— छह हज़ार एक सौ सात —
It's not like he's ever really not been like this, but I'm in a period of less patience than usual for Shobhit's behavior, which is always to serve his own ends, to the exclusion of any reasonable consideration for others. He loves to characterize his whole approach to life as only in the service of making sure I will be okay, which is preposterous on its face. The issue there is that when he's thinking about taking care of me, it's exclusive to financial security. In any other context he generally doesn't give a shit.
I'll be more fair to him. This isn't always the case. More often than not, for example, he goes out of his way to discuss things with me when major decisions need to be made. It's frustrating, though, when smaller things come up and he just decides he can bulldoze with unilateral decision-making for the both of us. A small example: on Tuesday, Shobhit asked me which pasta I wanted to make for Action Movie Night. I made the choice and set it on the counter. I did not literally state the choice to Shobhit, but that makes it pretty clear. When I got home from work on Wednesday, though, not only had he just decided to make a different one instead, he was nearly done making the pasta sauce as well. In his mind, he simply saved me the work. In my mind, I don't know why he bothered asking me the question to begin with if he just wasn't going to consider what I wanted at all. He does this a lot. And I tried to explain that it wasn't so much that a different pasta was made—it was fine; the pasta was actually very tasty—but rather the way he went about it. But, he was willfully obtuse in the face of my attempts to explain, to the point where he literally took the garbage out from under the sink and made to throw the pasta he had made away. "Do
not do that," I said. "We are not going to waste that food!" Jesus Christ. I live with a fucking toddler, I swear to god.
Another small example: we were leaving the Opening Night movie at the Tasveer Film Festival in Columbia City last night, and instead of just waiting for the crosswalk, Shobhit jaywalked right in front of oncoming traffic only a few feet away from the crosswalk. Like an idiot, I just followed behind him; I really should have simply waited for the light. But when he got into the turn lane on the opposite side of the road, of course a car nearly hit him, because he had popped out from in front of the stopped car to their left in the adjacent lane. "Why do you have to do that?" I asked. His response? "I didn't want to have to wait two minutes." We got across the street safely, so in his mind, the end justifies the means. And it only empowers him to keep doing this kind of shit—until he gets us both either seriously injured or killed.
A bigger example: he got us into the Opening Night movie last night without my having a ticket. Now, I believe the Festival Pass he got as a member of the Board would have gotten him in regardless, but had I bought a ticket, it would have been $50—I already bought one for the Closing Night show, and a hundred bucks for two movies is honestly a little bonkers. Still, he told me to take the train down there after work and we'll work it out. He spent a lot of time kind of just hovering around other Board members, or the Director of Marketing, sort of trying to find ways to negotiate so we can get me in even though it was technically sold out. And these are fairly chaotic events, especially for Board and staff members. From what I could see, Shobhit was just adding stress to the experience for these people, and this was arguably very unfair to them.
And the more Shobhit leans into this kind of behavior simply because of how often it does work out for him, I fear he's going going to find himself making enemies rather than friends. I actually do kind of worry about that. Shobhit acts like it doesn't matter, but with certain people, it very much does matter.
Now, there is a sort of gray area here that I should acknowledge. It's not like I refused to go in. At the last minute one of the other Board members let us in, and we managed to snag a couple of the very last empty seats. I was happy to get in to see the movie. It worked out for me, and that's another one of the thorny things about this, and my complaints about it: I regularly reap the benefits of Shobhit's objectively bad behavior. So do I have the right to complain about it? I'm probably more justified in worrying about it, and the possible consequences for Shobhit.
It is perhaps relevant to note that all the work Shobhit is doing as their Board Treasurer is on a volunteer basis. He certainly deserves that festival pass when he's not otherwise getting compensated. I don't think anyone could reasonably say they are obligated to extend what comps they give him to his spouse, but I did freely accept it last night. I also think it could be argued that we have somewhat made up for it already, not just by actually buying my $50 ticket to the Closing Night Gala, but spending a combined $378.26 for our two tickets to the fundraiser gala at the Convention Center that is happening on his birthday. (He's definitely delighting in telling people I bought those tickets for his birthday.) I've already spent $428.26 total on the festival organization this year, so I'm not sure I need to feel bad about slipping in for one screening I did not actually pay for.
The more pertinent thing, really, is the position it was putting other people in, when as a matter of policy I technically should have paid. There was a gala dinner as part of the event last night that Shobhit had hoped to get us into as well, even though it was supposed to be reservation-only, and we had none. In the end I fairly easily got out of that one because the dinner was not untila after the movie, which itself did not end until well after 10:00. Fuck that, I'm going home. I did tell Shobhit I was totally fine with him just going without me, but he didn't want to do that and so we took the train home together from Columbia City Station.
The Tasveer Film Center is only about half a block from the Columbia City PCC, so we stopped there on our way to the Light Rail station—crossing Rainier Avenue to get there was the aforementioned jaywalking incident. I had already gone in there earlier to get a half pint of smoked mozzarella pasta salad, because even when I thought I might be going to that dinner I knew I would be way too hungry before it actually happened. When we scratched that, Shobhit went into the PCC to buy a couple of sandwiches. He wound up saving one, and the one he ate while we walked to the station he shared with me.
And sure, that was a sweet thing to do. Shobhit is very prone to do sweet things as well. When it suits his interests. Okay, he just generally loves to share food. This is one area in which I am actually way more selfish than he is, because I've never particularly liked sharing food. I do it with Shobhit because I know he likes it, but if he didn't care than I would always just eat all of my own food. This is a matter of how we both grew up. Communal eating is a big thing with South Asians, and a "what's mine is mine" attitude is very American. Even when we ordered pizza, growing up with Mom and Christopher, we knew how many slices there were and we divided the number by three, every time. I'm not saying that's the right or best way to do it, only that it was my conditioned approach.
Sometimes it's difficult to parse when Shobhit's behavior is his own cultural conditioning and when he's just being a jerk. To be clear though, threatening to throw away perfectly good pasta, or walking right in front of oncoming traffic, is just being a jerk.
— छह हज़ार एक सौ सात —
— छह हज़ार एक सौ सात —
As for the movie itself, it was called
Lali, and ironically after all that waiting around and hoping to get in, I actually
didn't really respond to it. My giving it a grade even as good as a solid B was mostly an acknowledgment of how much of my inability to connect with it was largely due to cultural ignorance. It had a final act that truly baffled me.
Shobhit's reaction was wildly different. He nearly always has a "meh" reaction to movies I adore, and though he numbs himself with mediocre and subpar movies at home for hours on end, it's extraordinarily rare for him to respond to a movie with any genuine enthusiasm. This movie? As soon as it ended he said, "That movie was crazy good!" He literally said that no fewer than three times. He
really loved it. He even started speculating about its Oscar chances, which, trust me: it has none. Shobhit didn't even know that each country chooses their movie to be submitted for consideration in the Best International Feature race, and they only get to choose one each year. I looked it up, and Pakistan has already chosen; it is not this movie they are submitting. (What they submitted was a documentary I have not seen, called
Hanging by a Wire, about a cable car emergency that left eight passengers stranded in the air after a cable snapped. Honestly this sounds like a fascinating watch; I'd like to see it.)
There was a Q&A with the director and co-writer of
Lali after the movie, which I wanted to stay for mostly to see if it would provide some context for what baffled me about the movie. In some respects, it did. That said, this guy really liked to talk, and gave very long answers to every question—to the point that when they finally turned to audience questions, there was only time for two—but he was also very much speaking to a South Asian crowd. They understood a lot about even his answers, with reference to Pakistani and Muslim culture and folklore, that the audience on average clearly understood. Sometimes they laughed, and I could not always understand why, as had been the case during a lot of laughs during the movie.
Anyway, Tasveer really has a thing for making these midweek events that go on super late into the evening. It would have made way more sense for a dinner
before the movie, and based on my
photos from last year (and confirmed by
my blog post), they did provide chai and samosas before the Opening Night Gala screening last year. I don't recall there being a sit-down dinner afterward, but maybe there was? I also cannot remember at all how Shobhit handled the ticketing for the event last year; he may have just bought them—he was not on the Board then, nor did we go to the Closing Night Gala last year, as we will this year. Either way, the feature ended after 10:00 both last year and this year, though last year we skipped it but stayed for three short films screened beforehand, which did not happen this year.
It was a bit after 11:00 before we even got home, and so I had no time, either to edit and upload the few photos I took, or to write my movie review. I did that at the office this morning. Don't tell anyone!
I'm seeing yet another movie tonight, and tomorrow, and on Sunday. Tonight and tomorrow are wide release movies I'm seeing at Pacific Place; Sunday is back to Tasveer for the Closing Night Gala. I'm in a stretch of four days in a row in which I'm going to a movie. I actually have four more on the calendar next week but will remove
Whalefall after seeing the reviews this morning; I know it has a stupid approach to science, and it looked like a uselessly stressful viewing experience anyway. Two others are movies I will just need to move as I wait for a confirmed local release date, so the only one confirmed is
Sense and Sensibility.
— छह हज़ार एक सौ सात —
[posted 12:34pm]
