Homosexuality and Vetayada Villayadu

A couple of Sundays back, I watched Vetayada Villayadu and frankly, I was offended by the way homosexuality is depicted in the movie. It clearly reflects the prejudices in our society against gay people and it defies all logic and sensitivity. When will we, as a society, move past the dark ages?
Picture this: In the last scene of the movie Kamal Hassan is confronting the two serial killers and discovers that they are gay. So he tells one of them, " So you're homosexuals." Just as if, as if that one fact explains why they are all weird and going around raping and killing women.
So if they are gay, someone explain to me why they are shown as being sexually turned on by the women they are about to rape. What I could have swallowed (not understood of course, difficult to understand rape) was that they were doing it as an act of power, but being turned on...excuse me, puh-leeze.
That kind of prejudice is as bad as the one I kept hearing growing up that all gay men must make passes at all men and all their acts, sexually motivated. These messages were so subtle that it is hard to tell now where one got them from.
My dear friend, who is gay, and whom I shall not name here, was told by his dad to get himself treated for his gay-ness as recently as three years ago. "It is a disease," he was told.
Such prejudices coming through in a movie that has the power to shape thoughts and in the hands of a director who is respected is scary. Will someone tell the movie maker to research his politics of homosexuality before he decides to use it in a film? Such ignorance is not becoming.

Oh no! Not KANK again

Of course I have to talk about KANK. Absolutely. Among the millions that exist I have to add my two cents. Ok I won't make it long and boring like the movie. Now I am being ungenerous, it wasn't that boring. I just looked at my watch five times before the intermission. In spite of many positives, KANK didn't work for me. There was a heroic effort on the part of Karan Johar to explore unconventional emotional themes (unconventional by Bollywood standards) of unfound love, extra marital affairs and marrying your best friends instead of "your true love."
Unfortunately he diluted what could have been a deep story by using unheroic props of sleaze and tiresome humour. In the first scene, when Preity Zinta walks into the magazine office, the camera zooms to her butt. Gosh, I am not prudish, but if that's not a prop, what is? Since I am on the topic of Preity, I am so sorry for her that she was made to dress like that. Maybe her dresser should have watched "The Devil Wears Prada" to see how how fashion mag editors in New York dress. Pity he didn't. For he would have know that the style should have been one of quiet elegance.
And why New York? Couldn't understand that bit. That part seemed almost surreal to me. It seemed that these four characters were carrying on their lives a little above or below the city but were never a part of it.
Abhishek was great, the best in fact. There were some good dialogues. It was also refreshing to see grey characters. The characters I couldn't sympathise with at all were Shah Rukh and Rani. They were the most whiney, self indulgent people I've ever seen. For most part, it didnt work for me because of that.
Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" and Maugham's "Mrs Craddock" are novels that explore the theme of unfound love where the protagonists have extra marital affairs but in these stories one is given a deep insight into the motivations of the protagonists. I found that sorely lacking in KANK.

The Difficulty of Positive Thinking

It is funny how the hardest things in life are most simple in theory. I had this interesting chat with my brother-in-law who is this positive, uncomplicated guy who told me how being positive is a matter of practice. He said that naturally when you want to do something, it is the habit of your treacherous mind to come up with ten negatives as to why you can't do it, but he told me to try it the next time. He said the next time I wanted to do something, I should try keeping it as pure thought, undiluted by negatives or mental obstacles.
What he was trying to tell me was how great the power of "pure thought" is. When you have a vision and you really believe that it will happen, the elements of the universe come together to make it happen. Say I want to write a book and publish it. I should, according to this theory, just visualise deeply in my mind, a printed book, my printed book. Then without having any thoughts I should go on with my life, autosuggesting to my subconscious, now and then that I will publish a book. And lo and behold, it will happen. It may take 10 years but as long as I am wishing for it to happen, not giving excuses about why it won't happen and thinking "pure thought", it will happen.
And this theory further states one person is no different from another.
"But what about the chemicals in our brain?" I shouted. I probably felt that if I shouted I would convince myself. "Each one of us is made differently. You are not allowing for human frailties".
He grinned and said," See you are already creating an obstacle. The chemicals you have are created by the positive or negative thoughts you have".
All my delusions came crumbling down.
Bah! I had just got comfortable with the idea that my life was difficult.