The Strange, Bad Week Continues

My thoughts, again, with everyone in Boston. Well, with everyone in Massachusetts and the northeast and Chechnya, Russia, Turkey, Syria, anyone near the Caucasus Mountains. You know what? Just everyone. I guess this kid, still on the loose, 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, could be just about anywhere.

He looks so young in all the pictures of him. My suspicion is that these two acted independently of any Chechen military organisation. I think these were two guys brought up in a culture of hate and machismo who got restless. The YouTube account of one, wherein he created a playlist called "terrorist", tells me they were proud of that identity rather than seeing it as some kind of ugly necessity of war.

I remember talking to someone at my chess club in Second Life not long ago whose nerves were really ragged--she lives in Turkey and she was nervous about the volatile situation in Syria. I guess people in Boston right now have some idea how she feels. The photos of Boston's empty streets to-day look so eerie. I can't imagine how scary it must be to be in the city right now.

I was going to write about the Bollywood movie I watched last night, 1969's Audmi Aur Insaan. Well, maybe it'll help take your mind off things if you're in Massachusetts. I was certainly captivated by one of the female leads, Mumtaz. I finally found a copy of an old Bollywood movie with subtitled songs, though this clip doesn't have any. But maybe it's enough to tell you the title of the song, the chorus, and the first line translate to "Life is Coincidence";

She's a great femme fatale. The other female lead is very pretty and possesses a charming exuberance, but Mumtaz is just magnificent.

This song, which is reprised later in the film, rather nicely sets up a theme that runs throughout the movie, having to do with the degree to which people have control over their destinies. The two men in the clip, Manish and J.K., are best friends. J.K. is the wealthy owner of a construction company and he's paid for Manish to go to school, from whence Manish is returning at the beginning of the film.

He meets Rita, Mumtaz's character, on the ship on the way back, though her mercenary outlook on life compels her to prefer men who aren't "soft", men like J.K., who we learn cuts corners to increase profits and deals in the black market. He also happens to fall in love with the same girl as Manish, the exuberant Meena.

Poor Mumtaz finds she has a heart after all, but becomes only J.K.'s lackey as she attempts to aid in plans to stop Manish from exposing J.K.'s crime to the government.

The movie is a pretty effective story of characters honouring unrequited loyalties to one another. There's a train sequence that borrows quite a bit from North by Northwest and From Russia with Love, but Aadmi Aur Insaan has a very good voice of its own.