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jjba-hell · 4 years ago

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Fate and Fortune

Part 10 )^o^( can’t believe we made double digits!

Part 9 here but you can just hop onto the Fate and Fortune tag to find them all.

Contents warning: necromancy, death and decay, touch of mysticism, EXTREMELY violently act ala Vera

Tags: @risottoneroo and @fyre23

A/N: Today, I offer you guys minimal proofreading and sub-par work lol good luck

“Vera, we’re here.” Noriaki’s soft sway on her shoulders seemed to bring her back to life- stretching out in a body that felt like it ran a marathon. It didn’t quite feel like she personally did but her body felt otherwise.

They were still on the moving bus, to Varanasi which was supposed to be a place of spiritual sanctity. Honestly, all wonder for the trip’s destinations had left her after Singapore so it wasn’t a surprise that she paid almost no regard to the city unfolding in front of her. “You’ve slept through most of the trip- are you okay?”

She looked at Jotaro, who was looking back at her to ask the question. With a solemn nod she rose out of her seat and swung, yet again, only the remnants of her last duffel bag.

“I think I’ll deviate from the group- just for today. Can we meet up at the hotel?”

The others seemed to have little qualm, save for Polnareff who detached himself from the Nena chick long enough to approach Vera.

“Vera, are you sure it’s a good idea to venture out on your own?”

She had to choke back her laughter, the others stopping in their place. Her gaze moved to Kakyoin who spoke. “Polnareff, did you not see what she did to Hol Horse for information?”

“Trust me on this, Jean. I’d be more concerned for your own safety.”

Vera didn’t give them any more time to talk. Varanasi had plenty of mystic shops, she’d been there with Avdol before so it was easy to find some incense and a tarot mat.

She hadn’t been able to have a good reading in what felt like months- she kept pulling the cards that told her to let go of her grief but she really didn’t need to hear it. Hopefully with her desperation to learn the next stand user’s card she could pull something- anything else.

Her fingers slid over the upside down deck and chose two. They will be the next card holders. The empress and Justice.

The sight of the Justice card made her stomach turn violently- a reaction she’d never had before.

Oh it was going to be nasty wasn’t it?

Funny how preparations still can’t guard you against surprise. The group had moved on into Pakistani territory after Nena turned out to be the Empress holder.

They had just started to enter the foggy Pakistani town when the same dread she had felt during the reading started to stir up.

Jotaro flinching at something on the side of road didn’t help put her at ease. In the foggy town they decided to spend the night in she hopped out of the trunk of the jeep and stayed back as Me Joestar tried to ask for directions. “Am I the only one that feels that something is seriously off about this place?” Vera asked Kakyoin.

He seemed to open his mouth to answer but Polnareff’s yelling stopped any conversation they could have had.

“Vera!” She ran after the Frenchman to a man slumped over his own knees behind a pillar. “Is he-? Is he-?”

She brought Fortune out to try and turn any wound on him back but the salamanders scuttling out of his mouth made her pause.

“Why is his face like that?” Polnareff continued frantically.

“I’d have guessed tetanus but that comes with a really stiff corpse and my guy is uhh...” she pressed her boot against his knee which swayed easily. “He’s still warm!” She seemed to surprise herself.

While the others spoke to the civilians and one another , a crackling voice came a from the fence a few feet beyond the car.

“Vera.”

It was so faint but the way they spoke- it almost sounded familiar. “Vera, my angel, is that you?”

Her heart dropped in her shoes. She hadn’t heard that nickname in years. The only one who called her that was her mom. It wasn’t possible- her mother was dead. And what would she be doing in a village this far from Cairo?

Vera knew she should have known better than to let the barest hints push her past the rusty gate into a fog thicker than she was prepared to handle. The sight of her mother’s long raven hair and the clink of her rings on the rusted bars just beyond the fog sent her deep inside to follow the footsteps that drove her deeper into the fog.

Fortune moved on her own, phasing whoever she was chasing back a few steps.

Big mistake.

A scream she didn’t even know she possessed in her lungs ripped through the air. Her heart pounded in her ears as her limbs locked into their place.

Staring back at her was indeed her mother- skin sunken to lay flat against her skull- throat oozing maggots. She was staring back at her corpse.

A hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her with speed and force she simple knew wasn’t human. Practically gliding back the way she came she finally took a moment to look at said arm wrapped around her wrist and the black gloves and purple fingers allowed her to register. “Star?”

She slipped out of the dense fog back to the street where the others were getting close to where Vera gasped for breath on her knees beside a kneeling Jotaro.

“Vera, what happened?”

Her hands shook as she tried to push herself back onto her feet, the lump in her throat refusing to go down. “My mom. I saw the corpse of my mom.”

The tears flowed freely at the admittance- her heart aching painfully. Why was he mother’s corpse outside of their grave?

“Are you sure?” Mr Joestar was the one to offer a steadying hand- her body still trying to get over its malfunctioning limbs.

She only nodded, looking at him. “Or at the very least someone who looks just like her.”

“I see we have a bunch of travelers.”

The old tavern lady had put Vera off ease the second the old hag opened her mouth. Looking at Polnareff had her wondering if the man had any intuition at all or if he was ignorant of his own gut feeling- joking about with the old lady like they were old friends.

“You’re still standing on shaky legs- are you okay to walk?” Noriaki asked, brows knitted together in concern. She could move, somewhat- it just felt like her legs didn’t quite obey her. So he slipped her under his arm, hand holding her shoulder against his as they followed the old woman to her little hotel.

She watched as Jotaro filled in his name and then hand her the pen. Turns out her hands weren’t working either- the pen jiggling dangerously in her grip.

He slowly slipped the pen out of her fingers and started writing her name- Violet. Why would he-?

“I think she’s gone into shock- it would be best if we got her to calm down upstairs.” She gazed up at him, the scowl on his face dead serious.

Noriaki lead her into the same room as Mr Joestar and Jotaro- looking for the first aid kit he had brought along to hand her a little silver sachet of electrolytes and sugar water. “It should help with the shock, hopefully.”

Being doted on was a foreign feeling to Vera- she’d always managed pretty well on her own but... seeing her mother like that. Her whole world seemed to shiver under the mere thought of her mother’s corpse outside of her grave.

“Any idea how we can make out the next stand user?” Noriaki asked as they realized the TV in the room had no signal.

She really wasn’t going to invalid for much longer- it was hurting her pride. “I’m gonna go take a smoke, when I get back hopefully my hands’ll be steady enough for a reading.”

Without another word she stood up and as steady as she could she left the room. Perhaps it was unconventional but she moved into Polnareff’s empty room- remembering him saying something about finding the restroom. She popped the window open and climbed out, using Fortune to hold onto anything that could prevent her from falling.

As silently as she could manage, she paced the roof up and down down until her cigarette was just about halfway done. Until she saw a car she did not remember being parked outside the hotel. The pacing seemed to have helped to bring back confidence in her legs so she squat down and spent Fortune to bring back anything from the car.

“A hair... really? Luckiest stand in the tarot and you bring me a hair?”

It’s strand was bizarrely long, she’d have guessed probably shoulder length and blonde....

Would it be a long shot to connect the hair to Hol Horse? He’s the first blonde she’d seen in weeks so it only made sense...

And yet... she hopped back in through Polnareff’s window and slipped as quietly through the lobby as she could until that same crackling voice from before called to her from behind.

It felt like forcibly turning her neck to look and the sight made her nearly lose the sugar water she had swallowed. “Our little angel, all grown up.”

Two slowly dragging corpses came her way- resembling her parents in death a bit too similarly for her to think straight in that moment.

“Just a shame you couldn’t save us, huh?”

“All that power all for your greedy little self, huh?”

Their voices were not even theirs, like they were puppets speaking with whatever was left of their voices.

“Come home, angel.”

“You won’t have to be alone anymore.”

Vera backed away slowly, the jitters sliding down her spine getting stronger. “You’re not... you’re not my parents.” She tried to convince herself.

“You’re not my parents!” She screamed to affirm once more before letting her legs carry her anywhere but there. Slipping past the room beside the lobby she saw a bloody Hol Horse and for nothing but information she had Fortune grab him over their shoulder- running towards the first door. Only to be greeted with Polnareff in the back room- panicking to find a room to hide in.

Vera sent Fortune to keep the door shut despite the banging from what she could only assume was the corpse of her parents.

She slapped Hol Horse awake angrily and when he opened his eyes she started the question. “What’s the old hag’s trick?”

Polnareff turned to her in confusion. “How did you know it was-?”

“A scratch and you’re gone. She controls you like a puppet Polnareff answered.

Her grip in Hol Horse’s shirt became tighter. “Are those my parents’ corpses out there?”

Hol Horse seemed to waver immensely- unsure if he should answer, not that she was giving him the option.

“Answer me or I’ll let the hag have you!”

“Yes! They’ve been rotting in their coffins since we stole them from the coroner’s offices in Cairo- Enya figured it would drive you insane.”

“Well... she wasn’t wrong.”

Vera had Fortune fix Hol Horse’s arm. “What did you do that for?”

“You’re gonna help me kill that bitch.”

Before she could think up a plan however the shadows under the door vanished. She pressed her head to the door and listened, feeling relieved at Jotaro’s voice on the other end of the door.

Her breath evened just enough and with a chuckle she asked Hol Horse for a cigarette which he obliged with slight confusion.

She slipped the door open and stepped out to meet up with Jotaro and the hag.

“Where’s you disappear to?” He asked as she approached him specifically, taking a casual drag as she slipped beside him.

“Oh just running into some old ghosts. You wouldn’t believe who’s also here.”

Enya was sweating under her and Jotaro’s gaze.

“Nice try, Enya really.” She stepped towards her, the cretin slipping backward slowly as she sent the corpses her and Jotaro’s way with Fortune guarding her and Jotaro. “You really had me there- I was just on the point of losing my mind. Maybe I have because uhhh I’m not particularly violent but hearing you brought my parents’ corpses hear?”

A low hysterical laugh bubbled up from Vera’s chest, Fortune’s hands wrapping around Enya’s neck and the fog of her stand slowly dissipating. “I’ll be kind- I promise. You get to see your son now...”

Fortune’s fingers dug into eyeballs and with a gargled scream Fortune pried apart until a splattered thud sounded at Vera’s feet.

With a heavy heart she put her parents’ cropses on two burning piles and said her final goodbyes as the ashes drifted in the wind- ore than anything else, all she could hope was that they could finally rest in peace.

She hadn’t slept alone ever since- crawling under the arm of either Jotaro or Kakyoin when it got too dark and letting herself only close her eyes under their protective arms. For when the sun rose she knew how to be strong- her thoughts where quiet enough in the daylight.

BONUS！

Jotaro walked tiredly into the hotel room of their last stop to Karachi- he had originally shared the room with Kakyoin but under the circumstances, Vera wasn’t a particular problem.

The first time he and Kakyoin realized she was likely interested in them both, it was Kakyoin who walked up to him to ask him how he’d move forward. At the time Jotaro had only wanted Vera to be his and he hadn’t given an answer. But it was times like this- when she was curled up to Kakyoin’s side, contently asleep, that made him waver in his choice to ask her love exclusively.

“What if she said she wanted us both?” The question hung in the air for a moment- Jotaro’s blue gaze meeting Kakyoin’s as he knelt down beside the bed’s edge to brush her hair away from her face. The grey streaks she had once woken up to and nearly threw a fit over brought a smile to his face. “It wouldn’t be the worst idea.”

Kakyoin’s hand lifted up and started brushing the hair away from her temple as well. “I couldn’t agree more.”

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #JoJo part 3 #Jotaro Kujo #Jean Pierre Polnareff #Joseph Joestar #Noriaki Kakyoin #OC content #OC Vera #fate and fortune

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liveindiatimes · 5 years ago

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Happy Birthday Vicky Kaushal: Actor delivered an all-time great debut performance in Masaan, his father couldn’t believe his talent - bollywood

http://www.liveindiatimes.com/happy-birthday-vicky-kaushal-actor-delivered-an-all-time-great-debut-performance-in-masaan-his-father-couldnt-believe-his-talent-bollywood/

Even Vicky Kaushal’s father wasn’t sure of his talent until he saw Vicky’s debut film, Masaan. Vicky’s father, the action director Sham Kaushal, said that he wasn’t sure what the casting directors saw in his son, and believed them only when the reviews came in. Vicky was a star, and he was here to stay.

Sham told Hindustan Times in an interview, “As his father, I can’t see what those who cast him see in him, but when I saw Masaan, I realised he really is an actor. And then the reviews and responses started coming and we could not believe this is our life.”

Masaan, directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, premiered at the in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, winning two awards. But before he got the role, Vicky was headed for a life in the corporate sector. He displayed a flair for theatrics even in his interview for an engineering position. “In my interview, they asked me why do I want to be an engineer,” Vicky recalled in an interview to ED Times. “I said, ‘Aam aadmi badi buildings ko sirf dekh sakta hai, engineer unko banana jaanta hai (the common man can only gaze at building, an engineer can make them.)’ I got the job even without answering any technical questions but I dropped it.”

Vicky became acquainted with Neeraj Ghaywan when they were both assisting Anurag Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur. At the time, Neeraj was still working on the Masaan script with writer Varun Grover. “The role that I play in the film was earlier offered to Rajkummar Rao and Manoj Bajpayee was going to play Sanjay Mishra’s character,” Vicky had revealed in an interview to Rediff. In fact, Vicky said, Neeraj had already shot a five-minute promo with Rajkummar.

But when scheduling conflicts forced Rajkummar to drop out, Vicky was given a call by the casting department. “I thought it would be for a small role as the lead cast was already finalised. I auditioned for the role and a week later, I got a call from Neeraj saying that I was doing the lead role in Masaan,” he told Rediff.

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In the film, Vicky plays a character whose family is in the business of cremating dead bodies, because of the caste they belong to. As a Mumbai lad, Vicky said he found it hard to play someone so far removed from himself. He said in the Rediff interview, “I was born and brought up in Mumbai and had an urban lifestyle and I had to portray a guy who was working at the crematorium in Banaras. My character in the film is not affected by dead bodies. It’s his job to cremate them. He earns his livelihood by burning corpses. I had to get into this zone to play the character.”

When he visited the cremation ‘ghats’ in Varanasi for the first time, he was hit with the smell of burning corpses. “I could spend no more than 20 minutes,” he said, but decided to visit the ‘ghats’ every day, “as it would help me with my character.” He even recorded the chant ‘Ram naam satya hai’, spoken during last rites, and listened to it at night. For one memorable scene that required him to be drunk, Vicky actually drank alcohol.

When the film received a standing ovation after its Cannes premiere, Vicky said that “it was a rare moment where I felt patriotic. I realised that the audience was not clapping for an individual but for the team that came from India with such a beautiful film.”

Also read: Vicky Kaushal joins his neighbours to welcome a young resident: ‘Our little warrior comes back home’, watch

Little did he know that just a few years later, he would play the leading role in one of the most patriotic films ever produced in India, the blockbuster hit Uri: The Surgical Strike. It would establish Vicky as a bonafide star, but in that 2016 Rediff interview, Vicky admitted that contemplating his future was ‘scary’. “But at the same time,” Vicky had said, “it is also motivating that with every performance, I have to push the boundaries and improve myself as an actor.”

Vicky has since delivered acclaimed performances in films such as Raman Raghav 2.0 and Masaan, both directed by Anurag Kashyap; in Raazi, directed by Meghna Gulzar; and in the box office hit Sanju, helmed by Rajkumar Hirani. Up next, he has biopics on Udham Singh and Sam Manekshaw, the period epic Takht, and the fantasy film Ashwatthama.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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twistednuns · 5 years ago

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August 2019

India // It’s incredibly hard to sum up my feelings about India and Nepal. It was a truly incredible trip. And so exhausting. It was enriching, interesting, hard, disgusting, educational, everything. This is not the place to talk about my experience at length so I’ll just write down some nice moments I collected along the way //

on the go // the huge corner toilet at MUC airport departures / Rischart coffee / the smell of the Emirates airline NOIR lotion they offer in their bathrooms / cherry-flavoured Skittles // Delhi // brightly painted buses and tuk-tuks / eating at AB veg restaurant in Hauz Khas, inredibly delicious and cheap / being lucky enough to choose the hostel in Hauz Khas village; meeting Dominique, Christie, Ayush, Samar and Julia / all those talks we had about linguistics, education systems, the future, politics, travelling, home, friends, experiences with magic mushrooms, Hannah Arendt, travelling (…); talking to Christy about her past, family, criminal record / Mosambi juice / Nici constantly flirting with me, trying to seduce me. She told me I’m posh, assertive, regal and I know myself very well. Making out with her was fun but honestly… not worth the drama. / Mosambi juice / a consultation with a renowned Ayurveda doctor - I loved talking to her even though she wasn’t able to tell me anything I hadn’t known already; sometimes it’s nice to get the confirmation that what you found out on your own is exactly the right thing / eating momos and Kathi rolls, the best Thalis / parties on the rooftop until the sunrise interrupted us; grilling whole fish, saying goodbye to Julia, singing along to Louise Attaque and Cher songs / riding rickshaws through Delhi; extra fun: squeezing 5 people in and listening to club music / the sheets smelling chalky with a hint of grape sugar / dancing at Raasta / petting cute street doggies / a cooking class with Mansi and her family in North Delhi - delicious food and really nice people, I fell in love with the mum / eating at Social (that building is just amazing) and strolling through the little alleys and stores at Hauz Khas village with Christie; she showed me the place where she got her linnen dresses and we talked to a jewellery store owner for quite a while / the spice market, climbing up a building and watching the men flying their kites, tasting some street food and spices, realiszing that there is a market street dedicated to a single group of things like the shoe market, the jewellery market etc. / the Brit Brats sharing their joints; tripping to Bayonne / the hidden merchant streets with colourful wall art around the entrances / PANEER (!) / stand-up comedy with a female comedian / elevator selfies / learning about the development of Indian scripts and letters/characters in Sanskrit in the National Museum; erotic sculptures, very detailed paintings depicting badass, tiger-hunting ladies / I saw a peacock. Cows, chipmunks, pigs, horses, monkeys, goats, guinea pigs, bunnies, cats and dogs, bats, herons, boars, caterpillars, centipedes, horses, donkeys (…) / finding the perfect triangular earrings with gemstones at the Dilli Haat market; getting some nice dresses, too / living on water and mango juice, feeling very light and clean, having an empty stomach all the time / Gandhi Smriti, retracing Mahatma’s last steps before his assassination / feeling human again after a few days in bed - I love the power of make-up, bananas, fresh clothes and those pink little Pepto-Bismol pills the Canadian lady gave me / Delhi central station; just WOW. It’s places like that which make you realise just how many people there are in India. //

Rishikesh // the man helping me with the bus to Rishikesh; the kindness of strangers / “I thank the Lord for the people I have found” (Elton John - Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters) / emotional bus rides: crying for no reason, letting go, for the first time in a very long time; emotional turmoil, softening up; leaving people and whole countries behind / seeing the huge Shiva ceremony at the Ganges from the bus / my yoga teacher training, getting to know the other students / learning about a magic trick against bad posture / instant karma / the view from the rooftop, watching the sunrise over the lower Himalaya mountains / the simple, vega, ayurvedic food they offered at the ashram / visiting the temples with the apprentice yogi and his scooter; walking up 13 stories in the blazing sun, receiving a blessing and some red string around my wrist; taking part in the Ganga ceremony at sunset / the Beatles Ashram; it’s just this amazing place with incredible street art, and those ruins, the meditation caves and eggs on the rooftop… climbing up there was one of my highlights in Rishikesh / close second: visiting a meditation cave at the Ganges, a bit further up in the mountains; a monk had spent 15 years in that cave practising meditation / all the beautiful shops around town focussing on yoga accessoires / putting my feet in the Ganges #blessed #moksha / learning about my aggression during silent yoga / all the animals around town: horses, donkeys, cows, monkeys and whatnot //

Varanasi // taking the night train for the first time; I shared my little compartment with a family and three little children but they were surprisingly dramafree and actually quite cute / a sunset boat trip on the Ganges, seeing the ghats, the ceremonies, the moon rise / the little alleys behind the ghats; the stores, the surprises / Marnikarnika Ghat was really impressive; it’s the cremation place and I saw dead bodies for the first time / accidentally discovering the Dirty Chai Cafe (chocolate peanut butter shakes and fresh, cold mint lemonade), finding a Kamala Das poetry book on the shelf / spending an afternoon with the German journalist (so weird how the atmosphere shifts when you’re accompanied by a man there; also our dynamic made me feel so glad to be travelling alone, to only be responsible for myself, to be independent); sharing a banana and water surrounded by goats in Hanuman Ghat; the view over the river from his room; him gently stroking my cheekbone / buying two saris in a little corner shop / my jewellery quest (unsuccessful) / eating fresh fruit salad after hardly eating solid food for days / checking out that little park on my last day, the air buzzing with dragonflies / watching the sunset from the hostel’s rooftop, filming a slow motion video / India brings out trauma and deep emotions; the people kept staring at me for whatever reason; I kept having disturbing dreams about my dead father and grandmother; and the mob-video Christy showed me didn’t help either (the whole village carried a man through the streets, eventually beating him up because he couldn’t pay off his debts) //

Nepal // the first view of Nepal from the bus windows - how much greener, how much emptier it is than India / meeting some nice people on the bus - an American, a Brit and two Frenchies; grabbing dinner in Kathmandu with the latter / watching the sunrise at the border between India and Nepal / sitting next to the mayor of small town council on the bus ride; communicating with hand and feet / the Kathmandu valley is such a gorgeous sight / I got lucky with my hostel; Yakety Yak was a really nice and quiet place to stay; they even had laundry service and a shelf with free books - I read two or three of them because I behaved like a good (home)sick German abroad: bed, Haribo, carbonated water, trashy literature / visiting Bhaktapur, a gorgeous small town in the Kathmandu valley / watching the latest Tarantino movie at the cinema; the tickets were incredibly cheap / walking up the hill to the temple and the monastery, enjoying the incredible view over the surrounding hills; meeting two ladies from Austria, they live close to my old university town; walking to the centre through back alleys, stopping at a rooftop cafe, ordering three drinks at once (liquid diet) / that one jewellery store near the Pokhara bus station - I found some gorgeous brass rings with precious stones for little money / the busy square, the markets / hanging out in the hammock in my hostel in Pokhara, overlooking the lake / watching the skydivers land / the ayurvedic cafe and the other place serving smoothie bowls by the lake - it’s such a fantastic moment when you finally feel hungry again and eat a little solid food after fasting/suffering for a few days / two incredibly weird guys from Latvia and Berlin who provided a nice, mellow ending for my shitty day and even made me survive the mosquito attacks / meeting my travel agent who actually took me out dancing and gave me a ride on his motorcycle to the bus stop; he even gave me some fruit for the ride / By the Way starting to play while waiting for Vietnamese food / hunting down a place that sells semi-precious stone columns in Kathmandu; negotiating with the old lady selling them; getting some brass souvenirs for my friends and family / the view from the airplane - seeing the Himalaya for the first time; I pity people who’ve stopped looking out of windows //

Coming home. I’ve NEVER felt happier entering my apartment after a trip. Being alone. Truly alone. Silence. Three rooms just for me. My bed. Having all my stuff back. Toiletries! Nice body lotion. My favourite perfume. Going to the supermarket. Unpacking all the jewellery, clothes and knick-knacks I bought. Taking care of my plants.

Making a huge batch of my favourite ratatouille / pasta sauce.

Visiting Manu in hospital. Cheering him up a little bit.

Finally receiving my black and white analogue photos. I loved the shot of Andre looking like he’s being kissed by a dementor. And Lexi looking dead cool at ADBK.

Pizza party at Grano with Lena. Eating sorbet out of a lemon.

Riding my bike through the forest on a sunny morning. Stopping to take pictures of the beautiful light, the yellow flowers. Spending too much money at the garden center. Driving home, IKEA bags full of plants.

Inventing my signature manicure: a little black dot just above the nailbed.

Having an evening beer outside at Sofa So Good with Andre.

Stumbling upon Konsti. The one who ghosted me years ago after a beautiful summer spent kissing in lakes because his therapist had told him so. Well, we talked for a few days, but guess what - he just ghosted me for a second time. Fool me one - shame on you. Fool me twice - shame on me.

#things i love #august #2019 #august 2019 #personal #present perfect #india #nepal

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ramctheatheist · 8 years ago

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Bala’s Netherworld

During a rare television interview, while Bala shifted in his seat, the interviewer noticed some strange beads around his neck. When questioned about it, Bala said, “It was given to me by an aghori from Kasi. They’re people who eat dead bodies but isn’t there an artist inside everyone? He eats one person every other day, collects a small piece of bone from each carcass, shaves it patiently into the shape of a skull and keeps it with him. Once he collected 108 such pieces, each from a different person, he strung it into a chain and gifted it to me.”

That’s filmmaker Bala for you. He began his career as an assistant to Balu Mahendra (the director of Sadma. We’ll delve into his films in a later article!). He went on to make his first film Sethu in 1999 and until today, in a span of 18 years, he’s made only 7 films. His fourth film Naan Kadavul earned him the National Film Award for Best Direction in 2010.

To understand Bala and his work further, here are two films you can begin with.

Naan Kadavul

Naan Kadavul has two parallel story arcs that come together in the end. One is the story of Rudran, a boy deserted in Varanasi by his parents, who grows to become an aghori and returns to his native village in South India on the bidding of his guru. “You’ll know when it’s time to return,” his guru tells him. The other story arc is that of a blind beggar girl and her begging cohort, who’re kept enslaved in a dingy, underground den by Thaandavan.

Trivia: Rudran, the aghori played by Arya in the film, wears the same chain of skulls as Bala.

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Pithamagan

Pithamagan is the story of Chithan, an orphan who grows up in a graveyard and befriends Shakthi, who makes a living by selling petty items with cooked-up stories. There’s also a woman who sells drugs and a simpleton girl who gets easily duped. The film explores the bonds that form between these four misfits and whether Chithan can fit into normal society.

A song from Pithamagan gives you a beautiful snapshot of their relationship.

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Watching these two films will give you a taste of Bala and help you easily identify five distinct tropes that make his films stand out.

Raw Realism

From the plots of Naan Kadavul and Pithamagan, it must be apparent that Bala tends to focus on lives of people we brush aside out of fear or repulsion. His characters are people we rarely encounter or have no need to meet. They’re people who either step aside or have been forced to stand aside. Yet, when they appear on screen, they feel real and close to us. This realism is Bala’s biggest strength and has stuck on as his identity. Other Tamil filmmakers from the realism wave like Balaji Sakthivel, Vetrimaran and Manikandan present a carefully constructed and chiselled realism. Bala’s films meander with a certain unrestrained rawness, just like his characters. These rough edges around the corner make his films more realistic.

While portraying reality, he doesn’t pity his characters and neither does he want you to pity them. There’s no attempt to make realism seem poetic. Naan Kadavul nudges us to take notice of the world under our feet, the world we look away from as we saunter off after dropping the customary coin. In fact, in Naan Kadavul the beggars hate being pitied. You won’t notice a single shot in which Bala shows you the face of a person feeling sorry. You’ll only see coins dropping into bowls or legs walking past them. There’s even a moment when a beggar remarks, “These people who visit the temple believe dharma will save them and give us money. Let’s have some pity for them and accept their alms so they’re saved!”

Trivia: Anurag Kashyap felt inspired by the realistic portrayal of his hometown Varanasi in Naan Kadavul.

Solitary Netherworlds

Each one of Bala’s films can be seen as an elaborate depiction of a living hell. Sethu was the story of a man, who escapes from a mental asylum after regaining his sanity, only to realise his lover is dead. Nandha is the story of a young boy who kills his abusive father, only to lose his mother’s love forever. In Paradesi, a bunch of people migrate to a tea estate in the hopes of improving their standard of living only to realise they’re hopelessly enslaved for the rest of their lives. His films keep revisiting the same point that life is an arduous, never-ending journey from one suffering to another. His characters are almost always like bugs caught within a glass jar with a flame burning at its centre. They keep trying to climb out of it but keep falling back into the fire. The netherworld-like underground den in Naan Kadavul is the perfect visual representation of Bala’s entire gamut of films. You walk down a few dark steps, enter this underground lair and you’ll find each of Bala’s characters down there, whimpering in their solitary hells.

Cunning Commercialism

Bala’s protagonists are almost always larger-than-life heroes. They have the traditional intro songs that are staples of a Vijay or Ajith film. For example, the lyrics of Rudran’s Om Sivoham or Chithan’s Piraiye Piraiye help us understand the background of these characters but also gives them ample hype. In fact, Om Sivoham’s lyrics are completely in Sanskrit, blaring out the supreme qualities of Lord Shiva! He doesn’t shy away from staging stunt sequences in a grand manner with camera angles carefully orchestrated to create whistle-worthy moments. He keeps his plots very simple, just like commercial films. Plot merely functions as a cloth that’s draped around his beautifully naked characters, almost like an afterthought. Vikram in Pithamagan and Arya in Naan Kadavul are classic masala hero template characters. Just like mass heroes nothing can shake them and they’ll go to any extent to have revenge upon the villain or kill the bad guys. They even assume mythic proportions as mentioned by Baradwaj Rangan in his review of Naan Kadavul. But, what fuels them is something different from a regular mass hero. Chithan’s strength is from the awareness that everyone ends up in the grave eventually. Rudran’s strength is from his transcendental spiritual enlightenment that he has no boundaries. The peculiar backgrounds of these characters make you believe that they possess superhuman strength. He makes you wish that the bad guys must be destroyed and that gives a satisfactory pay-off when they’re butchered in the climax.

While still being larger-than-life, Bala’s protagonists also break the stereotypes. They’re invariably misfits or outcasts. They’re shabby, rugged and don’t refrain from speaking coarse language. Rudran in Naan Kadavul doesn’t care about his weeping mother, which is usually a big no-no if you want to get female votes in a future election. Arya as Kumbindrensamy in Avan Ivan is the exact opposite, perhaps even a mockery, of the chocolate boy he’s played in other films. This celebration scene should give you a feel of his character.

Trivia: In an interview, Bala confessed that he realised much later after making Pithamagan that its plot closely resembled Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya - two characters meet in a prison, have an initial tiff, become friends, one of them is killed and the other takes revenge.

Ridiculing the absurdity of life

Bala’s films are usually classified as tragedies. But, it’d be more apt to classify them as “tragedy with a heavy dose of ridicule”. He makes us laugh at misery and wade through the absurdity of life with irreverence. That’s what the beggars in Naan Kadavul do. Making the beggars dress up as gods and rebuke each other was a riot. Even in Pithamagan when we laugh at Suriya’s antics in trying to sell all kinds of weird and wacky concoctions to unsuspecting customers, we’re laughing not at Suriya but at ourselves and our tendencies to be easily fooled. And in Avan Ivan, Walter Vanangamudi (Vishal) who calls himself an artist is taunted by his mother for being a hapless bumpkin who can’t steal to make a living. If you view Vishal’s character as representing a filmmaker who’s true to art and Arya’s character to be a commercial filmmaker who knows the tricks of the trade, then you’ll understand the depth of satire embedded in Avan Ivan’s narrative.

Trivia: When an interviewer asked Mani Ratnam why his films seem to portray only elite characters and not the underprivileged (kind of a dumb question), he retorted “Aren’t other directors like Bala doing that very well? Then why should I?” (The Mani Ratnam interview)

Embedded Narratives

Traditionally, realistic films have always been mere reflections of society or about specific human emotions. But, Bala’s films portray realism while at the same time transcending it and speaking of an eternal agony that tortures the human soul. Let’s take the final pan shot of the tea estate in Paradesi’s climax. Here’s a man who’s wailing for his family that’s joined him in his misery and the pan shot is literally showing you his wail travel across the entire tea estate dotted with other workers. If you pause for a moment and consider the tea estate to be a metaphor for the human world, then the narrative assumes a much larger philosophical dimension. Bala has been adept at tucking hidden dimensions beneath the rug of realism in every film. On the surface, Thaarai Thappattai is a love story gone horribly wrong but it’s also an exploration of how each generation thinks its subsequent generation is a degraded version of itself. In Nandha, while there’s the story of a man yearning for his mother’s love at the forefront, there’s a woman refugee in the background with no place to call home. And the best embedded narrative is in Naan Kadavul. It raises the bigger question of who’s the real beggar. The lyrics of Pitchai Paathiram that metaphorise the human body as a begging bowl make the bigger point that all humans are beggars seeking divine deliverance. And in that grand scheme of things, the distinctions of pure, impure, rich, poor, well-built and handicapped crumble. It’s exactly what Rudran says in Naan Kadavul when a fellow accuses him of tarnishing fire. “Is there clean and unclean fire? Fire is just fire.”

Bala also tends to embed a variety of inspirations into his narrative. His first film Sethu was inspired from a Malayalam short story ‘Iruttinte Atmavu’ by MT Vasudevan Nair, a Tamil poem by Arivumathi and a real-life experience. Naan Kadavul is loosely based on ‘Ezham Ulagam’, a novel by Jeyamohan that details the lives of Pandaram, his family and begging cohort. The first couple of chapters of this novel will shock you with the portrayal of the lives of these characters but as you read further you’re drawn into their world. Naan Kadavul’s screenplay has a similar structure. There’s the initial jolt you feel when the camera first moves into Thaandavan’s den but you gradually begin to love the characters and enjoy their little moments of joy. Jayankanthan’s short story ‘Nandhavanathil Or Aandi’ deals with how a grave digger is not moved by deaths but when his son dies at a very young age, he’s completely broken. He’s tormented by visions of all the dead children he has buried, rising up from the graves and dancing in front of him. To find out how Bala adapts this scenario without resorting to outlandish visuals, watch the film!

Trivia: Bala is a graduate in Tamil literature from Madurai American College.

In a way, Bala’s films are like Buddhist tales from the past. These stories were always about people who were disillusioned and after some suffering invariably they’d end up at the feet of Buddha, become a disciple, meditate and attain nirvana. One such tale is that of Kisa Gotami. The distraught lady who went to the Buddha, begging him to bring her dead son back to life. Buddha asks her to fetch mustard seeds from a family where nobody had died. She searches far and wide and finally realises there’s not a single house that hasn’t known death. She returns to the Buddha with this realisation, becomes his disciple and attains nirvana. Had this been a Bala film, the story would pretty much be the same. Except that Gotami would still be searching for those mustard seeds, hoping she can revive her son, roaming the earth in eternal agony. And you’d watch his film, not because you can shed tears for Gotami, but because Bala will make you feel Gotami and you are one and the same.

***

Links to watch Bala’s Movies

Sethu on Youtube Nandha on Youtube Pithamagan on Herotalkies Naan Kadavul on Youtube | Naan Kadavul on Tentkotta Avan Ivan on Tentkotta Paradesi on Youtube Thaarai Thappattai on Tentkotta

References

Bala’s Interview on Puthiya Thalaimurai, in which he mentions the gift from an aghori

Bala’s BOFTA masterclass, in which he shares several insights on his films

Ezham Ulagam, the novel by Jeyamohan on which Naan Kadavul is loosely based

Nandhavanathil Or Aandi, the short story by Jeyakanthan that inspired Pithamagan’s Chithan character

Baradwaj Rangan’s take on Naan Kadavul

Baradwaj Rangan’s review of Pithamagan

A few articles by Jeyamohan clarifying certain portions of Naan Kadavul http://www.jeyamohan.in/1179 http://www.jeyamohan.in/1873 http://www.jeyamohan.in/1869

My heartfelt thanks to my friends N Balasubramanian, Venkataraman, Ganesh Babu and Ajay Vignesh for their inputs that greatly inspired me in writing this piece.

An edited version of this piece can be found here.

#movies #Tamil Cinema #naan kadavul #pithamagan #vikram #bala #jeyamohan #realism #realist cinema

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nathanmontgomeryday-blog · 8 years ago

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Start a Fundraiser and Bring Forth Joy!

Start a Fundraiser and Bring Forth Joy! Who am I? At the age of five, I began to fall quite often. As my muscles grew weaker and I perceived myself as being "confined"... and it was during this time that I started to have dreams that I could fly. Art, photography and filmmaking has always been important to me. Through art, I realize that we are all unbounded. As an adolescent I began to use film to live a life unbounded, exploring my world, and although I eventually need ventilator 24 hours per day, film and my imagination helped me shape a life without limits. Artist / Storyteller As an adult, I’ve worked in or visited nearly 70 countries, helped develop a human rights treaty, and advise governments on disability rights. Artistically I like go to places that others may not deem possible. I like to push boundaries… and in doing so collected 268 of hours of footage. Why care? Have I lived a life half lived? This is a question I ask myself, and one that I confront in Varanasi, the sacred city of the dead. I decided to document it so that I could better explore my own mortality, and define what living a life to it’s fullest could mean. During my trip, I reach both my physical and emotional limits, but along the way discover the limitless capacity we each have to transcend them. What are those dreams waiting to be expressed? In this film you see the world from my point of view and discover that bliss and despair are necessary ingredients along the path to becoming my best self. The limits I face in this documentary real (both physical and emotional) but I’ve faced them. I now need support to tell a larger story about vulnerability and resilience… to buy a tape deck, mac-mini, and produce a more advanced cut of the film. How this all started During the summer of 2015, I was anxious, unsure of myself, and fumbling around trying to reclaim my joy. Then in the middle of the Nevada desert, while at Burning Man, I had a revelation. I got a glimpse of joy I had not experienced for years, was able to embrace my mortality, and in that felt a deep sense of connection with all aspects of the human condition. After I returned home, my vision evolved, until I could see that I was happiest when I was expressing myself and pushing beyond the limits others imparted on me. I got a call from a producer and we collaborated on this awesome piece: I wanted and needed to ask myself some even harder questions: · What is a life worth living? · How do you find your highest self? · How do you turn your weaknesses into strengths? I am in Varanasi, an ancient and sacred city, to confront my mortality and find some answers. We have a huge archive of over 300 hours of material We've been filming for the past year Help us stitch together beautiful, breathtaking scenes; moments of vulnerability, strength, beauty and peace. It is in these perfectly ordinary moments where joy seeps in, but only if we allow it. Help us digitize 268 tapes filmed from 2002 to 2010, as this archive holds the moments and choices that shaped my life. They will be woven into the film to visually show my thoughts, worries, and inspirations, as well as to give context, meaning and backstory. Need for story development and core funding to edit a 20 minute version of the film We need a sample of the work to start engaging people in a conversation, and to help our producers raise the resources to get the film to completion. This is a critical step to then attract key partners to complete the film as feature narrative and send it to festivals. Director's Statement This film provides an opportunity to multiply my experience and inspire others to ask themselves the same questions and embark on their own journeys. In a time where “We have bigger houses but smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems;” most people are getting caught up in what they have been told is a valuable life, and have forgotten to ask what THEY find to be a life worth living. This film hopes to trigger a conversation about asking bigger questions, dreaming bigger dreams, and ultimately giving a young woman or man the strength to live the type of life they dream of living. Thoughts about Sound Design and Music: We are delirious about working with the virtuoso, award-winning composer Philip Sheppard. I see the the film as a dialogue between the images and sound, thereby helping to bridge not only the scenes, but also the different levels of our story. We will pull in voice mail messages, journal entries, phone calls and conversations to elicit memories and meaning. We will use different pitches to create mood, but also use soundtrack and soundscape as a means to create an auditory thread to the film’s emotional arc. How does this situation make you feel? Although I feel anxious, I am also driven to share my story. It’s a story of human frailty and vulnerability, but also of transformation, wisdom and insight. How can people help? Share this campaign… with a smile! Support us with a donation, no matter how small, you're part of the movement! Become an Ambassador and develop a community and conversation around how to turn your weaknesses into strengths! @12bends #unbound Share the link to this campaign, like our facebook page, and each week of the campaign post your own answers to the film's key questions. Together we are stronger Life is precious and passes by so quickly. We live in a unique time in the world, where we can each find more and do more, and yet we often feel so afraid, isolated, and constrained, that we limit ourselves. This film asks us all to uncover our own truth, share our insights, and live a life full of meaning, beauty and endless wonder. You may not know me or my story, but I think you may see that we are more alike than different. This film aims to take you out of whatever physical or emotional limits may confine you to live a life unbound… Updates 51 day agoWow, so many good friends came through today to support this project (Thanks Hatchers! Stephen, KoAnn, Scotch, Tanya, Dean). On memorial day we remember our heroes and those who sacrificed for our own freedom and what it means to be human. I explore this further at the Sustainable Brands Conference (click to watch). I continue to be humbled by the generosity of spirit and the warmth from all my friends. The words and the well wishes are what keeps this project going. I hope that over the next few weeks we can reach out goal. Please continue to reach out and remind your networks of this this unique opportunity to be part of something truly unique, a rare film, a journey, and a story about our common quest for meaning and liberation. Thanks to your help, we have purchased a DV Deck and have started capturing footage I shot between 2001-2010 so we will be able to show "memories" and take the audience into a back story, into flash-backs and into those places that are beautiful, scary, messy, and oftentimes unresolved. That's all part of being human.

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viralhottopics · 8 years ago

Text

Reza Aslan outrages Hindus by eating human brains in CNN documentary

The American author filmed with a cannibalistic sect for his Believers series, with fears that it could increase hate attacks against Indian Americans

Reza Aslan, the scholar and TV presenter, has been pressured to eat human brains while filming with a fringe, cannibalistic Hindu sect for a new series on the worlds religions.

But that might be the least of the problems the show has caused the American author.

Some Indians and American Hindu groups say the opening episode of his CNN series, Believers, which focuses on the obscure Aghori sect, was Hinduphobic and sensationalised aspects of the worlds third largest-religion.

The episode shown across the world on Sunday comes amid heightened concerns, taken up by senior Indian government ministers, over the vulnerability of US-based Indians and Indian-Americans following a spate of alleged hate crimes in recent weeks.

In the program, Aslan encounters a group of Aghori nomads outside the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, who smear his face in cremated human ashes and persuade him to drink alcohol from a skull.

youtube

An Aghori ascetic, who at one point also threatens to decapitate Aslan for talking so much, also feeds the presenter who he claims is a piece of human brain.

Aslan followed up the episodes debut with a promotional post on Facebook, writing: Want to know what a dead guys brain tastes like? Charcoal. It was burnt to a crisp!

The segment ends with the holy man throwing his excrement at the TV crew as they and Aslan run away.

Aslan makes clear in the episode that the Aghori who number only a few thousand of the worlds estimated one billion Hindus are a fringe group, and also interviews Aghori adherents who do not practice cannibalism.

But the focus on such an extreme sect led to accusations the episode had mischaracterised Hinduism to viewers with little understanding of the religion, at a time when the Indian-American community is still reeling from attacks on two Hindus and a Sikh man in apparent hate crimes in the past fortnight.

The latest victim, a Seattle man, was allegedly told to go back to your own country before being shot in the arm.

With multiple reports of hate-fuelled attacks against people of Indian origin from across the US, the show characterises Hinduism as cannibalistic, which is a bizarre way of looking at the third largest religion in the world, the US-India Political Action Committee said in a statement.

In a charged environment, a show like this can create a perception about Indian Americans which could make them more vulnerable to further attacks.

Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu elected to the US congress, also tweeted this week that she was disturbed by the program.

CNN is using its power and influence to increase peoples misunderstanding and fear of Hinduism, she wrote

Aslan apparently sought to find sensationalist and absurd ways to portray Hinduism.

Aslan and CNN didnt just throw a harsh light on a sect of wandering ascetics to create shocking visuals as if touring a zoo but repeated false stereotypes about caste, karma and reincarnation that Hindus have been combatting tirelessly.

Vamsee Juluri, a professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, said it was unbelievably callous and reckless of CNN to push sensational and grotesque images of bearded brown men and their morbid and deathly religion in such a tense atmosphere for Indian-Americans.

Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage)

.@CNN @rezaaslan @CNNOriginals Your new serial is heavily Hinduphobic. Ashes are immersed, not “dumped”.

March 4, 2017

Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta)

Indiana Jones journalism @CNN There’s no secret to ghats & Varanasi city of moksha & rebirth not death. May be Trump is right abt fake news http://bit.ly/2mdh7yi

March 5, 2017

Indians on social media also complained about the programs characterisation of Varanasi as the city of the dead and the immersion of ashes in the Ganges as dumping.

Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan)

This is a show about the Aghori not Hinduism #believer http://bit.ly/2mdosOf

March 6, 2017

Aslan said: Despite all this, I know that there are still those who are offended by the episode, especially when it comes to its treatment of such issues as caste discrimination, which remains a touchy subject for many Hindus in America.