Knight of The Night
Nay, I'm not a knight to go jousting for honour or fame/ But a golden knight who goes conferring on others more of the same

Just as man etched history on the sands of time, he carved my fortune too, moulded me in gold and britannium and held out this crusader's sword to me. And ever since, I have been the peerless knight harbingering honour and glory to the most lustrous artists of cinema. It is time the time-travellers sip some ale and breathe easy for a while, as I, the humble statuette of the Academy Awards that define excellence in cinematic arts, take you down my lifetime's most defining moments. Baptised as the First Lady of the American Screen, Betty Davis professes to have christened yours truly after her first husband, while Margaret Herrick who was once the Academy's Executive Secretary, also lays claim to giving me my moniker, inspired apparently by my uncanny resemblance to an Uncle Oscar of hers. But then I don't blame the ladies, for despite the confusion created, they are after all claims of love, which modesty dictates should never be disputed, especially by the beloved himself.

I could reel of the names of the finest movies of the last 78 years and their non pareilactors, writers, directors, producers and technicians but I shall leave that for the feature writers to earn their bread and butter from and acquaint you instead with some beefy gossip to savour. Cut to the star spangled carpet of a colour mistaken by several plebeians as red but in fact is a secret shade of cayenne specially concocted for the Academy. Treading down this matchless matting, in their exquisite evening wear, there isn't much else on the mind of these celebrities than mingling with the paparazzi and their fanatical fans, who hang onto the rails hoping to catch just one glimpse of these demigods.

However, when they need to skip to the loo to fix their hair or dab some rouge, it certainly isn't one of those public toilets but Louis J. Horvitz's - Oscars' telecast director since donkey's years - office to which all stars set out for, making it the unofficial dressing room of the Oscars! Jack Nicholson is one luminary particularly at home in this rest room, often found here before his stage appearance, with legs up on the table watching the show on the director's monitors. And then there are the artists who come with a handle-with-care tag, for they get ruffled for the pettiest of issues. For instance, Pretty Woman Julia Roberts, who adamantly refuses to use the staircase to make an entrance! And then are some who arrive simply too stoned to be of any good at all; like Whitney Houston who, at the 2000 Academy Awards, was so doped that while the music director played one song upon the piano, she went on to shakily croon a different piece altogether!

Well, mercifully this took place at the rehearsals and so the show went on without a performance from her. For the past seventy two years, a select team of PricewaterhouseCoopers has been privy to the result days before the show and on the Oscar night, accompanied by police officers, they make their way to the Kodak theatre to personally hand the envelopes to presenters about to step on stage. And then the acceptance speeches, the lesser spoken about which, the better. I am the Knight of the evening, to which the world yearns to be invited; driving artists here and yon to create magic unrivalled in the world. I too am but a mirror of the conflict that rages unabated from the beginning of time between the goodness in the heart of man and the devil in his head. I stand for exceptional performances, technical excellence, inspiring writing, outstanding direction and prodigious production. There is no other award like me because I am a symbol of all that is great in the greatest medium of 21st century.

The 'X'tatic epoch!

To remain unencumbered by distressing denouements and disputes has not been the divine will for most innovations of mankind. But a few continue to be divinely delightful and delectable to the point of being heartening high-points in the daily grind of life. Like. chocolates! I was nearly drooling in anticipation of a rich rendezvous on that blessed day of 1519. Ambling in the dimly lit alleys of Aztec Emperor Montezuma's castle, my epicurean hormones were quicker to sense an intense ambrosial and blissful aroma than my ears paying heed to the commotion arising from afar. And when I finally sniffed my way to the source, I beheld a heavily built Emperor clad in a robe - donning a feather-woven circlet on his head typical to the Native Americans - raise a toast in a golden goblet, "Ma Xipatinemi con chocolatl" (farewell, may you be well with chocolate) in honour of the Spanish guest Hernando Cortes. So the love of my life had Mayan and Aztec roots, I realized. But when I greedily sipped the potion, I suddenly felt betrayed. like a lovelorn companion of an unfaithful consort, ignorant about my adored chocolates' 'bitter' ancient facet! Prepared by grinding the cacao beans, brewing the paste with water and chilli pepper, Chocolatl was a cold and bitter beverage; surprisingly, the Emperor's favourite, for its erotic virtues of an aphrodisiac!

While I was wondering how the Emperor's cherished beans reached the rest of the world, I overheard the conversation of the guest, Cortes with a fellow Spaniard, grinning conceitedly, alluding to the Emperor as a cannibal and plotting to plunder his wealth. Gotcha!! It was Cortez who brought the cacao beans to Spain and the chefs, thankfully, used their knack to replace the pungent pepper with the flavour some sugar. For more than a hundred years, chocolate was savoured in sips than in bites till the Britons started adding cocoa in the cakes and offered the delicacy in bars and then the Swiss added milk, delighting the world by creating an assorted array of this rarity aptly making it a divine delicacy. As I sinfully devour its morsels till the last speck on the wrapper, I look up to the sky and winked at Him; no wonder you manage to live like God, for all the rapturous temptations are meant for the earthlings!

All Play... and that's all work!
"The stuff that dreams are made of." it was only today that I could completely comprehend what the quote connotes

As I roamed around the mansion garden, I wondered if Harry Bogart (who immortalised the above dialogue in his film, The Maltese Falcon) ever visited this epitome of the dernier cri. Well, it seemed so!

It's a Sunday evening in the January of 1979; celebrations of the twenty fifth anniversary of Hugh Hefner's second baby - the Playboy - are underway. On one hand, I could see a bevy of bewitching beauties, reciprocating the ogles of the rubbernecks with bedroom eyes, and on the other, a man aged around the wrong side of forty, latent amidst the most voluptuous counterparts. And it took not a moment for me to cognise the Beau Brummell, who espoused an egalitarian stance on the most censored subjects ever since I know him.

Interestingly, the cover page of the 25th anniversary issue wasn't in similitude with its previous issues... ones, which the then dazzling damsels adorned with pictures of their au naturel chassis. Rather, it had Playboy's mascot - the bunny on the cover, denoting the frisky and humorous genitive manners. Hefner seemed too drunk with his glory to have realized that he had stepped onto the toes of many a traditionalist. He will soon, when he'll be slapped with bans by several countries, Indonesia to be the latest one. With this thought, and an eyeful of indulgence, I returned to my mundane world, sans Marilyn Monroe, Donna Michelle, Liv Lindeland.

Temptations!
A dip in the world of chocolate

To remain unencumbered by distressing denouements and disputes has not been the divine will for most innovations of mankind. But a few continue to be divinely delightful and delectable to the point of being heartening high-points in the daily grind of life. Like. chocolates! I was nearly drooling in anticipation of a rich rendezvous on that blessed day of 1519. Ambling in the dimly lit alleys of Aztec Emperor Montezuma's castle, my epicurean hormones were quicker to sense an intense ambrosial and blissful aroma than my ears paying heed to the commotion arising from afar. And when I finally sniffed my way to the source, I beheld a heavily built Emperor clad in a robe - donning a feather-woven circlet on his head typical to the Native Americans - raise a toast in a golden goblet, "Ma Xipatinemi con chocolatl" (farewell, may you be well with chocolate) in honour of the Spanish guest Hernando Cortés. So the love of my life had Mayan and Aztec roots, I realized. But when I greedily sipped the potion, I suddenly felt betrayed. like a lovelorn companion of an unfaithful consort, ignorant about my adored chocolates' 'bitter' ancient facet! Prepared by grinding the cacao beans, brewing the paste with water and chilli pepper, Chocolatl was a cold and bitter beverage; surprisingly, the Emperor's favourite, for its erotic virtues of an aphrodisiac!

While I was wondering how the Emperor's cherished beans reached the rest of the world, I overheard the conversation of the guest, Cortes with a fellow Spaniard, grinning conceitedly, alluding to the Emperor as a cannibal and plotting to plunder his wealth. Gotcha!! It was Cortez who brought the cacao beans to Spain and the chefs, thankfully, used their knack to replace the pungent pepper with the flavour some sugar. For more than a hundred years, chocolate was savoured in sips than in bites till the Britons started adding cocoa in the cakes and offered the delicacy in bars and then the Swiss added milk, delighting the world by creating an assorted array of this rarity aptly making it a divine delicacy. As I sinfully devour its morsels till the last speck on the wrapper, I look up to the sky and winked at Him; no wonder you manage to live like God, for all the rapturous temptations are meant for the earthlings!

The best of both worlds
'Enter the Dragon'... at your own peril!

On August 24, 1973, the atmosphere seems to be overwhelmed with augustness at the Graumann's Chinese Theatre at Los Angeles that enclosed more Americans than the Chinese diaspora. It is the premier show of the quintessential showman's last completed chef d'oeuvre... his swan song, of the four grand ones he was part of. And it was only when the roar of applause awakened me that I compelled myself to cease reminiscing of the "immortal" legend who, very ironically, did not survive to experience his own amaranthine ascendancy to the pinnacle of triumph. Watching 'Enter the Dragon' was one of the few instances of my life when my eyelids refused to bat, lest my eyes miss a glimpse of the pagan symbol 'Bruce Lee' who transcended all boundaries - geographical, cultural, racial and psychological - to become the graven image for all worshipping hearts.

"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you'll miss all that heavenly glory. you understand?"... I did, perfectly! For a moment, it seemed as if he were trying to hurl me back to where I belonged, but I found myself falling through the abyss, deep into his bygone days. The days when Asian actors weren't respected anymore.but then soon to be revered, after he kick-started a new genre of kung fu movies in the 70s in the West. And this one - Enter the Dragon - broke box-office records in less than two months in a land that was foreign, amidst the mise-enscenes of America, rather resistive to his 'kind', thus sparking off the fiery romance between Hollywood and Oriental cinema. With Jet Lee, Jackie Chan, Steven Segal and Chuck Norris, the trend only saw an upward path. Very recently, the Hollywood movie, The Memoirs of Geisha saw all its main roles played by Asian actors. They have surely come of age, broken the glass ceiling, emerged victorious and shown the beauty of their culture to the world. Master, you rightly said, "Use no way as way; use no limitation as limitation". and lo, you've done it - surpassing the limitations of death.

Lo, The King of Queen!
Witnessing the Champion in all his gorgeous glory

June 12, 1986: Jostling through the crowd at the Wembley Stadium, vying to get closest possible to the stage, the excitement in the air quickened my heartbeat. I held my breath in trepidation of beholding any moment the King of Queen, who stood for power, free love, rebellion... and whom the spectre of AIDS would soon begin exorcising away from us. To the opening chords of One Vision, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon and the imperious Freddie Mercury descended on stage and as my vision transfixed upon the master musician, the soul-stirring songwriter, the immortal Mercury, all else seemed to blur. Watching Queen create A Kind of Magic only they knew how to concoct, they rolled one hit aft er another - Who Wants to Live Forever, Seven Seas of Rhye, Another One Bites the Dust, I Want to Break Free, We Will Rock You. As Bohemian Rhapsody got half-way through, I struggled to blink back my tears as Freddie crooned away, "Mama - ooo... I don't want to die, I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all", it sent a shiver down my spine, for I knew that the very next year the severity of life would fling him into an uncertain fate battling with the latest of Venus' curses - AIDS.

In his 1986's composition for the movie Highlander, he bellowed out to the world proclaiming, "I am immortal. I have inside me blood of kings. I have no rival. No man can be my equal!" and the very next year Providence saddled him with the deadly disease known to the world for only about six years then and has since claimed 40 million lives, and was to wrench this originally-Indian-Parsi rocker, Farrokh Bulsara, away forever from us. This is a story where the dark, villainous shadow of AIDS made the darkness of death overcome the light of life. There were to be only two more of Freddie's concerts after this, his strife with life an agonizing awakening call for the populace to acknowledge the AIDS pandemic and November 24, 1991, was to be the fateful day.