Touche

The CREEP saw an Indian movie yesterday - with a bunch of desi friends to boot. "Mr and Mrs Iyer" didn't quite turn out to be the disappointment he had hoped it would, but it came close. Here are some fun facts he managed to salvage out of a wasted evening.

1. The storyline (a couple's bus journey amidst riots) was inspired by a real life incident involving one of writer-director Aparna Sen's assistants - he got stuck in a bus outside Ranchi due to a curfew. Not an uncommon occurence btw.
2. The role of the lead male was written for and played by smooth-as-silk Rahul Bose. Mrs Iyer, the female lead, was played by radiant beauty Konkona Sen.
3. The aforementioned radiant beauty's real life nickname is "Koko". I'm not making this up.
4. The only other notable character in the movie is a baby (Mrs Iyer's newborn) named Santhanam. The CREEP's aversion to babies is well known, but in this case it was made bearable by the presence of another baby in the audience named Santhanam.
5. Rahul Bose's nickname for the baby is "Santa". 'nuff said.
6. The score for the movie was composed by tabla-tapper Zakir Hussain. Z is the first Indian classical musician to do a nude scene in a movie (Heat and Dust, '83).
7. Z continues the fashionable trend of filling emotionally charged scenes with spookified Vedic chants. Waay, waaay beyond pathetic.
8. On closer listening, some of those chants turned out to be in English, another fashionable trend (think Rahman).
9. Indian classical music continues to be treated like a whore.
10. Z treats the tara-sthai gandhara like a whore, another trend that was started by pimp and music butcher extraordinaire A.R. Rahman.
11. The movie contains one of CREEP's favourite filmy formulas - boy meets girl, boy teases girl with (mildly critical) cute comment, passage of time, climactic scene, girl repeats cute comment back to boy with added twinkle in eye.
    
12. This is generally followed by triumphant smile captured in three different angles and replayed with arpeggios in background. Not in this movie though.
13. At the end of cute comment Rahul Bose, suavity personified, says "Touche". Only problem - he pronounces it "tushy".
14. Koko has nice tushy.