A Movie And A Book

Today I came to realize how much I really loved the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Watching it for the third time today I found myself waiting for the next bus-pushing, the next over-the-top grandpa joke, the next oddity, just like the first time. The music tugged just like the first time. It was an awesome movie, and I am happy I watched it with people I love.


I am reading "A Glimpse of Bihar: Sleeping Only To Rise", by Kalpana Shastree. If it wasn't for the first-hand treatment of the subject, the book would be useless. But it is rare to find true accounts of women and dalits, that too in Bihar, and not ravings or political manifestos. Now, usually you will find people who have: the truly ignorant, political, radical view against the status quo of societal norms, and the culture steeped, orthodox view. The author here belongs somewhere in the middle, a rarity: though she acknowledges the atrocities and inequities, she also knows how the structure evolved, what it was meant to protect and what exactly is flawed about it beneath the surface.

There are second hand narrations of plights and ironies at various levels, some even self-incriminating. The frankness of the words would've touched you, had the writing been better organized or in a readable flow. Instead you are left to your own mental sorting of subjects; the author just about puts it all down for you. Great book nevertheless. Ask me for it in a week if you want a read.