Avat(AWW)rr!

There are movies that have made me cry, and there are movies that have made me laugh. There are movies I haven't watched though people asked me to, for obvious reasons. But one movie, left me expressionless. It was a mystery to me, and still is. AVATAWWRR.

It directly begins with a paraplegic man, Jake Sully, on a trip to a planet called Pandora (Yeah, for sometime I was wondering if IMAX chopped off the initial scenes.) So, this guy cannot walk, and is on a wheel chair all the while and replaces his dead brother on a mission to the unbelievably amazing planet. There, some Colonel, whose name I don't want to remember, tells our guy Jake, about some mineral or material (again, I don't care about it's name) which is all over the planet. (Yes, they HAD to go to another planet, just for a fuckingly and awesomely rare mineral!) Their mission is to collect as much mineral as possible, by transferring themselves to into very dirty blue color bodies, that are horrendously tall, to look like the local aliens. Btw, the local aliens are called Na'vis (I don't know why I found that name funny).

This guy Jake, uses an Avatawwrr identity of sorts, and tries becoming friendly with the Na'vis (I just laughed typing that word). He very suddenly and abruptly gets attacked my dinosaur lookalikes, and a female Na'vi (the HEROINE) saves him. (For some reason, I thought Gracy Singh's entry in Deshdrohi was better. I must be mad!) Her name is Neytiri, and she screams for no reason. She is also almost completely naked. And Jake the Avatawwrr falls in love with her! Can you believe that?! It's SO unpredictable!

And there's magic after that. Yes, magic. Jake the Awatawwrr learns the Na'vi local language instantly. He learns to jump, to fly on vibrantly colorful looking creatures, and also to kiss while in the Awatawwrr body, standing next to a tree that can make you hear your ancestors' voices! There are trees that are purple and leaves that are blue and pink. They also glitter at night, and shine like lights when you walk. Isn't that amazing? He also sleeps along with those Na'vis on rope-beds hanging from trees. He very unpredictably sleeps next to Neytiri, who blushes and turns to the other side so as not to face him while sleeping. (Yeah, she totally didn't realise that she is completely and absolutely naked all the time).

And again, very suddenly, the Colonel whose name I don't want to remember, starts attacking the Na'vis to get his precious mineral. He gets into a robotic machine and starts shooting bombs, throws down sacred trees, and also kills many Na'vis. There are jet planes, and mini rockets, and exotic machines (that fly around aimlessly most of the times) designed just to destroy Pandora. After a long war, amidst Neytiri's screams and love betrayal fights, the Na'vis destroy the humans, with the help of Jake the Avatawwrr. The original Jake later goes naked for reasons known only to him and permanently remains an Avatawwrr.

People who haven't watched the movie yet, go watch it! It's just three hours long. If you watch it on a 3D screen, you won't even have an interval in most of the theaters. And yeah, people have loved it so much that it has 4 Golden Globe nominations already! James Cameron took 10 long and painful years to come up with THIS. God bless him, and Pandora.

Acquiescence

You can either fly kites or not fly kites on a festival like Sankranti. I, as usual, chose not to. Somehow, only watching people fly kites fascinated me. My clumsy self never wanted to learn to fly one. I was woken up early that day, thanks to my mother's unending complaints about my chronic laziness and abnormally long sleeping hours. "Today's a festival for God's sake!" yelled my mother. Not that I cared, but I woke up nevertheless, since my body was contaminated with extreme hunger, for food.

Sometimes everything in a day can go intriguingly and irresistibly annoying. My mother had cooked something I had detested since the time my taste buds had started recognizing all the different types of food. I couldn't blame her though. She had to cook too much for the festival lunch anyway. Miffed, I told her I was getting breakfast from outside, and banged the door of my house, shut, behind me.

All I could see were colorful kites lying on the ground, and sailing in the breeze. As I reached the tiffin center, a thick smell of delicious Sambhar filled the air. My stomach groaned. I went in, ordered a Masala Dosa, and waited with my token at the parcel counter.

The quickness in the kitchen seemed interesting. I couldn't help but notice the look in the eyes of the man at the counter. It was the look of terminal confusion, and sadness. It was a look of longing to be somewhere and not being able to. He was packing the food, calling out orders, talking to the customers, but he looked sad. At one point, he looked at us, like we were difficult tasks, testing his patience.

He shouted at one of the workers inside the kitchen, to work faster. He constantly avoided looking directly into anyone's face. I don't know why, but I began to pity him. Maybe he had a family somewhere, waiting for him to come back, and fly kites with them. Or maybe he could not celebrate with them, because of his job. One side of him wanted to take a day off, go home, relax and eat good food, than clean the kitchen and pack the food like he regularly did. The other side of him realized that he has to work, get his pay, and not annoy his superiors. His eyes drooped with the burden of responsibility and face flushed with restlessness.

He continued screaming out orders and packing food. I was handed out my parcel after what seemed like hours. I gave a weak smile and thanked the man. He didn't care. Not that I expected him to. He continued working, and I left.