A little bit of this and a little bit of that

There have been an astonishing number of people landing up here on google searches for Eunoia. I'm wondering why. Apparently the BBC have suddenly decided to review it (or something. Please read comments however). But why, having read samples from there, must people have to search for it and land up here? I'm mystified.

**

This is a strange week in my life. Nearly two years ago, I was in Delhi visiting a friend. I used to go to college with the wife and edit things for the husband (in later years. I wasn't born knowing how to edit). Back then, friend said he was making a film on such-and-such subject and would I mind being in the film. I said, sure!

Now those chickens are coming home to roost.

So this friend is going to be here for the rest of the week filming me (my life as a film, Falsie) and it's an interesting experience. I'll tell you why.

For one thing, when you're behind the camera or viewing someone's life as just one portion of the film, you treat them as (however hard you try not to) a commodity or an experience that you mediate as soon as it happens. For a change, since I am the subject, I get to see things from the other side. I feel the pressure.

For another thing, my daily life's pretty boring and I find myself trying to think up things that might be interesting for my friend to shoot that will look good visually on his film. In effect, I am trying to reshape my life temporarily so that it looks acceptable on screen. This is not to say that it's not true to my life; it's just that I'm considering scrunching up a lot of excitement into my day for a purpose. I'm editing my life in camera, as it were.

What books can I leave lying around? Ought I to finally start on that photography project I've been meaning to do but been to damn bone lazy to begin? Where can I go where the camera will be allowed? How many people's consent can I take for granted just because I casually gave mine two years ago on a terrace in Delhi on a winter morning when there were oranges and coffee to seduce me?

And finally, what should I wear?

**

Since I'm scraping the barrel I may as well do it in style.

My son says the other day, "Amma, what do you call it when you say 'write' but when it happened before you call it 'wrote'?"

"It's called past tense."

"Oh, ya. Past tense.

"Amma, you know what the past tense of self-confidence is? Self-confidental."

Since that day, I've been looking for my grandfather's copy of Wren and Martin. I mean, my grammar's pretty shaky - I can't tell a preposition for a gerund - but I know how it works if I don't have to explain. Now it appears I will have to learn how to.

the flags of incompatibility

Via Veena and Alok, this article about relationship compatibility based on literary tastes. Somewhere down the page, this: 'Naming a favorite book or author can be fraught. Go too low, and you risk looking dumb. Go too high, and you risk looking like a bore — or a phony.'

It reminds me of the time I was at the Institute and we were being ragged. Yes. I was the only girl in my batch and I was being ragged less than anyone else. The entire ragging thing at the Institute was actually like an elaborate mating ritual, because at least a large part of it - for the editors - was an issue of compatibility.

What happened in them days was this: the editing course was for two years, while all other courses were for three. This meant that the batch ahead of you had their unit of director-cameraperson-sound recordist in place but no editor. Every editor in the new batch was not only being assessed, they were being wooed by every director so that their unit would be complete.

Wherefore, editors were rather closely questioned about several other things, among them literary and cinematic tastes. What films you liked said everything about you that your potential director needed to know. What answer you gave was very, very important (assuming you'd already made up your mind about who you wanted to work with for two years).

So a few nights into the ragging, my (future) director, along with the cameraman, sat down with me to do The Talk.

"So. What's your favourite film?"

This was crucial. I had already decided I wanted to be this guy's editor. He was well enough read, for a start. I looked at both of them and made a quick decision.

"When Harry Met Sally," I said.

Silence for a second and they burst out laughing.

"At least that's honest," director man said. Actually it wasn't. At that point, my absolute favourite film was either Hiroshima Mon Amour or one of several Bergman films. But I knew I couldn't say that because that would be pretentious. On the other hand, to say Harry Met Sally could be construed as meaning that I (1) was unpredictable in my tastes; (2) was being ironic; (3) didn't care what conclusion anyone drew from my tastes in film.

Whatever. It worked. But there's a catch. If someone falls for your cynical manipulation of a situation without making it clear that they know what you've just done, can you respect them?

I reserved judgment until he told me who his "director" was.

Every final year direction student had to analyse, in the final year, the work of a director. If someone chose Tarkovsky (there was always one of them every year) you knew what to think and you tried your best to avoid them. Mine, as it happened, had chosen Buñuel.

I never regretted my choice of director and I hope the feeling was reciprocated.