INDIRA LAISRAM

I watched The Great Gatsby on 3D but did not enjoy the experience as much I enjoyed The Hobbit. The movie works as an entertainment experience but there were times when I was pulling off my glasses to ward off a headache-like sensation. I think director Baz Luhrmann has focussed on too much bling. If anything, I came out of the movie wanting to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel from which the film is pieced. The din of life in America in the 1920s is so fascinating - the stock markets, fast life, new money, easy virtues and hard partying! Luhrmann has captivated every aspect of that life beyond imagination. And in the mid of that mayhem runs the story of three people, of a love story and a friendship that leaves you thinking, thinking... There is Jay Gatsby played by my favourite Leonardo DiCaprio. Running away from home at a young age to escape poverty, he works his way to fulfilling his one and only ambition – acquiring wealth of mammoth proportions. How he gets there is lea

I thought I was having a bit of a problem deciphering women but I am actually having a problem trying to understand why I say “sorry” so much in Australia. Someone walks past me with a pram, I say sorry, someone bumps into me at a toilet I say sorry, someone sits next to me on a train accidentally touches my bag and I say sorry. Shit I am apologising way too much! Living in this wonderful country of kangaroos, footy, seas and trees, I am also becoming an emotional wreck I think. Among friends, families, neighbours, strangers on the roads, parks, trains and the mall, sorry seems to be the easiest word that comes straight from my mouth. Life in a world of extreme civility is new to me but I have embraced it with gusto. Look at the way I am sorry-ing about. I’ve often thought about this: the fabric of society that evaporates with ‘thank you, sorry, good day’ seems like a very fragile web. It is nice to be met with polite customer service at every place and one becomes so used to

I deplore ‘some’ Indian men (at times I think they are more than some). The types who have a thick accent, who can’t stop looking at women like stupid asses, love their scotch and play cricket. They are also a bit different from the ones who stand on the roads of Delhi fiddling their fronts waiting to hop on to the next crowded DTC or a 620 bus playing raunchy Bollywood numbers and where they can have the closest brush with any woman – age no bar - and get a hard on. The types I am talking about manage to speak English, get degrees and decent jobs that enable them to talk louder than necessary on the phone anywhere in the hope of getting heard that they have been there, done that.. you know, been to Las Vegas, Canada. And of course they settle abroad for better future of their children. In the company of their own ilk, their big fat bragging mouth will be talking figures and how much they earn.  I regret to say I have met few too many of this type. A few days back, I was coming b