The Agent

Listen carefully, sweet girl. Because I am going to let you in on a secret.

When its time to replace your agent, its time to replace you!

You say you’ve been in this industry 3 years now? 3 years? And you’ve starred…… starred in 3 full-length movies. And you were the most prominent of a gaggle of waitresses in an unreleased…. unreleased 4th full-length movie?

And you call this prolific work?

I started in the movies, the cinema they called it then, when I was 16. A whole 3 years younger than you are now. And by 19, that’s how old you are my dear, in case you’ve forgotten to count because you’re in my presence…. It happens….

By 19, I had starred in 8 full length movies. And I had starred in them. The trailers said “starring Gwendoline”, and after that “starring name-him-what-you-will-lame-impotent-actor” . By age 19, I had attempted 4 full-length suicides. And they were all released, in every single newspaper and every last tabloid.

And I had a different alternate name to use in every single hotel in America. Freddie kept track of the names.

Freddie, my agent.

Did you memorize my secret, sweet girl?

You can stretch your face thin, and paint your face white, and your hair black, or purple, or fuschia. I’ve done all that, and its as marvelous and simple as they make it sound. Just got to keep the wine cellar well stocked.

You can even walk around in Loubotins and tango around with Versace and dazzle everyone with Harry Winston rocks.

But there’s one thing you never can do. Never replace your agent.

Freddie’s been dead for 4 years now. Dead! Gone! He was too old, they said. Wacky, they said. When he brought me that mother’s role, I realized that too. Play a stepmother he said. The young second wife of a millionaire, who has 2 sons. Only stepmother he said. It’s got character, he said. The Oscars, he teased.

Me? Play a mother’s role?

We fought all night. All night. Freddie died sometime then. It was the only thing we fought about.

He’s still my agent, of course. He taught me everything he knew. So he remains, my dedicated agent. I take all the calls in his name – he taught me ventriloquism. And I pretend I’m him. No! I am him!

2 movies I’ve done in the last two years. I played a man in one. Freddie would have wanted me to. Oscars, he would’ve teased. And I played a man, like any strong, handsome, self-respecting man like Freddie would’ve played a man.

Because… I always listen to Freddie. He’s my agent, after all.

****



Gwendoline looked at the machine. Someone had called, and Gwendoline had immediately routed them to the answering machine.

The man had introduced himself as Andrew.

“Freddie. This is Andrew. How have you been? Listen. I know I stood you up the other night. It’s been 4 years now, so you probably don’t remember. But I have a great deal for you old pal. For Gwendoline. I keep telling you to start working with other actors and actresses – well they all call themselves actors these days, but I keep telling you to work with someone else. Get a little color in your life. Variety. Anyway, I knew you wouldn’t listen.

I finally have something for Gwendoline. You may have heard the rumour that Gary has a new script he’s working on. Well, I’ve read it and it’s perfect for Gwendoline. You think you can have her audition? There’s just one catch though.I will have to be the one representing Gwendoline.

You know Gary? He’s a bit peculiar.He doesn’t like working with agents who are dead.

Well, anyway, I hope you call back old chap!”

Gwendoline was shivering now.

“He doesn’t like working with agents who are dead” She played the message over and over again. It didn’t change. It never changed. “He doesn’t like working with agents who are dead”

Gwendoline looked around, eyes dilated, heart thumping wildly, the walls around her seemed to resonate with her heart, the earth trembled.

There was no Freddie to go to now.There was also nothing, absolutely nothing to lose now. Freddie was gone. The movie offers never came. The fan mail had long since stopped. She could go out into the street, dark glasses or otherwise, and no one would recognize her.

The paparazzi had long since abandoned her for meatier, perkier, more scandalous people. Far more scandalous than what happened to Freddie. And it wasn’t her fault.

They had fought. They had fought all night. The last thing she had said to Freddie was “I don’t know why I still keep you as my agent except for one stupid rule that you taught me!. How selfless of you, Freddie”

And he’d walked out that minute and gone home, to greet death, to relieve Gwendoline of THE RULE.

Gwendoline had arranged for a quiet funeral for Freddie, her friend at the orphanage. There was no one to invite after all. And Gwendoline had simply told no one. There was no one to tell after all.

She looked at the answering machine. In one hasty moment, she called back,

“Andrew. I don’t know who you are or what you think of yourself. But if you think you can threaten to tell the world Freddie’s dead and make some money off me. You’re right. You can. I have nothing to lose now. But I’ll tell you this. It wasn’t my fault. I expect you to come to my house, because courtesy demands that you meet the one whose life you’re about to destroy, and hear me out. And its been so long since I saw my name in the papers. So I’ll consider what you’re doing for me as service. But you’ll represent me to every newspaper and to every tabloid. And you will answer all the press. And you will get me Gary’s role. As my new agent. Freddie would have wanted this.”

[This was this week's writing assignment.
The same can also be found here

http://bestofwriteclub.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/24-character-sketch-30-year-old-actress-vain-glamorous-career-almost-over/]

The Flight

*quick short story*

By this time tomorrow, Kalika would be far, far away from Leoni and Kaajal. Wait. This time + 2.5 hours later? Or this time, but 2.5 hours earlier? Oh! She was going mad. A moment ago she had calculated. Now, she couldn't remember. "Ask passengers sitting next to you", mom had told her. "Be careful who you speak to", warned dad, concerned. Kalika wasn't sure who to listen.

Soon, she must decide.

But now, all she wanted to do was run away, or in this case, fly away. But the aluminum box holding her and 400 other friendly souls or cunning souls, depending on which parent you listened to, seemed to have been made with one clear specification. Don't let Kalika run out. Floating that high in the sky, where the arrow of time was changing direction, where houses seemed to small too be comfortable in, and clouds loomed ahead like menacing ghosts, the 400 guards that surrounded her too seemed to have one missive - don't let Kalika run out. If she listened closely, the monotonous, devilish chant of the pressurized cabin said - don't let Kalika run out.

400 stern guards, she thought. It dawned on her that it had long ago been decided, which parent she would listen to. Kalika was her father's daughter. It was on his wish that she was sent to a boarding school in another continent, at such a young age. And it was his wish that she was now returning to a stranger land, her homeland, at long last, to be with her parents forever.

Soon, in a span of this single flight, they would go from being family.... to being strangers.

Ode to 2011

In just a few days, Anno Domini 2011 will give rise to Anno Domini 2012.
And I would have gone a whole year without saying anything in this space.

I have always imagined that this space was an essential part of my Alzheimer's collection, a carefully curated collection of stuff with the somewhat lofty goal of jolting me to lucidity, should I ever suffer from Alzheimer's (of course, I expect that there will be effective, affordable, non-hair-loss-inducing, wrinkle and dark spot erasing medication by then. But meanwhile, the collection idea is appealing both for dramatic intent and well as realistic purposes.) It appears then, that I've had nothing to say in 2011 - a year which quite easily ranks as a Janani breaking-making-and-defining year. The real breaking-making-and-defining year was 1994. But there was no internet then. When someone finally invents that time machine they keep tempting me with, I promise to go back and make an entry for 1994.

Every year, since 2004, I have come here to vent, to pour out my thoughts, to slip quietly into the alley behind the universe, to warm myself in the blanket of anonymity, to assume alter egos, to be, as you may already suspect, a drama queen, to test out alternate career options, to just be creative. But never, apparently, to just be me. And in 2011, a year that I spent a good deal of time, being just myself, it seems, I wasn't compelled to come out here and hide. The thought is both comforting and disturbing.

Comforting, because perhaps I'm getting more comfortable in my own skin. No! I had a pretty normal childhood (except for the not-watching-enough cartoon network bit), and I have so far not been diagnosed with any kind of clinical or pop-culture-defined neurosis or psychosis. Some people simply find it a tad bit difficult to just be themselves - like remembering names, or being prompt with email correspondence, or not losing their pens and/or umbrellas. And so, in 2011, I got a lot better with just being myself.


Disturbing because, "Reflections" has been wonderful for me over the years. It feels wrong to abandon it for so long. It feels wronger still, that I did not feel like sharing something so good and wonderful. While I was experiencing all the ups and downs of new decisions, drastic changes, facing all the dilemmas of what would happen, and waiting forever for the change to happen, and then remembering with gratitude that there had been much,much more good times than bad in the times that had just passed, what a sad pity that I did not write it all down.

And now, dear future Alzheimer's ridden self, who will tell you about Anno Domini 2011?
There is always facebook. You can find out there. I can only hope that you've told someone your username and your ridiculous password. I can only wish that you have managed to find someone that you can trust enough to do that.
You can always hope your friends will be there around to help you. Because, dear sweet future Alzheimer's ridden self… in 2011, you had a great many friends who stood by you and kept you sane the whole time.
I can only hope that you still remember the amount of time you spent going all hippie, eating and cooking organic food. For a brief time, you contemplated becoming a food critic. And then you thought about becoming a journalist (its strange that during that contemplation you didn't bother to write as much). But you dabbled with both on the internet. Maybe Google (if it still exists) can help you dig out stuff from this year.
Or perhaps you will remember the monkeys. Juno. Malloc. Opie. Emo. Gosh! I hope the names sound familiar. The darling monkeys. Who taught you more about what it is to be human than any actual human you've ever met. Juno - stubborn, penguin shaped, fat, smart, cute little girl. You'd tell anyone who listened how Juno would sit in her chair in her very funny and endearing way. And she had large expressive eyes. And Malloc - fussy, grape peeling, orange scooping, frail, hard working girl. You spent so much time with her trying to get her to eat. It set off that cooking craze. Opie. Big ol grandpa with wisdom in every gray monkey fur he had. And Emo. Crazy old Emo. Who danced when nobody was watching and who couldn't stand bananas. You remember them don't you? For a time, every human you saw reminded you of one of these monkeys. Every baby you saw reminded you of their antics. You had a marvelous time and oh, by the way, you did some science.
And your advisor - she was simply the most generous person you ever saw.
And your parents. You said this about them in your acknowledgment and you teared up when you wrote it.
"Last, but not the least, I would like to thank my parents. I thank the forces that be, for not giving me a choice in the parents I have. Had I been given one, I doubt I would have made such a good choice. I have spared them no hardship. In turn, they have reciprocated by sparing me no comfort. Every step of the way, they have stood by me and I cannot thank them enough."
and you well up every time you think about it.

Dear sweet, wrinkly old Alzheimer's ridden self. 2011 was a great year.
You started afresh towards the end of the year. You worked with disadvantaged children, whose optimism, grit and courage and desire to make the world a better place made you feel so much more humble. And a lot less self defeatist. That was important.
And sure, you weren't working there motivated entirely by the lure of a social cause. You were there because you wanted to learn a lot about a broad range of things.
And at least towards the end of 2011, you were learning a lot. So it worked out quite well.

Dear old mental case,
I haven't done a great job summarizing. Because I'm just rushing to add something to the blog so that I won't miss a gap. It feels wrong that there's nothing for 2011.
But make no mistake. It wasn't because 2011 was a boring year. It was because 2011 was a year worth living. And especially since the only valuable store of all that is your damn head, I find it completely unacceptable that all those memories are wasting away in random nodules in your brain.
So wake up already.
And get on that time machine, and come tell me what's going to happen to me in the next couple of years.
Perhaps in December 2012, we can we can write this note together ?

Eternally yours.
Janani

Embracing Plurality

NOTE : This post was written during the height of the ground zero mosque controversy.

Proponents of Park51 are at pains to expla­­in that the people planning the mosque are very different from those who attacked the world trade center. Once the difference is acknowledged, it should no longer irk the sensitivities of those who suffered from the attack, they hope.

In a previous Op-Ed in the New York Times, William Darlymple describes how Islam, like Christianity has many sects. He also writes:

"Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.

Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith."

That the majority of Americans are able to discern the many forms of Christianity, but are blind to those of Islam, must not be dismissed as bigotry. Nor must it be taken as evidence of hypocrisy, or taken to the extreme conclusion that they are not truly secular. Why then, are Americans not able to see these parallels? The reason is likely far less sinister.

It comes down to the way the brain works. It is with experience with members of a category, that we are able to identify differences. Bird lovers readily distinguish ravens and crows while the novice sees them all as black birds. Car experts will identify two models of a car in no more than a glimpse. When we attempt spot-the-differences puzzles, it is not until we look at the pictures long enough, not until our brains have extracted enough information that the differences become apparent; sometimes embarrassingly obvious. Parents of identical twins are often asked if they get confused and almost always the answer is no. Such an ability is not born out of love or a special parental bond. It is simply that constant exposure to these kids has allowed the brain to sample the visual information repeatedly. Parents develop a sophisticated perceptual ability to identify their twins- one that is sensitive to nuance and subtle differences. With experience, we become acutely aware of deeper levels of categorization and are able to identify individuals of a broad category.

Known as the other-race effect, psychologists have long documented the finding that we’re consistently better at distinguishing those of our own race than those of others. With the other-race-effect too, the more the interaction with people from another race, the less similar other-race members will appear. Categorizing people according to the somewhat more abstract basis of religious identity may very well happen the same way. The majority of Americans may be unable to distinguish Muslims of different sects for the simple reason that they are less likely to have mingled with enough people from a minority population and are therefore naïve to the differences among various Muslim ideologies. Minorities of all nations suffer from the same problems in attitude. They’re seen and treated similarly. It should therefore not be surprising that many Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of Park51.

The Taliban and the extremists they support are under the same influence of neural processes. They too lump all of the West in one huge category and label them as evil. The Taliban regime’s vehement insistence on insularity only makes it harder for them to understand Western heterogeneity, and has further justified their passions for terrorism.

Then what are Americans (or anyone) to do?

Thankfully , it is one thing to treat people from an unfamiliar religion as the same because we’re not able to tell them apart. It is another matter, entirely , to pretend that the diversity is non-existent. It is this difference in conscious treatment that should set apart great American Leaders from the Taliban Leaders .

In their lifetimes, most Americans aren't going to be able to live in the several Muslim countries, mingle with people from various sects , to learn to tell them apart. But it does not take much effort to endorse that differences exist even if they are not instinctively sensitized to them.

William Dalrymple, in his Op-Ed succeeds in explaining that the ideology of the Sufi sect of the Cordoba Initiative is in fact at odds with that of the Wahhabi sect of the Talibam. It is a difference one should be mindful of. It can be argued again that not all people of the Sufi sect are similar and not all people of the Wahhabi sect are similar. That too, is well worth taking note of .

Maybe battles are best fought between two individuals instead of groups of stereotypes. Borders, labeling, classification and identity after all sprung from a need for convenience; not for settling matters of life and death. To fall prey to the appeals of broad labels, to treat everyone as a particle of a homogenous moiety is the tactic of the shrewd politician. To cultivate an appreciation for differences is to embrace a layered, fine-grained plurality and is the stamp of a responsible leader.