December 28, 2005 by Sanjay.

I just heard a Chinese-American on the telly characterize the Mainland as “materially toxic”. Funny, that’s exactly the right label for today’s India.  Despite the malls (”just like in the US!”) and  flyovers (i.e., overpasses, still considered an amazing feat of civil engineering) and buildings that look like they’ve been teleported from Shenzhen, there probably isn’t a kid in Delhi that doesn’t have asthma.  The smog is not even remarked on any more.  Well, that isn’t really true - every second person, on learning that you don’t live in Delhi, avows, “the pollution has gotten so much better!”  Kids that have grown up in Delhi and never travelled up to the hills probably don’t know that the sky is not supposed to be blue-ish.  Still, being in Delhi remains a delight. More on that another time…

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December 17, 2005 by Sanjay.

Prefiguring Amartya Sen, my French boss once said that while the French are sadly addicted to complexity, Indians are terminally worse. Perhaps he’s right. (He’s often right and always entertaining. When I grow up I want to be just like Pierre’s self-image.)

Smiling and smiling (I grin idiotically when I really like something) in the dark theater while watching Syriana earlier today, I though of Pierre’s comment. Do I love Syriana largely because of its multi-threaded nigh confusing plot? After all, many of my favorite movies are similarly convoluted, including Traffic (also scripted by Syriana writer-director Steve Gaghan), Slaves of New York, the better part of Altman’s erratic oeuvre (e.g., Gosford Park, Short Cuts), Grand Canyon, etc.

I am, after all, a demographically pre-determined “product” of the post-colonial Indian educational establishment, where proving that you’re smart is as important as being smart. That’s why so many of us are argumentative Indians, virtually indistinguishably so. But that tickling of my love for complexity isn’t all. Syriana is more than perfect story-telling: it flatters our grasp of what we used to call GK, or general knowledge. Yes, I nod energetically - I know that out of work Gulf Paki as if he were my cousin. And yes - another nod - Christopher Plummer’s smarmy beltway sonnenkinder knows that he’s better than the brown pretender to the Emirate. (A colleague in product marketing sells his agenda over a cup of coffee as unconsciously. Impossible is nothing!) And we Economist-reading technorati are well-versed in the self-serving duplicities of professional patriots. I nod and smile and nod and smile…

The question thus arises: is this film a product no differently targeted than Baywatch , just at a “higher” level of socio-political consciousness? Am I being played?

Enough navel-gazing… Syriana is better than 99% of the dreck that passes for entertainment at the cineplex. See it!

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