FILM REVIEW: GRAND HOTEL

GRAND HOTEL

 

“Grand Hotel…always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

 

Dr. Otternschlag, a disfigured World War 1 veteran says these, the opening lines of 1932’s Grand Hotel, and it is already evident he will soon be proved wrong. After all, no one’s going to make a film about nothing happening, and certainly not on the scale that MGM made Grand Hotel. For, in a time when studios zealously guarded their star power, only serving them out in moderate, digestible spoon-fuls of one or at best two from their A-list in a single film, MGM served up no less than five of their, and cinema history’s, most dazzling stars. 

 

The Barrymore brothers, John and Lionel. Wallace Beery. Greta Garbo. Joan Crawford. Each one could, and did, carry films on their own, and yet the studio found this story, adapted from a novel and already running as a musical on Broadway, worth investing their resources into, on this scale.

The star cast
(L-R) Lewis Stone, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford,
Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Jean Hersholt

That alone would make this film a significant piece of film history. Add to that its Best Picture win at the Oscars and the fact that it is this film that contains the line that pretty much became Garbo’s motto—I vant to be alone—and you have enough reasons to see the film for that historical value alone. Certainly, when I decided to watch it, I was not hoping for much more than an interesting historical artifact.

 

I was wrong.

 

The opening scene shows three of our protagonists using the payphones in the hotel lobby to speak to someone on the other end, and establishes their characters in a few deft lines of dialogue, a device that is now so standard in films that we don’t even realise it’s being used. 

 

The Baron (played by John Barrymore) is genteel, refined, and deeply in debt.

 

Otto Kringlein (played by Lionel Barrymore) is an accountant who has learned of his terminal illness and plans to spend his last days enjoying the grandeur of the hotel.

 

Preysing (played by Wallace Beery) is a pompous capitalist with an inflated pride and sense of moral superiority, who nonetheless is actually heading a failing company (and incidentally, Kringlein works at that same factory). 

 

A little later, we encounter the women—

 

Grusinskaya (played by Greta Garbo), a Russian dancer who seems to have fled / been exiled for her Tsarist sympathies from the Soviet Union. She is caught in a vicious circle—dwindling audiences for her shows have left her depressed, her depression leads to her heart not being in her dancing, with her heart not in it, her performances are not well-received, and the audiences dwindle. 

 

and Flaemmchen (played by Joan Crawford), a freelance stenographer with no money, an early example of the sexy-secretary archetype, no doubt, who is not unwilling to use her considerable charms to make some, though she is also starved for affection and friendship.

Joan Crawford and Wallace Beery

 

The ensemble characters follow their individual arcs, intersecting and cutting across each other in the opulent lobbies, rooms and corridors of the Grand Hotel. 

 

The Baron tries to balance his innate good nature with the crimes he needs to commit to survive; Kringlein finds friendship in unexpected places; Preysing’s hypocrisy leads his moral façade to unravel quickly; Grusinskaya plumbs the depths of depression as the people surrounding her exploit her for their own ends; and Flaemchhen finds that walking the tightrope between worldly ambition and personal decency is far too difficult to endure.

 

The scenes blend seamlessly into one another and the pace is quick—one does not, for a moment, feel too far removed from the main action—this is no shuffling period piece, it’s the Grand Hotel, and for a place where nothing ever happens, there sure is a lot going on. The film uses a large cast of extras beautifully, creating the impression of a bustling, living place rather than a bland set-piece, which the Hotel could so easily have been. There are lives and stories going on in the background, behind every closed door and every counter, in the tables and the revolving doors.

Lionel Barrymore and Joan Crawford

 

The camerawork is exquisite, the black-and-white often more bright and alive than many a celebrated 70’s-80’s work. And MGM’s stars deliver, each doing what they need to ensure they are not lost in the ensemble.

 

Beery is superb in his Harvey Weinstein-esque turn, menacing and despicable in equal measure. 

 

Lionel Barrymore is the heart of the story, a ‘loser’ who effortlessly draws forth our empathy for the dignity with which he faces his fate, something that it takes considerable acting skill to pull off.

 

John Barrymore is regal, the perfect fallen aristocrat, charming and dignified, threading the needle in the conflict between his innate nobility and his circumstantial villainy.

John Barrymore and Greta Garbo

 

Garbo plays the dancer with exaggerated mannerisms and dialogue delivery—whether a result of her days in silent films leading her to be overdramatic in general, or as a deliberate nod to how the Tsarist Russians actually were, I could not say. Her power to enchant is undeniable however, and when she says that line, that accented delivery of “I just want to be alone,” there is a moment when we see the anguish in her eyes which, knowing what we know now about her later shutting out of Hollywood and reclusiveness, makes it especially poignant. 

 

And yet, Joan Crawford outshines the divine Garbo (and how many people could claim to have ever done that?) as she smoulders with sex appeal and uses her expressive eyes to great effect. Bette Davis, in one of her classic put-downs, is said to have said of Joan Crawford that she had slept with every male co-star at MGM. Well, that may not be true, but if any of her male co-stars at MGM did not want to sleep with her, they probably weren’t straight. To audiences who saw her on the big screen back then—gentlemen, you may be long-dead, but you had a glimpse of a goddess in a way that we never will, and we will forever envy you for it.

Joan Crawford and John Barrymore

 

Grand Hotel draws to its conclusion in under two hours, though the time seems to have flashed past us much faster than that. And as old guests check out, and new ones check in, the old doctor repeats himself.

 

“Grand Hotel…always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

 

And this time, we wonder whether it is really a comedic line at all. For Grand Hotel is a story that could be made today and you would have to change very little, nothing but the cosmetic details. The issues and themes it touches upon—this, this relic of a film from ninety years ago—they don’t feel aged at all. Grand Hotel is always the same because we are the same, and the world is, and even these intense stories, these great dramatic moments that are so important in that moment, mean very little, really, to others. 

 

For people come and people go, but the fundamentals of human nature remain the same, and Grand Hotel, well, Grand Hotel was never a film about a hotel in 1932, was it? 

 

It was about life.

 

What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little. Dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall, and no one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed, and that's the end.

 

 

 

Emma, and Emma., or, The Inevitable Pitfalls of Modernity

EMMA, AND EMMA.

OR

THE INEVITABLE PITFALLS OF MODERNITY

(This review assumes a working-level of familiarity with the plot on the part of the reader. There are no spoilers, but some parts might be difficult to appreciate to those that haven’t at least read the Wikipedia page or my review of the book.)

I love Jane Austen’s Emma. I read the book for the first time a very long time ago, and that, and every subsequent re-read, of which there have been more than one, have brought a good deal of joy. The book is witty, exquisitely comic and at the same time very human and touching. Austen lights a very affectionate light on the foibles of the landed gentry, while offering enough insight into their faults, and peppers it with her trademark genius of dialogue and social commentary. It is also different—perhaps unique—from the rest of her output in that the protagonist is not a plucky, impecunious woman in search of a wealthy husband, but an independently wealthy, self-assured young woman who is more interested in arranging a match for her impecunious friends.

But my views on the book have been elaborated in my review of it. This is not about that so much as it is about the film adaptation of it. Despite, or perhaps because of, my love for the book, I had not seen any of the film or series adaptations of Emma other than Clueless (1994; starring Alicia Silverstone and directed by Amy Heckerling), which I did not know at the time was based on the book. 

Now Clueless is a masterpiece of its genre, beautifully merging Austen’s 1815 wit into 1995 California and the high-school social scene, and it does a fantastic job of capturing the social differentiation of the book, without losing the essence of its humour. Yet, as a ‘modern-day retelling’, it gets a lot of leeway on what elements it takes and which ones it ignores; the beauty is in the attempt itself, and execution must be judged more against the contemporary teen dramas it was released alongside than the 1800’s novel it was inspired by.

Poster - Emma. (2020)

That luxury is not available to the two major film adaptations that are more directly drawn from the book. One is the 1996 film, starring Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role and directed by Douglas McGrath. The other was released in February of this year, staring Anya Taylor-Joy, and is directed by Autumn De Wilde. 

The 2020 version is absolutely gorgeous in its visuals. The photography, the scene composition, the sets and costumes, are all stunning. However, the director’s vision, and Eleanor Catton’s screenplay, seem determined to explore only the comic aspects of Austen’s work, at the expense of everything else. Every actor plays their character like a one-note trombone; and that note seems to be the most ridiculous one that could be found. Unfortunately, this makes virtually everyone some sort of clown, and as the audience, we are left wondering why any of these people would even find anything to love about each other, let alone getting us to like them. It becomes, in the end, a funny but un-engaging film, losing any depth the text might have had by virtue of never attempting to do more than dip its toes into it.

Moreover, in a film like this, the anchor needs to be the titular role, and this is a mantle that Anya Taylor-Joy is unable, or not allowed to, fully embrace. It is true that Emma, as Austen wrote her, was not made to pander to audience expectations; she is spoilt and vain, but she is also intelligent and kind-hearted. Emma’s faults stem from simply having had her own way for too long under an indulgent father and considerable wealth, but she is also a capable, if lazy, artist and musician, genuinely affectionate toward those she sees as less fortunate, and has managed her father’s estate since she was twelve. But in the drive to emphasise only the most obvious aspects of each character, such subtleties are lost; what we get through Ms Taylor-Joy, and through the film, is Emma seen strictly through modern eyes; bright to the point of harshness, grand in scale so it can show the protagonists to be small, stacked with unsubtle clues about how woke the film-makers are, and how patriarchal the structure was at the time the film is set in.

Which brings us to the 1996 adaptation. It was an era of considerable interest in Austen’s works—both television and film were brimming with adaptations—there was a Sense and Sensibility film starring Emma Thompson and a pre-Titanic Kate Winslet that came out around the same time, the Pride and Prejudice TV series had introduced Colin Firth to the world, an Emma  TV series in the UK, and if one extends our comparison to period dramas in general, there were so many more—The Age of Innocence, The Last of the Mohicans, Braveheart and Little Women (yes, Emma isn’t the only film of that era to get a 25-year-later-reload). This would go some way toward explaining why it does not stand out particularly in one’s memory—there are only so many wigs and petticoats an audience will stand to remember.

But McGrath’s adaptation is actually remarkably faithful to the book, sequencing and portraying far more accurately than its 2020 counterpart. Far from shining a harsh, almost dismissively judgemental light on the characters, as De Wilde does, McGrath’s version takes a gentler approach, and uses soft-focus liberally to build a world of pastels and flowers. Not a scene appears to be out of place or even indulgent. But there is a sense of embellishment; Emma and Mr Knightley are both shown, perhaps, to be nicer than they are, and Mr Woodhouse’s faults, which Austen makes no bones about driving home, are papered over. This does bring a sense of blandness, sometimes, despite the earnest attempts of the cast.

None more earnest than Collette as Harriet

That cast is, it must be said, impressive. There’s Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park, The Tudors, The Crown) and Alan Cummings (The Good Wife, Spy Kids) as the dignified Mr Knightley and the vain Mr Elton respectively. There’s Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Muriel’s Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, Knives Out) as silly little Harriet Smith, the subject of Emma’s social experiments. There’s Ewan McGregor, though he’d like to pretend he wasn’t because damn, that wig is inexcusable. 

And then there’s Gwyneth Paltrow. For all her considerable faults in terms of being a vendor of pseudo-scientific claptrap, the undeniable fact remains that Ms Paltrow can be irresistibly charming when she wants to be, and she brings that charm to bear upon this film in full measure. Often appearing to channel Audrey Hepburn in her acting style (all right, aping Audrey Hepburn, but she comes close to pulling it off. I wouldn’t suggest anyone else try.), Ms Paltrow plays Emma as a shallow-but-intrinsically-loving daughter and friend, and there are times we see glimpses of true acting range. Emma’s emotions are an open book, beautifully conveyed on the canvas of Ms Paltrow’s face, and though at times her beauty threatens to overwhelm the story, that is not a fault one should place at her feet.

All said and done, it is much easier to recommend the 1996 version over the 2020 version, if for nothing else than for the fact that it represents Jane Austen’s text far more accurately; if you have read the book and want to refresh the story in your mind, or find you can’t read the book at all, that’s the version to go with.

But my honest suggestion would be to take the effort to read the text—and then watch Clueless for the sheer fun of it.

Film Review: Judy, over the rainbow

FILM REVIEW : JUDY

OR

YOU CAN'T WRITE ABOUT THE RAINBOW AND LEAVE OUT FIVE OF ITS COLOURS!

If Judy had been about a fictional film-star-singer, it might have been a good film. Vacuous at its core, maybe, and not particularly memorable, but a good film.

It starts off in 1939, with a then-16-year-old Judy auditioning for The Wizard of Oz. Studio boss Louis Mayer points out, in excruciating detail, her limitations when it comes to attractiveness, and asks if she has it in her to overcome them to play one of literature’s most iconic roles.

It cuts forward to 1969, where a near-bankrupt Judy, debilitated by drink and drugs, presumably brought on by the inferiority complex engendered by the early studio years, is forced to accept a 5-week residency in London to perform a series of concerts if she wants any hope of making enough money to live on and keep her children.

Most of the film is then shown in that 1969 era, as Judy struggles to deal with addiction and co-dependency, with a few flashbacks to the shooting of The Wizard of Oz. As such, it becomes a chronicle of rather pathetic failure, as the fading once-beloved film star runs down an abyss driven by bad decisions, drink and drugs. The flashbacks try to show her as being constantly put upon by the studio and seems to hold them—and at a personal level, Mayer—responsible for Judy’s present condition while at the same time implying that she peaked as the rosy-cheeked Dorothy. 

A good enough film, of the “suffering-porn” variety. Take your three stars and be forgotten, fated to the Netflix recommendation queue for those who like ‘films with strong female leads’.

But that’s not what Judy is, is it?

It’s not about a fictional character. It’s about Judy. It’s about Judy-fuckin’-Garland.

Judy-fuckin’-Garland was born Frances Gumm in a family of vaudeville entertainers just as vaudeville was going out of fashion. She transitioned to film at 13 following a screen test, and was signed with MGM on a long-term contract. That was not remotely ordinary; thirteen is too old for a ‘child’ star, and too young for a regular actress. And yes, while she was certainly pretty, this was at a time when MGM’s other contract stars were Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner and Greta Garbo—women whose beauty was of the spectacular, unforgettable kind. The kind that would outshine anyone not named Elizabeth Taylor or Ava Gardner (MGM’s next generation of signings).

L-R, Hedy Lamar, Lana Turner, Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor

But Judy Garland was signed anyway.

Judy, the film, touches upon one reason for it in its opening scene—Mayer points out she has a great voice. Well, that vastly undersells it. Judy Garland had once-in-a-generation vocals. In her teens, she could belt a full-throated melody with admirable control, and she did it in a voice that was big. Listening to Judy Garland is to be mesmerized by possibilities; there seems to be a constant, imminent sense of danger about it; like sitting in a racing Ferrari. Even at 40 km/h, the car’s engine hums with the prospect of topping 250 km/h without breaking a sweat, and that’s what Garland’s voice is like—she doesn’t sing epic songs; songs become epic because she sings them. 

What the film fails to mention is that she could dance, as she did, with Fred Astaire and, more often, Gene Kelley, and she could act the full range from frothy comedies to overpowering drama. 

And with all that, I’m sure, was a healthy dose of ambition. Because with all the 18-hour workdays and drugs that had become a part of studio life, we need to remember that this relatively-ordinary-looking girl, who worked in an era alongside the most beautiful women in the world, more than held her own. 

For that brings us to another misconception that Judy would foist upon us—that she was the ­girl from The Wizard of Oz and that pretty much defined her career. In reality, while that may be the film one most closely identifies with her now, after it has been shown to most of white America in their formative years, remember that this was far from the case back then. In fact, The Wizard of Oz lost money for MGM, only recouping it on re-release in 1949 and then, of course, going into super-profits when it became a TV staple (CBS paid MGM $225,000 for every time they broadcast it—in the fifties). Judy Garland made her reputation basis a string of hits as a young woman throughout the forties, parlaying her voice and dancing and acting to become one of Hollywood’s most reliable box-office draws. She had become difficult to work with—drugs and depression took their toll, and multiple suicide attempts preceded the last one—and that meant delayed productions and re-shoots, but she was still MGM’s biggest star. 

We don’t see much of that in Judy. We don’t see what made her an icon, we are just told it, through expository dialogue that often falls flat, and yes, that means the film manages, despite being a visual medium, to fall into the trap of telling, and not showing. In trying to put forth a story of a ‘fall from the heights’, Judy emphatically fails to capture just how dizzyingly high those heights were, and the grit and hard work and talent that took its protagonist there. 

That’s where Rene Zellweger’s singing voice doesn’t help either.

Let me be fair—Zellweger does a brilliant job of replicating Garland’s expressions and mannerisms, not only is the resemblance strong, but the portrayal seems to be spot-on…until she sings. 

For some reason (okay, I kind of know the reason, but that’s a whole different discussion), Hollywood does not let its actresses get playbacks, and as a result, we have Rene Zellweger, a non-singer, provide the soundtrack for one of the top singing stars of the industry. Imagine a Lata Mangeshkar biopic, starring Kangana Ranaut, where she has to sing in her own voice. It’s not that Zellweger can’t hold a note; she can sing, but she doesn’t sound like someone who once had a voice that comfortably enthralled Carnegie Hall, that seemed to glow with warmth and bristle with pain, even before those things were really a part of her life. 

But if nothing else, Judy will hopefully revive interest in the character it purports to portray, and if in doing so, it drives some of its viewers to check out A Star is Born (1954), Ziegfield Girl, Meet Me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, Summer Stock and so on, it will have accomplished a great deal of good. And I dare say they would get a much better idea of the character from seeing her perform.

And yeah, if you haven't, go watch The Wizard of Oz. If you don't cry during 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' on your second viewing (because of course there will be a second viewing), you may be dead already.

Daily Drabble #4 - Experiment

I’ve been the scribe in the Court of Justice of Aiden for fifty years. My eyes might be old, but I can see well enough to the end of the courtroom. My fingers ache not a little on cold winter nights, but I can write as quickly as I did when I was appointed. The Court sits atop the highest elevation in the city, looking down upon the expanse of dwellings and mercantile establishment that constitute Aiden. The Court is one of the reasons Aiden is the most popular trading center for all of Mithos; where it is known that justice will be delivered, business will flow.

Not that I know much of the city any more, my quarters are up here in the Courthouse, and I have a boy to go to the city and fetch what I need to live. What I know is the law, and I have seen more cases in these hallowed chambers than anyone but the Lord Justicaar himself. Dominus Elgus, Lord Justicaar of Aiden for eight hundred years, one of the last remaining members of a dying species, known for its commitment to logic and reason. He has seen Grand Duchesses and Dukes come and go, and passed judgement on a few as well. 

But the last four years have been terrible; as the new Grand Duke, Murdock, has subverted ancient traditions and imposed a reign of terror, religious and physical, upon the city. There has been little of justice, indeed, with few cases coming to his lordship at all. He has lamented in sparsely-filled chambers about how his power has been taken away, how his orders are ignored, and how all that once made Aiden great is falling to pieces.

Today, as he comes in, and all those present in the Court rise, my old eyes scan the room in wonder. I have not seen the place so full in all my years here; not once, and certainly not since Murdock has reigned. The seats are full, there are people standing, and the doors cannot be closed for the sheer masses of people pressing upon them. The Bailiffs struggle to quiet them down, and even the normally-unflappable Captain of the Guard, Sir Valora Adno, who is here today, seems a little unnerved. She’s one of the few faces I recognize, not because she has a face that’s particularly memorable, but because she has been in this room so often over the years. I also recognize Wedgrass Selvar, with his stocky frame, powerful arms and memorably-ugly face, who has been here a few times defending himself against charges of unfair business practices, and Lady Mirielle Storna, who had come just a month ago when a distant cousin had contested her parents’ will. 

The others are strangers. Not the students and government folk who usually sit here, waiting their turns or making records of the proceedings. It’s the people of Aiden, lords and ladies, merchants and sailors, the common-folk of the city.

The Crown’s Prosecutor motions for the Accused to be brought in. She does not set so much as a foot within the door before I can make some sense of why the Courthouse is so crowded today. 

I am seventy-five years old—old, indeed, by Ateneen standards—and I have never considered myself susceptible to temptations of the flesh. I have not had much occasion to be tempted, not really. I have not known the company of a woman since I was in the Academy, and I have not missed it—or so I believed, until now.

Something about her inflames every sense, overwhelming me. Her eyes are a bright blue, the blue of the ocean, her hair is lustrous gold, her face is a portrait of beauty that artists would die to portray and still fail. She wears a gown in black and white—black from shoulder to waist, and white below—that clings to her body like a second skin. Her neck, her ears, her arms, are all adorned in jewels, though none sparkles like those eyes.

She speaks her name when she is asked to, in a voice as clear and beautiful as the sound of the crystal-clear waters of the mountain spring that passed by the village where I grew up. It dispels any lingering doubts I might have had that the crowd is there to see her. It is an ancient name, a royal name, a name that adorns her like a crown, though she wears none—Galvina Chrysos.

The case itself pertains to public lewdness; she is an actress, and it has been alleged that her performance of the role of Gleda in the The Pirate’s Daughter was obscene. 

She defends herself with stunning eloquence and displays a knowledge of legal precedent that impresses even me, who have studied every case from the past hundred years. I expect her to take recourse in being Amarian and in the sanctity of Amarian scripture, which has very different standards for obscenity. In Grand Duke Murdock’s Aiden, this will fail, I believe, for he has declared Amarian scripture invalid.

Instead, she puts forth the argument that Gleda needed to be nude in those scenes, she recites the lines from the play, not just her own, to show how Gleda’s nudity, far from being titillating, was meant to shame the audience into introspection, she challenges the notion of nudity itself as being obscene, and of obscenity itself as being a factor in the performance of any artistic medium.

The Lord Justicaar acquits her, agreeing with her second point, that the nudity was not intended to be of a prurient nature. If he had not, I believe the people in the Courthouse today would have lynched him, and me, and the Prosecutor. 

I wonder if I will ever see her again. I doubt I will, though my heart earnestly wishes it.

As I await the emptying of the chamber, Lady Storna and the merchant Selvar have wandered near my seat, and the Captain with them.

“That will teach Murdock a lesson,” says the Captain. “He will know better than to try to take on Galvina now.”

“Oh, this wasn’t Murdock,” says Selvar.

“What? Wasn’t the accuser one of his pet ‘guardians of morality’?”

“No, it was one of mine.”

Both the women gape at him.

“Look,” he says, his face grim. “This city is going to have a reckoning soon. Murdock is an evil brute. He would have moved against us eventually. Now, Gibbles—I mean, Galvina—has shown him that she can command a crowd by the sheer power of her presence, that she can fight his stupid battles by the power of her mind. Even without raising her staff, even without casting a single spell, she is more powerful than he.”

“I suppose you have a point…,” says Lady Storna. “But why did you need to do this?”

“It was an experiment,” he goes on. “I have just proved that this city might fear Murdock, but it loves Galvina Chrysos. And when the time is right, that is why she will wear the crown she deserves.”

I clear my throat, and for the first time in four years, I smile.

--

(c) TamasGaspar.deviantart.com

Daily Drabble #3 - Global

“Ooh, you’re the person from Head Office?”

Jayesh nods, too tired to even smile. The village has maybe three bank branches in total. It’s his misfortune, he thinks, that DCTMR is one of them.

“Idris, GRG ka banda aaya hai.”

A large, stressed-looking chap emerges from the cabin. Jayesh is somewhat impressed, despite himself, that there is an air-conditioned cabin in Jhakulgaon branch. The last three places he visited had fans that worked on generator power.

“Namashkar, Jayesh. Come, come. Tea? Coffee?”

“Water, please,” says Jayesh, finding that even the thought of a hot beverage seems to make his sweat glands go into overactive mode.

“Chhotu, GRG wale saab ke liye paani lao,” shouts Idris. He rubs his hands together, and gestures Jayesh to a chair. “So tell me, what is news from BKC? Head office is happy with us?”

Jayesh avoids wincing.

“Oh yes, very happy that’s why they sent me to, err…encourage you guys. See here—” he pulls a sheaf of papers from his case “—this is the new form for offline enrollment of potential NRIs for money transfer services…” 

His prepared monologue is cut off as chhotu brings a glass of water, thumb firmly within the rim, touching the liquid inside. Jayesh nearly retches, but remembers he is wearing a tie and a shirt he paid a hundred rupees to get laundered and ironed in Jamsande Town two days ago, and manages to control himself. 

The monologue continues. Idris receives a phone call approximately once every six-and-a-half minutes (they are long phone calls, giving Jayesh enough time to do the math). Some of them even seem to be related to work. About a hundred customers pass through the branch during the day. Not one is presently, planning to become, or related to, an NRI, and as such has no use for international money transfer services. Nevertheless, Idris promises that his branch will do amazing work in the field and register lots of new customers and can HO just up the incentive a little so his ‘guys in the field’ are adequately compensated for their efforts?

Jayesh says he will do what he can.

At night, Jayesh is waiting at the railway station for the train to Dhabadepul. He smokes a contemplative cigarette. There is a signboard threatening a fine, but he’s learned that such signboards are pure lip-service. He thinks back to a quite different wait—what was it, three years ago?—in the air-conditioned waiting room outside Conference Room number 4 at his B-School in Calcutta on Day 1 of Placement Week. He thinks about the man from DCTMR, a blue-shirt-wearing, red-tie flaunting, slightly pot-bellied Deputy General Manager from GRG. How eloquent he had been! 

‘In GRG, we have plans. Big plans. Money flows all over the world, Jayesh. From the US to Mexico, to China, to Philippines, from the UK to mainland Europe, from mainland Europe to Africa, from Australia to South-East Asia, the river of money flows faster and stronger than the Ganges, and DCTMR wants to be there! We want to be the valve in every pipe that carries money. And you will be the washer in that valve! You will be everywhere! London, Paris, Milan, Moscow…uhh…Dubai, Sydney, Casablanca, Acapulco, Davos, New York, Tulsa…I mean, Houston, we have a branch in Houston too…”

Jayesh is cynical enough now to chuckle at the memory as he taps the ash from the cigarette-end. He has been to about seventy dusty, smelly, unsanitary, hole-in-the-ground-toileted, no-hot-water-baths-available villages in the last three years, hocking the offline registration process for DCTMR money transfer. Most of them were not even as polite as Idris had been. Some have told him to his face that his product is terrible and their branch won’t waste resources on it. Others have said that their branch has no use for international money transfers when they can barely get a customer to open a savings account. Many have just smiled and nodded and forgotten about him the moment he left. The rest of that time he has spent vegetating behind a desk, surrounding by unused forms, at the Kalyan office in Mumbai. (He tells people he’s from the BKC office. It’s only a white lie; his department head does sit at DCTMR HQ there.) The closest he has come to leaving the country was when the departmental offsite went to Alibaug in a ferry and they came close to international waters.

“I think we will hire you, Jayesh, though of course you should wait for the official intimation through your college,” he remembers the blue-shirted, red-tied, pot-bellied man saying. “Any questions?”

“I will surely accept, sir. Just one question,” he had replied, with a broad smile. “What does GRG stand for?”

“Global Remittances Group, my boy. Global Remittances.”

Daily Drabble #2 - Sail

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

It was the question that shaped the lives of every citizen of Old Tark. Forty miles down the coast from Arbora, the town had long been the target of every passing pirate ship looking for easy pickings. Then, fourteen years ago, Red Jenny had descended upon Old Tark, her ship, the Waterdancer bearing down the harbor like a cloud of death. It was a tale every boy was told, and Jem had heard it too, a thousand times.

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

It was the phrase drilled into every boy in Old Tark, since that day when the town had been pillaged down to the last grain of rice, the last bronze coin. Casker, the Village Headman, had ensured that no one in the town forgot that ever-present threat, that sword hanging over their heads. Jem had had it drilled into his mind too, for though he was the object of ridicule of everyone in the village, he was still expected to know the answer.

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

Fight. The answer was to fight. For fourteen years, Old Tark had fought. They had resisted. They trained in use of spear and bow, and they had look-outs watching day and night, and they gave the pirates a fight to remember, until they were not an easy target anymore, and the pirates no longer saw Old Tark as ‘easy pickings’. But not so poor Jem. He was thin and had a darker skin than all the strong, white boys in the village, and he had no mother. He did have a father, or had, but Kris had died when Jem was seven. A boy like Jem would always be an easy target.

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

Run and hide. When the rest of us fight, Jem will be hiding with the women and children, because he isn’t no good for anything else. Jem’s father was a coward. When Red Jenny came, Kris was nowhere, he escaped on a boat. He came back a year later, with his coward whore-son Jem. No, Jem isn’t one of us. Jem is craven and tainted by birth. 

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

Did it matter to the people of Old Tark what Jem’s answer was? It did not matter that Jem was good with a bow, that he could hit a fish’s eye at forty paces. It did not matter that Jem was ready and willing to fight the pirates when they came. There had BEEN no real pirates for many years now, and Jem had not got to prove his worth. Not since his father had died. All they cared about was that his father had been a coward, and that no one knew who his mother was. Jem did not know his mother either, other than the name his father had told him.

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

They did come. A black sail emerging over the horizon. It was the Waterdancer once more, back after fourteen years to terrorise Old Tark again. It was terrible and unnerving, a cloud of doom, parting the mists, with her standing on the prow; tall and proud; Red Jenny. Old Tark fought, and fought hard, but their spears bounced off the enchanted teak of the ship. Their arrows flew, but they hit few targets. They fought, but they fell, one by one, before her; Red Jenny. They submitted at last, as they had fourteen years ago, before the dark power of Red Jenny.

‘What will you do when the pirates come?’

Where was Jem in all this, though? Where was Jem the coward, the whore-son? Hiding, cowering, afraid? No, Jem was waiting. And when it was all over, and they all submitted, Jem walked forth, head held high, to sit in judgement on them who had tortured him for the colour of his skin and his father who was a coward and his mother who was a whore. For he remembered well, his father’s words, his answer to the question that had shaped his life, and the lives of the people of Old Tark. 

‘What will you do when Red Jenny comes?’

‘You will step forth, head held high, and say, “Greetings, mother. I knew you would come for me.”’

(c) SC Versillee

Daily Drabble #1 - Ebullience

In an effort to keep myself writing, for that ought to be important to myself, if not anyone else, I've taken on the responsibility to do a daily short piece on a word prompt. 

This is the output from the first one, inspired by one of my favourite books; 'Little Women'. 

I would love to see more people join in. The word is in the blog's title, and you could share the post, or the link, in the comments. 

Last Christmas, Beth fell sick. She was the brightest of us; kind, gentle, joyful, always the first to rush forward to help a person in need, always the last to step away. 

I guess we took her for granted. It is the way of the world, isn’t it? To take, and take some more, from them that give? And so we let her be the ‘good’ one, so I could be headstrong, so Amy could be flighty, so Meg could be the belle. There was always Beth. To help Mama, to nurse Papa, to play gentle tunes for when we were sick, to play bright and cheery waltzes for when we were well. 

I never asked If she would have liked to dance. I never asked if she wanted to be the one who was ministered to. It never occurred to me to. Not until she fell sick.

That was last Christmas, you see. And now, there’s that empty chair by the piano, and the music has gone from our lives. We cried rivers of tears, but they wouldn’t bring her back. We swore to be more like her, but we couldn’t, could we? She was who she was, and we are who we are.

But sometimes, when I come home to visit, I see the morning sun come through the window just the right way, falling onto that empty chair by the piano. I feel like chords are playing again, and my bright, beautiful sister is sitting there, radiating her warmth and ebullience, but it is a memory, and no more.

--

(c) 1922 Edition, Jessie Wilcox Smith