Fearless filmmaking isn’t an Indian trait. Correction, not a Bollywood trait at least. So, when Vishal Bharadwaj thinks out of the box and makes Kaminey, we sit up and say, “What the f***! This is great stuff.” In what seems like a herd-of-sheep syndrome, more and more stars are being given away to the film nationwide. Four – meaning excellent – is the average score. Better-than-excellent scores are also being handed out with magnanimity. What the f***!
Look, what I am ‘not’ trying to say is Kaminey is the typical balls-is-beautiful sort of Mallika Sherawat film. Nor am I suggesting that Vishal, in his quest for experimentation, has come up with a ‘chutnified’ Kabhi Alvida…’s parallel in a different genre. For, Vishal can do better than that at his worst. And, he does so…once more. Imagination and sincerity are two of the keywords driving Kaminey’s presentation: some loosely structured scenes that pop up from time to time, smart cinematography, decent enough music, fine plotting and performances being the hallmark of this not-too-long essay on the big screen.
Kaminey exposes the average Indian viewer to a certain kind of avant garde filmmaking he/she has never seen before. But, the problem: if you have seen a fair number of films which have tried to conduct similar experiments worldwide, you are left thinking: ‘The film is more than decent. But great? Ah, not very sure.’ I mean, I am supposed to love the overwhelmingly common perspective that this film is an answer to Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Honestly, I hate it! No matter what, in other words, Kaminey isn’t a patch on Lock, Stock….Vishal is very good, no doubt, but Guy Ritchie is something else. Period.
In Kaminey, the biggest strength is the plot. There are smart twists and turns, and the narrative moves ahead restlessly. Vishal has been known to be a big fan of Quentin Tarantino. So, there you are. Critics are telling us his latest reminds us of Tarantino as well. Sorry to say this, but really, when does Kaminey acquire the sort of power that Tarantino achieves almost effortlessly in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs? Vishal makes very good music, but does he come anywhere near the way Tarantino uses music in Reservoir Dogs in particular? What about those innumerable gems in Kill Bill which only a man who has mastered his style can come up with? Nobody is asking that. Understandable. In times of hype, such things seldom matter.
The stylistic format that Vishal has opted for makes for good viewing. But, it is unfair to ignore that fact that many filmmakers have journeyed a lot more – and given much better – results while exploring the same cinematic zone. You know what? There is this guy named Johnnie To from Hong Kong. His name isn’t cropping up, the obvious reason being To isn’t Tarantino in terms of sheer popularity and reach. Having said that, he makes fine movies. And, it will be great if some admirers of Kaminey sit back and watch what To has been able to achieve in some films in which he has To-ed a similar line. Indeed, there are quite a few of them out there who have been there, done that. So, while it is important that we applaud Vishal’s sincerity, there is no reason for us to assert that Kaminey is Tarantino at its best. Or, Marilyn Monroe at her most divine. Both make no sense.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
CHEAP AND BEST!
Classics, be it musical, literary or cinematic, turn me into a marionette. Whenever I saunter into a shop, invisible strings get unleashed within seconds. They wrap themselves around my feet, and manipulate their movement. I find myself gravitating towards works that not only epitomise creative immortality, but also make me hopeful about the future of art in general. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. I do the puppet walk. By the time I do my buying and leave the store, I ensure that my debit card is a lot poorer. Reactions to my purchases vary. Some find me affluent which I am not. Some others find me extravagant which could well be the case.
Yet, one thing saddens me always. When I pick up a contemporary novel and look at the price tag, I realise that I will have to shell out Rs 500. How good is the writer? In most cases, if that fellow's book had been released yesterday, it would have been forgotten by today. But when it is Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, editions meant for the common reader can be all yours for as little as Rs 100. Till today, I have not been able to figure out why the works of all-time great writers should be treated with so much indignity.
As it is, there is this detestable cross-section of buyers that picks up books to embellish shelves at home. Dickens, Austen, Thackeray, Hardy, Wordsworth, Maupassant, Wilde: I have seen one disgusting shelf in New Delhi which held around 1000 classics, most of them unread that the complacent owner acknowledged blissfully. One reason why such a collection was built was since the price of the books was obscenely cheap. So, by marketing masterpieces at such rates, aren't the store owners actually guilty of creating decorative collections at a time when reading habit is clearly on the decline? More importantly, if someone wants a Dickens, let him/her pay for a Dickens. Pray, why should David Copperfield come for a hundred rupees less than some nonsensical Harold Robbins novel?
Not that cheap pricing does not help. During my days as a child in Patna, there was no library that stocked Russian literature. About 25 years ago, my budget for books sanctioned by my family used to be a princely 200 bucks. But I did manage to finish that off by the middle of the month. Once that happened, I persuaded my grandmother to take me to a store that was a repository of Russian books. "They are so cheap," I simpered. With a benign grin, she surrendered to my request and took me there. It was because of my journeys there that I discovered Fyodor Dostoyevsky (two hardbound volumes of The Idiot cost me eight rupees), Alexander Pushkin (a five-rupee Pushkin volume acquainted me with another Don Juan) and Maxim Gorky (ten hardbound volumes of his entire works cost me Rs 110).
But, why those books were sold for so cheap was because of a deliberate policy that they needed to reach out to everybody. And, in that store, there was no Jack Higgins whose thin paperback was priced at 20 bucks. The sad thing today, and it really hurts, is that a VCD of Salaam Namaste comes for Rs 149. Then, one moves on and picks up six Laurel and Hardy films from the same store for Rs 300. Does one need to add that the makers also give a free VCD case along with the Laurel and Hardy films? Not only that, I also happen to be the proud owner of 20 odd Chaplin films that must have cost me around Rs 1000. For five Alfred Hitchcock flicks, I have shelled out Rs 400.
Classics being classics will always have fewer buyers. That's a known fact of life. If that were not the case, everyone would have views on why Raag Bhimpalasi need not be less interesting than Raag Poorvi , or why Beethoven's best magic isn't as captivating as Mozart's worst. Despite cheap tags, alluring offers and so on, the fact remains that Mallika Sherawat's assets in forgettable films will continue to generate more discussions everywhere. So, if the makers think that selling classics for cheap can create more interest in them, they are awfully wrong.
How I wish could walk into any store that gave classics the honour they deserve. How I hope that A Tale of Two Cities will be sold for Rs 500, about 300 more than a Scott Turow book. That will not happen soon for sure. If at all that will ever happen seems slightly less unlikely.
Yet, one thing saddens me always. When I pick up a contemporary novel and look at the price tag, I realise that I will have to shell out Rs 500. How good is the writer? In most cases, if that fellow's book had been released yesterday, it would have been forgotten by today. But when it is Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, editions meant for the common reader can be all yours for as little as Rs 100. Till today, I have not been able to figure out why the works of all-time great writers should be treated with so much indignity.
As it is, there is this detestable cross-section of buyers that picks up books to embellish shelves at home. Dickens, Austen, Thackeray, Hardy, Wordsworth, Maupassant, Wilde: I have seen one disgusting shelf in New Delhi which held around 1000 classics, most of them unread that the complacent owner acknowledged blissfully. One reason why such a collection was built was since the price of the books was obscenely cheap. So, by marketing masterpieces at such rates, aren't the store owners actually guilty of creating decorative collections at a time when reading habit is clearly on the decline? More importantly, if someone wants a Dickens, let him/her pay for a Dickens. Pray, why should David Copperfield come for a hundred rupees less than some nonsensical Harold Robbins novel?
Not that cheap pricing does not help. During my days as a child in Patna, there was no library that stocked Russian literature. About 25 years ago, my budget for books sanctioned by my family used to be a princely 200 bucks. But I did manage to finish that off by the middle of the month. Once that happened, I persuaded my grandmother to take me to a store that was a repository of Russian books. "They are so cheap," I simpered. With a benign grin, she surrendered to my request and took me there. It was because of my journeys there that I discovered Fyodor Dostoyevsky (two hardbound volumes of The Idiot cost me eight rupees), Alexander Pushkin (a five-rupee Pushkin volume acquainted me with another Don Juan) and Maxim Gorky (ten hardbound volumes of his entire works cost me Rs 110).
But, why those books were sold for so cheap was because of a deliberate policy that they needed to reach out to everybody. And, in that store, there was no Jack Higgins whose thin paperback was priced at 20 bucks. The sad thing today, and it really hurts, is that a VCD of Salaam Namaste comes for Rs 149. Then, one moves on and picks up six Laurel and Hardy films from the same store for Rs 300. Does one need to add that the makers also give a free VCD case along with the Laurel and Hardy films? Not only that, I also happen to be the proud owner of 20 odd Chaplin films that must have cost me around Rs 1000. For five Alfred Hitchcock flicks, I have shelled out Rs 400.
Classics being classics will always have fewer buyers. That's a known fact of life. If that were not the case, everyone would have views on why Raag Bhimpalasi need not be less interesting than Raag Poorvi , or why Beethoven's best magic isn't as captivating as Mozart's worst. Despite cheap tags, alluring offers and so on, the fact remains that Mallika Sherawat's assets in forgettable films will continue to generate more discussions everywhere. So, if the makers think that selling classics for cheap can create more interest in them, they are awfully wrong.
How I wish could walk into any store that gave classics the honour they deserve. How I hope that A Tale of Two Cities will be sold for Rs 500, about 300 more than a Scott Turow book. That will not happen soon for sure. If at all that will ever happen seems slightly less unlikely.
MAN IN A WOMAN'S WORLD
There was, indeed, a time when I wasn't aware of my own existence. Unlike someone else. My mother. When I had grown into a vague presence inside her body, she had experienced a happy unease that, slowly, surely, turned into the nine-pound baby that I was. Years have flown. Have added another nine pounds to become a man of the 'fragile: handle with care' variety. Whenever the first lady in my life looks at me even today, I can feel a sense of triumph in her eyes. Those eyes, large ones, speak an eloquent language of affection-laden silence. They tell me what a woman can do, but no man can. Mom gave birth to me, like countless other ladies since the beginning of time. Can any of us guys, the male guys I mean, replicate that miracle ever? If not, how the hell did that phrase 'man's world' come into being?
As I get stuck in a mental quagmire, seeking the unanswerable, several images of the other ladies in my life come to mind. Like all men, including those cursed by the inability to be grateful, I adore my mother. Then, there is grandma, the great dictator who has exercised unbelievable power over everyone else in a large family. If mom is simply lovable, grandma is incomparably scary.
When the old lady had played Emma Wodehouse and ventured towards matchmaking, she had ended up voting for the wrong guy who ruined a woman's life. When she used to serve tea with salt to my grandpa years ago, he would look at her with a weak smile and drink half of it before grandma realised her fault while sipping hers. When a relative of mine had wanted to marry a girl he loved, grandma had vetoed so emphatically that the fellow didn't utter her name in front of her ever after.
So what if grandma had made a devastating blunder while endeavouring to choose the right guy for someone? That women seldom erred but men always did was her life's operational mantra. It still is, and one must add that her analysis isn't particularly wrong either. Whenever we try to communicate our thoughts about life, we are dependent on our experiences with fellow human beings, if not guided by a hypocritical motivation to sound like someone else. The latter, a conscience killer, has spawned a few moments when I have hated myself. But, all I can say is that I have tried hard to be honest, which is not saying much, yet which is why 'man's world' is a silly chauvinistic thought I can never ever comprehend.
After all, what about the divine gift of motherhood that no man 'should' have been born with? What about my grandma, whose acceptable version leads to each and every woman, who guides the course of men's lives ever so subtly? What about many lady colleagues I have come across, whose ability to strike a balance between personal and professional lives is as natural as it is amazing? What about my former girlfriend of many years ago, who had dumped me because of my chaotic lifestyle? What about my could-have-been girlfriend of a few years later, who remained just that and no more for the same reason? What about all those ladies who have taught me so much without being ostentatiously didactic, a crippling foible which many men simply love to show off, making an ass of themselves? Inhabiting a woman's world, the biggest failure of most guys is that they don't know how powerless they actually are. That's funny but not surprising, considering most men still don't know the difference between having sex and making love.
(This column had appeared in Femina)
As I get stuck in a mental quagmire, seeking the unanswerable, several images of the other ladies in my life come to mind. Like all men, including those cursed by the inability to be grateful, I adore my mother. Then, there is grandma, the great dictator who has exercised unbelievable power over everyone else in a large family. If mom is simply lovable, grandma is incomparably scary.
When the old lady had played Emma Wodehouse and ventured towards matchmaking, she had ended up voting for the wrong guy who ruined a woman's life. When she used to serve tea with salt to my grandpa years ago, he would look at her with a weak smile and drink half of it before grandma realised her fault while sipping hers. When a relative of mine had wanted to marry a girl he loved, grandma had vetoed so emphatically that the fellow didn't utter her name in front of her ever after.
So what if grandma had made a devastating blunder while endeavouring to choose the right guy for someone? That women seldom erred but men always did was her life's operational mantra. It still is, and one must add that her analysis isn't particularly wrong either. Whenever we try to communicate our thoughts about life, we are dependent on our experiences with fellow human beings, if not guided by a hypocritical motivation to sound like someone else. The latter, a conscience killer, has spawned a few moments when I have hated myself. But, all I can say is that I have tried hard to be honest, which is not saying much, yet which is why 'man's world' is a silly chauvinistic thought I can never ever comprehend.
After all, what about the divine gift of motherhood that no man 'should' have been born with? What about my grandma, whose acceptable version leads to each and every woman, who guides the course of men's lives ever so subtly? What about many lady colleagues I have come across, whose ability to strike a balance between personal and professional lives is as natural as it is amazing? What about my former girlfriend of many years ago, who had dumped me because of my chaotic lifestyle? What about my could-have-been girlfriend of a few years later, who remained just that and no more for the same reason? What about all those ladies who have taught me so much without being ostentatiously didactic, a crippling foible which many men simply love to show off, making an ass of themselves? Inhabiting a woman's world, the biggest failure of most guys is that they don't know how powerless they actually are. That's funny but not surprising, considering most men still don't know the difference between having sex and making love.
(This column had appeared in Femina)
Monday, March 09, 2009
A BAD SATIRE (excavated from archives)
How old would he be? Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. Could be 45, 48, 51…forget it. Since he is a journo who will make his debut behind the camera soon, how does his age matter? He doesn’t need to look glamorous.
And, what about the girl in front of him? Eighteen, 19,20…she, a lass with a pretty face and a fine figure, should figure somewhere in that bracket I suppose. The girl is a wannabe starlet, a modern-day Miss Quested from Jhumritilaiya lusting after five seconds of fame in Bollywood.
When she walks into the cabin of this man, his neck is buried in a huge file of what seems like newspaper clippings. “Yes, sit,” he looks at her through his rimless spectacles for less than a quarter of a second and goes back to reading his clippings again. Doesn’t seem to be interested in the female presence it seems. Correction. If at all he is interested, it doesn’t show.
“Sir,” the girl mumbles after a patient ten-minute pause, “I had called you up last week. I need a break, of any kind, in the Hindi film industry but I don’t have contacts. No godfather, you see. So I thought that perhaps you could help me…”
“Hmm, I couldn’t have met you last week because I was travelling abroad on a junket funded by Josh Distilleries, the makers of Beer Zara," the scribe looks at the girl and continues, “See, we need to go out with film units when the movies are being made so that we can file special reports. Besides, the filmmakers also need to keep the journalists happy so that the media does not trash their movies.”
“But Sir, what is it that you mean by junk it?” the girl asks, her Tilaiyaisms clearly audible for once.
“Oh, not junk it but junket lady,” the man sets forth a smile demonstrating his nicotine-tinged teeth, “Junket means a trip that costs nothing to us, and helps media-savvy producers get kind reviews for the rubbish they make. Some of us, the senior scribes, constitute an important power centre you know.”
“So you mean Beer…is really bad? But it has got Big S, Big R, Big P and even Big B in a small role, so many big stars,” the girl stammers at the very thought that a bad film with so many huge actors is actually possible.
“The film is unadulterated gibberish if that is what you want to hear,” the journo neighs emphatically, “But we will ensure that it becomes a huge hit.” Then, the guy stops for a while and adds, "Journalism is all about ethics you know. So, if someone has spent lakhs on a junket, we need to make some sort of a contribution to make his film a success.”
“But Sir, you blasted Shudder and it became a huge hit,” the wannabe starlet’s eyes light up because she has a point.
“Shu...Shudder? True, we had murdered Shudder because not only was it a bad film but it was made on such a small budget that the producer could not organise a junket to Pondicherry of all places,” the journo nods his head in mock-disbelief, “But I guess Girlika’s fans don’t care for criticism just as she doesn’t care for clothes.”
“Sir, a question. A small question,” Miss Wannabe leaves her seat, saunters lazily, and sits on the table right next to the newspaper clippings the man had been reading. Then, she whispers into his ears, “Sir, you are going to make a film. You are going to be yet another journo who will make a film. Can I have a small role in your film? A leeteel role Sir?”
“You will have to, you will…”now, the journo-man is stammering, “you will have to give a screen test.”
“Here Sir?” The girl seems keen to turn into a Buffalo girl and do an item number then and there.
“No, no, not here. This is office, not office, this is office,” the journo has lost it, completely.
“Cut.” In walks Virus Locha, the VJ-turned-compere who has now done his first episode of investigative journalism. The journo’s face turns white as he sees the deadly Virus with the camera crew, while the girl gets up from the table to shake his limp hand, “Sir, this is a sting operation. You have been caught on camera in a confessional mode for which we must thank you.”
The short and plump scribe is trying to dodge the camera most desperately. He actually looks like a cookie that has crumbled on an office sofa. Now, the garrulous Virus takes over. “Journalism, we all know, is about ethics as our esteemed catch for tonight said a little while ago. Just in case you are wondering why we did a sting operation on Song TV, well, that is because we wanted to give a special twist to an episode on our month’s special guest, the rock star Sting.”
And, what about the girl in front of him? Eighteen, 19,20…she, a lass with a pretty face and a fine figure, should figure somewhere in that bracket I suppose. The girl is a wannabe starlet, a modern-day Miss Quested from Jhumritilaiya lusting after five seconds of fame in Bollywood.
When she walks into the cabin of this man, his neck is buried in a huge file of what seems like newspaper clippings. “Yes, sit,” he looks at her through his rimless spectacles for less than a quarter of a second and goes back to reading his clippings again. Doesn’t seem to be interested in the female presence it seems. Correction. If at all he is interested, it doesn’t show.
“Sir,” the girl mumbles after a patient ten-minute pause, “I had called you up last week. I need a break, of any kind, in the Hindi film industry but I don’t have contacts. No godfather, you see. So I thought that perhaps you could help me…”
“Hmm, I couldn’t have met you last week because I was travelling abroad on a junket funded by Josh Distilleries, the makers of Beer Zara," the scribe looks at the girl and continues, “See, we need to go out with film units when the movies are being made so that we can file special reports. Besides, the filmmakers also need to keep the journalists happy so that the media does not trash their movies.”
“But Sir, what is it that you mean by junk it?” the girl asks, her Tilaiyaisms clearly audible for once.
“Oh, not junk it but junket lady,” the man sets forth a smile demonstrating his nicotine-tinged teeth, “Junket means a trip that costs nothing to us, and helps media-savvy producers get kind reviews for the rubbish they make. Some of us, the senior scribes, constitute an important power centre you know.”
“So you mean Beer…is really bad? But it has got Big S, Big R, Big P and even Big B in a small role, so many big stars,” the girl stammers at the very thought that a bad film with so many huge actors is actually possible.
“The film is unadulterated gibberish if that is what you want to hear,” the journo neighs emphatically, “But we will ensure that it becomes a huge hit.” Then, the guy stops for a while and adds, "Journalism is all about ethics you know. So, if someone has spent lakhs on a junket, we need to make some sort of a contribution to make his film a success.”
“But Sir, you blasted Shudder and it became a huge hit,” the wannabe starlet’s eyes light up because she has a point.
“Shu...Shudder? True, we had murdered Shudder because not only was it a bad film but it was made on such a small budget that the producer could not organise a junket to Pondicherry of all places,” the journo nods his head in mock-disbelief, “But I guess Girlika’s fans don’t care for criticism just as she doesn’t care for clothes.”
“Sir, a question. A small question,” Miss Wannabe leaves her seat, saunters lazily, and sits on the table right next to the newspaper clippings the man had been reading. Then, she whispers into his ears, “Sir, you are going to make a film. You are going to be yet another journo who will make a film. Can I have a small role in your film? A leeteel role Sir?”
“You will have to, you will…”now, the journo-man is stammering, “you will have to give a screen test.”
“Here Sir?” The girl seems keen to turn into a Buffalo girl and do an item number then and there.
“No, no, not here. This is office, not office, this is office,” the journo has lost it, completely.
“Cut.” In walks Virus Locha, the VJ-turned-compere who has now done his first episode of investigative journalism. The journo’s face turns white as he sees the deadly Virus with the camera crew, while the girl gets up from the table to shake his limp hand, “Sir, this is a sting operation. You have been caught on camera in a confessional mode for which we must thank you.”
The short and plump scribe is trying to dodge the camera most desperately. He actually looks like a cookie that has crumbled on an office sofa. Now, the garrulous Virus takes over. “Journalism, we all know, is about ethics as our esteemed catch for tonight said a little while ago. Just in case you are wondering why we did a sting operation on Song TV, well, that is because we wanted to give a special twist to an episode on our month’s special guest, the rock star Sting.”
Saturday, February 28, 2009
LOST IN CHANDNI CHOWK
There is a boy who comes from America. An NRI, you know. There is a girl who lives in Chandni Chowk, Delhi. An IRI (Indian Residing in India), that is. There is a Kala Bandar – or, black monkey – who monkeys around, spawning destructive consequences. And oh, yes. There is an assortment of characters, each of them seeking to represent a part of life in Chandni Chowk. Delhi 6 either aspires to be a romance or a sociological portrait of life's simple charms – or both – in an area where people lead simple lives. But what we carry in our minds as the most dominant memory is Kala Bandar, whose existence isn't explained in the film's initial phase. By the time the story tells us what the Bandar is all about, we fail to comprehend why the film needed to be situated where it is. The reason: there is evil in all of us, whether or not we have lived or even been to Chandni Chowk.
Nobility of intentions is an essential quality of any form of creativity: or, for that matter, any constructive human activity. On that count, few would dare question the maker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. For, the film does show the social character of a place which has a new shade to offer in every nook and cranny of its crowded lanes and by-lanes. We come across complacent individuals who believe that what they can do, no one else can. So, there is Pawan Malhotra's character who is busy trying to repair an antiquated radio while being thoroughly convinced about his skills as an electrician. There is a corrupt cop (Vijay Raaz at his best) who not only accepts bribes but has a quasi-fascist streak in his personality. It can be argued that characters such as the cop's exist in every part of India. But somehow, it seems to fit in Mehra's scheme of things pretty well.
We have a pretty girl (Sonam Kapoor, who acts well but is underused) who wants to be the winner of Indian Idol instead of marrying just about any man in keeping with the norms of conventional arranged alliances. There is a patriarchal man (Om Puri), a shrewd lalaji (Prem Chopra), a dadi who wants to die in her family home (Waheeda Rehman), an elderly Begsaab (Rishi Kapoor) and even that omnipresent jalebi seller (Deepak Dobriyal). When rickshaws crawl through Chandni Chowk, this writer's mind revisited the visual feel of a place which he had experienced quite a few times till a decade ago.
So far, it sounds pretty good. Isn't it? Definitely yes, till we, for once, abandon the portrait with its paints and try to look at the soul of the film. What, after all, is Delhi 6 seeking to tell us? What we know for sure is that Abhishek Bachchan's character (the NRI) comes down to Chandni Chowk along with his dadi. Bachchan's character is close to that of Nagesh Kukunoor in the Hyderabad Blues. Although the former carries no memories of 'his India' unlike the latter, both the protagonists fall in love with the nation to which they actually belong. The Small B's character Roshan loses its way in the beginning. But, gradually, he begins to understand the nature of life in Chandni Chowk. Not only does he learn to accept the place, but he also gets attracted to Bittu (Sonam), a girl who wants to break the shackles of traditional ties and make an individualistic statement to the world beyond Chandni Chowk.
The problem – big problem – of the film is Kala Bandar. As Mehra uses Ramayana, the Ram Lila to be precise, as a symbolic representation all through the movie, the Kala Bandar is gradually explained as a metaphor for the evil in all of us. In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, who can forget that moment when Catherine explains her love for Heathcliff with that immortal line "I am Heathcliff"? One way of viewing that outburst is that there is a bit of Heathcliff – simply put, the negative traits in a human being – in everybody that can manifest itself in some way or the other in our lives. Mehra's symbol of evil is the black monkey, which is said to have blinking lights on its chest and looks like a gorilla of course! This is where the film loses its plot. The love story of Roshan and Bittu, which could have been shown most beautifully, gets buried by too much monkey business.
The ensemble cast perform wonderfully – most notably, Divya Dutta as an untouchable and Raaz – but their performances become secondary to the Bandar's metaphor which pops up time and again. Such is Mehra's preoccupation with telling a story on two parallel tracks that Rahman's exquisitely crafted music gets heard on the most inappropriate of occasions. The plot turns into one with confusion, confusion and more confusion, and what is left in the end is neither a well-developed romance nor a warm portrait of an endearing society. Sad, because even if the story did not seek to show a romance, it could have easily been a well-knit portrait of Chandni Chowk without any monkey at all.
Actually, Delhi 6 is a lot like the lanes of Chandni Chowk itself. There is too much overcrowding, because of which structural neatness gets lost in oblivion
Nobility of intentions is an essential quality of any form of creativity: or, for that matter, any constructive human activity. On that count, few would dare question the maker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. For, the film does show the social character of a place which has a new shade to offer in every nook and cranny of its crowded lanes and by-lanes. We come across complacent individuals who believe that what they can do, no one else can. So, there is Pawan Malhotra's character who is busy trying to repair an antiquated radio while being thoroughly convinced about his skills as an electrician. There is a corrupt cop (Vijay Raaz at his best) who not only accepts bribes but has a quasi-fascist streak in his personality. It can be argued that characters such as the cop's exist in every part of India. But somehow, it seems to fit in Mehra's scheme of things pretty well.
We have a pretty girl (Sonam Kapoor, who acts well but is underused) who wants to be the winner of Indian Idol instead of marrying just about any man in keeping with the norms of conventional arranged alliances. There is a patriarchal man (Om Puri), a shrewd lalaji (Prem Chopra), a dadi who wants to die in her family home (Waheeda Rehman), an elderly Begsaab (Rishi Kapoor) and even that omnipresent jalebi seller (Deepak Dobriyal). When rickshaws crawl through Chandni Chowk, this writer's mind revisited the visual feel of a place which he had experienced quite a few times till a decade ago.
So far, it sounds pretty good. Isn't it? Definitely yes, till we, for once, abandon the portrait with its paints and try to look at the soul of the film. What, after all, is Delhi 6 seeking to tell us? What we know for sure is that Abhishek Bachchan's character (the NRI) comes down to Chandni Chowk along with his dadi. Bachchan's character is close to that of Nagesh Kukunoor in the Hyderabad Blues. Although the former carries no memories of 'his India' unlike the latter, both the protagonists fall in love with the nation to which they actually belong. The Small B's character Roshan loses its way in the beginning. But, gradually, he begins to understand the nature of life in Chandni Chowk. Not only does he learn to accept the place, but he also gets attracted to Bittu (Sonam), a girl who wants to break the shackles of traditional ties and make an individualistic statement to the world beyond Chandni Chowk.
The problem – big problem – of the film is Kala Bandar. As Mehra uses Ramayana, the Ram Lila to be precise, as a symbolic representation all through the movie, the Kala Bandar is gradually explained as a metaphor for the evil in all of us. In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, who can forget that moment when Catherine explains her love for Heathcliff with that immortal line "I am Heathcliff"? One way of viewing that outburst is that there is a bit of Heathcliff – simply put, the negative traits in a human being – in everybody that can manifest itself in some way or the other in our lives. Mehra's symbol of evil is the black monkey, which is said to have blinking lights on its chest and looks like a gorilla of course! This is where the film loses its plot. The love story of Roshan and Bittu, which could have been shown most beautifully, gets buried by too much monkey business.
The ensemble cast perform wonderfully – most notably, Divya Dutta as an untouchable and Raaz – but their performances become secondary to the Bandar's metaphor which pops up time and again. Such is Mehra's preoccupation with telling a story on two parallel tracks that Rahman's exquisitely crafted music gets heard on the most inappropriate of occasions. The plot turns into one with confusion, confusion and more confusion, and what is left in the end is neither a well-developed romance nor a warm portrait of an endearing society. Sad, because even if the story did not seek to show a romance, it could have easily been a well-knit portrait of Chandni Chowk without any monkey at all.
Actually, Delhi 6 is a lot like the lanes of Chandni Chowk itself. There is too much overcrowding, because of which structural neatness gets lost in oblivion
Friday, January 23, 2009
POOR BOY, POOR MOVIE
In the not-yet-metro city of Pune, no film - English film - has 20 percent foreigners in a single show. But on the first day of one-of-the-many shows of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, the theatre seems to hold a special attraction for viewers from abroad. Most of them are carrying water bottles. Some have dressed up in ethnic wear which we, the Indians, opt for during festive occasions. Like most visitors to foreign lands, their deportment seems to suggest that they can think of Boyle’s slums as the ‘real Indeeah’ very easily. How one wishes one could tell them if that were to be true, every street in London has the Big Ben!
Since that would sound rude, one abstains. Cut to the reel thing inside the theatre where Boyle unfolds a supposedly grand film that has won four Golden Globes and ten Oscar nominations. The director is said to have made a viewer-friendly popular classic. What is great being seldom popular – and vice versa – one wants to see SM. From start to finish. Without stepping out of the hall during the interval. Getting a ticket on the first day seems like an achievement straight out of fantasyland. Such is the power of Mr B and his SM.
God is kind. Or, is He?
No. For, Boyle has made a film that has a weak body and no soul. Given his passion for indulging in all things filthy, let us say that SM is prose in loose motion. The narrative wobbles back and forth, pausing at several phases in the past to show the tragic life of an uneducated boy who finds himself on the hot seat of the game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. The youngster Jamal is a chaiwallah towards whom the game show host Prem (a superstar) shows visible contempt: much like the director’s attitude towards his portrayal of India in general.
If Boyle has an understanding of life in the Indian slums, one surely doesn’t see it. Why he chooses to stay away from the flip side of slums is beyond comprehension: more so, because a few shots of Mumbai’s upper class life would have explained Prem’s scorn and the young man’s life below the poverty line even better. How the Golden Globe-winning writer Simon Beaufoy discovered just one abuse in Hindi that Indians use in the film cannot be understood likewise. The scene showing the Indian superstar (Amitabh Bachchan – a double of course) who signs his photograph for the young boy bathed in shit is the substance of nauseating, vomit-inducing imagination.
As in Vikas Swarup’s utterly simplistic novel on which the film is based, the beginning of the film conveys its climax. Seated on a money-making pedestal, the fortunes of a poor little poor boy have to change overnight. In short, the underdog has to win. Tragedies promise to turn into memories eclipsed by the wealth that transforms his life all of a sudden. So what if he is uneducated? He will find answers to the questions that offer more and more money as he goes along. He will irritate Prem because the latter’s mind is trapped in the vanity of class-consciousness. He will find his childhood love who has gone on to become the mistress of a don.
A tale of pain with a fairytale ending: that is what we expect and get, with the only surprise being the way in which Boyle treats the story. It seems as if he is directing the film for the Western audiences in a manner that is far too premeditated and shallow. If not, he is clearly influenced by the Bollywood of the 70s, which is when some of the worst Hindi films got made. In 2008, Boyle’s film joined the list of the era, making the average Indian wonder why the maker did not check the time for so long.
Lost in a lost world. That is the essence of SM. Unable to ruffle us emotionally, it shows, with appalling indifference, that sad moment in which the young boy’s mother loses her life during communal riots. Although the boy’s life takes a turn for the worse after this episode, the mother's death is shown with such surgical precision that we forget it before five minutes go by. Once the boy wins the entire prize money, we hardly get a glimpse of his ecstasy and disbelief. Instead, there is an abrupt cut, because of which the viewer gets very little idea of the boy’s state of mind. Sorry, My Boyle. But isn’t the plot supposed to be high on emotional quotient?
It is not that SM doesn’t tug at our heartstrings. It does, but for all the wrong reasons. When one walks out of the hall, it is with the feeling that Boyle made the mess of an opportunity to make a good film. As a viewer, everyone is prepared to accept unreality when one goes to see a film. But what could have, but doesn’t, happen in SM's case is that the narrative fails to grip the viewer with its revelations of understanding and sensitivity. Slums appear but as views captured by a stoical camera. When the young boy who has been packed off for police interrogation is subjected to shocks, his suffering is buried by the sight of a fat cop whose presence gives rise to humour. The host feels that Jamal is a cheat, but there is no well-written scene which shows how the latter tries to convince the former. Since a film needs to take liberties with a novel’s structure, shouldn’t Boyle have conveyed the boy’s helplessness as also his inability to understand how happenstance is blessing him time and again?
Dev Patel who plays the adult Jamal is wooden in the initial stages of the film. He picks up later, but has nothing much to do simply since the script has nothing better to offer. As the proud host whose arrogance gets switched on the moments the lights are off, Anil Kapoor does a fine job. Frieda Pinto in the role of Jamal’s lover is a bad choice, but Irrfan Khan comes up with a good show as the inspector interrogating the man. Saurabh Shukla as the plump cop is good, but it is impossible to figure out whether or not his character is supposed to generate humour or seriousness. Among the film’s strengths is the cinematography, and AR Rahman’s background score which tries to elevate the scenes to a much higher level.
If there are so many minuses, how has SM managed to garner so much critical acclaim? The answer is a bit like the mystery behind Boyle’s treatment of the film. It is impossible to understand.
Since that would sound rude, one abstains. Cut to the reel thing inside the theatre where Boyle unfolds a supposedly grand film that has won four Golden Globes and ten Oscar nominations. The director is said to have made a viewer-friendly popular classic. What is great being seldom popular – and vice versa – one wants to see SM. From start to finish. Without stepping out of the hall during the interval. Getting a ticket on the first day seems like an achievement straight out of fantasyland. Such is the power of Mr B and his SM.
God is kind. Or, is He?
No. For, Boyle has made a film that has a weak body and no soul. Given his passion for indulging in all things filthy, let us say that SM is prose in loose motion. The narrative wobbles back and forth, pausing at several phases in the past to show the tragic life of an uneducated boy who finds himself on the hot seat of the game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. The youngster Jamal is a chaiwallah towards whom the game show host Prem (a superstar) shows visible contempt: much like the director’s attitude towards his portrayal of India in general.
If Boyle has an understanding of life in the Indian slums, one surely doesn’t see it. Why he chooses to stay away from the flip side of slums is beyond comprehension: more so, because a few shots of Mumbai’s upper class life would have explained Prem’s scorn and the young man’s life below the poverty line even better. How the Golden Globe-winning writer Simon Beaufoy discovered just one abuse in Hindi that Indians use in the film cannot be understood likewise. The scene showing the Indian superstar (Amitabh Bachchan – a double of course) who signs his photograph for the young boy bathed in shit is the substance of nauseating, vomit-inducing imagination.
As in Vikas Swarup’s utterly simplistic novel on which the film is based, the beginning of the film conveys its climax. Seated on a money-making pedestal, the fortunes of a poor little poor boy have to change overnight. In short, the underdog has to win. Tragedies promise to turn into memories eclipsed by the wealth that transforms his life all of a sudden. So what if he is uneducated? He will find answers to the questions that offer more and more money as he goes along. He will irritate Prem because the latter’s mind is trapped in the vanity of class-consciousness. He will find his childhood love who has gone on to become the mistress of a don.
A tale of pain with a fairytale ending: that is what we expect and get, with the only surprise being the way in which Boyle treats the story. It seems as if he is directing the film for the Western audiences in a manner that is far too premeditated and shallow. If not, he is clearly influenced by the Bollywood of the 70s, which is when some of the worst Hindi films got made. In 2008, Boyle’s film joined the list of the era, making the average Indian wonder why the maker did not check the time for so long.
Lost in a lost world. That is the essence of SM. Unable to ruffle us emotionally, it shows, with appalling indifference, that sad moment in which the young boy’s mother loses her life during communal riots. Although the boy’s life takes a turn for the worse after this episode, the mother's death is shown with such surgical precision that we forget it before five minutes go by. Once the boy wins the entire prize money, we hardly get a glimpse of his ecstasy and disbelief. Instead, there is an abrupt cut, because of which the viewer gets very little idea of the boy’s state of mind. Sorry, My Boyle. But isn’t the plot supposed to be high on emotional quotient?
It is not that SM doesn’t tug at our heartstrings. It does, but for all the wrong reasons. When one walks out of the hall, it is with the feeling that Boyle made the mess of an opportunity to make a good film. As a viewer, everyone is prepared to accept unreality when one goes to see a film. But what could have, but doesn’t, happen in SM's case is that the narrative fails to grip the viewer with its revelations of understanding and sensitivity. Slums appear but as views captured by a stoical camera. When the young boy who has been packed off for police interrogation is subjected to shocks, his suffering is buried by the sight of a fat cop whose presence gives rise to humour. The host feels that Jamal is a cheat, but there is no well-written scene which shows how the latter tries to convince the former. Since a film needs to take liberties with a novel’s structure, shouldn’t Boyle have conveyed the boy’s helplessness as also his inability to understand how happenstance is blessing him time and again?
Dev Patel who plays the adult Jamal is wooden in the initial stages of the film. He picks up later, but has nothing much to do simply since the script has nothing better to offer. As the proud host whose arrogance gets switched on the moments the lights are off, Anil Kapoor does a fine job. Frieda Pinto in the role of Jamal’s lover is a bad choice, but Irrfan Khan comes up with a good show as the inspector interrogating the man. Saurabh Shukla as the plump cop is good, but it is impossible to figure out whether or not his character is supposed to generate humour or seriousness. Among the film’s strengths is the cinematography, and AR Rahman’s background score which tries to elevate the scenes to a much higher level.
If there are so many minuses, how has SM managed to garner so much critical acclaim? The answer is a bit like the mystery behind Boyle’s treatment of the film. It is impossible to understand.
Friday, January 16, 2009
SRK: THE INCOMPLETE BIOGRAPHY
Of all the Hall of Fame unauthorized biographies I wrote a few years ago, the one on Shah Rukh Khan did the best. Although it feels good to have written books on stars which did not rely on their personal inputs – if one follows that route, honesty can get diluted from time to time – what I would genuinely like to do is write the SRK book all over again. That is not because I want to get many more good, bad and mixed reviews, or hit the bookstores with another one which will fly off the racks for sure. On the contrary, after watching SRK evolve as an actor in the last few years, I have started believing that some of his best characters have hit the big screen in the recent past.
This is not to say that SRK did not come up with some noteworthy performances in the first half of his career. He did, with his 'K-k-k-k-kiran' act in Darr that triggered off his ascent towards invincible superstardom; his endearing performance in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa; and, of course, when he turned into Raj in DDLJ that made him the lover boy millions fell in love with.
Even those who hated the star – that number being less than a few – could not help confessing that his spontaneity imparted a special appeal to his characters. All his popular performances need not have been great, but they surely struck a chord with the masses who wanted to see more and more of the guy. He may not have looked as good as Aamir or Salman, the two Khans he competed with. But, he was ahead in terms of his popularity for the most part of his career.
He was the leader. No doubt about it. And, he continues to retain the number one throne despite Aamir's diversity and quest for perfectionism, Salman's glittering charisma and Akshay Kumar's emphatic emergence. There have been times when there have been talks about his slipping away – think Hrithik Roshan of a few years ago, and you have the answer – but he has kept the spot with himself on the whole. To say that is difficult would be the understatement of the century. That, to start with, is why I miss some more pages in the book.
But the main reason, as stated earlier, is the performance factor. Although Swades did not rock the box-office and received highly unfair reviews on occasions, few would question that SRK as Mohan Bhargava is as believable as he could have been. When he is at NASA as a scientist, we like him. But, we enjoy even more when he returns to India and starts working for the welfare of the downtrodden.
The character has a sense of purpose, and his philanthropic mindset makes us think twice about the lives we were leading. So good is SRK's performance that we actually forget the man himself when we see Bhargava. Considering his stature as a star, pulling off an act like that couldn't have been easy. After the performance, SRK made many rethink about his prowess as actor, which had often been obscured by the sheer weight of his superstardom. As Mohan Bhargava, he is Mohan Bhargava. That is all.
However, the two characters with which SRK seems to have conquered newer pastures are those of Kabir Khan in Chak De! India and Surinder Sahni in Rab Ne…. As the hockey coach of the Indian women's team whose reputation had been sullied in the past, SRK's Kabir is awesome. The character's frustration shows, and so does his willpower to make something happen when he gets the coach's assignment. Kabir's desire to prove a point and his methods as a coach makes him a very interesting and intriguing personality. When I think of it today, nobody apart from SRK would have been able to pull off the act with so much conviction.
At the risk of getting a lot of flak, and mainly because Rab Ne… does not have a great script like Chak De!..., I would rate SRK's Surinder Sahni in the former as highly as any other character he has essayed so far. Why I think so is since Surinder is one more regular guy whose personality becomes credible only if SRK's superstardom is forgotten completely. A diffident man with a good soul, Surinder in his bespectacled avatar is light years away from the six-packed guy that SRK actually is. It is a beautifully written character – unlike the entire film which has its loopholes – and the superstar simply makes sure that people walk out of the hall, thinking about Surinder instead of the guy who played the role.
As a writer of a book on SRK, I miss an exclusive chapter on these characters today. They have influenced the way in which I think of SRK as an actor, but there isn't anything I can do since the book was published a few years ago. But then, there could come a time when I will write another one on the star. Or may be, I will get a chance to edit the book and make it new.
This is not to say that SRK did not come up with some noteworthy performances in the first half of his career. He did, with his 'K-k-k-k-kiran' act in Darr that triggered off his ascent towards invincible superstardom; his endearing performance in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa; and, of course, when he turned into Raj in DDLJ that made him the lover boy millions fell in love with.
Even those who hated the star – that number being less than a few – could not help confessing that his spontaneity imparted a special appeal to his characters. All his popular performances need not have been great, but they surely struck a chord with the masses who wanted to see more and more of the guy. He may not have looked as good as Aamir or Salman, the two Khans he competed with. But, he was ahead in terms of his popularity for the most part of his career.
He was the leader. No doubt about it. And, he continues to retain the number one throne despite Aamir's diversity and quest for perfectionism, Salman's glittering charisma and Akshay Kumar's emphatic emergence. There have been times when there have been talks about his slipping away – think Hrithik Roshan of a few years ago, and you have the answer – but he has kept the spot with himself on the whole. To say that is difficult would be the understatement of the century. That, to start with, is why I miss some more pages in the book.
But the main reason, as stated earlier, is the performance factor. Although Swades did not rock the box-office and received highly unfair reviews on occasions, few would question that SRK as Mohan Bhargava is as believable as he could have been. When he is at NASA as a scientist, we like him. But, we enjoy even more when he returns to India and starts working for the welfare of the downtrodden.
The character has a sense of purpose, and his philanthropic mindset makes us think twice about the lives we were leading. So good is SRK's performance that we actually forget the man himself when we see Bhargava. Considering his stature as a star, pulling off an act like that couldn't have been easy. After the performance, SRK made many rethink about his prowess as actor, which had often been obscured by the sheer weight of his superstardom. As Mohan Bhargava, he is Mohan Bhargava. That is all.
However, the two characters with which SRK seems to have conquered newer pastures are those of Kabir Khan in Chak De! India and Surinder Sahni in Rab Ne…. As the hockey coach of the Indian women's team whose reputation had been sullied in the past, SRK's Kabir is awesome. The character's frustration shows, and so does his willpower to make something happen when he gets the coach's assignment. Kabir's desire to prove a point and his methods as a coach makes him a very interesting and intriguing personality. When I think of it today, nobody apart from SRK would have been able to pull off the act with so much conviction.
At the risk of getting a lot of flak, and mainly because Rab Ne… does not have a great script like Chak De!..., I would rate SRK's Surinder Sahni in the former as highly as any other character he has essayed so far. Why I think so is since Surinder is one more regular guy whose personality becomes credible only if SRK's superstardom is forgotten completely. A diffident man with a good soul, Surinder in his bespectacled avatar is light years away from the six-packed guy that SRK actually is. It is a beautifully written character – unlike the entire film which has its loopholes – and the superstar simply makes sure that people walk out of the hall, thinking about Surinder instead of the guy who played the role.
As a writer of a book on SRK, I miss an exclusive chapter on these characters today. They have influenced the way in which I think of SRK as an actor, but there isn't anything I can do since the book was published a few years ago. But then, there could come a time when I will write another one on the star. Or may be, I will get a chance to edit the book and make it new.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
HOW BUTCH CASSIDY...CHANGED MY LIFE
When I was a child, I loved Westerns. Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner…I would love to make a list of stars who I admired in that cowboy hat, carrying a gun which made the ultimate statement of masculinity. As a kid, I never looked for logic in any of the stories. Naturally, since I never even realized that films were driven by some kind of coherence in the narrative. Being young has its advantages, you know.
Then came a time when my voyage of discovery took me to diverse cinematic worlds. I had grown older and, suddenly, the average Western seemed to be riddled with loopholes. To start with, the Good versus Evil angle was too clearly defined. The grey streaks in a 'good' guy's character justified themselves most automatically. More often than not, a bad guy was simply bad who was meant to be killed. Women occupied the ambiguous fringes, so much so that one was made to wonder what they were doing in the film anyway. The narrative was generally like the ambience of the plot: there was absolute lawlessness without any creative explanation whatsoever.
Like many young film lovers who had started to watch films that looked around the stereotype, my disillusionment tormented me a lot. I wanted to see a more evolved Django, but that was difficult to find. I wanted to hear background music that sounded completely different. This was the time when raindrops kept falling on my head all of a sudden. I loved the feeling since they made me believe how and why Westerns could go well beyond the kill-and-end and got-the-treasure formulas. I enjoyed the way Butch thought. I loved the way the Sundance Kid did his shooting act. The climax made my low just as the twosome's famous jump from the cliff made me smile.
Two decades after I saw the film for the first time, I continue to return to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid over and over again. And, I am sure I am not the only one who turns into a part of the gang that Butch heads before his life takes a turn for the different. Be it George Roy Hill's direction or William Goldman's script – and of course, the chemistry between Paul 'Butch' Newman and Robert 'Sundance' Redford – the film has so many strengths that the ultimate product goes to a different level altogether.
As far as I am concerned, the film's real hero is the script. The two main characters - both mavericks in their own ways, and out to make a fortune - are a study in contrast. Butch is a man of ideas, and miles away from the stereotyped Western hero therefore. When he returns to his gang with Sundance and finds a character (Ted Cassidy) waiting to take over, for instance, he challenges the guy and makes him hit the ground with a kick!
That is a hilarious moment, as is the occasion when both Sundance and Butch need to swim to escape: but, the former makes a sudden confession that he doesn't know how to do it. While Butch is taken aback, we, as the viewers, cannot keep our laughter in check. Again, when Butch rides the bike – with the lovely Katherine Ross who plays Sundance's girlfriend for company – the song 'Raindrops keep falling on my head' makes us think: hey, is this a Western, or something completely different?
Why the chemistry between Butch and Sundance works is because the latter is very close to the mainstream Western hero. Hats off to Goldman, who thought of an idea in which opposites could combine and create so much of an impact, and also because he introduced humour so subtly that we were made to rewind the DVD and watch the scenes time and again. The climax was brilliantly written, the sadness in the twosome's deaths shown with a visual that made an unforgettable impact.
If this film hadn't won so many Academy Award nominations – and picked up four eventually – it would have been shocking. And, I am sure there are others like me who started believing how Westerns could deliver so much more just because they saw this one. Brokeback Mountain or even Dead Man: there have been many films whose background is typically Western but whose content inhabits some other world altogether. Don't know how many of them were inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Then came a time when my voyage of discovery took me to diverse cinematic worlds. I had grown older and, suddenly, the average Western seemed to be riddled with loopholes. To start with, the Good versus Evil angle was too clearly defined. The grey streaks in a 'good' guy's character justified themselves most automatically. More often than not, a bad guy was simply bad who was meant to be killed. Women occupied the ambiguous fringes, so much so that one was made to wonder what they were doing in the film anyway. The narrative was generally like the ambience of the plot: there was absolute lawlessness without any creative explanation whatsoever.
Like many young film lovers who had started to watch films that looked around the stereotype, my disillusionment tormented me a lot. I wanted to see a more evolved Django, but that was difficult to find. I wanted to hear background music that sounded completely different. This was the time when raindrops kept falling on my head all of a sudden. I loved the feeling since they made me believe how and why Westerns could go well beyond the kill-and-end and got-the-treasure formulas. I enjoyed the way Butch thought. I loved the way the Sundance Kid did his shooting act. The climax made my low just as the twosome's famous jump from the cliff made me smile.
Two decades after I saw the film for the first time, I continue to return to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid over and over again. And, I am sure I am not the only one who turns into a part of the gang that Butch heads before his life takes a turn for the different. Be it George Roy Hill's direction or William Goldman's script – and of course, the chemistry between Paul 'Butch' Newman and Robert 'Sundance' Redford – the film has so many strengths that the ultimate product goes to a different level altogether.
As far as I am concerned, the film's real hero is the script. The two main characters - both mavericks in their own ways, and out to make a fortune - are a study in contrast. Butch is a man of ideas, and miles away from the stereotyped Western hero therefore. When he returns to his gang with Sundance and finds a character (Ted Cassidy) waiting to take over, for instance, he challenges the guy and makes him hit the ground with a kick!
That is a hilarious moment, as is the occasion when both Sundance and Butch need to swim to escape: but, the former makes a sudden confession that he doesn't know how to do it. While Butch is taken aback, we, as the viewers, cannot keep our laughter in check. Again, when Butch rides the bike – with the lovely Katherine Ross who plays Sundance's girlfriend for company – the song 'Raindrops keep falling on my head' makes us think: hey, is this a Western, or something completely different?
Why the chemistry between Butch and Sundance works is because the latter is very close to the mainstream Western hero. Hats off to Goldman, who thought of an idea in which opposites could combine and create so much of an impact, and also because he introduced humour so subtly that we were made to rewind the DVD and watch the scenes time and again. The climax was brilliantly written, the sadness in the twosome's deaths shown with a visual that made an unforgettable impact.
If this film hadn't won so many Academy Award nominations – and picked up four eventually – it would have been shocking. And, I am sure there are others like me who started believing how Westerns could deliver so much more just because they saw this one. Brokeback Mountain or even Dead Man: there have been many films whose background is typically Western but whose content inhabits some other world altogether. Don't know how many of them were inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Monday, December 29, 2008
ROLE OF A PERFORMANCE
Is Aamir Khan the greatest Indian actor in today's times? No, he is not. Is he the biggest star? No, not that either. The best way to define Aamir is that he is a star who seeks otherness in what he does. There have been times when his choices have been highly questionable. He has also been accused of ghost-directing his films, which is something only a director who has fallen out with him can prove.
But Ghajini, despite its structural loopholes and the actor's eagerness to flaunt his newly built muscles, manifests a fact once more. In other words, Aamir Khan works hard: one could say, more than most of his fellow stars have ever done. (If any of his counterparts works harder, it certainly doesn't show).
Cut to Aamir in Ghajini which should possibly be the biggest blockbuster of 2008. As a character with short term memory loss on Mission Vendetta, Aamir as Sanjay Singhania exhales fury and anger. His nostrils flare up; the voice turns guttural; and the eyes show what being menacing is all about. When he wants to emancipate himself from the clutches of cops, for instance, he comes across as an untamed beast whose natural habitat is distanced from civilization by several light years.
Before the change takes place, the actor in his avatar of an industrialist is polished, handsome and articulate. His dress sense (thanks to Van Heusen?) makes statements of uniqueness every time we see him onscreen. But, once his character undergoes a transformation – after the brutal murder of his girlfriend as also the injury to the head – what we see is a man which is as distanced from the industrialist as the Nile is from the Ganges.
The sophistication is gone. Understandable, since he has forgotten what being polished is all about. While one can question how he manages to have an unchanged haircut all through, Aamir's sincerity is visible in each and every frame. As the revenge seeker, he makes Singhania as memorable as his near-perfect act of ACP Rathore in Sarfarosh.
Why the performance merits admiration is mainly because of his ability to conquer the limitations imposed by a flaw-laden script. Not only that, there are other bad eggs in the basket too. Pradeep Rawat as the villain (complete with the golden tooth popularized by Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven) is an absolute disaster. Jiah Khan fumbles her way through a badly written role of a young student of medicine who decides to become a sleuth without any explanation whatsoever. Songs assault the viewer out of the blue, breaking the tempo of a fast moving plot guiltlessly.
So many shortcomings could have killed a film: even if we were to keep aside, the human tendency to nitpick for the heck of it. But, the reality is that Ghajini is a super hit already. Aamir is the only reason, the only explanation. The film's fate shows the difference one performance can make.
But Ghajini, despite its structural loopholes and the actor's eagerness to flaunt his newly built muscles, manifests a fact once more. In other words, Aamir Khan works hard: one could say, more than most of his fellow stars have ever done. (If any of his counterparts works harder, it certainly doesn't show).
Cut to Aamir in Ghajini which should possibly be the biggest blockbuster of 2008. As a character with short term memory loss on Mission Vendetta, Aamir as Sanjay Singhania exhales fury and anger. His nostrils flare up; the voice turns guttural; and the eyes show what being menacing is all about. When he wants to emancipate himself from the clutches of cops, for instance, he comes across as an untamed beast whose natural habitat is distanced from civilization by several light years.
Before the change takes place, the actor in his avatar of an industrialist is polished, handsome and articulate. His dress sense (thanks to Van Heusen?) makes statements of uniqueness every time we see him onscreen. But, once his character undergoes a transformation – after the brutal murder of his girlfriend as also the injury to the head – what we see is a man which is as distanced from the industrialist as the Nile is from the Ganges.
The sophistication is gone. Understandable, since he has forgotten what being polished is all about. While one can question how he manages to have an unchanged haircut all through, Aamir's sincerity is visible in each and every frame. As the revenge seeker, he makes Singhania as memorable as his near-perfect act of ACP Rathore in Sarfarosh.
Why the performance merits admiration is mainly because of his ability to conquer the limitations imposed by a flaw-laden script. Not only that, there are other bad eggs in the basket too. Pradeep Rawat as the villain (complete with the golden tooth popularized by Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven) is an absolute disaster. Jiah Khan fumbles her way through a badly written role of a young student of medicine who decides to become a sleuth without any explanation whatsoever. Songs assault the viewer out of the blue, breaking the tempo of a fast moving plot guiltlessly.
So many shortcomings could have killed a film: even if we were to keep aside, the human tendency to nitpick for the heck of it. But, the reality is that Ghajini is a super hit already. Aamir is the only reason, the only explanation. The film's fate shows the difference one performance can make.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
WHAT WAS, IS
Kasab has no regrets. Terrorism never does. Have you ever heard of insane sanity? You couldn’t have. It is bloody meaningless. Hence, Kasab, a killer behind the bars, who has no regrets at all.
Kasab’s photograph – with his eyes glowing and an AK-47 in hand - has become the defining face of urban Indian terror. During 9/11, none of us saw the abhorrence in the pilots’ eyes when suicide aerial missions devastated the World Trade Center. But, terrorism on the streets, at the CST station, and inside the Taj, the Trident-Oberoi and Nariman House, left behind killers’ images which will molest the recesses of collective human memory.
Not that terrorism is anything new. It has been there, and always will be. Ransacking hearts. Brutalising bodies. Shocking with its' premeditated suddenness. Such is the horror of terrorism that its' manifestations in the pages of fiction turn into causes of concern for us. Same for textbooks where we have discovered, since childhood, that a great deal of history is heartless savagery. The rest form the basis of civilised human existence. But, the dry blood on those pages doesn’t disturb us like the Taliban or the LeT because they exist amidst us. The ideology is the same: killing for a cause. But, the quest for their perception of justice – and, for many, the choice of martyrdom – is eclipsed by the approach which makes them anti-innocent, anti-constructive and anti-civilisation.
Where there is goodness, the presence of demolishers is a must. In that sense, we can only minimise terrorism and not annihilate it. Also, we must not forget that modern-day guns only add to the script authored by barbaric medievalism. Why the modern-day terrorist seems more destructive is because the arms and ammunition have changed; the population has shot up; and the media tells stories that horrify us like never before. Take them away, and you will find the footprints of a million other Kasabs in the history of time.
Mumbai has been at the receiving end of most terrorist savagery, and that’s since one assault on the city can drive the nation berserk. The city needs protective gear which is non-existent. Dismissing a handful of individuals is not the solution as long as the system isn’t overhauled completely. If the NSG doesn’t have its' own plane to attend to exigencies, why does it exist anyway? If the city’s firemen have merely two bullet-proof jackets, how can they save their own lives while extinguishing the fire? If the Chief Minister of the State takes a filmmaker along with him to an encounter site, how serious is he about addressing the issue of terror? If the Deputy CM finds the devastation a ‘small incident’, why is he the Deputy CM for?
When the society lacks discipline and unified action, terrorism thrives. It kills and disappears, and kills to hibernate once more. Death and destruction by capitalising on the loose ends of a system: terrorism is all about that. Like a tiger on the prowl, it hunts for any one weak loophole if systemic complacence doesn’t grant it a tourist visa. Whether or not India will achieve a metamorphosis overnight is anybody’s guess. As of now, the masses need to be far more vigilant as they go through their daily lives, knowing what an ancient formula in its modern manifestation can do to the society at large.
Kasab’s photograph – with his eyes glowing and an AK-47 in hand - has become the defining face of urban Indian terror. During 9/11, none of us saw the abhorrence in the pilots’ eyes when suicide aerial missions devastated the World Trade Center. But, terrorism on the streets, at the CST station, and inside the Taj, the Trident-Oberoi and Nariman House, left behind killers’ images which will molest the recesses of collective human memory.
Not that terrorism is anything new. It has been there, and always will be. Ransacking hearts. Brutalising bodies. Shocking with its' premeditated suddenness. Such is the horror of terrorism that its' manifestations in the pages of fiction turn into causes of concern for us. Same for textbooks where we have discovered, since childhood, that a great deal of history is heartless savagery. The rest form the basis of civilised human existence. But, the dry blood on those pages doesn’t disturb us like the Taliban or the LeT because they exist amidst us. The ideology is the same: killing for a cause. But, the quest for their perception of justice – and, for many, the choice of martyrdom – is eclipsed by the approach which makes them anti-innocent, anti-constructive and anti-civilisation.
Where there is goodness, the presence of demolishers is a must. In that sense, we can only minimise terrorism and not annihilate it. Also, we must not forget that modern-day guns only add to the script authored by barbaric medievalism. Why the modern-day terrorist seems more destructive is because the arms and ammunition have changed; the population has shot up; and the media tells stories that horrify us like never before. Take them away, and you will find the footprints of a million other Kasabs in the history of time.
Mumbai has been at the receiving end of most terrorist savagery, and that’s since one assault on the city can drive the nation berserk. The city needs protective gear which is non-existent. Dismissing a handful of individuals is not the solution as long as the system isn’t overhauled completely. If the NSG doesn’t have its' own plane to attend to exigencies, why does it exist anyway? If the city’s firemen have merely two bullet-proof jackets, how can they save their own lives while extinguishing the fire? If the Chief Minister of the State takes a filmmaker along with him to an encounter site, how serious is he about addressing the issue of terror? If the Deputy CM finds the devastation a ‘small incident’, why is he the Deputy CM for?
When the society lacks discipline and unified action, terrorism thrives. It kills and disappears, and kills to hibernate once more. Death and destruction by capitalising on the loose ends of a system: terrorism is all about that. Like a tiger on the prowl, it hunts for any one weak loophole if systemic complacence doesn’t grant it a tourist visa. Whether or not India will achieve a metamorphosis overnight is anybody’s guess. As of now, the masses need to be far more vigilant as they go through their daily lives, knowing what an ancient formula in its modern manifestation can do to the society at large.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
NOTHING (For Jane Frostina, my Life in the time of Death)
Come tomorrow, and reams of newsprint will spell out just one word: MUMBAI. Many have died, and some others might collapse in the hospital. But, we can do nothing. Such is the heartless iniquity of some self-centred assholes that Mumbai’s soul is afraid of dying for ever. But, we can do nothing. The small screen is consuming hours of footage, telling us a story that is hurting us. But, we can do nothing except sit near the TV, shivering at the thought of what is happening. Once mentally screwed up, we can reach out for the remote and move over to some channel that gives us momentary peace. Because of what we are, and because of what we cannot be, we can do nothing.
Heard a politician just now. He was saying, “We condemn the attack….” Condemn: that word has turned into a convenient escape route for these suited-booted netas. Can we ban its usage or, at least, make it a synonym for ‘praise’ so that no politician would dare use the word to express his ‘compassion’ and conceal a systemic failure? Perhaps, we could, if we start a campaign to tell what condemn does not mean when used after a terrorist attack. But, we can do nothing since we know what language can do. Once used by the system that has failed, it turns into a tool that manufactures myths and feeds the masses.
Yes. We can do nothing.
The heart is hopeful. Tomorrow might change, it wants us to believe. But the mind, the rational part of our being, offers a different picture. Tomorrow will not change even if we want it to, it tells us. If America could not anticipate 9/11 – an expression repeated so often that we are tired of it – how can India, poor India, expect what the messiahs of doom have in mind? In today’s times, 9/11 has come to symbolize a defence mechanism rather than a tragedy that brought down the World Trade Center.
Just as ‘condemn’ has become an easy-to-use expression, 9/11 is a metaphor that is repeatedly flogged to say why nothing is right with the world. Have we sat back and actually bothered to calculate how often India has been assaulted in recent years, and how badly it fares when compared to most other countries? We may have, or we may not have. Does not make a difference, does it? We can brood, cry, shout, whatever.
But, we can do nothing.
A few days later, the world will ‘salute the spirit of Mumbai’. Even as many will hide their tears to board trains and reach their distant workplaces, those who have suffered no personal tragedy will write about the city’s ‘resilience'. Every time Mumbai gets back on its feet, what sort of resilience do these bullshitters talk about? Do they know what it means to lose a cousin to a blast? Have they even been close to a train that has been blown to pieces? Have they seen the rich and the poor rush inside hospitals in a tragic manifestation of egalitarianism? Have they ever done anything that has touched a single person’s life? Even as we wonder when the world will come to end, we have reasons to hate everyone who camouflages his absence of sensitivity with a sequence of well-rehearsed words.
But, we cannot stop such people from talking rubbish. We cannot believe in a system that fails repeatedly. We cannot expect more dynamism from our politicians. We cannot stop blasts, shootouts, deaths, and all those bloody AK-47s which can permeate Mumbai with the ease of an amoeba. That being the case, is there any damn thing we can actually do?
Forget it, my friends. Why discuss it anyway? For, think as we might, try as we can, we can do nothing.
Heard a politician just now. He was saying, “We condemn the attack….” Condemn: that word has turned into a convenient escape route for these suited-booted netas. Can we ban its usage or, at least, make it a synonym for ‘praise’ so that no politician would dare use the word to express his ‘compassion’ and conceal a systemic failure? Perhaps, we could, if we start a campaign to tell what condemn does not mean when used after a terrorist attack. But, we can do nothing since we know what language can do. Once used by the system that has failed, it turns into a tool that manufactures myths and feeds the masses.
Yes. We can do nothing.
The heart is hopeful. Tomorrow might change, it wants us to believe. But the mind, the rational part of our being, offers a different picture. Tomorrow will not change even if we want it to, it tells us. If America could not anticipate 9/11 – an expression repeated so often that we are tired of it – how can India, poor India, expect what the messiahs of doom have in mind? In today’s times, 9/11 has come to symbolize a defence mechanism rather than a tragedy that brought down the World Trade Center.
Just as ‘condemn’ has become an easy-to-use expression, 9/11 is a metaphor that is repeatedly flogged to say why nothing is right with the world. Have we sat back and actually bothered to calculate how often India has been assaulted in recent years, and how badly it fares when compared to most other countries? We may have, or we may not have. Does not make a difference, does it? We can brood, cry, shout, whatever.
But, we can do nothing.
A few days later, the world will ‘salute the spirit of Mumbai’. Even as many will hide their tears to board trains and reach their distant workplaces, those who have suffered no personal tragedy will write about the city’s ‘resilience'. Every time Mumbai gets back on its feet, what sort of resilience do these bullshitters talk about? Do they know what it means to lose a cousin to a blast? Have they even been close to a train that has been blown to pieces? Have they seen the rich and the poor rush inside hospitals in a tragic manifestation of egalitarianism? Have they ever done anything that has touched a single person’s life? Even as we wonder when the world will come to end, we have reasons to hate everyone who camouflages his absence of sensitivity with a sequence of well-rehearsed words.
But, we cannot stop such people from talking rubbish. We cannot believe in a system that fails repeatedly. We cannot expect more dynamism from our politicians. We cannot stop blasts, shootouts, deaths, and all those bloody AK-47s which can permeate Mumbai with the ease of an amoeba. That being the case, is there any damn thing we can actually do?
Forget it, my friends. Why discuss it anyway? For, think as we might, try as we can, we can do nothing.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
BAND IN THE LAND OF DEATH
We have been hearing some strange music for a while. In the heavy metal track called Life by the Band of Death, the sound of erratic and loud percussion is missing. Where is the BoD's savage drummer The Terrorist, who rips up the fabric of old-fashioned peace with his wild rhythm patterns from time to time? Because of his hibernation, Life won't make news. In the heavy metal world of bomb-dom, the song's minimalism can never work because there won't be any blood on the tracks.
Most of us don't know why the BoD is such a huge success. With its songs titled Blood, Devastation and Kill When You Can – the last giving rise to the word bomb-dom – it has rocked the establishment like nothing ever has. Whenever the band has performed, the masses have been pulverized and the hospitals over-burdened by colossal tragedies. After the act has packed up and left for some other city to play the same songs, the all-lying politicians have groped for explanations about why they came, how they performed, and why they disappeared before the establishment reacted to the possibility of their arrival in the city.
All we know about the BoD is that The Terrorist is a drums-pounding robot who has a blast from time to time. Although his rhythms are monitored by a faceless enigma from a vague somewhere, he is the star of every BoD rock show that assaults us out of blue. Seldom does the establishment track down his act because The Terrorist himself does not know when he is going to play, and where. He destroys because he is drugged; while the mastermind who supplies the narcotics never shows up because he does not have the courage to confront the establishment.
If The Terrorist can't be heard in Life today, that is since the brain behind tracks like Blood and Devastation is busy composing a new song somewhere. So, let us not take Life too seriously. It is not worth it, Devastation being that super hit BoD track we will hear soon.
Most of us don't know why the BoD is such a huge success. With its songs titled Blood, Devastation and Kill When You Can – the last giving rise to the word bomb-dom – it has rocked the establishment like nothing ever has. Whenever the band has performed, the masses have been pulverized and the hospitals over-burdened by colossal tragedies. After the act has packed up and left for some other city to play the same songs, the all-lying politicians have groped for explanations about why they came, how they performed, and why they disappeared before the establishment reacted to the possibility of their arrival in the city.
All we know about the BoD is that The Terrorist is a drums-pounding robot who has a blast from time to time. Although his rhythms are monitored by a faceless enigma from a vague somewhere, he is the star of every BoD rock show that assaults us out of blue. Seldom does the establishment track down his act because The Terrorist himself does not know when he is going to play, and where. He destroys because he is drugged; while the mastermind who supplies the narcotics never shows up because he does not have the courage to confront the establishment.
If The Terrorist can't be heard in Life today, that is since the brain behind tracks like Blood and Devastation is busy composing a new song somewhere. So, let us not take Life too seriously. It is not worth it, Devastation being that super hit BoD track we will hear soon.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
BEING DEAD
I met Peter’s body recently. He had died sometime back. Happens, you know. Meeting a dead man, talking to him while knowing that his soul has drifted out of the mortal body a few days back, realising that life goes on but not for ever: death being a form of living just as truth seems like storytelling often.
Peter had died; neglected, forgotten, his body was rotting. Possibly, that is what epitomizes urban isolation. Decanted into a vacuum of solitude for being a bastard, there was he, trying to put his stubborn soul back into the body while it tried to escape through a tiny aperture. Like most stupid people trying to postpone death, Peter was seeking life.
“Can you help please? Please catch hold of my soul and bring it back to me.”
“Show me where it is. I will try,” I said, desperate to help but unable to see the soul.
“See, see, it is there. There, please,” he beseeched, a sequence of staccato utterances trembling out of his dry mouth. Only dead people see souls, which he did.
I pretended to try but couldn’t. When the soul ditches the body, there is nothing one can do.
In life, there often comes a time when helplessness guillotines the nobility of human intentions. Much as I hated Peter, I had met him at a juncture when his desire for mere life had buried all my negative thoughts about the man. The tears in his eyes, his sweat-drenched face, that guilty look which seemed to summarise his penitence for a sin-laden existence, his unkempt hair and beard, the sight of him lying crumbled on the floor: they had driven away my contempt for a man whose only achievement in life was his uselessness. But, he wanted to live. He wanted a second chance, and there was none.
“Sorry, Peter. There is nothing I can do,” I murmured, and dashed out of the room before he could say a word.
“Please, please come back. I beg of you. Please.” I could hear his voice, which faded into inaudibility once I had left the compound of his house. My inability to do anything had taught me a lesson, one I shall never forget.
Impossible is not a word in the dictionary of fools. Just stay away from dead men.
Peter had died; neglected, forgotten, his body was rotting. Possibly, that is what epitomizes urban isolation. Decanted into a vacuum of solitude for being a bastard, there was he, trying to put his stubborn soul back into the body while it tried to escape through a tiny aperture. Like most stupid people trying to postpone death, Peter was seeking life.
“Can you help please? Please catch hold of my soul and bring it back to me.”
“Show me where it is. I will try,” I said, desperate to help but unable to see the soul.
“See, see, it is there. There, please,” he beseeched, a sequence of staccato utterances trembling out of his dry mouth. Only dead people see souls, which he did.
I pretended to try but couldn’t. When the soul ditches the body, there is nothing one can do.
In life, there often comes a time when helplessness guillotines the nobility of human intentions. Much as I hated Peter, I had met him at a juncture when his desire for mere life had buried all my negative thoughts about the man. The tears in his eyes, his sweat-drenched face, that guilty look which seemed to summarise his penitence for a sin-laden existence, his unkempt hair and beard, the sight of him lying crumbled on the floor: they had driven away my contempt for a man whose only achievement in life was his uselessness. But, he wanted to live. He wanted a second chance, and there was none.
“Sorry, Peter. There is nothing I can do,” I murmured, and dashed out of the room before he could say a word.
“Please, please come back. I beg of you. Please.” I could hear his voice, which faded into inaudibility once I had left the compound of his house. My inability to do anything had taught me a lesson, one I shall never forget.
Impossible is not a word in the dictionary of fools. Just stay away from dead men.
Friday, August 22, 2008
YESTERDAY ONCE MORE
The Beatles disintegrated around the time I was born. In that sense, I ‘happened’ well after The Beatles did. Having grown up with the sound of pop acts like Boney M and Abba – they compelled me to wipe the dust off dog-eared LPs to hear stuff like Pat Boone’s Baby Elephant Walk – I was awe-struck after the discovery of a sleeve-less EP with the words Roll ‘n’ Roll Music. The endearing restlessness in the song held me captive. The singer’s guttural voice rose above the strains of instrumentation time and again. The sharp edge in his vocals made statements of passion, the ‘why’ of which I couldn’t have known. It was like reading Gulliver’s Travels during childhood, and thinking of it as Little Tommy Tucker in prose. Lovely book that indeed was. But I hadn't understood the satire then.
When I saw Across The Universe last week, I did not know who the director Julie Taymor was. Not that I know much about her seven days later, but for the fact that she is a genius. After all, how else can you describe a person who had the vision to direct a film that weaves songs from The Beatles to tell a love story in the backdrop of 60s America, England and Vietnam of course? How else do you – sorry, can you – assess a story whose protagonists are Jude (from the track Hey Jude) and Lucy whose name owes itself to John Lennon’s acid-driven Lucy in The Sky With… you-know-what?
What can say about an insight which believes that the counter-revolutionary should be named Max, which expands to Maxwell, from the track Maxwell’s Silver Hammer whose lyrics seem to suggest that something has gone wrong? Max detests the establishment represented by obvious metaphors like the Ivy League institution he attends and also by the members of his family. But his attitude from the very first shot shows that something is coming, a something that will aim at hurting the system which it tries not to belong to. Impracticality and unbridled energy drive the guy. The result is Vietnam.
Then, there are the songs. When Jude leaves for America, he sings All My Loving to make a statement of commitment to his lover (not Lucy, please. That would have screwed the story completely). You could say that one is predictable, and indeed it is. But, Lennon, McCartney and co. surely knew how to hypnotise with effortless simplicity, and the song makes a similar impact when we hear ‘I will pretend I am kissing/The lips I am missing.’ Oh yes, it does.
The best interpretation (among the many brilliant ones, if I may add) is that of Let It Be, one of the most touching cuts ever sung by anybody. Set against the backdrop of the Detroit riots, the eyes moisten when we see a little black boy, reminding of a ball of inflammable cotton lying neglected behind a damaged car, who sings the lines with fear in his heart and tears in his eyes. When we see the boy’s funeral as also the death of a white soldier in distant Vietnam, the message of the twin inevitability hits us hard, really hard. Come Together depicts the energy in New York’s life, while the fun and the frolic in a bowling alley find a musical ally in I’ve Just Seen A Face.
The film has more. Bono does a fun cameo as a Ken Kesey-like guru; Salma Hayek is just a nurse; a guitarist reminds of Jimi Hendrix; Sadie’s character is a take on Janis Joplin; and, all this when the core is essentially a love story. While being visually stunning – the film could have been a sequence of meticulously planned stills – the ambience defines the spirit of the 60s. Of an era, which startled us with its dope and politics and several small and big revolutions and the never-say-die spirit of some who made sure that those years did not leave us even after becoming a phase from long, long ago.
If one may quote thinker Erich Fromm, it makes us think about the difference between the ‘being’ and ‘having’ modes of existence. Living in times that can be best described as appallingly confused, it makes us pray for yesterday once more.
When I saw Across The Universe last week, I did not know who the director Julie Taymor was. Not that I know much about her seven days later, but for the fact that she is a genius. After all, how else can you describe a person who had the vision to direct a film that weaves songs from The Beatles to tell a love story in the backdrop of 60s America, England and Vietnam of course? How else do you – sorry, can you – assess a story whose protagonists are Jude (from the track Hey Jude) and Lucy whose name owes itself to John Lennon’s acid-driven Lucy in The Sky With… you-know-what?
What can say about an insight which believes that the counter-revolutionary should be named Max, which expands to Maxwell, from the track Maxwell’s Silver Hammer whose lyrics seem to suggest that something has gone wrong? Max detests the establishment represented by obvious metaphors like the Ivy League institution he attends and also by the members of his family. But his attitude from the very first shot shows that something is coming, a something that will aim at hurting the system which it tries not to belong to. Impracticality and unbridled energy drive the guy. The result is Vietnam.
Then, there are the songs. When Jude leaves for America, he sings All My Loving to make a statement of commitment to his lover (not Lucy, please. That would have screwed the story completely). You could say that one is predictable, and indeed it is. But, Lennon, McCartney and co. surely knew how to hypnotise with effortless simplicity, and the song makes a similar impact when we hear ‘I will pretend I am kissing/The lips I am missing.’ Oh yes, it does.
The best interpretation (among the many brilliant ones, if I may add) is that of Let It Be, one of the most touching cuts ever sung by anybody. Set against the backdrop of the Detroit riots, the eyes moisten when we see a little black boy, reminding of a ball of inflammable cotton lying neglected behind a damaged car, who sings the lines with fear in his heart and tears in his eyes. When we see the boy’s funeral as also the death of a white soldier in distant Vietnam, the message of the twin inevitability hits us hard, really hard. Come Together depicts the energy in New York’s life, while the fun and the frolic in a bowling alley find a musical ally in I’ve Just Seen A Face.
The film has more. Bono does a fun cameo as a Ken Kesey-like guru; Salma Hayek is just a nurse; a guitarist reminds of Jimi Hendrix; Sadie’s character is a take on Janis Joplin; and, all this when the core is essentially a love story. While being visually stunning – the film could have been a sequence of meticulously planned stills – the ambience defines the spirit of the 60s. Of an era, which startled us with its dope and politics and several small and big revolutions and the never-say-die spirit of some who made sure that those years did not leave us even after becoming a phase from long, long ago.
If one may quote thinker Erich Fromm, it makes us think about the difference between the ‘being’ and ‘having’ modes of existence. Living in times that can be best described as appallingly confused, it makes us pray for yesterday once more.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
CRITIC RAJ
BY BISWADEEP GHOSH
RGV has turned into a critics’ critic in his blog. Does he have any business to massacre those whose job is to dissect a film thoroughly? What gives him the right to say that our critics don’t know their job, or that they write pompously worded sentences which convey nothing at all? Why is he getting personal with some of our critics, who may or may not made films but have acquired some sort of recognition as an analyst of the audio-visual medium?
Without taking the RGV route – don’t think am good enough to make a film, so cannot –let me say that the one problem Indian criticism suffers from is that of inconsistency. Indeed, inconsistency is like a chronic disease which few have been able to get rid of, resulting in wrong films getting the sort of treatment (five stars, stuff like that) which they simply do not deserve.
If Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag was a colossal tragedy – even RGV agrees – it is wrong to brutalise Sarkar Raj in the same tone. For, Sarkar Raj deals with a tricky subject, and the director steers its plot very well. There are some weaknesses, no doubt about it, but then no film can be completely flawless. Besides, what we perceive as a shortcoming is a subjective view. What one thinks is a pothole can be Taj Mahal in the eyes of someone else. That is the essence of all criticisms of art, whether or not we want to accept it.
Having said that, Sarkar Raj would have been a watchable film even if the plot had been really vague. The reason: the Big B’s extraordinary performance. A couple of decades later, many critics might actually term this one as Bachchan’s greatest performance ever. Talking about cricket, the Indian batting maestro Sunil Gavaskar had once said that the toughest cricketing shot is the one that you don’t play. As an actor, similarly, the most difficult moments are those in which you don’t talk, in fact, do nothing at all except look, listen and react. It is in such moments that the Big B takes the film to a different level. Being a music lover, I heard the Sounds of Silence. And, rest assured, I wasn’t the only one.
That Sarkar Raj has a convincing story, a fairly decent performance by the Small B and the presence of some interesting minor characters makes it a very good watch. It also has some highly imaginative lighting, good camerawork, smart editing…what else can one ask for? May be, Aishwarya needed a meaty role. Perhaps, there should have been much less emphasis on Govinda, Govinda, Govinda…. Some of the minor characters were irritatingly theatrical. However, even if many critics hated the film just as many film viewers like yours truly loved it, is it fair to say that this is one merit-less film that should not have been made?
It is high time we took a compassionate and genuine stand on films coming out of Bollywood. Let us not forget that the maker spends more time in making a film than we do while running it down.
Friday, March 14, 2008
GIVING ACTORS THEIR DUE? YOU MUST BE KIDDING!
BISWADEEP GHOSH
In a website poll on underrated actors in India, I came across a lot of names. There was Pankaj Kapoor who I think is extraordinary; Irrfan Khan who can be brilliant when he is not repeating itself in the trying-hard-to-make-you-laugh roles; and Ranvir Sheorey who promises to grow into an even better actor with time.
Seldom do I post my views in such polls, one reason being that several faceless intruders who have just one thing to do – nothing – write absolute gibberish whose dominant presence eclipses the odd strand of serious thought. But, this time round, I did, choosing to talk about just one actor who could have done so much if the affluent fiefdoms of the industry hadn’t overlooked his presence. When he played the wicked and impulsive elder brother in Sarkar, he actually matched the Big B’s magisterial presence in every single frame. In Honeymoon Travels, he was a parochial Bengali guy married to a freedom-loving girl; in Black Friday, the cop Rakesh Maria who had investigated the roots of the 1993 Mumbai blasts; and in Life in a…Metro, a selfish husband in a selfish extra-marital affair. Kay Kay Menon. You know he is the guy I am talking about.
Yes, you know Kay Kay. That’s why he and other guys like him should consider themselves lucky. In a superstars-and-megabucks-driven industry such as ours, these actors cannot get any more attention even if they deserve it. It doesn’t matter if a Pankaj Kapoor can pull off an Al Pacino act as the protagonist. That Kay Kay can step into the shoes of a character played by someone like Russell Crowe – or Kurt Russell – in a big-budget film is of no significance at all. For, such actors will never ever get the opportunity to bat ahead of big stars and score more runs than the latter can. A few such success stories can demolish fiefdoms, create new equations in which power will be decentralised, and even decant the so-called big stars into the zone of no return. Secure in their systems, loaded with cash, blessed with the loyalty of big stars, which big producer wants a change in which rules can be rewritten beyond recognition?
Not that the story ends there. Such is our industry that actors who aren’t stars are caught in an image trap. They are termed ‘character actors’ – which possibly implies that the stars play themselves while the others don’t! But, seriously speaking, the label of a ‘character actor’ is a curse whose power no spell on earth can diminish. What it essentially implies is that the victims of the branding do all the hard work to make a film work in its totality. But, the person who hijacks the promos, sings all the songs, get most solo frames, and the maximum amount of money is the star. He is the one who makes the film work. At the end of the day, the character actors are minor support systems who help the star because the latter is infinitely more talented and works the hardest of course!
Many viewers who have matured considerably are keen to see a systemic change. They will be happy to see many films in which the so-called character actors step into central roles. As of now, however, no one can see it happening. I am in that list.
What about you?
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
EXTRA, AND NOTHING
BISWADEEP GHOSH
A friend’s friend asked me the other day, “Wow! So you have written a book on SRK? How big are you?” I stared at the window in front of me, looked at my reflection, and replied, “I am not big. SRK is.” While I had stated a fact, what is also true is that I had enjoyed some adulation for a while when I had written the Hall of Fame book on Shah Rukh. People who knew me told me, often excitedly, that the mere act of keying in my name could lead to more than 1,000 references on any search engine. Acutely aware that I had nothing to deserve so many links, I used to keep shut. I still do, most uneasily.
SRK’s stardom – or, for that matter, that of Salman and Hrithik and Aishwarya, my other subjects – gave me the opportunity to write four biographies. But the most revealing episode, one that summarised the story of actual Bollywood, took place when I had gone to meet Manoj Bajpai. After speaking to Manoj, who was fresh from his exploits in Satya and Shool, I stepped out of the trailer van.
Suddenly, a tall and well-built man stopped me and said, “Hello, why don’t you publish my interview as well?"
Although I was familiar with all the famous and not-so-famous faces of Bollywood, here was a guy I couldn’t recognise. Inwardly cursing my own self for not knowing who he was, I asked, “Can you tell me about your latest film?”
“What? You haven’t seen me ever, is it?” he asked in a tone of dismay.
“No,” I stammered. By that time, I had realised that the fellow was wearing a wig and had several false teeth. From a distance, he had looked like a 35-year-old guy. But actually, he couldn’t have been less than 50.
“I have acted in more than 200 films. You will also see me in Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar in which Manojji is acting,” he said, adding, “I am there in one scene.”
“One scene?”
“Yes,” he said, adding in an accusatory manner, “That is since journalists don’t write about me. When you see the scene, you will realise that I am a fine actor.”
Unable to react, I sat down. He stood next to me and spoke to me for an hour, telling me all kinds of stories about the opportunities he had missed, the odd film which never got released. Several such stories, one after the other. “But, I am sure I will get a fine role some day. Don’t you think so?” he said.
I got up, murmured a diffident ‘yes’, patted his shoulder and walked off. I had taken down notes that I did not use. Being a professional journalist, I knew that few will be interested in reading his story in an entertainment magazine. So, here I am, talking about a guy who has acted in 200 films. I must have seen him in a few films ever since I had conducted a false interview with him. But, how could I have identified him, lost as he would have been in a big, big crowd of extras?
A friend’s friend asked me the other day, “Wow! So you have written a book on SRK? How big are you?” I stared at the window in front of me, looked at my reflection, and replied, “I am not big. SRK is.” While I had stated a fact, what is also true is that I had enjoyed some adulation for a while when I had written the Hall of Fame book on Shah Rukh. People who knew me told me, often excitedly, that the mere act of keying in my name could lead to more than 1,000 references on any search engine. Acutely aware that I had nothing to deserve so many links, I used to keep shut. I still do, most uneasily.
SRK’s stardom – or, for that matter, that of Salman and Hrithik and Aishwarya, my other subjects – gave me the opportunity to write four biographies. But the most revealing episode, one that summarised the story of actual Bollywood, took place when I had gone to meet Manoj Bajpai. After speaking to Manoj, who was fresh from his exploits in Satya and Shool, I stepped out of the trailer van.
Suddenly, a tall and well-built man stopped me and said, “Hello, why don’t you publish my interview as well?"
Although I was familiar with all the famous and not-so-famous faces of Bollywood, here was a guy I couldn’t recognise. Inwardly cursing my own self for not knowing who he was, I asked, “Can you tell me about your latest film?”
“What? You haven’t seen me ever, is it?” he asked in a tone of dismay.
“No,” I stammered. By that time, I had realised that the fellow was wearing a wig and had several false teeth. From a distance, he had looked like a 35-year-old guy. But actually, he couldn’t have been less than 50.
“I have acted in more than 200 films. You will also see me in Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar in which Manojji is acting,” he said, adding, “I am there in one scene.”
“One scene?”
“Yes,” he said, adding in an accusatory manner, “That is since journalists don’t write about me. When you see the scene, you will realise that I am a fine actor.”
Unable to react, I sat down. He stood next to me and spoke to me for an hour, telling me all kinds of stories about the opportunities he had missed, the odd film which never got released. Several such stories, one after the other. “But, I am sure I will get a fine role some day. Don’t you think so?” he said.
I got up, murmured a diffident ‘yes’, patted his shoulder and walked off. I had taken down notes that I did not use. Being a professional journalist, I knew that few will be interested in reading his story in an entertainment magazine. So, here I am, talking about a guy who has acted in 200 films. I must have seen him in a few films ever since I had conducted a false interview with him. But, how could I have identified him, lost as he would have been in a big, big crowd of extras?
Monday, March 10, 2008
SHAKESPEARE UNDER SIEGE
BISWADEEP GHOSH
I am not someone who loves quoting others for the heck of it; simply because I believe that we shouldn’t say what we cannot because of someone else. Such an indulgence is not a great thing, is it? But, as a writer who has been struggling to transcend prosaic mediocrity for a while – occasionally succeeding, but mostly not – there are times when the thought of a great writer needs to be borrowed. Hence, a quote becomes necessary. Can the situation be evaded? Certainly yes, if one were to plagiarise the essence of the thought, rephrase it with badly used words, and make it sound like one’s own. Does that happen? It does, which is why the average muggle googles away, searching for extraordinary phrases of extraordinary mortals.
Lately, however, a couple of aspiring writers have touched new lows. (You want names? That’s easy. Read everything published everywhere every day). They have been whacking lines – from one of the countless quotable quote sites – and using them in their articles shamelessly, stupidly. The obvious assumption is that they are addressing millions of morons who don’t own a single book with broken spines. So, Chesterton enters the article; Bernard Shaw intrudes after a few more; and suddenly, out of nowhere, a phrase from Freud leaps towards the unsuspecting reader, says a quick ‘hello’ and pretends to be a part of the article a second thereafter. Not a single word is changed and the sentence sparkles, sticking out as an oddity. For some inexplicable reason, such guys seem secure in the knowledge that no one will catch them. Besides, as long as they are lifting from writers who are no longer alive, the act doesn’t bother them. After all, dead people do not sue.
The situation is reminiscent of the era when a book reviews page was mandatory in every newspaper. People used to read then. Today, they watch the TV. That is why. However, some small regional newspapers sought to emulate their bigger counterparts by keeping non-specialist books editors for handling books pages. The result: the pages got manhandled. Just about anyone wrote reviews, and murder the writers without understanding a word of what the latter said.
With writers who cut and paste because they are incapable of piloting an article with their own phrases and thoughts, things are very, very similar. How one wishes someone told them not to look like fools on a regular basis? On second thoughts, even if someone actually did, will they understand and change? Unlikely. Only, they might stop whacking from Shakespeare because of whom they might have been caught, and lift from Ogden Nash instead. Which writer they maul doesn’t matter, as long they live to see another day, and write another article!
I am not someone who loves quoting others for the heck of it; simply because I believe that we shouldn’t say what we cannot because of someone else. Such an indulgence is not a great thing, is it? But, as a writer who has been struggling to transcend prosaic mediocrity for a while – occasionally succeeding, but mostly not – there are times when the thought of a great writer needs to be borrowed. Hence, a quote becomes necessary. Can the situation be evaded? Certainly yes, if one were to plagiarise the essence of the thought, rephrase it with badly used words, and make it sound like one’s own. Does that happen? It does, which is why the average muggle googles away, searching for extraordinary phrases of extraordinary mortals.
Lately, however, a couple of aspiring writers have touched new lows. (You want names? That’s easy. Read everything published everywhere every day). They have been whacking lines – from one of the countless quotable quote sites – and using them in their articles shamelessly, stupidly. The obvious assumption is that they are addressing millions of morons who don’t own a single book with broken spines. So, Chesterton enters the article; Bernard Shaw intrudes after a few more; and suddenly, out of nowhere, a phrase from Freud leaps towards the unsuspecting reader, says a quick ‘hello’ and pretends to be a part of the article a second thereafter. Not a single word is changed and the sentence sparkles, sticking out as an oddity. For some inexplicable reason, such guys seem secure in the knowledge that no one will catch them. Besides, as long as they are lifting from writers who are no longer alive, the act doesn’t bother them. After all, dead people do not sue.
The situation is reminiscent of the era when a book reviews page was mandatory in every newspaper. People used to read then. Today, they watch the TV. That is why. However, some small regional newspapers sought to emulate their bigger counterparts by keeping non-specialist books editors for handling books pages. The result: the pages got manhandled. Just about anyone wrote reviews, and murder the writers without understanding a word of what the latter said.
With writers who cut and paste because they are incapable of piloting an article with their own phrases and thoughts, things are very, very similar. How one wishes someone told them not to look like fools on a regular basis? On second thoughts, even if someone actually did, will they understand and change? Unlikely. Only, they might stop whacking from Shakespeare because of whom they might have been caught, and lift from Ogden Nash instead. Which writer they maul doesn’t matter, as long they live to see another day, and write another article!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
DO WE NEED A WOMAN’S DAY?
BISWADEEP GHOSH
Hello, weak and powerless women, it is time to declare from the rooftops what you don’t have but deserve. That sounds so utterly, gutterly stupid. But, who listens, who bothers, who cares? As the world comes together to celebrate womanhood today, what we choose to ignore is that, in modern times, most urban women do get what they want. They have good jobs, social standing, equality with men in the domestic sphere and so on. So, is there a genuine need for a Woman’s Day in urban societies that supposedly reminds women of their power, their privileges, their status in the society? When we celebrate the day, don’t we, in certain unstated ways, affirm that the society is divided into two classes: that of the Fair Sex and the Unfair Sex?
Someone who wishes to view the situation in a lighter vein may exclaim: ‘Men of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your gender.’ But seriously, what the celebrations suggest isn’t funny. For one, we choose to honour genuine women achievers not because of what they have achieved but since they ‘are’ women who have ‘managed’ to script success stories. What we forget is that such success stories have been, and will be, there. There is no need to under-rate them with the eulogies in a limiting day-and-gender-specific context.
The implication, however, is not that women’s rights don’t need to be articulated. In uncivil societies where a woman’s birthrights are denial and oppression, voices need to be raised against man’s sexist dictatorship both within the house and outside. Without indulging in armchair theorising to discuss the Susani Faludis of the world, it is important to check out the state of affairs and contribute in one’s small way. Strangely enough, this is where most surrender without a fight.
Such individuals are convinced that if one attempts to change the society, the society changes him/her. But they go on and on about Woman’s Day on Woman’s Day as if there is nothing more important, nothing more meaningful. Their approach is so utterly credible since few twitch their eyebrows in discomfort because of two obvious reasons. For many men who believe that the society must not change, the day epitomizes all the dubious connotations of the tired cliché ‘man’s world’. For others, and that includes women too, the day is all about taking the shortest escape route to make a pompous statement of gender equality. A few are genuine. But then, they would always be that way, with or without a Woman’s Day.
Woman’s Day ought to disappear from our list of annual celebrations. In fact, it must. However, the desire is nothing more than demential optimism, guided as we all are by Mesozoic social norms. The celebration of ‘triumphs against adversities’ – whether or not they exist in all those cases – does nothing beyond reminding of the power of the man. But, who gives a damn anyway?
Hello, weak and powerless women, it is time to declare from the rooftops what you don’t have but deserve. That sounds so utterly, gutterly stupid. But, who listens, who bothers, who cares? As the world comes together to celebrate womanhood today, what we choose to ignore is that, in modern times, most urban women do get what they want. They have good jobs, social standing, equality with men in the domestic sphere and so on. So, is there a genuine need for a Woman’s Day in urban societies that supposedly reminds women of their power, their privileges, their status in the society? When we celebrate the day, don’t we, in certain unstated ways, affirm that the society is divided into two classes: that of the Fair Sex and the Unfair Sex?
Someone who wishes to view the situation in a lighter vein may exclaim: ‘Men of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your gender.’ But seriously, what the celebrations suggest isn’t funny. For one, we choose to honour genuine women achievers not because of what they have achieved but since they ‘are’ women who have ‘managed’ to script success stories. What we forget is that such success stories have been, and will be, there. There is no need to under-rate them with the eulogies in a limiting day-and-gender-specific context.
The implication, however, is not that women’s rights don’t need to be articulated. In uncivil societies where a woman’s birthrights are denial and oppression, voices need to be raised against man’s sexist dictatorship both within the house and outside. Without indulging in armchair theorising to discuss the Susani Faludis of the world, it is important to check out the state of affairs and contribute in one’s small way. Strangely enough, this is where most surrender without a fight.
Such individuals are convinced that if one attempts to change the society, the society changes him/her. But they go on and on about Woman’s Day on Woman’s Day as if there is nothing more important, nothing more meaningful. Their approach is so utterly credible since few twitch their eyebrows in discomfort because of two obvious reasons. For many men who believe that the society must not change, the day epitomizes all the dubious connotations of the tired cliché ‘man’s world’. For others, and that includes women too, the day is all about taking the shortest escape route to make a pompous statement of gender equality. A few are genuine. But then, they would always be that way, with or without a Woman’s Day.
Woman’s Day ought to disappear from our list of annual celebrations. In fact, it must. However, the desire is nothing more than demential optimism, guided as we all are by Mesozoic social norms. The celebration of ‘triumphs against adversities’ – whether or not they exist in all those cases – does nothing beyond reminding of the power of the man. But, who gives a damn anyway?
Thursday, October 11, 2007
HURRY, OUR WORRY
BISWADEEP GHOSH
“Hello, can you please…?”
“Yes, definitely. Right now, oh, please hold on for a sec…hello?”
If the question makes no sense, the reply doesn’t either. All I can hear on the other side are incomplete sentences as I try to speak and get some information from a girl in a hurry. At least ten others like me are talking to her at one time; she needs to keep each of us posted on each and everything; and, well, that explains why some sentences convey less, and others even lesser. Her cooperation means a lot of us; only, I don’t know what she means once in a while. But, I understand.
Have I experienced so much traffic at work? Living in an era of speeding up of time –whose repercussions I had dealt with in my previous article – I definitely have. Sometime or the other, and usually when the day ought to end, one of our phones rings ominously. Someone we know, we know, is at the other end, and about to unleash a spell that will decide the course of our night. The menu for dinner promises to have one recipe: WORK!
“Hello, how are you doing?” A familiar voice starts a familiar prelude whose subsequent chapters are unknown to us. “You know, since we intend to create a mountain out of a molehill, we would like you to find about one million living moles in the next one hour,” the voice continues, “All you have to do is assemble the moles in a lunchbox and courier them by email.”
How can one courier by email? How the hell does one find one million moles? How will they fit into one lunchbox if we do? Questions torment the weary mind which knows that impossible things can be achieved, but not what is more than impossible. But then, failures being the pillars of success as they say, we motivate ourselves to make a pillar during the next hour. Once that is achieved, we take some flak back home, waiting for the next night. A job badly done, a battle that wasn’t won: life can be so distressingly simple that we hope and pray for easier complications that rarely come our way.
During my birthday last week, I received a lot of lectures on why I should be getting married. Guys, here is some news. I intend to do that very soon, by paying a fat dowry and getting a wife who will view me the way she will look at SRK or Brad Pitt: a cute laptop.
“Hello, can you please…?”
“Yes, definitely. Right now, oh, please hold on for a sec…hello?”
If the question makes no sense, the reply doesn’t either. All I can hear on the other side are incomplete sentences as I try to speak and get some information from a girl in a hurry. At least ten others like me are talking to her at one time; she needs to keep each of us posted on each and everything; and, well, that explains why some sentences convey less, and others even lesser. Her cooperation means a lot of us; only, I don’t know what she means once in a while. But, I understand.
Have I experienced so much traffic at work? Living in an era of speeding up of time –whose repercussions I had dealt with in my previous article – I definitely have. Sometime or the other, and usually when the day ought to end, one of our phones rings ominously. Someone we know, we know, is at the other end, and about to unleash a spell that will decide the course of our night. The menu for dinner promises to have one recipe: WORK!
“Hello, how are you doing?” A familiar voice starts a familiar prelude whose subsequent chapters are unknown to us. “You know, since we intend to create a mountain out of a molehill, we would like you to find about one million living moles in the next one hour,” the voice continues, “All you have to do is assemble the moles in a lunchbox and courier them by email.”
How can one courier by email? How the hell does one find one million moles? How will they fit into one lunchbox if we do? Questions torment the weary mind which knows that impossible things can be achieved, but not what is more than impossible. But then, failures being the pillars of success as they say, we motivate ourselves to make a pillar during the next hour. Once that is achieved, we take some flak back home, waiting for the next night. A job badly done, a battle that wasn’t won: life can be so distressingly simple that we hope and pray for easier complications that rarely come our way.
During my birthday last week, I received a lot of lectures on why I should be getting married. Guys, here is some news. I intend to do that very soon, by paying a fat dowry and getting a wife who will view me the way she will look at SRK or Brad Pitt: a cute laptop.
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