Doctors are a strange lot. I should know, being a
sibling to one. Most of us spend our education and subsequently, our lives,
chasing elusive rainbows. Our formative years are spent willing the clock to
move faster and for classes to get over. Medical students spend their formative
years cutting open human bodies (the dead ones) and one fine day, graduate to
cutting open live ones. It was this strange fortune of having my elder sister
choose medicine as a career that introduced me to Ronnie.
As a part of their learning, medical students are
supposed to go to a designated store near their college and buy a very unique
set. This very unique set consists of a skull and a few bones. They then sit in
class, hold the skull in their hands, and listen to their lecturer explain to
them about the neurocranium and the viscerocranium. Cutting
cadavers, it may be presumed, is slightly more complicated and cannot be delved
into with the same hilarity.
Coming back to the point, when my sister was done
and dusted with the skull, she wanted to carefully hand it over to a junior in
the same red bag she used to carry the skull to college every day. In one of
the rare moments in life where a good idea struck me, I asked her to pass on
the skull to me instead. With much trepidation, she handed it over to me.
And the skull found a home atop my table.
In the early days, the skull was anonymous. The
first question people asked when they set eyes on it was if it was real. Its
awe inspiring qualities seemed puzzling at first, until it finally dawned on me
that only a fortunate few grow up around doctors and the paranapheila that
accompany them. At some point, I christened him Ronnie. It sounded right, the
inspiration for which came from a metallica song of the same name. This
stanza from the song seemed to describe him the best -
'I always said something
wrong
With little strange
Ronnie Long
Never laughed, never
smiled
Talked alone for miles
and miles and miles’
Ronnie entered my life and a very precarious time
- when I was 14. Many hours were spent marvelling at how unaffected he seemed
by the trauma being inflicted upon me by trigonometry and physics. In fact, I
tried to black mail him into writing one of my math papers, but he would have
none of it. The moral science lecture that ensued haunts me even to this day.
When I fell asleep on my practical book (a daily occurrence) and woke up with a
jolt, the first thing I was met by was Ronnie's unwavering gaze. I exacted
revenge on him by using him as a pen stand for a while.
Time and again, Ronnie is prone to giving me
unsolicited advice. When I was discussing a girl I found attractive, Ronnie
said philosophically 'love is for numbskulls.' It would be safe to presume that
only he found any semblance of humour in that utterance. When Zidane head
butted Materazzi in the 2006 Fifa World Cup final, I was mourning for the
inglorious end to such a glorious career. But Ronnie could be heard chuckling.
When India crashed out of the ICC cricket world cup in 2007, we both cried.
When India won the 2011 world cup, we both cried tears of joy.
It has been more than a decade since Ronnie
perched himself on my table. He’s seen the years go by with the
nonchalance of a bartender. Not too long ago, Ronnie suddenly spoke after a
long hiatus. He expressed a desire to pen a column. On prodding him a little
further, he said he saw so many things and wanted to write about them. A chill
ran through my spine. ‘What do you see’ I asked him, the scene from sixth sense
playing in my head. ‘Movies, books, food and drink, travel, all that
stuff that makes up a life’ he said. It was the longest sigh of relief I let
out in all of my 27 years.
So as per Ronnie’s request, I hereby introduce you
to ‘I know what Ronnie did’, where Ronnie offers his expert views on all that
he has seen and experienced. Ronnie has no sense of time and place. He reads
what he feels like and sees what he feels like and eat where he feels like. He
doesn’t claim to offer you an opinion on the latest blockbuster book or
novel.He writes what he feels like writing.
As Ronnie would like to have you believe, seeing
is believing.
I know what Ronnie did – edition one
VAZHAKU ENN 18/9 (tamil) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MosWIdXHUSA&feature=fvst
Books
Tiger Hills by Sarita
Mandanna
First half was fairly gripping. The story only
goes downhill from there, much like the slopes in Coorg.
Ronnie’s rating: 1.5 / 5
Da Capo Best music
writing 2004 (various) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51747.Da_Capo_Best_Music_Writing_2005
Though the year is 2005, I had to wait till 2011
to get it for 200 bucks at a landmark sale. Some fantastic writing with the
feature on the last days of Ray Charles standing out.
Ronnie’s rating:4/5
Movies
Paradise Lost 3:
Purgatory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STq7kIDv6R4
In 1993, Damien
Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin were convicted
of first degree murder of three 8 year old boys. Over a span of three
documentaries, Paradise Lost: The
Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, by
acclaimed directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, their story was told.
Paradise Lost 3 is the one with the happy ending where after 18 years of being
wrongly imprisoned, the 3 boys accept an Alford plea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea in
order to seek their release. Fascinating, touching, enraging.
Ronnie’s rating:4/5
Crazy, stupid, love
(English)
Why do people make such movies? Couple’s marriage
is falling apart. Wife is banging co-worker. Husband retaliates by banging half
the womenfolk in town. Boy is love with babysitter. Babysitter is in love with
boy’s father. Why do people watch such movies? Why? Why?
Ronnie’s rating: 1.5/ 5
Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu
Yeppadi (tamil) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-iooq6NvWY
Nice, feel good movie about the roller coaster
ride that falling in love takes you on. Amala Paul and Siddharth add a sense of
freshness and with no overt song and dance sequences, it’s worth your
while.
Ronnie’s rating: 4/5
Oru Kal, Oru Kannadi
(tamil)
Maybe my tastes are different. Not my kinda movie
but the reviews say it was a hit. Stopped half way. Watch at your own peril.
Ronnie’s rating: 0.5/5
Depicts how far people that have money and power
can go. And how far beneficiaries of that power and money can go. Fantastic.
Please watch.
Ronnie’s rating : 4.5/5
Beru (the root)
(kannada)
Lovely off beat cinema that traces the travails of
a taluk level officer and the corruption that is entrenched in our society.
Ronnie’s rating: 5/5
Plays
Once on that street
A nice play on the tough choices we are confronted
with and society’s reaction to dilemmas.
Ronnie’s rating: 3.5/5
Silence
Funny in parts. Tells the story of Benare and the
carefully laid out plot to trap her.
Ronnie’s rating: 3.5/5
Gentleman
Laughed till my skull fell out of my head. As the
descriptor goes ‘A hilarious take on the men's obsession with fallacies and
phalluses’. Enough said. Go watch it the next time it hits town.
Ronnie’s rating : 4/5
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