Persepolis and me
I just could not avoid it after watching Persepolis the movie a few weeks back.I felt a sense of Deja Vu.(I shall come back to the reason what triggered it).For now,let me rant about the movie Persepolis.
(SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!) A semi-biographical tale of Marjane Satrapi(Director 1).The movie spans over two decades..probably incorporating all the incidents and events that changed the face of Iranian socio-economic culture and politics.From the Shah of Iran to the theocratic regime.The tale beautifully concocts the life of young Marjane with the volatile political scenario of Iran.Her life is not spared from the volatility and vicissitude either.
What amazed me is the animation.Beautiful animation.I do not know what form of animation it is..but it was mesmerizing.Something not viewed quite often.(the closest I could compare the animation was with the Scandinavian style if there is any).The flash back in monochrome was unbeatable(I just adore anything black and white).Florid art forms and aesthetic silhouettes were mostly the order of animation.I wondered why Marjane had similar attire through out her formative years and till present.The insync detailing of the tale was spellbinding.
What was the reason behind the peculiar look of “The Soldiers of Revolution”? The depiction of the parallel Persian life which included alcohol,underground parties and usage of heavy cosmetics by the women was true to life.The fact that more repressed the society,the greater is the resistance laced with temptation for freedom,stands true in this case.Marjane’s grand mother was the highest embodiment or epitome of the once pro-western Iran under the erstwhile regime of the Shah of Iran.
Easily the best part of the movie was the interaction between Marjane(almost ended up tying Marijuana in the typo) and the music bootleggers.Shouting out loud most of my favourite bands..and then she ends up buying the best/heaviest band “i(R)on maiden”..simply superb and later the headbanging which follows.(Deja Vu time again there)
Let me come back to the triggering event.Cut to Circa 2002..I was in my late teens breaching 20s.In that period,Yahoo! (not an ailing internet star at that time) was an integral part of my life.In those days I was a wannabe rock music lover (may be still I am) and was completely hooked on to Yahoo!’s offering Yahoo! Messenger.Frequenting heavy metal chatrooms with my namesake friend was the order of the day.Talking about heavy metal bands,likes and dislikes.So much was the craze that I seriously started judging people by their musical tastes..to be specific which bands they preffered.I used to have an excel sheet which probably had all the obscure bands on it cutting across the globe.More the obscurity the better it was.Sometimes my chats would end up as battle for obscurity rather than battle of favourites.The worse position I would find myself in chatroom was when somebody with superior music knowledge bumped into me.In these situations I preferred staying mum..and absorbing the maximum knowledge till the learning curve reduced to a horizontal line.This information would then used by me against the lesser “heavy metal” mortals inorder to decimate their very virtual existence.This was my modus operandi.
Yahoo! Messenger is passe now..atleast for me.There still are very few friends I am still in touch with.One of them was a girl from Tehran.When my “namesake” friend and I met her online in a chatroom, we were quite surprised to know the level to which rock/heavy metal music had reached or was in Iran.Persian Iranian girl listening to the most brutal heavy metal was an anomaly or may be it was my sheer ignorance.My image of Iran is not the same which I harboured years ago.The experiences she shared about Iran was very similar to the story in Persepolis.On watching Persepolis I could relate to lot of things which I had heard from her years back.It was Deja Vu time while watching Persepolis.My namesake friend and me had an opportunity to meet her when she came down to India with her family.Apparently,women are not allowed to leave Iran without their husbands or parents.Meeting her was a great experience for us as it gave us a sense of fulfillment.It was more than just music..it was exchange of views political..social..personal for more than 5 years.My views of Iran is no more restricted to Rafsanjani,the Ayyahtollah,Shah of Iran or Ahmedinijad.Even after all this,I still cannot believe they have a “HEAVY METAL SCENE” out there!!:)..I think I need to watch Sam Dunn’s latest docu-Global Metal.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
First off, who is Rabbani?
And second, it is absolutely not true that Iranian women are not allowed to travel alone. They can definitely travel alone. Lots of my friends travelled alone to various neighbouring countries like Turkey, Cyprus and UAE for US visa interviews and then travelled alone to come to the US.
Hey..thanks for pointing that out…secondly as far as the travel aspect of Iranian women is considered, i ma just accounting an example told me..i cannot say whether it is factual or not..consider the above article as fiction.:)