenticated it is supposed to be a part of the thousand and one tales of Arabic origin but it is largely attributed to Antoine Galland the French translator in the eighteenth century.

What strikes one is the fact that Princess Jasmine lived in a world where women had no rights, yet over the years in different settings we are introduced to her as an independent woman with a stubbornness of getting her own way. She refuses to be only seen (as an object of beauty) and demands that she be heard. So we have a millennial Jasmine, independent, stubborn, ambitious and combat ready. She refuses to be “speechless” and demands justice even in face of the oppressive power of Jaffar.

Jasmine does not cry and berate her fate as she is captured, instead she chooses to be a lawyer and turns into an advocate for the people of Agrabah. Pleading with Hakim( head of the royal guards) to judge the correctness of the law that makes him bow before Jaffar.

The ending is also very daring and new as she takes up the mantle of being a Sultan and ‘arrests’ Aladdin for being a thief, to presumably take over his life completely.

The magic continues… the wonderful genie; the magic carpet; Abu and the cave of wonders all lend their enchantment towards the world of Aladdin. The negative energy of Jaffar and Iago create the obstacles without which this tale would not be turbulent and filled with excitement as it moves from point to point. It makes us jump over the rooftops of Agrabah with the foot tapping beats of Aladdin’s lunges, jumps, swings and somersaults!

So a new take on an old tale; an empowered woman; a millennial man; a kind genie and the proverbial ogre Jaffar; all the trappings of a modern fairy tale. There is plenty to learn; each of the songs open our eyes to truths with a humorous twist and makes us want to go back into this celluloid dream.

 

  

Never got the GOT!

The other day I saw a post on Facebook which said that ‘if you have never watched a single episode of The Game of Thrones than click on the link below’.

“Should I click on it”, I wondered. I recently found out that GOT was first aired in 2010, so I looked back at my 2010; it had been an exciting year for me, but I do not remember hearing about this series. My children were then teenagers and they should have told me about it (I must remember to ask them whether they did let me know). The first that I became conscious of it was in 2013 when my then ‘terrible teenager’ would slouch on the sofa and stream it online on her laptop.

 I would sometime peep over her shoulder and see a lot of black, brown and blue graphics, so I never was interested! (I love the colourful ‘Rangeela” kind of pictures!). Once in a while I heard the sisters discussing it over the phone. I am not a suspicious mother, but what struck me every time they spoke was whether somebody would die. This further distanced me from even attempting to see one episode!

I have plenty of people on Facebook who love to discuss the GOT and obviously I skip over these posts. As I have a husband who is the least interested in TV serials, I did not get any knowledge from him either. The doctor in the family is very kind to me; she specifically informs me about new TV serials, the trending things on youtube videos, the latest Netflix and Prime video offerings. So I don’t feel too left out by the millennial generation. But she never discussed this with me either. I was sometimes tempted to start seeing it but all the comments regarding the episodes pulled me back .

As the younger one (TT) left her teens she continued to watch this and discuss this with her sister but neither of them attempted to persuade me to do so. In fact I remember clearly that one or both of them made me watch “Stranger Things”. This was also an uncomfortable serial with a lot of blue, black and brown colours, filled with eerie and strange things but I watched both seasons. I was under extreme discomfort, but I was fascinated by it and in my own way, loved it (I remember binge watching it too!).

Fantasy is fascinating for me; I love magic and ‘other dimensional’ narratives, hence an obsession with the Harry Potter series. Why then did I not get the GOT? Frankly I have no answer. Maybe it was the whispers about sex and violence and the mandatory death after each episode which put me off. Could be that I love to relax when I watch a movies and silent murmurs told me otherwise. Possibility of age catching up was also there (though I believe that a majority of the fans are as old if not older than me).

I believe the last season is just over and that is what made me curious about it. I, of course went to my favourite library “Google” and did a little reading. I was surprised to find that it had won a number of awards. Maybe another reason why I did not sidle into watching it! I very adroitly avoid watching Award winning movies ( I can see the eyebrows reaching the ceilings by now!). I also believe that it has a humongous cast which again could confuse my little brain!

Many of my friends do doubt my sensibilities when it comes to movies! Once I had praised a movie sky-high; the hounding response I got for my admiration, put me off ever trying to write a movie review!

So here I am feeling a little lost and talking about The GOT without having watched even half an episode! I do not understand the hoo-hah over it and do not even want to. Does that make me passé?

You tell me! I have stopped watching Hindi TV serials for the last ten years, so I am a misfit when I go to parties, specially the Ladies ones; now I will certainly be an oddity in any kind of gathering as I do not have an iota of information to contribute to  a discussion on the GOT!

Where have all the colours gone?

Having been a Jeans and t-shirt person all through my young life, I had gone berserk in the year after I got married. I wore all the feminine Indian clothes- brightly coloured with matching jewellery and bangles to boot! And Boy! Had I enjoyed myself! Green, purple, orange all the possible loud colours had suddenly become my favourite. Of course over the years I have mellowed and refrain from wearing too bright a colour. But give me a chance (A wedding or a festival) I am back, wallowing in the multiple hues of life.

“Hey! Isn’t that a lovely shade of black”, said the twenty something to her pal beside her.

“That’s good”, agreed the pal, “but you should have seen the black Sheena was wearing yesterday! it was to die for”.

These days I am like R.K.Laxman’s “Common man”, I am here , there and everywhere with a bag over my shoulder; a very silent spectator of the drama of life. If I could draw, I would be another famous cartoonist.

Listening to the above conversation, I wondered what were the shades of black? Of course I had heard of this book called the “Fifty shades of grey” but shades of black was what I had not heard of. When in doubt Google is my mantra. Sure enough Wikipedia had seventeen different shades of black listed!

For a change I tried to be “in the moment” and started looking around and noticing all the young people who  were crowded in and outside the fast food restaurant, smoking, having tea or coffee or some junk food or the other. The young men (I was pleasantly surprised) were quite nattily dressed and most of them looked healthy and well built (the gym effect?) The girls were a different story, fifty percent of them were overweight, the other fifty percent were a mixture of toned bodies, normal bodies, anorexic bodies and normal skinny ones.

Whether it was “the black conversation” I overheard or the general gloominess in the political scenario, I saw that the bottom half of  all the girls were black. Most of them wore black leggings, some wore the very popular jeggings, many had on the formal trousers (There are many offices in the vicinity) and a miniscule few had churidars on.  So if you were to be polite and not stare, you would focus on the bottom half, right? Well there was a virtual sea of black, weaving in and out on the grey asphalt! I must have seen this before, but I had never been conscious of this fact.

Can you picture what I saw? Black sea with smoke rising from within it! The smoke could be the cigarettes or from the steaming cups of tea and coffee. Whatever it was, my world looked a little drab and forlorn. As I swept my eyes surreptitiously from ground zero to an altitude of five feet plus, I noticed the tops were either different shades of white( Check it out on google) or blue or pink. Where I wondered had the greens, purples, oranges or even the  bright yellow gone?

I did not look at the men, they anyway never had a great colour palette, it was the girls I was inspecting. Where had all the feminine love for bright hues gone? Why were they all following a uniform code of conduct for dressing? Agreed black makes you look slimmer, so I understood the penchant for bottom halves being black but what about the top half? Don’t we women always want to stand out? Be different from the others? Why if a film actress wears a dress which is even two percent similar to another actress’s dress the tabloids go crazy putting up the two pictures and pointing out the similarities! Fortunately I have cut off our cable Television otherwise all the news channels would be airing the same picture again and again!

Now that I had become conscious of the new fad, my eyes went on searching for a different picture in various backgrounds. The next time I went to the Mall I looked discerningly at the crowd. In the food court it was all dark under the table! I also noticed that three new brands of leggings had set up shop in different parts of the mall.

Out of curiosity I went into my favourite one “Go Colours” and asked them what colour had the highest sale. The answer was not much of a surprise- it was black of course! I then asked them about the different shades of black and they were very aware of it. (I felt such a dodo!)

“Why do you have such a wonderful display of rainbow colour leggings, jeggings and what not?”, I asked inquisitively.

The salesman had the patience of a saint, he said, “That is for display, it attracts customers”.

“But there are very few blacks?”, I objected.

“Madam we have a store room at the back filled with them. They do not look good on display, so we do not put them out”, the salesman said dismissively.

Having learnt a valuable lesson, I realised that even though the world is turning into a colourless graveyard, the human mind is still alive. Why do I say that? Well as long as the hoardings and displays depend on colours to attract customers then all is right with the world and God is in his heaven.

Maybe this is just a phase and my colours will creep back into the world like a time lapse picture of winter turning to spring!

Till it does will anyone answer my question- Where have all the colours gone?