TWO-FER TUESDAY


1.
I have indeed booked my ticket for India, on Air India, via Germany. I leave on July 5, spend a few days with friends in Erlangen and head to Mysore on July 11 for a month at the AYRI. Other than Randy, I know no westerners who will be there -- although I do have tentative plans to meet up with Russell. I've never spent such a short period of time there (first trip was four months, second two were two months each) and wonder what it'll be like.

2.
I finally saw Dil Se over the weekend. That's the film that features one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. But the film itself? Like my teaching at Dharma's studio in February, it was quite good but not great (although the opening song on the moving train is stunning and worth the price of admission). And you have to love a film where the female love interest is a terrorist and the subtext examines with the Indian government's treatment of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only that, but "Hitler" is a punchline (as in, "Stop that or I'll be like Hitler," which was said to children -- who laughed). SPOILER ALERT. As if that weren't enough - and it is - instead of blowing up the president, the female protagonist changes course at the very last minute and chooses the path of love. She embraces Shah Rukh Khan.....and detonates her bomb. Yes, a good time was had by all.*









*I didn't catch this, but apparently the seven stages of love described in the song "Satrangi Re" are depicted throughout the movie: Hub, Uns, Ishq, Aquidat, Ibaadat, Junoon, and Maut (attraction, infatuation, love, reverence, worship, obsession, and death).