Chakravyuuh
I have to re-enter the circle (or spiral?) again. Was on leave for the last couple of days and my brain just feels a great deal lighter again. Effingly awful to go back!I'm also shuddering at the thought of piles of email in my mailboxes, all the unread blog posts and the general cyberspace-catching up.
Chiaroscuro
I watched the movie making all the news i.e. Black along with Nikhil this evening and truth be told, I found it ok-to-good rather than great. I expected to feel this way despite some glowing reviews from friends whose opinions I trust. Black is, fittingly, a palette of shades and we're going to differ in the ones we prefer.So a note of dissonance from my side - primarily because of the level at which the film operates. This incidentally is my first Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, having never completely seen any of his previous works. I've seen fairly representative samples of them so for me this film is still distinctive of his style, different (paler?) though it may seem in comparison to the earlier films.
How do you express the plane at which the dialogues work, the actors play "it" and how the director offers his compositions? Perhaps a cinematic decibel scale of sorts with "loud" and "muted" thresholds. These levels are a huge factor in determining one's reception to the film (more than any other visual medium) - films appeal personally when they match your amplitudes, but some of them can even get you to temporarily leap on to theirs. Black and all the audience reactions to it essentially revolve about this aspect.
Black wasn't "loud" like I think Devdas must have been, but it still operated at a level or two above what appeals to me. I don't have significant first hand knowledge of how challenged people behave, but inherently I'm sceptical of cinematic interpretations which present such characters as para-normal and so completely different. Ayesha Kapur as the young Michelle plays it with head askew and lost eyes which I found unreasonable. I can understand untamed displays of behaviour and confused, unintelligible expressions of emotions, but not such physical bearing. This is something that the director obviously shapes, so I can't see eye to eye on that. My mind invariably goes to Naseeruddin Shah in Sparsh or Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. Of course, those films didn't have "intensity" leaping out of the screen, so maybe Bhansali is in keeping with his film's tones. It also recalled Anjali where again I wasn't too impressed with the portrayal.
Of course, I have the same issues with the older Michelle; however Rani Mukherjee showed great agility in some scenes that require her to emote despondency and resolve and inner struggle. I thought Amitabh Bachchan got it more or less right - the character's eccentricity and capriciousness has been established and he does little that jars, except in a couple of places. Especially so in his descent into the maw of Alzheimer's.
The "look-I'm-making-a-different-film" aim is furthered by the cast of good but unfamiliar to audiences actors. I thought Shernaz Patel was good as ever, and it was pleasant to see Dhritiman Chatterjee back, but I thought he was disappointing. The adequately miffed Nandana Sen completed a family for which the casting director must be applauded - if you look at the trio of women and the young girl, the facial resemblance is better than in most films. The reds, ochres, saffrons, yellows are replaced by lots of black, white (nice ending shot contrasting the earlier mood) and grey with streaks of red. You can trust Bhansali to get these things consistent.
I read an article in this week's Outlook on the film where the core Bollywood cliques go ga-ga over the film. The article begins by asking if this is a "new idiom in mainstream cinema" and claims that it provides a "redefining moment in commercial Hindi cinema, pushing its frontiers of narration and style". I beg to differ. The redefinition has been happening for quite a while. But the fact remains that the Bollywood setup and indeed most of the Hindi film watching audience still view the people behind these new dialects (such as Ram Gopal Varma and his Factory, Mani Ratnam, Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Kashyap) as "outsiders" and do not embrace them fully. However, Bhansali is from a mindspace that these guys can relate to and such a deviation from him is naturally hailed as pathbreaking, for it strikes home much closer. Indeed, one of the dissenting notes in the Outlook article is from Kashyap who says that "They've seen it all in the West. There's nothing new it offers".
This debate is like the one that accompanied Shwaas. We hardly see themes like these being explored locally, so such efforts can be explosive and grabbing. The next logical step is Oscar talk (which has already begun in this case as well), but from an objective view, this is not the best effort yet. Bhansali says that this is a "small" film for him, and in essence, a vacation from his usual higher register scale. On the other hand, as a viewer, I'd rather that films are made tending towards these alternative themes and settings, not just be summer projects. There's much to behold in Black despite my scepticism but let's not do a Shwaas on it. If like Shwaas, it can offer its parent industry the guts and hope to explore other ranges, I'd consider it a landmark. Right now I'm afraid it's (to use a quizzing analogy) as if Derek O' Brien said "right, let me stop my glitz-oriented Brand Equity style performances and do a quiz with 50% workable questions and with Infinite Rebounds". But if it's just a one-off, then fine - I'm going to stop this crazy analogy right here!
To end what I began, I think the majority of Indian audiences resonate to the range of expression planes that Bhansali works within - probably just it's that I'm not part of that range. I felt the same with Koi Mil Gaya in which most people liked Hrithik Roshan's performance. (To this day no interview of his is complete without a crib about missing the National Award last year which everyone in the insular Bollywood world assumes was superior to the rest.) Black certainly didn't hit me as it seems to have done others. Perhaps there's a little cynical crust developing on the old heart or it was just a little too affected for me...
Asides
* A moment of unintentional irony when the lights went out during the show plunging us into blackness
* Got to see the early teaser for Mangal Pandey a.k.a "The Rising" with Kailash Kher going "Mangal Mangal..."
Kisme kitna hai dum-dum?
Bullet - Ek Dhamaka is the first instance that I know of where the usual <Hindi title> - <English transl(iter)ation> has been reversed. Who says moviemakers are not being creative?Apparently, the movie is gaining fame for tangentially influencing the Bihar elections.
Blog article in the Indian Express
Nikhil and self got quoted in an Indian Express article on blogging in Pune. Read it here.Though technically I must clarify that I wasn't covering PIFF this year except for stray remarks (for reasons of work) unlike Salil, Kunal T, Nikhil K, Siddharth and the rest of the BC gang, I did do so last year.
The article also mentions the Quiz blog which is about an year old now. I now wonder if the journalist would have been interested in the Pune Times fan blog ? :-)
It's back!
Update - feb 4 2005Lone PIET-quizzing warrier Abhishek clarifies with a 2nd-hand views in the comment boxes that the CM merely said something about the name ought to go back to COEP. In fact, I read the Indian Express coverage from yesterday's paper (I get to read it a day later) in which they report that Mr. Deshmukh says that the govt. has no objection to the name going back to COEP. (IE's edition on Tuesday had a good report about the whole issue and what the bureaucratic problems really are.) So there still is a lot of fog on what has been achieved post the merry announcements.
But hopefully, like in the case Narain K, speculation will be followed by concrete news.
Original post - feb 2 2005
Yesterday, at the valedictory function of the sesquicentenary celebrations of COEP, it was announced that PIET will be renamed back to COEP. Yippee!! That's a big victory for the alumni.
As has been lamented in detail in the past, the name was one of the few assets of the college, which hardly needed to be diluted. This turnaround is more than welcome. Now please turn to making the institution more effective.
Now Mistah Shakespeyah, that's what's in a name.
Kaali ghoDi dwaar khaDi
Last Friday was a black day for all ticket scalpers in India. They had expected Black, Black Friday and Blackmail to release simultaneously, giving the black marketing industry a big boost.But Mr. Bhansali postponed his film's release and the Bombay High Court extended the same courtesy to Mr. Kashyap. Leaving these guys miffed. Now the money's on Black Magic.
Yo! (gawd!)
There are so many programmes on so many channels about fitness, exercise and yoga that it is impossible to not start burning calories just on switching on the telly. But as most stuff on it, they can be inadvertently funny. This is especially so on interactive shows where 50% of the time is spent in host, guest and phone-in participant hollering at each other 180 degrees out of phase, usually over echoing of the conversation through the caller's TV.DD's Tamil channel Podhigai is the local answer to Saturday Night Live, only it is not made up. This morning, I chanced to see one caller phone-in to ask a remedy for her tendency to feel sleepy all the time, especially (and this is what caught the ear) before interviews.
You will be happy to hear that the yogacharya was upto the task and prescribed certain exercises to be done before sleep and after getting up.
Kahaa.n se aaye badaraa
Looks like Sir August de Wynter has been playing with the meteorological dials again. For Pune's gone icy cold over the last couple of days.When you thought the pleasant Puneri winter was making a graciously exit, a spell of rain has hit us leading to a cold spell that hangs all through the day. Winters normally hit you hardest during the night, but this cloak has been shrouding us even at 12:00 p.m.
All caps a strange year weatherwise for Punekars - we had so much rain this time and a longish winter with this as its valediction. What next, hail in summer?
Rest unassured, and the rest
I have ended up going to my office for the past 15 days in a row having been pursued by an avalanche of tasks, some of them expanding through my incompetence and some being thrust on my head. Pressure valves were few and far between but one in particular was interesting - the humour in one dissenting email that I ended up penning during this period was completely lost on certain circles (it was fun doing it though).But enough of vague allusions to work. It ain't all over yet, so I'm taking this chance to update this space before I get sucked in again.
It also looks like Page 3 is faring well with opinions. The PIFF gang said they liked it, and Sarika mentions on her blog that it is uncannily similar to her world. Since she's teetering on the fringe of Page 3 reporting herself, she should know.
The matches are in the evening from about 8:00 pm, which is when the suds start to envelope TV which the renders the match visible in 5 minute packets. But then, the matches despite being easy on the eye haven't completely caught the imagination yet.
I like these business channels - they tend to have alternative programming from a less sentimental perspective and are more watchable. "Profit" had one more interesting tale, that of HPCL's endeavour to set up community kitchens where village women can cook on LPG stoves for Rs.4/- an hour instead of needing to burn wood. It was a little distressing to hear from some women that they cannot always assure even that amount, and they have to go back to gathering wood and sitting beside the smoke & grime.
Despite what Zayed Khan claims, the lowest priced pizza at P'Hut is > Rs. 50. That's about the cooking expenses of 13 homes.
Harbhajan Singh lashed out against Chris Broad last week on being reported for a suspect action as well. I must say he has a point. The ICC announced that they are planning to revise the whole thresholds of the flex. But since the current levels continue to apply, any bowler that might be allowed if the new proposals were to be implemented could in the intervening period be asked to modify his action. Only to find out when he comes back that under the new rules he need not have bothered.
[The above two items may be a little factually incorrect - I haven't caught up with my news reading completely and this is based on snatches of what I managed to hear & see recently.]
What else can explain it?
[Update:] A friend also added Dheeraj Kumar to this list.
I'm not sure if requirements of maturity frown down upon expressions of joy at winning not-so-significant stuff like this, but then it would just confirm the lack of onset of the afore-mentioned quality in my personality.
a. Wetting one of your hands (if not both) will dramatically improve your hit rates. The reason being that about 50% of the pests escape even though you knock them down. Make sure you crush any ones with any signs of life - insects are very sturdy even though they may look shattered.
b. If you walk into a room knowing that the buzzers are around but you can't spot them, make your way to the nearest mirror. There are extremely high chances that you will spot a couple of them perched on the glass, peering intently at themselves (not each other, at their own selves). Not being a insect-psychologist, I can't be sure but there may be latent narcissistic tendencies being expressed there. However, it gives the hunter a chance to end this pleasant soliloquy and wash traces of the elimination (not possible on walls).
Remember: eliminate with extreme prejudice. And watch Hun Hunshi Hunshilal (a.k.a Love in the Time of Malaria) starring Mohan Gokhale for inspiration.
And like in some graceful Chinese art film, I could see my reactions slow down. Despite consciously trying to avoid mistakes, I could see myself making them. And more and more. I have never felt this helpless with work stuff before.
You end up thinking it will never ever be solved.
It didn't help that we went home (mostly hungry) during the most coldest night Pune had experienced in the season (a record broken later in the week). Even brass monkeys were spotted taking cover.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
Update: The matter is now closed. If you read this post, please do read the required apology and Amit's clarificationThis is the strangest case of "mirroring" anyone's noticed on the blogosphere. A blog-post complete with comments has been reproduced on a different blog. Later, this turned out to be serial behaviour. Could it be that Plagiarism has hit the blogosphere?
Read about it on Amit's blog. Amit happened to discover that an entire post from Shanti Mangala has been lifted to this blog. A flurry of emails among a few bloggers debated what to do about this. No innocent explanation could be deduced, so it was decided to give this Rohan Pinto a chance to set the record straight or to delete the offending posts/credit the originals.
No replies were received, so some of the bloggers decided to go public. We know that blogs aren't mainstream media yet, however, our content (good or bad) is important to us and flattered initially as we might be, the principles of fairness demand this right to recognition be preserved. Personally, I find this sort of blatant copying so bizarre (why would anyone lift innocuous personal blog posts!) - so bizarre that I'm still waiting for an alternative reasonable explanation.
Interestingly, I was planning a post last week (before work forced a complete shutdown of blogging activities) on the possibilities of bloggers being forced to confront journalistic realities. We've heard how blogging is giving rise to alternative (still amateur) journalists. Will a day come when the top bloggers are sought by product-makers to quietly promote/endorse among blogging circles? Right now, I give more weight to the opinion of a friendly blogger than any reviewer or ad gimmick. Or what do you do about bloggers fuelling rumours (even w/o malafide intentions) to maintain popularity?
All that for a different post I guess. This one is about why Mr. Pinto is making copies of content without credit. We still don't know for sure, but right now we have got to treat it as being intentional. This is not a witchhunt, but an attempt to nip this sort of thing in the bud, or to at least not take it silently. But the lines here are really blurred. Do I have to get a Creative Commons License?
A dish best served legal
When you've been vexed beyond remorse and are repeatedly shown the tarnished spots in a silver cloud, you seek a person or entity crossing your path with a legitimate reason to vent your destructive energies upon. Legitimate, so as to avoid the inevitable feelings of guilt of having dished it out where it wasn't deserved.And when such a desired opportunity presents itself, you fill up with the anticipation of the perverse pleasure. You rub your hands and get down to it with glee.
I've finished rubbing my hands.
Like having a really bad cold all the time
Simon Tatham is (or should be) well known for developing the popular telnet (and others ) client "PuTTY". Just following links from here and there, I chanced upon his personal FAQ page. Which is essentially about one question & its variants: "Why/How doesn't he have a sense of smell?"Evidently having got a lot of this, Tatham patiently explains that this is called anosmia and there are other people who have it. The rest of the FAQ is educational even if you aren't olfactorily-challenged.
Wonder if he can smell a rat.
We're going around faster
The next time you complain to your boss that there isn't enough time in a day these days, convince him/her with this pedantic proof.The review is dead...
Move on now. Don't crowd around, move back sir! That's right, you step back please. Yes, it's dead. Ought to be taking you into custody too really. You, and you, and you there. But we all did it. So who will fling pebbles at the tinsel?That's right - we killed the movie review. The Radio Star sympathised. It wasn't the Year of the Blog, it was the year of pre-emptive publishing and incontinent interpretations. Wielding which, we nailed it right through the middle.
We learned to write, some in KG, some earlier and some later. Writing was a chore for most of us. But we liked to think. And we liked to watch movies. Then we liked to think about the movies we had watched. Last year, all of us discovered we also liked to write about movies that we liked to think about. Evoking "flood" metaphors wouldn't be appropriate at this time, but words swirled around in overwhelming quantities in a delusive deluge.
The hubbub became a disconcerting bourse-like rabble: what my "cool-tech-lingo" friends would describe as an alarming increase in the S/N ratio. I wanted you to know what I thought of yesterday's film (and day-after's as well). I wanted everyone else to know that as well. You wanted the same too. Together we were all happy - and the disk blocks in unnamed server farms somewhere on this Earth got really busy.
Add to this the tendency of film correspondents of commercial websites to be invited to pre-premieres who would then rush to core-dump their "thoughts" via the nearest available Word instance. Unless if they were beaten by me who saw the same film a week earlier at a film festival. But being professionals, they had to watch & digest Thanksgiving offerings of Shaadi Ka Laddoo as well.
Many reviews were motivated by youthful indignation at injustices done elsewhere. "The slowly sinking branch was not a wasted motif; instead it was an allusion to the frailty of life itself with the river being representative of the wetness of the world" and so on. I cannot believe I wrote a 2500 word Master's thesis on the film "Yuva", which all said and done, was a film! When the story of my life is force fed to juvenile delinquents in the year 2090, the ability to faithfully reproduce those golden words will be their ticket to parole.
From hype to hyperbole, it was a short distance. Our opinions fumigated through the smogosphere and created a combination of heady expectations while paralysing the mind into composing real-time reviews in the darkness of the theatre. Result: we sought yetis while we saw pandas instead. They were cute but cliched and definitely not as abominably alluring as the Snowman.
So guys, the reviews these days tell us the story and what was apallingly wrong with the execution. Proceeding thus in in their own Chinese mutational styles, they made it hard to believe that they're all about the same exposed reels. Picture-perfect pandemonium. We're all cooking from the same recipe, but the broths are all so many and tastt so different.
But wait.
Watching movies in 2004 was a scary experience. I watched 80 films (down from 117 the previous year) and was I a jinx! Every newly released film that appealed to me immediately hit the iceberg and headed for Davy Jones' locker (and I didn't even like "The Titanic" that much). This year I'm inviting producers to pay me off to not watch their offerings. Year-end analysis after "told-you-so" analysis from trade analysts told MR-VB-FA-RK-SA-SR-AG to stop being so shy and to explode into skin-coloured Technicolor like the successful rest.
Which is where I got a chance to protest. Hey! I wasn't sleeping through those films. I enjoyed them and didn't mind paying for them. My friends liked some of them too. Fine if you want to get off the fence and go pop (like the weasel) uninhibitedly, but don't stop making stuff for us. Maybe I'm not from the "masses" so I must be from the chattering class of '04. Perhaps I didn't write to convince, but to justify. I wonder if you guys showed them a boring version and showed me the cool one. For I didn't get those guys and neither did they return the condiments.
Fat chance that you'd have read my lyrical odes among all the doggerel and felt good about them. So good that you'd want to sink the equivalent of the GDP of Bhutan into another black-ball-hole just to earn our limited praise and the collective denunciations of the rest.
Amidst all the foggy expanse of the exploding world of blogs, tune into us to hear sympathetic strains. We're putting out all the signals in a noisy (and just got noisier *now*) world. Perhaps only the web-arachnids are consuming them. But I have the satisfaction of having aimed the antenna high.
(This post is about 800 words, I think. Enough for a short note for the future deli-juves.)
The movie review is dead. Long live the movie review.
Yea, rend ro und up
Brilliant Dave Barry-esque 2004 review by Vinod (who also was among the Mood-I quizzing champs this year and from what I've seen of the questions, should be trying to bury that fact from public attention).Circ-and-us
I haven't been to one in 20 years (or so I am told) so Sunday's visit to Rambo Circus was indisputably a novel experience. I don't think this is a nostalgic hamaare zamaane me.n recollection, for how you wax on remembrances if they've been wiped clean before?I am sitting by the ringside, mouth a little agape, expressions and frenzied applause that adults prefer not to openly subscribe to any more. For the acts are nothing short of awesome, more deserving of the description even in adjective-saturated writings.
The excitement (if you are paying attention) faces no immunity in the mind. If there was any such attempt, our defences will fail. Practitioners of stoicism will find their "dhairya" eddying away, replaced by a wish to see the performers make it through unscathed and successful. Why do we wish anonymous people with obviously "showy" names such victories (which they have earn again in 2 hours time)?
I'm struck by the relative lack of enthusiasm among the people beside me. How they keep their hands from breaking into involuntary applause at the sight of that contortion is beyond me! Perhaps it can be explained by the hands being busy digging into the tangy depths of potato chips. Mothers show great assiduousness in the incessant feeding of their young, reminding ornithologists of nestlings and their busy moms.
It takes quite a lot of daring and creativity to induce chewing audiences to smile and clap furiously. Unless, like me, everyone was pondering over the impossibility of replicating even the lightest of juggles or the mildest of back-flips. Being innocent of their ways, sweetly straight-driving elephants lifting the ball over mid-off brought a cheer to me. Russian beauties (probably from Ukraine) delicately sliced pieces of cloth using whips and stepped happily on beds of nails. Flaming torches, large rings, cutlery and balloons flouted Newtonian rules evoking Heisenbergian questions.
The sight of the chimp cycling about only to stop and rest the wheels on the cycle stand aroused the cynical question: was it a man in a monkey suit? (is it too pedantic to say "ape suit"?) Does the audience yawn because even Hindi films have men tumbling about attached to invisible wires these days? Has the distinction between reality and other forms blurred that much?
No one waited for the trapeze artists to alight after an aerial show that I hoped would end early so as to rid me of the anxiety of seeing a mid-air miss (that after silencerless motobikes tracing spherical paths that only the truly geeky would point out as a great physics experiment). People were out and off. Bursting against each other. I always feel Gandhiji didn't quite tell them that civil disobedience was over.
I couldn't climb a net in 2 minutes and jump down 10 feet, even to save my life. But even the clowns do that here. I console myself with the thought that I know the full name of P.T.Usha and how to program in C.
Fleshy soft dartboards
There's no doubt that cricketers are easy mannequins to aim potshots at. A Rediff article today by Ashish Magotra says "Our cricketers need to do more" and berates Indian cricketers for being unresponsive in contributing to the tsunami relief efforts.As I mentioned in an earlier post on how the media likes to talk about the amount of money cricketers make, I find this sort of finger-pointing pretty atrocious. I don't see why anybody should "demand" such services from cricketers. It's not as if the cricketers aren't doing anything, but the writer wants them to do much more. How much more? The cricket community is generating funds by different means, but what can they do if the effort doesn't meet the approval of mediamen?
Cricketers are being unnecessarily dragged into every fund raising controversy in recent times. Sachin Tendulkar was criticised for auctioning a bat for the Oscar campaign of "Shwaas" instead of directly taking money from his bank. Heck, it's his money - he works hard for all that he gets. He is under no obligation to anyone to part with his money if he chooses not to. Does it make much of a difference if he gives the worth of the bat and auctions it out for more two years later? Do cricketers pay their taxes? Judging by the lack of any reports indicating the contrary, I assume they do so faithfully. Do they make their money by fair means? Yes, by all reports. Are we really sure that cricketers aren't without any social conscience? No. So why do people get on their backs so much and demand so much of them in an aggressive manner not applied to other glamorous professions?
It's upto every individual to decide the measure and quality of his/her contribution. Volunteers are urgently required in the devastated areas, so would I be right in vehemently insisting that cricketers (and sportswriters for that matter) rush to affected areas to offer their services? And berate them if they choose to send food and money instead? Is the writer contributing by means commensurate to his own living standards? For that matter, am I?
And when celebrities jump into the fray in high-profile efforts, we can't help but cynically wonder whether ulterior motives of easy publicity are responsible (Nikhil K raised the inevitable question - and I must confess to sharing some of the skepticism myself at times).
Let cricketers go on with their jobs and let them help out in the way they want and if they wish. Or let's start making more demands of ourselves and our representatives for a start.
Retro-titling
(Lunch table conversation isn't always this productive but is usually this funny.)Several of us have been at various times, greatly amused and slightly annoyed at the trend of Hindi title : English subtitle/clarification/pointless phrase) - one of the most memorable being Daag the Fire (which I attempted to explore earlier)
The question that arose between chappathis & curry a few days earlier was: what if films of the past had the foresight and the warped semantic language skills to apply such suffixes to their titles? We played Time Traveller and cast our minds back to ancient times (imagine wisps of smoke from dry ice here...)
* Sholay: The Flames of Vengeance
* Deewar: The Wall (of ACC Cement)
* Ganga Jumna: Two rivers
* Ganga Jamuna Saraswati: One more river
* Kala Patthar: The B(i)lack Diamond
* Trishul: One 3-pointed instrument, one raging drama
* Dulhan Wohi Jo Piya Man Bhaye: The Daughter-in-Law of Purity
* Chupke Chupke: The Game of "Ssshhh..."
* Golmaal: The circle of moustachioed trust
* Jallad: The hanger
* Mrityudaata: The death-bringer
* Kalyug: The age of tomorrow
* Dhool Ka Phool: The dirty dunce
* Kismet: The dice of fate
* Angoor: The grapes of froth
... and so on.
The fun part is anyone can play this game. Even you.
Blockbuster
This emerged during a post-lunch walk. I offer this without any trace of mockery.There has been so much talk of "crossover" films in the last couple of years. In essence, it's a euphemism for taking Bollywood bigtime into the US and other Western minds. I have an even better solution. The best possible "international" film would be the following:
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mithun Chakaborty, Rajnikanth. Plus one Asian heroine: Michelle Yeoh perhaps. Or even Angelina Jolie.
Produced by: Ashok Amritraj
Directed by: John Woo
The reason for choosing this group is that they have been able to offer unpretentious "ACTION" action successes in the past. Where most of the "global" filmmakers have gone astray has been in applying too much mind-power, shaving off universality because of thought given to locales and dialogues and messy relationships. Whereas action-adventure is more universally liked. You won't quite get family audiences in large numbers but a movie of this kind would pave the way for more meaningful collaborations.
The casting of the male stars is to capture a large geographical chunk: Rajni brings in South India, South East Asia and the Far East. Mithun draws in Heartland India and Africa. Van Damme & Woo bring in the international action audience.
The only hitch will be the film title. How can anyone come up with an explosive, high-octane name that will do justice to all of these guys?
Disclaimer: I'm not a Van Damme fan, have watched only a fraction of Mithun & Rajni stuff than most others, so I'm not an expert on their films. However, this is the kind of billing that would attract even people like me.
GMail at the end/beginning of the (next) year
The folks at GMail have put up an interesting end of the year summary on the GMail homepage. Don't forget to notice the small change made to the logo showing the quiet emergence of "2005" from the envelope.:-(
UPDATE:* With my organisation (like many others) collecting money with a view to making the right donations, the main question is whom to give it to? I'm following the thread opened on Ravikiran's blog for an answer. Also, people like Amit Varma will hopefully be posting on their first-hand impressions on the same theme.
I also want to know if rubbishing the PM Relief Fund and government deliveries completely is valid, for most organisations will prefer to contribute to such funds rather than NGOS whose antecedents aren't always well-known.
* Got this link from Ajay's blog. A blog to help collate information on the earthquake/tsunami: SEA-EAT
* Amit Varma recounts some rather depressing memories from an earlier natural disaster affecting India. Let's hope things are a little better this time.
* Lazygeek who's even closer to the disaster areas than many of us has been updating his blog on what he sees and hears.
The dilemma of a contribution
Undoubtedly, this is the season of nostalgia and "what can I do to make a difference". By some strange coincidence, this December has seen more pravaasi bharatiyas (to give them their PC name) of my acquaintance come home for a visit, and plus the well-timed release of a much-discussed film (read "Swades") has made it a bit of a talking point.A few days ago, someone I know told me that he/she wouldn't want to go watch "Swades" because it might make him/her want to come back. I didn't say anything then, but I found that a little odd. According to me, if you really, really want to come back, you will. When you weigh the different variables, if you find that is the most reasonable decision you can take, you should take that decision - be it staying abroad or returning to India. Surely a film shouldn't push you into that decision. It can at best evoke a sentiment but not one overpowering enough to beat hard-nosed practicality or to support any social discomfort.
This view could be completely wrong though, for I'm not likely to live elsewhere but here, so I have no first-hand view. The attendant thought with this kind of "homecoming" sentiment is one of contributing to one's country. Saket is facing this dilemma and mentions this in a recent post "Do the right thing!".
The problem is in essence the same, be it contributing to your city, your school, your college, your country, this earth. If the urge to contribute comes from within, find some way of achieving that wherever you are. It's not that everyone living in India actually contributes to alleviating problems. The same guys who find a "Swades/Prahaar/Unnaal MuDiyum Tha.mbi" kind of movie emotionally uplifting might spit on the roads and break every signal from here to eternity. If you don't feel like contributing, I don't think it's fair for anyone to emotionally blackmail you into doing so. Stop feeling guilty about this! It's not necessary to be a Mohan Bhargava and head directly for the smallest nearby village as well. It's probably just a question of self-realisation after all.
[Thanks to Daemon, Sujay and Nikhil for some interesting discussions on related topics]
More local notes
First, what does it matter if I liked the film or not? :-). Ok, for the record, I found the film likeable though flawed. There are several points of interest. I sympathise with the style of filmmaking and identify with the "message". Still, the film is seemingly doing not so well, the same as several other films I liked this year. So I will stop my homilies here...Jottings
* What's with the awful typos in the credits? "A.R.Rehman" and "Bosco-Ceaser" !!!
* Director's touch: Note the presence of Bapu Kuti (the book that inspired "Swades") on the table in the "Pathfinder" shop when Shahrukh is minding the place.
* So Ashutosh G makes another film in which both Aamir & Shahrukh appear ;-). The 1st Asst Director (Kiran Rao) of this film would have enjoyed that!
* Noteworthy bgms, though somewhat erratically scattered. The title piece played in the harmonica (if I'm not mistaken) should've been part of the released soundtrack.
Indigenous commentary
Local maal is never good. Another example is this absolutely pathetic film called Swades. Here's a list of grouses as to why the movie is so awful:
All in all, I was disappointed. By the very fact that I had to think about all this in the theatre shows you how entertaining the film was.
Why I am not waving/smiling at you
I often get irritated remarks from people who feel I don't "flicker" in recognition when I see them from a distance. Fair point usually, for I am liable to walk past without a hearty Woosteresque "what ho!". The usual explanations consist of sometimes laying the blame at the doorstep of an introverted personality type (which is easier to mention and difficult to justify) and partly to the development of a pair of slightly myopic eyes (easier to justify but difficult to mention if you don't want to bring up the contents of all your latest personal defects).There is a third angle of course. For I was quite a forthcoming and enthusiastic "recogniser" in the past. Until a few public setbacks. Of which the most embarassing can be recounted to elicit a few cheap laughs on a boring weblog.
I was expecting a friend of mine to drop by home in the evening. An urgent mission to the grocery store caused my stepping out of the house. Walking down the lane, I spied a figure approaching in the distance - essentially satisfying all major criteria of the expected visitor, namely gender, type of apparel, approximate age and make of vehicle. Eager to intercept her before she got the bad (or good - I never found out) news of my absence at home, I took a step towards the middle of the lane and waved cheerily. As you will have already guessed, it wasn't my friend. And judging from the more than slightly freaked out response of the rider nor was she likely to become one in the future. She swerved with an unpleasant look. Embarassment stemmed from the presence of certain highbrow neighbours in the vicinity who observed every bit of this scene with the interest of a film critic looking for a turkey to went his frustrations upon.
Now perhaps, you believe that my subsequent lowering of excited cheering in reaction to this minor incident was too much, perhaps you are right. In which case I offer my senstive (ahem) and shy nature as the culprit again.
Bottomline: wave to me even if I'm not reciprocating. I'm just not sure if it's you or that girl again, that's all.
Lazy-islators?
If the hard work involved in soliciting votes and soaping up the party leadership are among the reasons why politics isn't a favourable choice for procrastinators like me, in contrast the much easier task of attending Parliament or Assembly is very appealing. If only I could walk into work at 11:00 a.m., then pretend to be miffed by an email or disagree vehemently with a colleague (mutually) and walk out of the place. To the canteen for a nice bite of lunch (with the same colleague) and back to the office-owned house or guesthouse with all amenities. And full pay. If only.If anyone doubted their intellect, please reconsider. The mere fact that Parliament gets called off more and more early each day proves that politicians are evolving and getting it better each year. I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that throwing just one stick of furniture might cause more melee that could result in more days off than they can do currently.
Pesky-centenary
On the last Thursday & Friday, my college celebrated its "sesquicentenary", arthaat its 150th anniversary. COEP (or as the reluctant postscript goes, "Now known as PIET") was the third oldest engineering college in India (after Roorkee & Guindy - though the head of the COEP alumni association claims it is the 2nd oldest). This post isn't an ode to its greatness. In contrast, it is about why hardly anyone I knew, from my class or in adjacent graduating years, was interested in attending this "celebration".The main reason is that the function is essentially a back-patting exercise for the college biggies to indulge in. Undoubtedly, COEP has been a leader in technical education over many years. But talk to alumni and you will realise that most of the good things they derived from the place was from essentially student-driven activities and there is a sense that things could easily have been much better.
For those who do not know, COEP is essentially sarkaari in its running. But with a name and background that it possesses, it became the college of first choice in the area among engineering students. Unlike its "academics-only" perception among many people, COEPians usually have indulged in academics as an extra-curricular activity, having their days filled with lots of other activities. The college has done well at activities that have nothing to do with mundane engineering, such as Firodiya, orchestra, street play, debating, quizzing, sports (our football, cricket, hockey and several other teams were among the top ones in the city), magazine and so on. Of course, we had our regular share of University toppers & rankers. The point is not to strew laurels about, just to indicate that all of the above hardly included the contributions of the staff.
Ok, to more immediate irritants. The sesquicentenary celebrations seemed more like a fund-raising event among NRIs among the COEPians in the US. I did not attend any of the events, so I may be unjustified in speculating in this manner. However the appeals on the website for funds (and did the President of India come?) seemed clearly that way. The problem with COEP is that the college staff does nothing to inspire loyalty and confidence among its students and alumni and then expects to be cared for like a loved parent.
Most COEPians I know are quite proud about their alma mater; however this pride does not extend to most of the teachers. COEP has now become autonomous and become PIET. They have been cut from the past. Instead of basking in your greatness, please take this opportunity to recognise the gaping problems:
Hire better teachers: The biggest flaw in COEP: poor teachers. Autonomy seems to nowhere indicate that the college will spend money in hiring better teachers. Heads of Dept. have no confidence in most of their staff. Frankly, several profs. don't have the basic qualification to teach - they are here because they would not be good at anything else. Autonomy should not mean just the convenience of setting and correcting exams in-house. I had to re-learn all my basics after leaving college. I may be a bad student, but I know several others who did similarly, and they all were not poor students. The majority of teachers in COEP are either slow-witted or vindictive or unhelpful and so on. This is not a tirade, but an observation.
Bow to common sense in setting syllabi: Autonomy should mean more meaningful & dynamic contents in syllabi, right? Not if you are in COEP. Two years ago, I attended a meeting to guage views of alumni on drafting a new syllabus for CS & IT. None of our (as in all alumni present at the meeting) practical suggestions could be taken on board, for some strange rules demanded that the First Year be exactly common for all depts without variation and that one dept had to "export" a subject to another dept. in the Second Year and so on and so forth. Ideas on revamping practicals, project work and vivas could not be entertained. Bottomline: the status quo could hardly be breached. It was a waste of three hours.
Infrastructure: Funds are being solicited in the name of improving infrastructure. Instead of just spending on infrastructure like laptops for all and more bandwidth (all this seems just IT related infrastructure, btw), spend on getting better instructors. We had no infrastructure to speak of 4 years ago in our dept., unless if you were shooting an attack on a ravaged war camp. But all CS students could afford a PC at home to work with. We need better teachers, or atleast teachers who can operate the so called new infrastructure. I'm willing to wager that hardly anyone in COEP knows network or system administration, and I'm sure the college won't bother hiring anyone with that experience. Result: the new comps that have been purchased will be used as usual by peons to play Solitaire. The rooms are dusty and health hazards. What talk of infrastructure when the CS dept has no classrooms and is housed in what would best described as the outhouse of a bhoot bangla where even ghosts would have asthma in the dust.
Students going elsewhere: Very rarely does any COEP student do an innovative project of any kind during their undergrads. In contrast, there are always stories of such things from colleges like PIET & VIT. It points to probably more motivation for such things there and also a tradition. At COEP, we have been content to just do our "maaz" for being 12th toppers and go to the BC deriding acads. Not that we did any worse, but we didn't do much good as well. I think the best students no longer think of COEP as their top choice - in some courses, other colleges have stolen the show and with far greater justification.
The name: I wonder if the college management thought that Shakespeare is always right. Changing the name to PIET singlehandedly wiped out all the accumulated brand equity that COEP had earned in the past. All recognition among other colleges and universities and corporates has been made tenuous. People think it to be suspiciously the same as PICT or just a typo. Almost every alumnus who has spoken at a PIET/COEP function in the last year has blasted this decision. The decision is devoid of any common sense as far as I can see - just the whims of a few people who want to be seen as taking a forward step. What has changed beneath this superficial nomenclatural adjustment?
I'm more than a little peeved because I've known the place for 7.5 years now. To try making a difference, my friends and I gave much of our time in the last 3 years to teach in our dept. The realisation at the end of it was the place is a mammmoth that does not want to lift its tail to flick the irritant flies. It revels and wallows in its status quo. Autonomy is just new paint on a crumbling edifice. I won't be nostalgic because I go there every week. That's only for people who can be touched for funds without making too many demands. Last week at COEP was probably like a Karan Johar film tailor-made for his audience abroad where you shell out money unquestioningly and feel great about it.
Entertaining Saturday
Last Saturday turned out be an unexpectedly interesting day.It began with a 4-km walk, the first stage in my plans to be able to walk 10 km at a stretch by Feb without feeling too many side-effects . When my normal, procrastinating self protests, I point out the wonderful early winter morning Pune weather to it. Also the rate of deterioration of civic amenities might mean one had to breathe in as much of this tangy freshness as possible.
BC quizzing later that day was a reminder of how things had been in the so-called golden days, and it had something to do with the fact that George was in attendance.
A friend of George was putting up a play in the evening, so Harish and I decided to accompany the senior to it. Having reached the venue early and finding the place empty, we decided to have a Puneri classic "Sujata Mastani" (For those raising a suspicious eye, it is a food preparation). The service was quite notable, but since George claimed it for his blog, I will not mention them here. The old Pune city is usually a labyrinth, a converted "chakravyuuh" for those as directionally challenged as me. But for some strange reason, I actually got us three around making all the right (as in right & wrong) turns. It also reminds me of the directions someone gave us that included the curious note to make a "sudden left" after going straight.
Back to the small hall. It was so small that people sitting on the floor mat could have reached out to touch the actors. Girish Joshi was the friend in question, an ex-COEP student, had written & directed the play, and was also playing one of the two roles. Tickets were still not being sold, so we went to Laxmi Road where George & Harish wanted to check out the "Pankaj" music collection.
En route, George made the pertinent observation that in "Rok Sako To Rok Lo", Sunny Deol looks like the Phantom (perhaps he will elaborate when he gets over the "lots of time, a lot less bandwidth" problem). I had never been past the electronic goods at "Pankaj" but had heard about the good "maal" from friends in the area. Gaped as George scooped up a bunch of CDs (an American dollar goes a long way in the fist) and thus successfully tempted Harish to do likewise, though not in the same quantity. Something George, in a John Cleese-like taunting, never let Harish forget for the rest of the evening. For the record "99.9 FM" seems like an interesting album just going by the credits :-) . And yes, I learnt that anonymous music shopkeepers and storeworkers can be called "Jimmy".
Dashed back to the play, where people (who seemed more like friends and family and their friends of the crew) were trickling in. Final Draft was written very well and enacted even better. The theme was engrossing - on writing, creativity, originality, passion and the lack of it, manipulation and self-discovery. A great example of what can be achieved without too much fuss and ostentation. My play viewings have been limited and I'm not a critic, but I can tell you that the play never flagged once in its ~100 mins. I hope Girish Joshi and his production crew can take it to more places and people.
Thanks to the ongoing Hathway-ESPN Star blackout, missed both #435 earlier and #34 that day. Compounded by the double the next day.
On Swades's chances
For some unknown reason, like many people I feel Swades is probably not going to do as well as Lagaan. Some feel its story won't stand up, some feel the length (about 3.5 hours) will be a detriment as will the lack of crowd-friendly elements. Perhaps it will be too moralistic & sermon-like. Shah Rukh Khan is the most subdued we have ever seen on screen (in trailers), not necessarily a bad thing. I wonder nervously about the talents of Gayatri Joshi.One reason why I would like to see Swades triumph is for Gowariker's sake. Evidently, he is passionate about his themes and has perhaps moved away from his 1st two attempts where he picked plots unfamiliar to his sensibilities. I have had no reason to be cynical yet. Atleast, it's better than some Arindam Chaudhari-Vashu Bhagnani credit/debit ledger based effort.
Seven sisters
Humble respects to M.S.Subbulakshmi. However she will be remembered through her voice as long as people play staples such as the "Suprabhaatam".
The music of Kisna
Probably the only reason I purchased the Kisna CD was to get hold of the Rahman tracks. For I'm not much of a Subhash Ghai fan (though he does manage to get decent music for most of his films) and don't adore Ismail Darbar's work though I have my respect for his productions (my opinion being that "Devdas" wasn't as special as "Hum dil...").Overall, I came away disappointed. The two Rahman vocal tracks are excellent: Hum Hai.n is pal yahaa.n" is melodious and haunting, though very simple. But the repeated appearance of this tune in the form of other instrumentals is a litte monotonous. Sunita Sarthy makes a name for herself in "My Wish Comes True", an English number whose type I have not encountered in Indian films before. The choral part towards the end is especially good on the ears.
The disappointment then stems from the rest of the album. Apart from "Woh Kisna Hai" and parts of some songs, the Ismail Durbar contribution is below par, though of a certain basic quality. I yawned through some of them, though I'm willing to listen again without reservation to see if they grow on me.
VFM-wise, the CD turned out to be a box of complaints. There are hardly any lyrics, the composition credits aren't very clear and the instrumental credits are not available. Instead of a contest to rank 6 out of 12 songs to be judged by a jury consisting of the director & MDS (!), they could've done a better job on the inlays. I've heard that the cassette at Rs 55 has only 5 tracks which is really crib-worthy (the 12 track CD is 145, and there is a 16 track "Deluxe" version of whose price I am unaware of).
Overall, the album is a "could-have-been", only if ARR had had the time. Though music reviewers everywhere seem to have given the album a big thumbs-up, so perhaps you shouldn't listen to me and just judge for yourself.
Blinding darkness
Deep holes and darknessSad, really sad!
I didn't think it would be this corny even with a name like "Pavitr Prabhakar".A preview of some of the images from "Spiderman India - I" has some incredibly silly and atrocious "porting" to Indian conditions - by a group of people who seem to have no clue what contemporary India is like. Worst of all, these people essentially seem to be of Indian origin.
Dhoti-clad Spidermen and villains swearing "Chirkut" at each other?
And on top, this amazingly patronising "glossary" that is actually quite hilarious! (Click on the image and zoom in). Though I must say, the artwork is quite excellent.
Muaf nahi, me.n thujhe saaf kar duu.ngaa!
I recently "Lucky Prasad"-ed myself. That is something you cannot really mask, unless if it was originally like the ones sported by Pradeep Kumar or S.S.Rajendran in their heydays.From a human nature observation point of view it is interesting to note reactions (in this case, it is involuntary). The outspoken ones and the well-acquainted will express their feelings immediately. Whereas most of the rest will notice it but will try very hard to behave as if it never existed in the past. A very small minority will notice something has changed, but wouldn't be able to figure it out.
Why not purr through the year
Though I have never taken the IIMs' CommonThe advantages to my mind are many. One, the organisers are not liable to find their logistics stretched to great extents that the sheer numbers must inevitably cause. The cost of arranging classrooms, paper printing & distribution and staff to supervise the proceedings will be a direct function of the number of candidates. Add to this the high security costs. Instead, a continuously running test option would spread the numbers all around the year, plus the computerisation would ease the conduct. All you need during the application cycle is a valid CAT score.
Secondly, it gives candidates some breathing space w.r.t their preparations when unforeseen events happen. Samrat missed his Nov. date twice before. Once, by becoming a canary and contracting jaundice and the following year by having to travel abroad. Fortunately, he eventually took it and made it through to IIM-L. But if he had had an option to give the exam at another date, he may have perhaps have saved himself a year. People are so stressed out with the exam that it's sad to see months of effort go down the drain.
Third, the exam would be less affected to being derailed by paper leaks & misconduct. I know this system must have been proposed last year during the wake of the scandal, but now that things have quietened down and with a successful exam behind them, the IIMs could now change to a more operationally viable system.
We have heard of the big brains at the IIMs, so it should not be too difficult for them to design & implement such a system here. A large database of questions from which questions are periodically chopped & updated shouldn't be too difficult to prepare given the "aptitude" nature of the questions. Perhaps there is no need for a feedback based question set that the GRE uses. As long as they can ensure a fair question paper when making a random selection from the database, there ought to be no complaints on the relative ranking of candidates. Also, you can restrict the number of attempts in a year.
If the idea behind the CAT is about an efficient & quick filter before the next stages, a year-round exam option would not only help the IIMs, it will also give those who haven't done that well a chance to look for other alternatives. Heck, even I may attempt it then, even if just to check my aptitude :-)
Any dissections from management fogeys?
Not another group blog!
Some of us were planning yet-another-cricket-blog to spew forth (why?) on the game on a free publishing service but no one seems to have turned up at the party. Until I know the venue, I thought why not open some cake & coke at this link ?I have so many important things to do beside this - at the end, while listing up the reasons why I was a failure, "Blogging" will be the "Abou Ben Adhem".
God and the jump cut
Jump cut: a cut which causes the audience to perceive a gap in time, or an unaccountable change in a screen object’s apparent position. Usually occurs when cutting between two images which share an identical subject but place the subject at different positions in the frame.After several days of forgetting about it, I remembered just before I nodded off. So when He came in to have a conversation as usual, I could tell Him:
"You should give me special powers, you know."
I guess I can, but you know, I'm always a little, um, hesitant giving what
people want when they ask for such powers.
I guess most people are usually buggin' him about some crap or the other. I wonder if He thinks this is part of the same crap. I looked at him and caught him smiling, so guess He heard that.
"No, I'm not going to ask you for something deadly. Nothing like say going invisible
or being able to fly maybe, though that would be way cool. But no, I don't think
you've been asked this before."
Really?
I could tell I had his attention.
"You should give me the power of the 'jump cut'."
His forehead creased in that cool, intelligent way that just oozed wisdom. Of course, he came at me all ignorant and all.
What's that? A jump cut I mean. By the way, you don't have to think of me in the capitalised form. "he" will do..
That's one thing about him - I think he considers polite inquiry and child-like innocence to be a virtue. He's always asking me & telling me stuff like that. I guess he makes sure I have my fundas clear about what I'm saying.
"Hmm.. See, in some of these movies, they skip a few frames in the middle - for e.g. they just cut from you walking from there to you having reached here. Instead of showing all the intermediate parts. It's abrupt, jumpy, but it looks cool. Especially with the right kind of bgm."
Right! I remember - you've mentioned it to me before. But that's in a movie, right? I don't understand what you mean by "wanting it".
"It just came to me when I was in this really boring meeting. The kind where some dude opens his laptop and starts to paint the wall in beige. Then we all stare at it waiting for it to dry."
Did he stifle a chuckle? He has a sense of humour, but perhaps that was a poor joke.
"Anyway, I thought wouldn't it be majorly useful if I could just jump forward in time and basically cut the crap. I mean, all that coffee must not be good for me, no?"
So you want to be able to fast-forward, hmm?
"Actually no. There's a bit of a difference. Let me explain".
I turned around in my sleep to a more comfortable position before continuing.
See, when you FF, you can see all the intermediate images - you merely rush through them.
Mostly, they look very funny, that's all. I thought of that before. But I think doing
that would mean I'd actually have to live through it consciously. Maybe going through
it so rapidly might actually mean the impact of what I am trying to avoid would actually
be more, hmmm.. intense.
Whereas in these jump-cuts you don't remember what happened in between?
"But you know what the outcome was - you just fill in the blanks. Interpolation, you see."
He seemed thoughtful, like he was weighing the possibilities.
You do realise that events will still happen, don't you?
"Oh yeah. I'm not asking you to let me change the course of history, now" I said chuckling
Hmm... I don't think you'd be able to any way.
Ooff! Put down. I've got to be a little careful. He's so close to granting this - don't want to spoilt it.
"I just want to accelerate it when I don't like it. Of course, I need to remember
it at the end. But not all the details of how it happens."
"Let's see now - a few time variables in the Equation. Should be possible to arrange.
No space changes of course. You won't find yourself at a different place suddenly, I mean.
"That should be cool."
I hope you can remember this. Saying that he leaned over and whispered something
in my ear. Of course, can't reveal what it was. Code of secrecy and all.
... then blink. You'll learn to control the length of the gap soon.
"Wow! Thanks a lot, sir."
There's not much harm you can do it with that, I hope. Let's see... We'll check
how you're getting along with this. I hope you won't get too greedy for something
else soon
"Not at all. Thanks again!"
Yoo-hoo. Can't wait to try it out. Will try not to use it too often or too injud
ly. Must remember not to boast ab
o others. Shoot! I forgot the possibility of me missing something. I wish I had aske
ome way to get an action replay of sorts if not going back in time (which he'll sure be touchy about). Next time perhaps. Till then, if you see any break
olate for yourself, won't you?
Blogroll additions
Say hello to: Mukul, Siddharth Dani, Nakul, Ajay Bhat and AdityaBefore I make the rest of my additions, I have got to re-org the side bar.
River Moon
If you are a Rahman fan, River Moon is something you should be keenly awaiting. The film, previously known in its pre-controversial days as Water, should be preceded by its soundtrack in the coming months. Even though Netaji, The Rising and Kisna (Ismail Durbar is the lead MD, Rahman is contributing a couple) will also soon evoke the curse of Pip (a.k.a "Great Expectations"), River Moon is different. That's because Rahman says it is 10/10, which is a huge thing for him to say given his levels of modesty - so he won't be kidding with the public.The unseemly & illogical controversy a few years ago had effectively pushed the score into the cupboard without any reliable hope of it being heard. But seems like the makers always planned to make the movie elsewhere (Sri Lanka as it turned out). Wonder if the internal rumblings of the Sangh Parivar have prevented them from noticing this quiet development or they've just let it be. However, I don't care for the movie much (considering that there's John Abraham & Lisa Ray acting in it - proven models-turned-non-actors so far) - so just give us the songs.
Saying that the hype or expectations will kill this one won't do - after all he started it :-).
Let the games begin
At home and bouncing a small red ball from wall to wall. I haven't done this in a while. At one time, this occupied a lot of my free time. It had several more sophisticated versions. Wall tennis, wall cricket, wall table tennis among many. (Wall tennis is technically solitaire squash, but not if you play for Becker or Ivanisevic.)There was home football too, sometimes simply consisting of direct free kicks or penalties. But the balls left their mark on the walls, so after they were freshly repainted, I was banned from hiring them for my sporting leagues for a year. This has not been the only attempt to curb the bounce; in Bombay, a neighbour complained about the noise I was making (or so he said) on the common wall, thus ruining one of my better tennis leagues. I had to switch to home basketball (with pelmet niches replacing hoops).
No sport was without commentary or detailed scores. There was inevitably a bit of matchfixing involved if India was playing. I remember tearing out a cricket sheet while playing book-cricket when try as I might, the pages spelt doom for the team. Book-football & "pen game" were the rage in school, with an after hours league. Book-tennis didn't last that long.
The streets are empty - no one plays for timepass any more. Instead, they go to special facilities to become World no. 1.
Darkness
The tragedy of my life was that I couldn't make a living out of that what I was good at. Then I wasn't good enough at that from which I wished to make a living out of. And neither was I really good at that with which I made my living, nor did I really wish to make a living out of it.The not-so-secret canon of Blatherskite Weisenheimer
Faux News - 9
Big banners announce 2005 Diwali dhamaakaas!
By our Bollywood correspondent
Scarcely has the festive season ended that producers have started to look ahead to next year's Diwali. Two big production houses have announced big budget films with grand starcasts.
Leading the pack is the granddad of sentimental romance, Jus Chopper, who revealed he was now making a love story of international proportions. Providing an exclusive preview of the film, he said it would be set in post-war Iraq and post-Bush America. To be called "Mir-Sarah", it documents the "human love pangs between Mir Yasser Hussein (an Iraqi freedom-fighter/terrorist) and Sarah Jane Smith (investigative reporter and the President's niece)". With a tagline of "I'm embedded in your heart", the story is how Mir & Sarah meet in Fallujah, fall in love between two Cruise missile attacks and are separated by the Marines who incarcerate Mir in Guantanomo Bay without any recourse to the Geneva Convention. It takes 22 years before pop group Boney M write a song and help reunite the two.
Mr. Chopper declined to answer how he will obtain permission to shoot in Iraq, but sources have disclosed that Holi-Bartan, a US based production house which is reportedly owned by the US Vice President is a key partner in this Indo-US co-production. Thanks to his influence, mustard & sunflower seeds imported from Punjab have been planted in the shooting locations. This revelation could be an embarrasment for the US administration, for documentary maker Mikael Mealy has threatened to expose this nexus in his upcoming film "Kelvin 273".
The film will feature Sarak Kahn, Julie Robert & Boney M, with Client Westwood & Dana Buster Keaton in cameos.
On the other hand, rival production house "Liberation Arts" has no plans to go international after their recent megastarrer Ate-Rats (the most controversial film ever) featuring the 3Cs: Ax Coumar, Caren Cooper and Pinky Chopper. Instead, they are planning a sequel called Ate-Rats II: the Mouse who came into their home (the second most controversial film ever).
Directors "The-Men-in-Black-and-White" refused to make the disclosure that this film was influenced by the Hollywood hit "Stuart Little". Quashing all rumours, they said this was actually based on a true incident in which Kobe Bryant adopted a mouse. They however confirmed the cast would feature the 3Cs again, Coumar as the adoptive father, Cooper as the adopted mouse and Chopper as the evil cat.
Producer Sue Basch Guy said she was in no hurry to complete the film and hence had allotted a time of one year to the directors. She has much to look forward to in the coming months, with the release of her much-awaited airplane romance "Cessna".
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Prabhavit Prabhakar
No, it's not yet another corny name for a desi dubbed superhero. It's a term I coined to describe those (including me) who are so influenced by films as to weave them into daily life.My group at work is particularly susceptible to celluloid of the motion picture kind. Our "prabhavit prabhakar"-ness spills over onto work. Which causes Sujay to break into an impromptu version of "Haa.n jab tak hai jaan" when faced with the question: "can we fight to the end and deliver our code successfully?". Or when asked about the arrival of a new big-shot manager, Parikshit says "Pistol jail me.n aa chuka hai". Or Daemon doing "angry young man" impressions
Understandably, references to "Sholay" dominate, but there are other founts to draw from - comedies like Golmaal or Chasm-e-Baddoor or Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (any birthday celebrated with cake will see this recalled), recent ones like Lagaan or Jaani Dushman find themselves quoted often. "Angreji" films are also in vogue - every time the printer beeps "Paper Jam", you want to crush it like in "Office Space".
Un-prabhavit prabhakars around us may find us giggling like schoolgirls meeting their chocolate heroes from time to time, but in our defence, crazy things like these keep our sanity intact. For when we are depressed and frustrated, office buildings seem like Shawshank prison and we dream of printing out a poster of Rita Hayworth and start chiselling behind it. In contradiction, I feel that excessive film watching has actually resulting in further addling our minds, by providing it ideas and scenarios which would have never suggested themselves to us any other way.
Probably the most far-fetched filmy imaginary thing to have occured to me was after watching "Kill Bill 1". At a function to celebrate some divisional milestone, there were three people invited to cut the cake and they couldn't (out of modesty) decide who should do the honours. Instantly, I was lost in visions of a deadly battle between the three brandishing swords & daggers in a bloody fight to wrest the prestige of slashing the cake.... (you get the idea).
Warning: There is no redemption for "prabhavit prabhakars". For I am Jack's anti-normal imagination.
Once I could see, now I have cataract
Now an ICC study says that almost every bowler in the history of the game has chucked at one point or another. I'm sure umpires are most befuddled by all of this. The gap between what you see and what it is has never been more complex.What Judge Potter Stewart famously said now appears to be true of "throwing", for like p0rn0graphy, no one seems to be able to define it, but think they can recognise it only when they see it.
Holy smokes
Here's wishing the "mango makkaL" safe & happy festivitiesTry as I might resisting, but a festival day almost demands a post to be dedicated to it. However, Diwali sees a curious lack of enthusiasm from me, and has been so for the last several years. I guess it all started with finding Diwali bang in the middle of the PLs before the semester exams for four continuous years (which quietly hints that I did make it in 4, thank you). Given that it was the time when you discovered the extent of your preparation (or lack of it), the Sivakasi arsenal could be just a pale whimper before the days to come.
I find that the people who plunge into Diwali are ones with a critical mass of relatives or newly wed couples or families with young kids or people away from home filled with nostalgia or students & working chaps with a chance to head home. Since I don't fit into any of the above categories, Diwali is yet another festival holiday. I don't burst crackers, just light the nominal sparkler to mark the occasion. In addition, "Naraka Chaturdashi" is our Diwali day and I work that day, so the Laxmi Puja day is just a day off from work (may not be, considering the state of our product release scheduled for next week).
Not that if I was home on Diwali day, I would do anything special. Sadly, it comes down to what's on the Tamil channels. Sun TV provides a mouth-watering film on Thursday evening, one I've been awaiting for a while. It's late, but it's his latest #1. Sing it now, in chorus:
B - to - the - A - to - the - B - to - the - A!That's right ladies & gentlemen, time for the "|..|" mudra (a.k.a "|,,|") !!.B-A-B-A!!!
For those who came in late, Baba was Rajnikant's last film, released in Aug 2002. Apparently, even Rajini fans couldn't save the film. Which makes it even more appealing in my mind. Fret not, Superstar fans, I have nothing against him (he's actually a classic case of fettered & frittered potential) and his formulaic themes are quite entertaining. But I fear it's going to be Thanksgiving rather than Diwali, for Baba is reportedly quite the turkey. But his fans and well-wishers hope it's all gatam, gatam. #2
F5 your memory with:
* My (unfair) views on the film, even without having seen it.
notes
0. This post was dedicated to Rahul Srinivas who would
love watching this film if he was here
1. One of Baba's trademark catchphrases from this film
2. Yet another signature toon from this film
See, that's how we laugh, innit?
The best part about British sitcoms (especially those from the BBC's stable) was that you could find one (or many) to suit your own sense of humour, for they spanned a large variety of topics & comedy styles. From the witty & highbrow to the fairly raunchy, they had it all.There's been a revival of these comedies for me thanks to the large DVD collection that the local British Library has made available for its members. Thanks to a timely investment in a DVD player, some of us have wasted no time in raiding the larder for films & TV series. I got to catch up with some old favourites.
The first BBC comedy I ever saw was Yes Minister that DD so paternally screened. I didn't get any of the jokes then and wondered why (and who) was laughing from time to time. The situation improved a little when the pre-commercialised Star Plus had a British comedy every weeknight. IIRC, the sequence was Yes Minister (and then Yes Prime Minister), Some mothers do 'ave 'em, Are you being served, 'Allo 'Allo and Porridge. The "mega-serial" monster was just beginning to bite moms & dads on all the regional channels (resulting in the ultimate downfall of Star Plus as well), so I didn't get to see all these sitcoms all the time.
I got Porridge & borrowed Yes Minister from Sujay, so I'm having a good time watching one episode daily. The books Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister are must-haves, for the quality of writing is brilliant with some of the most elegant puns I have ever encountered.
Going back to the sitcoms, I have thoroughly enjoyed the likes of the brilliant Blackadder (now that's what revisionist history should be like) and Fawlty Towers among others. The BBC has a detailed list (link) of all its comedies and it was interesting to note that Only Fools and Horses was voted its best ever comedy. (Link to the top 10)
Makes you wish that we had a rich tradition of interesting comedy on our domestic TV circuits as well instead of the phoney & poorly derivative stuff whose only purpose is to provide employment to laughing jackasses on their soundtracks.
And that's why you don't walk
From Cricinfo's bulletin of today's match:"Kaif had survived a vociferous appeal for a catch behind early on – Gilchrist had words when he didn't walk"Taking the word of the correspondent (as I didn't see the match - boo hoo), I wonder if Kaif didn't ask Gilchrist to go and stuff himself. I am a huge fan of Gilchrist, but here he was way out of line. No need to expect others to walk if you do it, that too only as a personal policy that even most members of your own team are loath to follow.
In the end, every run made a difference and if Kaif had not let the umpire do his job, India would have lost. Perhaps Gilly was just a little frustrated with the pitch and possibility (then) of defeat in a tight match. Mike Brearley in his Art of Captaincy spells out the difference between "walking" and "claiming a catch falsely" and he is right.
Year of elections
I guess elections happen in various countries each year but this year was easily one where several high profile elections took place. The world's largest democracy in terms of population, the most influential, two of the biggest nations by area, some of the most controversial and other nations, big or small.This year we had India, Canada, Australia, the US, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Russia, Nauru, Spain, Tunisia and if we consider it, the European Union.
Care for a smoke?
Anyone driving down Senapati Bapat Road in the evenings will notice the pallor of smog hanging heavy all around. Usually noticeable in winter, but this time it has been more pronounced than I can remember despite the surprising rainshower a day ago. The area is now the focus of intense construction activity on the roads and with the massive office buildings coming up, so there is a heavy penetration of dust all around.I suppose everyone feared this was going to happen with the rapid expansion gobbling up open spaces all around the area and the pounding pressure of vehicles pouring onto the University Road from the 4+1 roads leading into it. The neat stretch of roadway, the uncluttered spaces in parts of the area and walk-worthy hill are more memory than reality now. Despite being prepared for this given the signs, it still makes you wistful now that it has actually happened. Being a hub of IT infrastructure isn't worth the cost from some angles.