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Some books are so hyped that when they let me down, I feel something must be wrong with me. Maybe I just didn’t get them? Perhaps my brain is the size of a shriveled raisin? Or was I distracted when reading, which I shouldn’t have been, and what does that say about me as a reader? These thoughts are discomfiting and, frankly, makes me feel a little stupid. I take a lot of time to bounce back and pick up another book when this happens. I don’t want the next one to disappoint as well and that’s a lot of pressure. I hate books that put me in this position and most recently it was ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’ by Maria Semple that got me all riled up.

I had high hopes, having heard so much about the book. Afterall, it had also been made into a movie starring Cate Blanchett. I searched for a physical copy despite having the e-book in my kindle. I was so sure it was going to be a great read and that I would want to see the spine on my bookshelf. From what I had heard and read, this was a fantastic story about a family trying to understand one another better and the power of a daughter’s undying love for her mother. I even thought I would enjoy the format in which it is written—a hodgepodge of emails, transcripts, invoices, school memos and even FBI reports.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is the story of Bernadette Fox, a woman in her fifties who lives in Seattle with her husband, Elgin Branch, and their daughter, Bee, a high-school student. Once an acclaimed architect, Bernadette is now a recluse of sorts. She spends most of her time at home, coming out only to drop Bee off and pick her up from school. She’s not involved in any school activities like the other parents and is actually contemptuous of the ones who do. Then when Bee asks for a family trip to Antarctica for scoring perfect grades, Bernadette throws herself into the preparation only to disappear days before departure. Everyone thinks Bernadette broke under pressure but Bee is convinced there is more to it than meets the eye.

My problem with the story is that much of it is just about Bernadette being on the brink of a meltdown and how the town folks don’t like her much. It goes nowhere for more than half of the book—just pointlessly moving about in circles trying to establish a point that could have been made in a few chapters. It got a bit too much after a while. The emails and invoices felt gossipy. Semple was a television writer for 15 years and it’s evident that she still thinks like one. You had to piece together a story with the help of the various correspondences and, while that would have made for a fun read, Semple’s choppy narrative makes you lose interest pretty fast.

2 stars
Fiction
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
Published: 2012
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Pages: 324, Paperback

Netflix’s latest release, the 2020 Indian film “Shikara,” based on the backdrop of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in the late 80s and 90s, draws inspiration from many places. For one, it narrates the horrid accounts of Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave their homes in fear of their lives, based on the real survivors’ accounts.

The movie is also partly inspired by the book “Our Moon Has Blood Clots” by Rahul Pandita. Most importantly, the producer/director Vidhu Vinod Chopra dedicates the film to his mother “Shanti”, who left Kashmir in 1989 and never returned. Chopra, who himself was born and grew up in Srinagar, Kashmir, was a first-hand witness to what transpired there after the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) began a separatist insurgency for independence.

Debutants Sadia Khateeb and Aadil Khan play Shanti and Shiv Kumar Dhar, a young couple from Kashmir who find themselves in the eye of a cyclone during the insurgency. Shiv and Shanti meet as strangers during a film shoot in 1987 when they are asked to walk as a couple in a scene. Shanti is reading a collection of poems called “Shikara,” which is coincidentally written by Shiv.

The two fall for each other and with their parents’ consent, get married, and start a new chapter in their lives in a home they lovingly name “Shikara.” But around the same time, violence starts brewing in Kashmir. Within a year of their marriage, Shiv and Shanti have to flee from their home, leaving Shikara deserted, and spend the rest of their lives as refugees in their own country.

Despite its theme of politics gone violent, Shikara is not a harrowing political drama. It is actually a romantic film that focuses more on the lives and struggles of Shiv and Shanti than on the Kashmiri Pandit issue. Drifting from reality, the film has a lot less violence than what actually transpired and the plights of the Kashmiri Pandits have not really been voiced in the film. No wonder it got a bad rap for being soft and misrepresentative. Coming from a Bollywood veteran like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who in a way is also a victim of the insurgency, the storytelling in Shikara is criminally underwhelming.

Still, the acting, background music, and aesthetics make it enjoyable for the audience who are not looking for much depth in a movie. Debutants Khateen and Khan who play Shanti and Shiv respectively are beautiful to look at and also execute their roles convincingly. The supporting characters in Shikara do not get much significance and it's mostly Khateen and Khan projected on screen, which gives them enough time to display their brilliance.

But the actor duo also has to share screen space with the exquisite beauty of Kashmir. In Shikara, cinematographer Rangarajan Ramabadran uses almost every trick in the book to capture the mesmerizing beauty of Kashmir. And this is not just the lakes and mountains we are talking about. Ramabadran follows his characters through the narrow lanes and quaint suburbs of Kashmir, giving the audience more footage of the gorgeous valley.

The camerawork is further nourished by color-grading that is mostly kept warm, and adds an almost surreal atmosphere to some scenes. The visual tone maintained throughout the film makes it akin to a picturesque work of art on canvas.

Now to another gem in the film, the background music. While the original soundtracks of Shikara are not memorable enough, the background score adds girth to the already brilliant cinematography. Interestingly, the man from down south, A. R. Rahman, with his apprentice group Qutub-E-Kripa, creates interesting soundscapes to help narrate a story placed in the northernmost part of India. The use of ethnic Kashmiri music along with contemporary sounds works well for the film’s theme.

Who should watch it?

As mentioned before, Shikara is an aesthetically beautiful romantic drama. If you do not have a problem with how this film fails to represent the many atrocities faced by Kashmiri Pandits and does not even address the underlying issues of their exodus, you will enjoy Shikara like any other Bollywood film.

Rating: 2.5 stars
Actors: Shadia Khateeb, Aadil Khan
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Run time: 1hr 58mins

We all have secrets, regrets, and other bottled-up emotions that we successfully hide, often from ourselves. The monsters resurface every now and then but are quickly buried deep in the crevices of our heads and hearts. Perhaps by doing so we are locking up an essential part of ourselves and thus we are never completely healed and whole. What if we confronted those dark feelings and we were honest about who we are? Maybe someone would judge us, like us a little less, but why should that matter when, by tackling our demons, we can finally be at peace? 

‘The Authenticity Project’ by Clare Pooley, with its myriad characters, one of which you are sure to relate to, makes you think of this and other conundrums of life. You realize no one is perfect and you aren’t either but not all flaws should be embraced. It’s human nature to change and evolve and working on our weaknesses and niggles can make us a better version of ourselves. 

The book begins with 37-year-old Monica, who runs a cafe in London, finding a green notebook, titled The Authenticity Project. Julian Jessop, 79-year-old artist, has written some truths about his life and left it at her cafe. In it, he asks the person who finds it to write his/her story and then leave the book for someone else to discover. Monica does as instructed and then lets it go. From then on, the journal falls into the hands of various people—an addict, a tourist and an Instagram influencer. As they all tell their own stories before leaving the book for others to come across, the characters end up forging a bond among themselves. By doing so, they realize the power of community, friendship, and the importance of staying true to oneself.  

 The language is easy albeit a bit clichéd here and there but that doesn’t take away from a story that brims with hope and positivity. There are moments of clarity when you feel like everything in life is manageable, every problem solvable, if you can just muster up the courage to be your authentic self. The Authenticity Project is fiction but, in a way, it is self-help too. It will make you re-evaluate your thinking and look into your actions to see what subtle changes you can make to significantly alter your life. The book also conveys a powerful message on the importance of fostering good relationships and being kind. All in all, it’s a cozy, feel-good book that reminds you to be a little easy on yourself as well as those around you.

3.5 stars
Fiction
The Authenticity Project
Clare Pooley
Published: 2020
Publisher: Penguin Random House 
Pages: 404, Paperback

I only heard about the movie “Ghampani” recently through a Twitter post. Someone had posted a scene from the movie, admiring its attention to detail and how cleverly the filmmakers had disguised a hidden message in the scene. Impressed, I decided to watch the movie, available officially on ‘HighlightsNepal’ YouTube channel, for this week’s review.

Turns out, the lighthearted social drama, the debut work of film critic turned writer/director Dipendra Lama, was a box office success when it released in theaters back in 2017. Right through his filmmaking career, Lama has given an impression of being someone rooted to society and its realities even in his works of fiction. Ghampani is one such representation that sums up Lama’s style of writing and directing stories, characters and settings that are the mirrors of our society. 

In Ghampani, the peaceful existence of a rural village is disrupted when two people of different castes fall in love. Furba Tamang (Dayahang Rai) and Tara Sharma (Keki Adhikari) are childhood friends who grew up together and found comfort in each other’s company. While Furba is a local school teacher, Tara goes to Kathmandu for higher education and in one of her visits home, the affection between Furba and Tara grows deeper as they confess their love to each other. 

Their families, especially Tara’s, are totally against this relationship. Tara’s father Pitambar (Prakash Ghimire) and Furba’s father Maila (Puskar Gurung) are the best of friends and neighbors. This duo of inseparable friends who fight for each other now fight against each other as they do not want their children to get married. Then enters Kamal Adhikari (Ankeet Khadka), a police assistant sub-inspector, into the scene. Pitambar arranges for his daughter to get married to Kamal, which creates further conflict.

Through the love story of Tara and Furba, Ghampani highlights the inherent casteism of Nepali society. People may seem to live in peace and harmony on the outside, but it only needs one little spark to trigger a communal conflagration and raise inherent caste-based differences. Tara and Furba are victims of this caste-based system as their own families and friends become their foes just because they decided to be with each other. 

Writer/director Lama sets the scene of a typical Nepali village. He keeps the film grounded in reality and organic in the sense that even the fictionalized account of Furba and Tara could well be a real story of an inter-caste couple in Nepal. There is little exaggeration in storytelling and the same artistry is applied in acting as well. 

The caste of Ghampani fit their nearly custom-made roles. Even the supporting characters have well-defined objectives and they proficiently fulfill them with the simplicity required in the setting. Unlike most Nepali movies that depend on putting their central characters in the spotlight, almost every supporting character stands out in Ghampani, which shows the amount of effort the writer has put in. 

Coming to the leads, established actors Dayahang Rai and Keki Adhikari are their natural self. Their performance in their respective lead roles is not otherworldly but there is nothing much to criticize either. Both fit into their roles comfortably and deliver what is expected. The actual show-stealer though is the relatively new actor Ankeet Khadka.

Khadka plays Kamal, a lecherous and corrupt policeman who has his eyes on Tara as well as other women in the village. The conniving Kamal, who tricks Tara’s father Pitambar into agreeing to his marriage proposal, is the villain in the love story. Actor Khadka manages to invoke every bit of hatred required by his character. At the same time, he does not let his character get too dark and keeps to the film’s lighthearted nature. Khadka puts in an excellent performance despite getting much less screen time.

Who should watch it?

The film was a hit so there's a high chance most of our audience might have already watched it. But considering how the film is not talked about much, we can assume there are still plenty of those who are yet to see it. If you like Nepali films that have an organic story instead of wirework stunts and brain shaking dialogues, Ghmapani will most definitely entertain you. Don’t miss it.  

Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Drama
Actors: Dayahang Rai, Keki Adhikari, Ankeet Khadka
Director: Dipendra Lama
Run time: 1hr 53mins