Banno, Dhanno and Teja

banno at wordpress

2010-03-24T12:37:00.000+05:30

I'm moving to wordpress. I'll miss blogger, especially the fab blogroll feature. But my blog has been virtually impossible to open on Firefox and Safari. Quite, quite fed up.

Anyway, I'll be here. http://batulm.wordpress.com/

Hope you'll follow me there. It's going to take a while to build up my blogroll again. Cutting and pasting from blogger as and when it opens for a few seconds.

So do leave your urls, on the comments at wordpress, will just make my life a bit easier.

Jitters before I hit 'publish'.

platform no. nine and three-quarters

2010-03-17T10:10:00.002+05:30

No, it's nothing to do with Harry Potter. But Amit Dutta's film 'Aadmi ki Aurat aur Anya Kahaniyan'. Please go read at Upperstall.

A lazy boy film

2010-02-22T12:25:00.001+05:30

"275 per ticket, Madam", he said.

I gaped at him.

"Recliner seats, Madam", he said sympathetically.

"Can't you give me normal seats?" I gasped.

"No, only recliner seats, Madam."

I rushed into the theatre, determined not to waste a minute's worth of my 275 rupees. They were still cleaning up after the last show.

Dhanno raised her eyebrows and said, "Mom, they'll let us know when they've finished."

Once inside the candy-striped auditorium, I pushed the back of my seat.

Dhanno said, "It's not a bus seat, Mom. Just wait."

She found a secret switch in the copious folds, and the chair extended, my legs went up, my back slid back.

"More, more," I said, "that's enough."

A little boy passing by squealed, "Daddy, I want a seat like that."

I was inclined to pull out my tongue at him, but his Daddy pulled him away, reassuring him that his seat was going to be as wonderful as mine.

"Oh no," I said, as it suddenly struck me, "how will I get up for the National Anthem?"

On the dot, the screen commanded, "Stand up for the National Anthem." I scrambled out of my seat; the chair lurched with me. Dhanno meanwhile, pressed a switch, her recliner went back to a normal position, and she stood beside me, tapping her foot impatiently while I shook myself straight.

"I almost fell," I said.

She nodded coldly. I noticed for the first time that the group of actors singing the National Anthem have weird eye-lines, because they are all keyed in. The thought that each actor has been shot separately against a green background depressed me for some reason. I slid back into the chair with relief.

"Should we have some popcorn?" I said.

"No, we've just had dinner, and you always say that the popcorn gives you a headache," Dhanno admonished.

"Will you share the popcorn with me?" I said, ignoring her.

She refused to answer.

I asked the usher next to me, "Could you get me a regular popcorn?"

He said, "Only large, Madam, no regular."

I sank into the seat, defeated.

"Isn't this chair like the one Joey has in 'Friends'?" I said.

"No," Dhanno said, "That's a Lazy Boy."

"This is a Lazy Boy," I said.

"No, it isn't," Dhanno said, "for one, a Lazy Boy is much larger."

"This is nice too," I said.

I slid the back further. The ceiling was candy-striped too.

"That's hypnotic," I thought.

I woke up from a nap much later, and looked around. Peace prevailed, as people slept on their recliners. Dhanno looked more amicable in her sleep. Only the little boy behind me was awake. He was playing with the switch and had succeeded in turning his recliner into a swing. This time, I did pull out my tongue at him. His Daddy was asleep.

So yes, do go see 'Toh Baat Pakki' if you can book yourself into a recliner chair. If you own a Lazy Boy, then stay home and watch TV instead. Even if you don't have a Lazy Boy, stay home and watch TV instead.

There's enough bad acting, screenplays, camera work, music on the small screen to sedate you, you don't need to go to the theatre for that.

comfort films

2010-02-03T13:58:00.000+05:30

If you are stuck in a hotel room all by yourself, even if it is a very nice hotel room,

and you've made those calls to your family that you've tried desperately to stretch for over 30 minutes, because you so want to be home,

and your family is going all, "why don't you relax, and take that holiday from home and us that you are always talking about?",

then the best thing you can do to cheer yourself up is watch 'Jaani Dushman' (1979).

It's full of the most gorgeous women, Neetu Singh, Rekha, Yogeeta Bali, Sarika, Reena Roy, Bindiya Goswami, Jayshree T, Aruna Irani and a few others, all a reassuring size 14 and above, dressed in tight blouses, big bare midriffs, and tight knee length triangular skirts, and angular eyebrows (yes, it was that time). Every so often they turn up in full bridal regalia.

The men are all tall and handsome, Sunil Dutt, Shatrughan Sinha, Jeetendra, and they dress in matching trousers and jackets, with patchwork on them, and big belts on their waists. Shatrughan Sinha is delightfully, unrepentantly evil.

There are several brides, several songs, and several deaths. There is a lot of honour going around, and friendship, and brother-sister love that always ends in tears. The story goes around in a loop. Love scene, fight scene, death scene, comedy scene, love scene, and so on. The comedy scene is Jagdeep and Jayshree T trying to make out, and being disturbed by a rival lover, Paintal. The love scene is Sunil Dutt and Reena Roy trying to make out and being disturbed by a rival lover, Shatrughan Sinha. The sweet scene is Jeetendra and Neetu Singh trying to make out, and everything being hunky-dory, signifying an early death for both of them. The dramatic scene is Sanjeev Kumar, the righteous Thakur being horrified by his nasty son, Shatrughan Sinha and the mother, Indrani Mukherjee crying for her husband's forgiveness for their son. The sad scene is a bride being sent off in her palanquin by her tearful brother. The horror scene is an evil spirit attacking the bridal palanquin and killing the bride. The scenes play in a loop through the film, with insignificant changes in them. The flashbacks have the characters remembering similar scenes, as of course nothing else does happen in their lives but what's on the loop.

It also has Vinod Mehra as a mad man wearing plants sticking to rags, which are then torn aside to reveal a very, very tight police uniform. And Premnath who plays a fat Bumm-Bumm-Bhole sadhu in a ankle-length orange robe with side slits. It's not clear until the end whether or not he is nurturing the evil spirit in the cave underneath his temple.

The evil spirit wears a gorilla suit rented from Maganlal Dresswala in Girgaum Chowpatty (I presume). I'm not sure whether they had the Juhu branch back then. The suit probably still hangs around the godowns and I wonder if the evil spirit lurks in there. The evil spirit is of a hurt bridegroom whose bride sneaked out on their wedding night to meet her lover. When the possessed man dies, the evil spirit moves to another body. The gorilla suit remains the same.

It's all very delicious. And it goes on forever. And it feels like you have gone back home for a while.

bravado

2010-02-02T08:43:00.003+05:30

After hearing that Salman Khan was blasting all those critics who blasted 'Veer', Teja is seriously waiting for him to react to my review of 'Veer' in Tehelka.

He's been going to the gym lately, and would love a fight. But Salman Khan is

So, no, I rather he stayed far away from Teja.

In my defense, I did end my review with a line about his fabulous screen presence, and stardom. Not my fault it was edited out.

Dhanno refuses to be implicated in any of this.

boys will be boys

2010-01-26T13:37:00.002+05:30

The policeman said: "Wherever the media reaches, there is trouble. The backward places where there is no media, people are poor, they are uneducated, they don't know what is happening around them, they are happy. Educated people cause all the trouble."

He forgot to say, "trouble for us, for the administration", but I wasn't going to correct him, as I was sitting in the police station, charged by local Congress goons for tarnishing the image of Dharavi. I had insisted on coming in the police van, much to the embarrassment of the two police officers summoned by the goons on 60 ft Road.

"No, no, madam, come in your own car."

"No, no,' I said, 'what if I run away? These people (the goons) don't trust me."

"But we trust you, madam."

I jumped into the police jeep anyway, enjoying their discomfiture.

At the police station, the goons kept marching in, until 2 went up to 25. They went on about media people exposing the nakedness of poor people in front of foreigners. I tried to tell them our program was on the industry in Dharavi, but they were insistent that we were shooting gutters.

The cameraman showed them the footage on the tape in the camera. They were impatient and wanted it fast-forwarded. The camera attendant explained that would damage the head of the camera. For 20 minutes, they peered into the viewfinder, looking for incriminating evidence. When they could not find it, one of them said, "What is the meaning of taking so many shots of the road, for so much time?" I said, "I must give you some film editing lessons then."

Offended, they began to rant about a recent documentary appearing on National Geographic that has some shots of children shitting on the roads, and a local activist's interview. It was hard to understand whether they were angrier about the crap or the activist. They all wanted to show him his place.

The angriest one said, "They are showing Dharavi as it was 40 years ago."

Since the said documentary was made a few months ago, at the most a year or so ago, I did not comprehend how it represented a Dharavi from a bygone past. Or what it had to do with our crew. But this was hardly about logic, was it?

Two policemen meanwhile diligently pored through a fat manual, wondering what they could charge me with. The other police staff looked quite fed up. They were all keen to go to lunch.

A little man in white shirt and white trousers showed up. I smiled at him in relief, because he had worked with us on the Secret Millionaire show. Turns out that he is the master brain behind this 'issue'. He has decided that all foreign traffic and all film shoots in Dharavi will be routed through him. So he refused to acknowledge me at first, then tried to bring me around to his point of view.

A couple of his goons came upfront and asked my white producer to dole out 5000/- to each of the goons for the trouble they had taken in creating this ruckus. Luck was on our side, because in fact, we were through with almost all our shoot, except a few general shots. So we could afford not to get agitated. Unable to understand this, they began instigating the policemen to check the back of our car, check all our equipment, check the passports and visas of the foreigners. "Who knows what they are doing here?" one said.

A police official shooed away the goons irritably, "Get out of my office. This is not some criminal or murder case, that you are surrounding her." He grumbled about how these people walked in and out of the station, as if it was their father's kingdom.

The police decided to fine the crew 5000/- on the charge of our not informing the local police station about the shoot. An officer said apologetically, "This is only a deposit, madam. You can go to the court on Monday morning with the receipt. The judge will charge you 2-300 rupees and give you the rest back. It's a minor offense."

The little man called my colleague later to say, "We have all these boys in the party. We have to take care of them. You should help with funds."

The next day, he called me twice, to ascertain where and what we were shooting. "Are you in Dharavi,' he asked, 'I saw your car there." I said, "Am I meant to report to you every morning?" "No, no,' he said, 'just let me know where you are. Then my boys won't trouble you. I had to take them all out last night, to cool them down. We'll talk over the charges later."

I wondered if the boys would not be better employed making more public toilets in Dharavi, rather than worrying about photographs of children shitting. But apparently, the image of Dharavi will remain intact if the little man and his party boys get a commission from the film production budget.

I said to him, "You've done more to spoil the image of Dharavi with your goonda-gardi, than anything we could do with our camera."

He said, "Oh, boys will be boys. We have to employ these low-level types in the party."

God save Dharavi, God save the nation from the party boys.

I must say this for the Mumbai police. There were 7 men in the crew and me. Not once did they question my authority as a woman in representing these 7 men. I don't think that would have happened in many other states, in the country.

the slumdog children of mumbai

2010-01-14T18:34:00.006+05:30

This is a programme that I think I am proudest to have worked on, in all these years. Simply because it was not only journalism at its best and most sensitive, but because the director Nick Read and the production company True Vision are committed to the ethics of working with children and helping them to improve their lives. And on a lesser note, because we shot in the monsoons in the most excruciatingly difficult circumstances.

It is not always pleasant to work in the slums, or on the streets. More than the physical hardships, you are always being quizzed about selling India's poverty. You have your own traumas about the difference between your own life and that of the people you are working with.

When you have lived for any length of time in Mumbai, you stop "seeing" the life on the street. There is so much of it that it can be overwhelming, and you ignore it to get on with your own life.

But while working on this programme, I felt that it is important to give a voice to the people who are usually invisible. I stopped feeling ashamed of my work, and saw that it could be an opportunity to help at least a few children.

The Channel 4 site has an article on street kids, my very limited experience with the children. Please read it here.

The Slumdog Children of Mumbai

Edited to add. The film received a tremendous response with hundreds of emails, comments and enquiries to help the children in the film and others like them. True Vision has built a site dedicated to these children with links to some of the NGOs working for the children, and also ways to help the children directly. Within 48 hours, the Trust Fund for the children has already collected over 8000 GBP.

The link to the site is here Slumdogchildren.org

The biggest challenge is not going to be money, but motivating the children esp. the boys to go to school or vocational training. Any suggestions are welcome.

It's one of those days

2010-01-12T23:09:00.005+05:30

When the doctor says there is nothing wrong with your insides.

When an old man says you remind me of my daughter, may you always be happy and do well.

When Mr. Amitabh Bachchan thanks me in a letter to the editor in Tehelka, for my review of 'Paa'.

When we log in to book a train ticket for Teja for the same day and there are several seats vacant on the train he wants.

When Penguin delivers my complimentary copy of the anthology 'First Proof 5' which has my short story 'Your Room' on page 122.

When it takes only an hour to get home rather than an hour and a half.

When Karmickids gives me the superior scribbler award.

When someone gifts us a pack of dark Toblerones.

When I can spend the evening watching the end of 'Dil Deke Dekho' for a few more laughs before I sleep.

When someone quotes his guru to me and says, "Don't renounce what you have, renounce what you don't have" and that gives me a new way to think about my name, which means 'someone who has the potential to renounce everything'.

When it seems to me that it may not be a bad idea to blow the trumpet for a while, even if it means the ones in the vicinity will shut their ears.

Edited to add: Here's the link to Mr. Bachchan's email on the 'Bouquets and Brickbats' page of Tehelka. Scroll down to a box Appraisal.

why aren't we in goa?

2010-01-05T10:11:00.004+05:30

Teja fiddles with his camera.

He says: "I don't like palaces and forts. Unless I'm studying them for some particular reason."

Dhanno says: "We should go to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Ajmer. I mean, we should really see the place."

I say: "It's only 15 minutes since we landed here, people. Why did you say yes to Rajasthan? I knew we should have gone to Goa."

Dhanno drools: "Hmm. Prawn curry rice. Pancakes in the morning. Cinnamon apple pie at night."

Teja says unconvincingly: "Oh, I'm OK. This will be fun, too."

Dhanno grumbles: "Yeah. But why are we staying in Udaipur for 3 days?"

I look at the Lonely Planet guide yet again to find out why. I begin to read aloud from it.

Dhanno flops on her bed, and says: "This is like sleeping in a hammock. I'm sinking."

Teja wears his reading glasses, just because I am wearing mine.

Dhanno says: "Both of you act like they are new toys."

I say: "I like the room. It has the same curtains as our bedroom."

Teja laughs: "We should have stayed at home then."

self indulgence

2010-01-03T18:21:00.000+05:30

photos by Dhanno

almost a blue moon

2010-01-01T15:32:00.001+05:30

In the last 10 years, the birt hday boy has taken
5 years to move from 31 to 32,
4 more years to be nudged ahead with a great deal of haranguing on my part, from 32 to 34,
and another year to grudgingly accept that he was 38 yesterday.

Being born on the last day of the year, for some reason, allows him to to remain a particular age for longer. I being born in the middle of the year, am apparently at a disadvantage. Depending on his mathematical prowess and annoyance quotient of the moment, I have been anything between 40 and 55, in the last 10 years.

Thank god, it was not a blue moon day when he was born. It would have taken him another 19 years to turn 39 (or not!). And I would be called a cougar.

udaipur

2009-12-19T21:57:00.000+05:30

after a Fish a la Jagat dinner on a terrace restaurant over Lake Pichola, all I can say, folks, is have a lovely Christmas.

Dug up a mountain, out came a mouse!

2009-12-14T14:05:00.000+05:30

'Rocket Singh' moves as slowly as the rickshaw you always get by some law of the universe, when you are running late. Every 30 seconds, 11 vehicles zip by you on the highway, 7 amongst them other rickshaws. You come out of a soporific trance to make sure that you are moving. Yes, you are. But you have already forgotten where you were heading towards in the first place. You have reached a state of being. You just are. In a rickshaw. Inching along the highway.

The only reason you don't jump out of the rickshaw is that you are watching the incredibly talented Ranbir Kapoor. You wonder how strange it is for the makers of the film to try and squash the very charm that should have been the film's biggest asset! Harpreet Singh Bedi (Ranbir Kapoor) starts off as a goofy, happy-go-lucky character and transforms into a too sincere, boring one. Perhaps that is called growing up?

The film eschews melodrama and masala. But it also throws out of the rickshaw - romance, cinematic treatment and any sign of fun.

What it does revel in are painstaking details on the world of sales and marketing. I feel pain because it is a world I ran away from 20 years ago. I feel 20 again, trapped in a dreary sales office, where everyone expects me to sell washing machines, and I'm looking for the nearest exit. Try as I might, I cannot get excited about a battle being fought for computer assembly and servicing territory.

The pretence realism of the film is confused with filmi stereotypical characters, foul-mouthed 'item girl' receptionist, aggressive bully of a marketing manager, exploitative number-crunching boss, porn-addict techie, mean colleagues en masse who have nothing better to do than throw paper planes (rockets) at Harpeet, prescription-pretty, insipid girlfriend, doting grandfather. Thankfully, the actors competently redeem the over-the-top characterizations.

Honesty is the best policy is the simple premise, refreshing in an age that reveres cleverness and success. But the premise gets muddied because Harpreet Singh Bedi's means to the end are not above reproach. The narrative remains simplistic. The climax of the film is frankly unbelievable in concept and embarrassing in its execution. Characters turn around too easily and therefore implausibly.

There is a nebulous quality to the film. One is not quite sure what it is about, what it wants to say, or what one's own reaction to it is. It's not a film you can dislike vehemently, but not one to rave about. It's nice as mice, much as Harpreet Singh Bedi describes himself in a moment of anger against himself. But do I really want to pay to see mice?

You may be better off watching Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 'Anari' made 50 years ago with Ranbir's grandfather, Raj Kapoor!

It's pretty hammy, but also has the beautiful Nutan, the redoubtable Mrs. D'Sa (Lalita Pawar), fabulous songs, even one Helen number (1959), and loads of Raj Kapoor crying.

pink slippers

2009-12-07T18:07:00.000+05:30

Inspired by these, this:

"You haven't done it, have you? I knew you wouldn't do it. It's always the same with you. You just say you'll do it, and then forget all about it. This is the fourth time I've come. Each time you say, come in one hour, come tomorrow, come in the evening. As if I have no other work. You think?"

Madhukar's long, thin face remained impassive as hers puckered up more and more with her scowl. It was as if he heard her from a great distance, and from a great distance he replied, "Come back in an hour, my son will keep it ready."

The sharp quiver of his mustache could easily be mistaken for a smile, only an embarrassed one, but nevertheless a smile that only enraged the already infuriated woman. Bala glared at Madhukar and took one slipper in his hand, reluctantly. But before he could even turn the slipper in his hand, the angry woman bent down and snatched it. She didn't even see the faint tremor of fear on Bala's childish face. Bala picked up the other slipper beside him tentatively, and she grabbed that too from his hand. While she thrust the slippers into a humungous plastic bag, Bala stopped breathing, defying the tears to stay put in his eyes.

After she had stomped off, Madhukar shrugged slightly and looked at the three people standing before him. His mustache quivered more definitely in a mute plea for support from them. But none of them wanted to encourage him with the faintest of smiles. They were on the side of the shouting woman; each of them had made one round or two to get their footwear back from Madhukar.

Madhukar continued with his work silently. Bala rubbed a brown shoe vigorously with black polish. When the last of the three customers had gone, Bala exploded, "I am going to run away, Baba."

Madhukar said distractedly, "No, you are not, Balu child."

Bala said, "Yes, I am."

Bala was ready to jump up this very instant and leave. Though Madhukar didn’t know it, Bala was quite sure of how to get back home to Aai.

He suddenly remembered the smell that clung to Aai, the smell of her sweat mingled with the smoky smell of the wood in the clay stove, and one tear fell defiantly on his cheek.

But then he remembered Aai kissing him over and over again, even after Baba had already reached the gate of their house. She had whispered against Bala's cheek, "You will stay with Baba, won't you, Balu? Don't leave him alone, you know what he is like."

He couldn't go back home without Baba. Aai would only cry and worry about Baba, and not be happy that Bala was back. He was stuck here forever and forever in this tiny tin box in which he could barely stand, and Baba could only sit, on the corner of a busy road.

So he pleaded now, "Why can't we just go back home?"

Madhukar said, "We can't, Balu. We have a shop here now."

Bala said, "This is not a shop. It's only a tin box."

And that it was. They could lock up the broken slippers and shoes in it at night. But Madhukar would not leave his tools there, or the polish box. Those, they carried to the room in the slum everyday, the hot, smelly, cramped room they shared with 13 other men. Madhukar slept with his tool bag under his head, and Bala with the polish box near his feet.

But Madhukar said, "It is a shop. I pay 500 rupees rent for it every month."

Bala said, "Our shop in the village market is so big."

Madhukar's mustache went up a millimeter, and his nose swooped down to touch it, as he said sullenly, "You know very well, Balu, that is not my shop, but belongs to your Ajoba. And after Ajoba, it will be yours. I have no shop in the village. This is my shop here."

Bala knew that the shop in the village market would be Baba's after Ajoba. But who could argue with Baba's mustache or Baba's nose? Only Ajoba, who had a sharper mustache and a sharper nose.

Bala decided that he would never grow a mustache, and he would rub his nose for 10 minutes every day to flatten it a little. He looked around him morosely, rubbing his nose. The city was so crowded. The noise of the incessant traffic and people made his head throb. How different from the market at home.

That was crowded too, and got very dirty by the end of the day, garbage left by the stream of tourists walking through - cans, bottles, plastic bags, tetra-packs. Yet just beyond the market lane, there were the brown and blue hills, and tall trees, and a cold nipping air, and the lake down below. And Bala did not have to sit in the shop all day. He could run between home and market, shop and fields, school and hills, as fancy took him.

But Baba and Ajoba fought all the time. Each time, Ajoba's nose would quiver with rage and he would say, "This is still my shop, and you had better do as I say."

One day he said it once too often, and Baba took out a small suitcase from the loft, dusty and rusty with disuse, and put a few pairs of clothes in it. Aai cried and cried until he agreed to take Bala with him. And then she whispered on Bala's cheek, "You will stay with him, won't you, child? You know what he is like."

Bala seemed to feel again the wetness of her cheek against his and remembering her puffy eyes he was determined to hurt Baba today. He said, " We don't even make shoes here. Just repair them."

Madhukar remained silent. What could he say? He would not mind going back home himself; he missed his wife, and even his grumpy father, and the two little ones, Bala's brother and sister. But perhaps more than them he missed the hills and the sharp colors of the many flowers that grew in every nook and cranny of the winding streets of their village.

He had always loved those colors, they seemed to seep through his eyes and stream through his blood and wanted to burst through his fingertips into the shoes he made. Pink, green, blue, purple. But his father's eyes and blood and hands wanted to stick to the colors that their family had used for generations in their shoes, the colors of the earth in their village, brown, rust, red.

Each time Madhukar went to the city to buy materials, he would return to the village with stains of different hues. His father would fret and scold, "Why waste so much money on colors? If people want pink, or blue shoes they can buy them in the city." And Madhukar would say, "You are an old man now. You know nothing about how the world has changed. No one wants your dull brown shoes any more." And his father would say, "This is my shop. You better do as I say."

Well, this here, this tin box on the corner of a busy road in the city, was his shop now, and even if he did not make shoes here, only repaired them for a few rupees, it was his shop, and maybe one day, he would have enough money to buy some leather and some more tools and some color stains and start making his own shoes.

His mind started brimming with colors again, pink, blue, orange, purple. He came to because Bala was nudging him, his face flushed with excitement. A pair of pink slippers with brown flowers was right before his long nose. He took the slippers into his hands. He looked up at the woman who was looking at his dazed face with concern.

In a voice that would barely come out of his throat, he asked, "Where did you buy these?"

The woman said, "In the market at Mahableshwar."

Bala squealed loudly, "Was it a big shop? In the village market?"

The woman frowned and said, "Yes, I think so, a big shop."

Bala said, "Next to the shop where you get strawberry cream? Was there an old man there?"

The woman scrunching her nose in an effort to remember, said, "Strawberry cream? Yes, I think so, an old man."

Madhukar meanwhile turned the pink slippers round and round in his hand, looking at the seams, the brown flowers, the soles. He recognized his father's hand in the stitches. On each sole there was a small etching of an M and a T.

Madhukar Tambe. That was his name.

He smiled and handed the slippers back to the woman, "There is nothing wrong with these; they are perfect."

The woman said, "But the stitches have come out there, just there, you see?"

Madhukar shook his head, his face stretched in a beatific smile. The woman bemused walked away.

Madhukar smiled and said, "We'll go home then, shall we, Bala? You must be missing Aai, no?" Bala grinned and nodded his head. The brown shoe in his hand was now completely black.

© Batul Mukhtiar, December 7, 2009

de din-a-din

2009-12-05T18:13:00.001+05:30

my review at tehelka

taal se taal mila

2009-11-24T09:40:00.002+05:30

If Gabbar Singh were to ever capture me, and Teja coming to the rescue was tied down hand and foot by Gabbar Singh's henchmen and put at gun-point, he would never ever have to flare his nostrils and shout at me, "Banno, in kutto ke saamne mat naachna." (Banno, don't dance before these dogs.)

For Gabbar Singh would himself clamber down from his high rock, put a shawl over my trembling body, untie Teja's bonds and tell Teja, "Teja-bhai, tum Banno-behn ko ghar le jaao. Hum ko koi naach-vaach nahin dekhna, Nahin dekhna naach-vaach hum ko." (Teja-brother, please take Banno-sister home. We don't want to see any dance. No dance we want to see.)

For a 10 second demonstration would have made it clear to him that Banno-style dancing goes like this: 1. Move right foot sideways. 2. Move torso to the right. 3. Lift right arm up. 4. Twist right hand. 5. Move left foot towards right foot. 6. Move torso to the left. 7. Lift left arm sideways. 8. Turn left hand round and round. 9. Stand still to listen to beat. 10. Catch it again and start motion in above sequence, now completely off-beat. Repeat ad-infinitum.

Is it any wonder then that anyone who can move arms, legs, shoulders, eyes, face, head, and other body parts in one continuous, rhythmic motion and stay with the beat, for any length of time mesmerizes me?

As if my own gracelessness were not enough, my ignorance about any form of classical Indian dance (or music) is shameful. So I am always hesitant to attend dance performances. But for once, I decided to diss the computer and the DVD player, and stretch my mind, if not my limbs a little.

The dance performances at the Bandra festival were meant for ignoramuses like me. The open air stage attracts a mixed crowd, street children, regular promenade walkers, young couples who've made their way up from the rocks by the sea after sun-down, friends and family supporting performers.

The performances by children from 2 NGO shelters, had me doing that thing I do to stop howling - gulp, gulp, close mouth, squeeze nostrils, stop breathing, face swelling up, getting red. Theirs was a dance I understood, because it was close to Banno-style dancing.

The three other presentations were Kathak, a duet of Bharatnatyam (performed by the male dancer) and Odissi (performed by his female partner), and a group of students performing Bharatnatyam. I was unable to capture the finer nuances of the performances, so I concentrated on watching the expressions, the costumes, the flowers in their hair, the sparkle of the jewellery.

And going on in my mind, "Why are they wearing black? It's showing the dirt. If she was wearing red and yellow, why is he wearing maroon? Her ghaghra is too stiff. It doesn't show me the play of her legs." And so on. Because of course, to me, commenting is half the fun of watching anything.

What I also love doing during live performances is to watch the people who are watching. Some young boys getting impatient. A little girl with dirty frock, matted hair and blond streaks. An old couple who really seemed to get it. Parents of the performers, whose eyes and cameras were focussed only on their kids.

There was also a school-principal type of MC who scolded all of us before and after the presentations.

Of course, going to Band Stand is never complete without shouting "Ee, ee, Shahrukh Khan's house." I almost never have to do that myself, because someone always gets in there before me. This time, it was Pu.

However, in my book, this is highly excusable, because just a few weeks ago, I met an old doctor who lives across Shahrukh Khan's house and he was pointing out of his window, going, "Ee, ee, Shahrukh Khan's house." And the old gentleman and his family have lived there for years before SRK.

After, a walk through Bandra, and then prawn curry-rice, fried surmai and fried bombil at Soul Fry.

Made me forget all my film woes, for sure. I was also quite pleased when I liked the same dances that Pu had liked, considering that she is studying dance since she was a child. Some hope for me, I say. And for Gabbar Singh.

the david and goliath of film making

2009-11-23T11:06:00.003+05:30

The following exchange between karrvakarela and me on my post on 'Tum Mile' seemed too important to be hidden in the comments section. Some of my Film & Television Institute friends, filmmakers themselves, The Third Man, Irene Dhar Malik and I, review films regularly, and we are often accused of hating Bollywood.

At the risk of sounding silly, I actually feel physically sick when I trash a film. As a film maker I know how difficult it is to get a film off the ground, and to actually see it through to the end.

So I take the liberty of speaking for all of us, and other film critic, film maker and film lover friends, in saying that the fact is that we love films, and therefore hate the sheer waste of money, effort, technical skills and star power expounded in an obviously lackadaisical manner, to make what can only be called 'products' and are definitely not films.

This displays a callousness in the film industry towards the audience and leads to a desensitization of both film makers and the audience. The Times of India today carries an interesting article 'Directors on the Fringe' which introduces us to a few of the film makers who are struggling against the system.

Anyway here is the exchange between karrvakarela and me, and I hope that all of you will add your own thoughts to this.

karrvakarela said...

Hi Banno,

This has nothing to do with your review, or the film, which I will assiduously avoid, but is it just me or is the recent urbanization of Hindi cinema starting to get stale? Granted a lot of the audience is concentrated in the cities so it makes sense to make movies they can relate to but as an industry whose job it is to tell stories I think most new filmmakers have been willfully negligent in ignoring the rest of the country. I was watching Prakash Jha's Hip Hip Hurray the other with its charming portrayal of small-town Ranchi and it hit me how little we've seen this kind of story-telling of late. Films like Gulzar's Namkeen and Mausam, Shyam Benegal's Manthan, Basu Bhattacharya's Teesri Kasam; stories with local flavor and character. Where are they now? Will they ever be made again? I think Vishal Bharadwaj may be the only one who is exploring those possibilities and transcripting them into his own private genre. Everyone else seems too obsessed with the urban grind.

Banno said...

Karrvakarela, true. The trouble is not that those stories are not being written, nor that those films are not being made in the face of severe odds, but that those films are not getting distributed, and don't even have a chance of reaching the audience. When they are picked up by a distributor, they are released in a few multiplexes, where the audience is not necessarily interested in these films, and the ticket prices are too high, thereby killing the film.

I've watched several small films which are in fact fresh, interesting stories, different from this no-man's land, which is not even truly representative of any urban concern. In the last year itself I have seen, Sushil Rajpal's 'Antardwand' (not released), Paresh Kamdar's 'Johny Johny, Yes Papa' (not released), Paresh Kamdar's 'Khargosh' (not released), Ranjit Kapoor's 'Chintuji' (didn't do even one week), Shyam Benegal's 'Welcome to Sajjanpur' (did reasonably well through word of mouth), Pravesh Bhardawaj's 'Niyati' (today he is celebrating 2 years since he finished the film) . These are just a few off the top of my head. A couple of days ago, I saw Bela Negi's film 'Daayen Baayein' (awaiting release, and all of us waiting with bated breath hoping that this lovely film gets its due viewership).

Often, I am unable to review those films because they are still in the process of being sold. :(
Which usually never happens.

A lot of us now feel that unless there are exhibition spaces for art-house cinema, where ticket prices are low, there is no hope for it.

Marathi cinema, in fact, has made a huge comeback because of government subsidies in the making, and also tax-free exhibition, made compulsory for cinema halls.

a 'bad hair life'

2009-11-22T15:37:00.007+05:30

A group of college students enters 10 minutes late. Of course they are chattering. Loudly. As they shuffle across me. A girl who has actually (really?) seen the film earlier gives them a vague update on what has happened so far.

The vagueness of her story-telling makes them ask more questions and the chatter goes on for some more time. When they finally settle down, the girl who has seen the movie before dials a number and starts cooing into it. I stomp off and change seats. I can hear them sniggering.

Another group enters late and sits down to the left of me, thankfully a few seats away. Yet another group enters late and sits down to the right of me, giving me a wide berth. I am khush.

The people on the right tentatively deposits an infant in the seat nearest to me. But perhaps my scowl is fluorescent. It makes them change their mind. They take the infant and place it in the aisle near their feet, presumably to be trampled upon by hovering popcorn vendors.

I look at them in horrified disgust. They ignore me. The man then spends the rest of the film talking to his clients. From the various instructions about a car in Mira Road, and a driver in Vasai, I gather he runs a transport company.

Suddenly, a man 2 rows behind starts yelling abuse. I turn around thinking that finally someone has lost their head in the way I've been wanting to for the last 40 minutes. But the man is raging with eyes in space. Ah, a hands-free phone. "Tell the bastard that we won't do anything till we get the money." He starts walking towards the exit, yelling all the way, his 'b******d's and 'f******'s lighting his way.

I burrow into my seat and think viciously that an audience like this deserves a film like 'Tum Mile'. We have become so desensitized as a society that we deserve to pay obscene amounts of money to watch complete shit about 2 people who make the most boring couple in the world.

Why write a script where two ex-lovers meet after 6 years on a day that is bound to give them bad hair?

Soha Ali Khan is gutsy. Her hair goes from wet rats tails to dried frizz. Perfectly natural when one has been pelted by the rain for hours. But since the 26 July 2005 deluge is only a pretext for the two ex-lovers, Sanjana (Soha) and Akshay (Emran Hashmi) discovering that they are after all, just right for each other, surely a background kinder to the heroine's hair could be chosen for this reconciliation of kindred boring souls?

Sanjana is rich and modern. She lives alone, then lives with her boyfriend. She enters a room and takes off her shirt and does the rest of the scene in her slip. She lounges around in teddy shorts. She displays a beautiful cleavage whenever she can. Soha is comfortable with her body. She does little things with her eyebrows and a flick of her hand that tell us she knows about acting. And yet, I spend the better part of the film wondering why she does not allure, why she remains an ordinary girl. Surely I should admire her for acting an ordinary girl, but I find myself resenting the total lack of glamour.

Even her supposedly rich father lacks glamour. Sachin Khedekar does not look like rich Sanjana's rich father, but in his black shiny coat, a lawyer soliciting clients for 100-200 rupees outside Bandra Court.

Emran Hashmi seems to have put a cap on his sleaziness. But that unfortunately just makes him flatter than a paper dosa. He's nothing without his torrid kisses. He plays an inexplicably bitter painter.

Inexplicable because in fact, he paints for the common man. Melting moons and beautiful sad women by windows, which in the real world, should sell like hot cakes to hotel lounges. Instead he is poor. Even though the 'common' electrician too loves his painting. There is much talk about the opinion of the common man. It's a message to all those out there, yes, the critics may bash our work, but the common man loves us.

Sadly, the 'common men' watching 'Tum Mile' did not seem too happy on the ride.

There is no point in even elaborating on the illogicalities in the plot. There are many but they float like dead rats in the dirty water. However, because this is a love story, and not a documentary, we do not see the dead rats.

What remains is a sense of terrible boredom. The two narrative threads, the past and the present, play like two different stories. The trouble is that Sanjana and Akshay are just not interesting enough a pair for us to be interested in their love, hate, love lives. You feel sad that Sanjana hasn't found anyone more worthy in all these years.

Akshay is given a chance to vindicate his earlier 'loser' status, someone who had to let his girlfriend pay the bills, by now flying business class, buying art galleries and going to Tokyo to pick up awards for his design company. He is also given several chances at displaying his manly heroics during the flood, while Sanjana is suitably, femininely helpless and afraid.

What is conveniently forgotten is that things went wrong in the past because Akshay didn't communicate. That Sanjana just got tired of dealing with someone who was so self-obsessed. All doubts about compatibility are washed away in the deluge.

A shorter version of this review published here.

BTW, header photo by Teja.

pure gold

2009-11-19T19:45:00.000+05:30

i dress therefore i am ....

2009-11-18T13:10:00.000+05:30

at Upperstall Blogs. My confused thoughts on 'purdah'.

it's been a long haul

2009-11-15T20:02:00.000+05:30

'Khargosh' won 3 awards at the Osian festival this year - the Special Mention and the Audience Award and shared the NETPAC-FIPRESCI award.

Trisha at Tehelka wrote this.

in love

2009-11-12T10:58:00.004+05:30

In our house, Ranbir Kapoor is mentioned several times a day.

One of our family members is madly in love with him.

I am meant to make it very clear to all and sundry that that family member is not me. I am not supposed to love Ranbir Kapoor, though I am allowed to like him, in a maternal sort of way.

One of our family members also hopes to be an actress, work with Ranbir Kapoor, have him fall madly in love with her, and marry her, one day.

I, meanwhile, am trying hard to imagine what it would mean to be the 'samdhan' of Neetu Kapoor. And I am glad for the temporary reprieve from worrying about all those next-door boys .

We have spent a fortune in movie tickets watching 'Wake Up Sid' 4 times, and 'Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani' twice.

We don't like Deepika Padukone or Katrina Kaif much in this house. In fact, we hate them.

bon appetit at tehelka

2009-11-01T12:39:00.003+05:30

There's more where that came from.

for those on a diet,

2009-10-28T12:56:00.002+05:30

if not candy floss, how about some balloons and glittery swords? No? Bows and arrows, then?

Photo by Dhanno.

If you don't like any of these, or even if you do, you could go read my post on Upperstall Blogs, 30 days in 58 years.

candy floss, anyone?

2009-10-26T10:14:00.003+05:30

So I'm going to be traipsing the streets of Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land again for a fortnight, going darker and darker in the white glaring heat of October. Thought I'd leave you with a few photos by Dhanno, taken at Juhu beach, a couple of weeks ago.

The header photo is by her, as well.

acid trip

2009-10-10T23:34:00.001+05:30

Who, Max? Wherefore art thou, Romeo? JD, JD, is that JD? Hello, hello.

Do you know who I am? I don't know who I am. Do you know who you are?

Sultan, Om, Kaizad. Max, oh Max.

I've found a hat.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

I've found a gas mask.

I will kill you. I could have killed you. We will be killed. He will kill us. Should I kill you?

Oh, Max.

Gas. Pentane. Temporary amnesia.

Chinese, Japani, Korean? **&%$#*@#$%. Oh, Indian.

Car 1. Car 2. Car 3. Car 4. Boom, boom, boom. Car 5. Car 6. Car 7.
Boom, boom.

Fire, water, guns. Boom.

Acid factory. Grills. Doors. Locks.

Who are you? Who am I? I will kill you. You will kill me?

Man in Black 1. Man in Black 2. Man in Black 3. Man in Black 4. Boom, boom, boom.

Find Max. How will I know her? She's wearing black.

Mud tracks. Bikes. Helmet out. Long hair flying. Leer. Leer. No kiss.

Gun 1. Gun 2. Gun 3. Boom, boom.

Bad friend. Good friend. Good cop. Bad guy. Bad girl. Leer, kiss.

Boat. Bike. Car. Bigger car. Bigger, bigger car. Boom.

Max. Romeo. Om. Sultan. Kaizad. JD. Sarthak. Mrs. Sarthak.
What's in a name?

JD. Kaizad. Sarthak. Sultan. Romeo. Om.

The Pentane gas escaped from the screen into the theatre. All of 7 viewers and 13 food vendors reeled with temporary amnesia.

What are we doing here? Why are we here? Have we died and come to hell?

Am I going to be trapped in eternity with 13 popcorn, samosa and soft drink sellers who will come to me every 3 seconds asking me to stuff my mouth with junk food? What horrible sins have I committed in my past life to be subjected to this?

I am alone. The other 6 viewers are in couples. I feel so sad. So bad. So black. So blue.

OK, OK. Let me come to my senses. Make some sense of this. To make sense is to combat hell.

What have we here? South Africa. 25 cars we can blow up. A yellow Lamborghini. An acid factory. Lots of semi-naked women writhing in ecstasy. Good girl 1 trying hard to be bad in black leather, high heels and fierce scowl. 3 blocks of wood in black. 3 actors in black. 1 actor forgotten in black. Good girl 2 struggling to be good in black. Gas. Guns. Bikes. Boats. Cars. Boom. Boom. Boom. Leer, kiss.

Where is the script, mother-father? Where is the script?

Who am I? Do you know who I am? Why am I here? We could be killed.

A more coherent review of 'Acid Factory' will soon appear in Tehelka.

Edited to add: And here it is, the Tehelka review.

home, sweet home

2009-10-03T11:51:00.004+05:30

When Basheer went home that evening, there was no home. His nephew, Faheem’s wife, Azra, had been arrested with 5 other women and 27 men from the basti, for scuffling with the bulldozers. Basheer hoped that his new blue shirt left to dry on the door had not gone under the rubble. And the small bag with his collection of second-hand tools was safe. But he was not too worried. Azra was a good housekeeper, even if she let her tongue run away with her most of the time.

He went and squatted beside Faheem and the other men on the road, a few metres away from the police station. The women too sat around, idle. Without their stoves or their utensils, they were free from the obligation to cook the next meal. A hawaldar walked past, carrying heavy plastic bags in both hands, and a danda under his armpit.

Basheer said, "Saab, what is the time?"

The hawaldar glared at him, unsure whether giving the time of the day would undermine his authority in any way, then muttered, "8.25" and walked on.

Basheer laughed, "Saala, he's taking Chinese for his saabs."

Lata, in a voice hoarse with screaming, said, "Basheer Bhai, this haraami was using his danda even against the women."

Basheer shrugged, "They are all like that."

Basheer's mouth felt dry and smelly with thirst. The sharp smell of the Chinese food in the hawaldar's bags had made him hungry. He asked Faheem, "Shall we go to the hotal and eat?"

Faheem refused, "Azra won't have eaten."

Basheer said, "We'll pack her something."

Lata shrieked, "Those haraamis won't allow us to take food inside unless we give them something."

Sawant grumbled, "If it was 500-600 we could have got it, but the b*nc**ds want 3000 for all of them."

The children forgotten by their preoccupied parents had played by the roadside through the evening. But as the headlights from the cars became fewer, the road darker, they came one by one, and huddled against their mothers.

Jayu and Pakya started whining, "We are hungry."

Their mother, Shaku said, "I'll go look for my stove and some rice. Lata, are you coming?"

Lata said, "The fire brigade drowned everything. The grain must all be spoilt."

Shaku said, "Let's go and look at least."

A few other women joined the two, and they drifted back towards the rubble, hoping to slip through the policemen keeping watch over the dying embers of the basti, hoping to scrounge together something for a meal.

Basheer said, "Was there a fire?"

Sawant said, "Lata says some municipaalty guy started it deliberately."

Faheem says, "Who knows? I don't think they would do that, would they? Gopal was saying someone's stove overturned when the bulldozers were working."

Sawant said, "We are going to the municipaalty with an arji tomorrow. Who will come?"

Faheem said, "Don't take the women to the municipaalty office. Let them go to the neta with all our ration cards."

Gopal said, "I have to go to the factory."

Sawant said, "As if your foreman will give you a place to stay in the factory!"

Gopal grimaced. As if. In the fifty odd years that the basti had been built, asbestos, tin, plastic, cardboard, sometimes a few bricks, it had been pulled down at least fifty odd times. In all that time, only one old woman, Yellamma had been given a home by her employer. Her story was told and heard like a fable again and again, amongst the people of the basti. But they were all clear in their minds that it was only a fable and held out no hope for them.

An old, old lady, Parvati piped up, "Yellamma was my friend, you know. She was from my village. We came here together."

Basheer grinned, "That is why you too should now be thinking of moving on, Kaki. Are you planning to take your taalpatri to the pyre?"

Sawant said, "Yes, we'll wrap you in it if you like."

Parvati grabbed some pebbles from the road and flung them across.

She cursed, "Saale dogs, I'll see both of you to the pyre before I go."

Basheer laughed, "That you will, Kaki."

Parvati grumbled, "Now we have to go buy new taalpatris. Each time those m**d**c**ds come and take away everything. As if we came here on our own. Those municipaalty-walas brought us from our villages when they needed to make the roads. Now the roads are made, the buildings are made, they don't want us."

Basheer's back was aching now, and he slid down to lie on the road. The tar was still warm, scorched by sun, fire and anger. Slowly, the others began to slide down too. Faheem remained sitting, keeping a vigil for his wife.

When Basheer woke up, the women were already at the water tap, with their pots and buckets. The few men who had regular jobs were washing up. Sawant, dressed and combed, a big file in his hands, was waiting for some supporters to go to the municipal corporation office with him.

He said, "Basheer Bhai, are you coming?"

Basheer shook his head, "I can't. I am finishing off a big job."

Sawant turned away resentful. Basheer would never miss a day's work.

Faheem knew it was useless to expect his uncle to sit around the whole day. Basheer always behaved as if his work was important, as if he was anything but a daily wage laborer like the rest of them? Yet, the sparkle in his eyes made it difficult for Faheem to hold a grudge against him.

Basheer said, "Faheem, why don't you go get Azra out of the station?"

Faheem said, "They'll leave them soon enough."

Basheer said, "Yes, they will. But if we give them some money, they won't make them wait around at the police station until noon."

Faheem said, "You know how she is, Chacha. She won't come out unless all the others are released too."

Basheer took out a 100-rupee note from his pocket. "Anyway, keep this. Both of you eat at the hotal. Don't make her cook as soon as she comes out."

As the bus rolled into the fishing village, Basheer took long deep breaths of the fishy stink, and felt as if, at last, he was breathing clean air. He got off at the bus stop near the bungalow and sunk his feet into the sand. The demolition of his basti was forgotten and he felt happy. He had been working here for almost six months, and the place felt like ‘almost home’. The gate of the bungalow was open, but the watchman Tiwari was probably at the back, washing up, still having his morning tea.

Basheer liked to be early here, and wander around the house before everyone else came in. As he entered, he bent down to bang gently with his fist, the marble slab under his feet. It sounded solid. Perhaps today, his kadiya boss, Bhuvan would say they must start polishing the floor. Basheer loved it when they did that; the white marble emerged shining, gleaming, under all the dust. How he longed to move with the stone grinder on the floor, but Bhuvan would not let him do anything but clean the floor after him.

Tiwari came in through the back door and said, "Want to have some tea?"

But before Basheer could say 'yes', they heard a car come into the gate.

The watchman said, "Saab has come", and ran towards the gate.

Prabhu, the contractor walked in with the couple that owned the bungalow. Basheer keeping a respectful distance followed the 3 important people around the house as they inspected it. He was hoping to impress Prabhu a little with his punctuality because he wanted to ask something of him later. Prabhu too hoped that this early bird appearance by Basheer would impress his clients and convince them that he was giving their work top priority.

The couple however, was determined not to be impressed. The job had been dragging on for months now, and so many things were not yet done, or not done to their satisfaction. The woman shifted her toe in the dust, and said petulantly, “ All the joints between the marble slabs are black. Is that how it’s going to look?”

The man scowled, "Prabhu, your work has no finish."

Prabhu turned to Basheer and scolded, “Ai Basheera, what about these joints? You haven’t cleaned them properly?”

Basheer knew that Prabhu was only scolding him to please his clients, so he did not feel bad about it. He looked at the man, and said patiently, “Saab, it’s looking dusty now, because we haven’t finished yet. When all the work is done, I promise the joints will be as clean as the marble.”

The woman noticed Basheer for the first time, and giving him an irritated look said to the contractor, “Prabhuji, you must ask these people not to use our toilets. There is a servant’s toilet outside.”

Prabhu too looked at Basheer with irritation.

Basheer wanted to say that in the 22 years he had worked as a laborer in the city, he had not once been tempted to use the English-style toilets to go. He was a man used to squatting on the roads. But yes, sometimes, he did run the hot and cold water from the shining taps, and wash his hair before he went home.

However, he did not answer the contractor. For a brief, very brief moment, he looked at the woman, then dropped his eyes again, and said, “Sorry, Memsaab”. She catching his bright smiling eyes in that brief glance, felt a bit ashamed of her complaints, and mumbled, “Oh don’t worry, it’s OK.”

Saab and Memsaab wandered off, talking about what still needed to be done. The man told the contractor, “This is our first holiday home. We want it to be perfect.”

Prabhu nodded, "It will be, Saab, but these things take time. If you want to do them perfectly." Saab groaned knowing Prabhu had adroitly bought more time for himself.

Basheer had wanted to take advantage of Bhuvan's absence and show Prabhu that he could use the stone grinder. But today perhaps was not the day.

One of these days he would talk to Prabhu and say, "I can be more than a cleaner." Now he slunk away, craving a cup of tea. He suddenly remembered that he had not had anything to eat since yesterday.

The watchman had a cup ready for him. Basheer said, "Tiwari, if Bhuvan-boss does the polishing today, we'll be late."

Tiwari said, "Then I'll go buy some chicken from the village."

Basheer said, "This time, I'll cook it."

A couple of months ago, Bhuvan and Basheer and the other workers had slept over at the house, and it had been lovely - the smell of the chicken cooking on Tiwari's kerosene stove, the smell of the sea, the smell of dust, cement, turpentine, wood-shavings and stone around them. The wind came sharp and cold from the open doors and they lay on the floor making lewd remarks about each other until the quiet of the house took over.

Basheer wanted so much to stay here, in the cool, big house, today and maybe for a couple more days. Then, when he went back to the basti, the ashes and rubble would have been cleared up, and the asbestos, tin, plastic, cardboard sheets would have come up again, and Azra would be back at her stove, with her sharp tongue and her hot food, and her smile as unpredictable as the municipaalty bulldozers.

**basti - habitation

hawaldar - constable

danda - stick

Saala - wife's brother, a term of mild abuse

Bhai - brother

haraami - bastard

arji - petition

neta - political leader

taalpatri - tarpaulin sheet

Kaki - Aunt

Chacha - Uncle, father's brother

kadiya - stonemason

 Batul Mukhtiar, Oct 2009

we all need to tighten our belts

2009-09-25T14:00:00.002+05:30

Now all those who have been cribbing about 'Dil Bole Hadippa' do not know that it is a stalwart effort to pitch into the recent austerity drive undertaken by the government. How so, you say? Well, for instance:

1. Rani Mukherjee summoned Manish Malhotra to her bouidoir. The floor was covered in old costumes from 'Bunty and Babli', 'Chalte Chalte' and 'Laaga Chunari Mein Daag'. "Cut and trim these, Manishji, and make new out of old", she pleaded and Manishji did just that.

2. For most of the film, Rani dressed as a Sardar boy in dreary tracksuits and a white pagdi. She let her freckles show and saved tons of expensive MAC make-up.

3. Shahid Kapoor did not have a haircut throughout the shoot schedule. He is soon going to auction his mane on Farah Khan's show 'Tere Mere Beach Mein' to the highest equestrian bidder, and give the money to Rahul Gandhi to fund his next undercover foray into Uttar Pradesh.

4. Shahid also re-used the character and expressions from 'Jab we Met', i.e. a cold blank look, and minimal smiling. As all beauticians will tell you, this reduces wrinkling, thereby reducing the need for Botox and other surgical treatments necessary for actors at a later age.

5. Sherlyn Chopra and Rakhi Sawant as usual supported the cause with enthusiasm and loyalty by wearing just enough clothing to avoid nudity, thereby saving on fabric costs.

6. Pritam rehashed old tracks from 'Jab We Met', 'Singh is King' and several other films, thereby saving lots of creative energy and earning many carbon points. Julius Packiam saved on scoring background music tracks by reusing old tunes from old Yash Raj films.

7. Ditto for Jaideep Sahni, who worked with 50 words, scrambling them over and over again to create 7songs. This has also created a new game for the listener, called 'Unscramble' which will be launched soon by YRF in association with Big.

8. Ditto for Vaibhavi Merchant - same old, same old.

9. Jaya and Aparajita wrote dialogue for 30 mins of the film and then used it as a loop through the film. They also used Indira Gandhi, Jhansi Ki Rani and Kiran Bedi as references for the closing speech on women's emancipation. This has saved many forests. Also, since the actors needed to learn fewer lines, it meant shorter rehearsal time and shorter shooting schedules, saving on production cost and workers' wages.

10. The line producer Padam Bhushan saved on location manager fees, location recce costs and location hire costs as he decided that the mustard fields used in previous Yash Raj Films would continue to work their magic, especially since they are now given to Yash Raj Films at a phenomenal discount.

11. Wherever there are excesses, they are used to the maximum, since no waste is gain. For e.g 4 bowls of expensive dry fruit are quaffed by Anupam Kher and Dalip Tahil while they sit on drawing room sofas in the middle of nowhere, watching cricket matches. It should be made public knowledge that the 4 bowls were covered with cling film between takes and thus used throughout the shoot in various scenes. Also, takes were kept to a minimum to reduce the amounts of dry fruit quaffed by the veteran actors.

12. Similarly, Sudeep Chatterjee used all the camera equipment given to him to maximum limits. No track, crane, jimmy jib was left idle for even a single minute on set, the camera was kept moving throughout to ensure that money's worth was extracted.

13. Poonam Dhillon was taken off the shelf - what a beautiful example of recycling!

14. Through out the making of the film, the director Anurag Singh stayed away from the set. Thereby he not only abstained from his director's fees, but also accomodation, food and other perks. Yash Raj Films cannot show their gratitude to him enough.

15. Particularly since Anurag helped them in their endeavour to make a fabulous flop. The common masses stayed away from the film and the middle class and the poor of the nation learnt how not to spend their hard earned money on cinema tickets. A valuable lesson indeed!

fashinista banno or an old horse with red reins

2009-09-20T10:21:00.000+05:30

I had been eye-ing a red bag in Hidesign since months.

It was not always the same bag, but it was always red.

Once again, I went in to the store, and saw the perfect red messenger bag. I took it carefully off the lurching mannequin, and slid it over my shoulder. One hasty look at the mirror, one covert look, one over the shoulder look and I dropped the bag, and walked out. A few steps away, and I turned back to look at the store, wistfully. The bag was calling out to me.

I wanted Teja and Dhanno to convince me, either to buy the bag or forget it. They were tapping their feet, and clicking their fingers, and looking everywhere but at me.

I said: "It would look too much, no? Everyone would say, an old woman carrying a red bag."

Dhanno said: "But that's what you would be, isn't it? An old woman carrying a red bag. So how does it matter?"

What I had wanted her to say was: "But you are not old, Mama!"

There's not much to be said for dinning 'honesty is the best policy' into your child at a tender age. Because sooner or later, she hands it back to you. I let out a sigh and took a couple of steps towards the store again. Then sighed and turned back.

Teja, knowing well that the sighs if ignored, threatened to take over our domestic arrangements over the next few days, said: "Why don't you just get it?"

I said: "Yeah. I can probably use it for a few more years. Then I'll be older. And that will be just be too old for a red bag."

Teja said: "You'll never be too old for a red bag."

Dhanno said: "Yeah, as if. You are never going to give up your jhataak pink, are you? Or purple? Or yellow?"

I grinned.

This time, I ignored the swinging of the mannequin and grabbed my bag from its shoulder and marched with it to the cash counter. Anyone could see that the red bag was going to give me graces Nature had not conferred on me.

With flamingo-pink rainy sandals, and my tomato-red messenger bag, I made quite a fashion statement on my last documentary shoot. Specially when I teamed them with my lime-green capris and rose-pink lipstick.

whoever said old films were slow?

2009-09-14T10:46:00.001+05:30

Bimal Roy's "Parakh" (1960) opens thus:

A postman is limping down a dusty road, from a great distance, with a heavy bag. He enters a yard. A little boy runs across him. He asks the little boy to call his sister.

The postman goes in, and puts down the bag. The postmaster says - You have a lot of mail today. The postman says - Yes, it is because people write too much. Job requests, love letters, letters of complaint.

A girl comes in. The postman asks her if he can have a cup of tea. She says yes, but there is no sugar.

He says, he will go get it. She is hesitant, how often can he get it? He says not to embarrass him, for it is God who gives, who is he? He goes out.

The postmaster asks the girl to take over for some time while he goes in to look at his ill wife. The girl starts stamping letters.

Outside at the counter, a man appears. He wants to make a money order.

When she replies, he is surprised, Oh it's you. She asks him to come in.

He comes in behind her, she keeps stamping the letters, not looking at him.

He asks her what she is doing there. She asks him why she cannot work. She is the postmaster's daughter. He says if she was the postmaster, he would make a money order everyday. She says with a schoolmaster's pay of 7 rupees, how would he manage to make a money order everyday. He is quiet. He looks at her from behind, and mutters, "That is why.."

She is apologetic for hurting him. She asks him where he has been.

He says he is so busy, there is so much to do. Since the elders of the village won't listen, the school boys and him have decided to clean the village on their own. She says why bother about doing good for others, when one is in such a bad shape one self. He says that if the country does well, all of us will do as well. And aren't you a part of the country too?

Someone calls from outside. Both shuffle guiltily.

Pandit enters. School master leaves hurriedly with an excuse.

Pandit asks for girl's father. Postman enters. Girl leaves to make tea. Postmaster enters.

Postman and Pandit get into verbal spat. Postmaster intervenes. Pandit leaves, insulting Postman as low-caste.

Postmaster scolds Postman for being rude.

Postman says Pandit is horrid. The other day when he entered his house with a letter, Pandit made a big show of cleaning the house with fresh cow dung. When he went the next day with a money order and asked Pandit if money would be acceptable from his lowcaste hands, Pandit threw him a shloka which justified his taking the money.

Postmaster says whatever it is, Postman is new here, and must respect elders. Now quieten down, and get to work.

So, in virtually one scene set in the post office, within the first 6-7 minutes of the film, we meet 6 characters and one off-screen character. We learn a little bit about each character, what they are like, what they believe in, and what their problems could be. We also get a glimpse of the village where the post office is, and the country where the village is, and the problems that beset it - unemployment, poverty, caste. Not only that, but the premise of the film is set down as well - money, and the greed for it.

Contrast this with what most Hindi films do these days. The exposition is reduced to a verbal introduction of each character, this is Bunty, he is blah blah blah. The voice-over has the air of being slapped on after the film is edited, and it's amply clear that the who? where? why? what? of the story are not clear to the audience.

rush hour

2009-08-22T10:26:00.008+05:30

Salaam says he is 11. He looks 6.

Salaam says he sniffs cloth only sometimes. How many times, I ask? He says once. A day, I ask? Or twice, he says.

But I don't like it, he says, as he wolfs down the pav bhaji I have bought him. It makes me want to sit in one place and not move, and I don't like that. But sometimes, he says, when there are too many thoughts in your head, and there is no money, and you are hungry, there is too much tension, then .. it makes you forget you are hungry, he says.

A little child, I think, should not be having so many thoughts, so much tension in his head, but what do I know?

Later in the train, I watch a woman fill up little boxes in a notebook with the name 'Ram'. It seems to work for her because in a compartment filled with tired women, her smile comes most easily. The woman sitting next to me fiddles with her cell phone, it goes beep, beep, beep, beep.

My mother sits before the TV almost all the time she is awake, sometimes even when there is only blank noise on it. Like all daughters, I wonder what will become of me when, if I become like my mother.

I think, perhaps it is the city. There is not enough space for any of us in it, leave alone our griefs, our tensions. There is not enough space to let our pain dry out naturally like sweat in cool air.

We all need to sniff a solvent of one kind or the other, I think, noise, music, films, more noise, books, more noise, to burn up our thoughts on the spot, for there's no space to let them go.

Whatever works, I think.

Sniffing cloth: A quick, cheap high, sniffing cloth dipped in thinner.

two girls with hats

2009-08-13T18:44:00.002+05:30

The worst thing you can do to a girl is saddle her with a sister early on in life. The sister is always going to be more beautiful or more intelligent or more virtuous or more cheerful or more obedient or wear better hats - none of which helps in the making of the confident, tough personality that one ought to be.

Because however rich or famous you become, one little bit of you always knows that your parents love your sister more than you do, which in my case, my mother pooh-poohs till date. And however old your sister becomes, she will always claim that she stuck to the safe and tested path because you were wild and rebellious enough for the entire family, which in my sister's case, I refuse to acknowledge now that we are both in our 40s. Though we took different paths to reach here, I find that we haven't wandered too far away from each other.

My sister and me, here we look happy enough in our hats.

But we spent all our growing up years fighting to the point of driving our mother to tears. It's only when we both got married and left home, that we came to realize what we mean to each other.

Sisters and hats feature largely in 'Holiday' (1938) by George Cukor. Read the rest of the review on Upperstall.

let's learn how to kiss, please

2009-08-05T09:59:00.007+05:30

What I'm wondering is what will happen to Jai (Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (Deepika Padukone) once they do get married?

Their 'Aaj' love is so bland, their kisses so like the Rubber-Duck raincoats of school days, dry in a squeaky, rubbery way, the smell of rubber obfuscating the smell of the rain.

Jai seems like a man with no practice in kissing, and if he has had practice, hasn't learned much on the job. Doesn't forebode well for their marital life. (Or is it just that he'd rather have been kissing his beautiful girl, Bebo?)

I liked Meera only in the last scene when she cried with relief once Jai did come back, and then drew away from a kiss, awkward after the long separation. At least, she stopped smiling.

For the rest of the film, I was wondering about her parents, wondering what they had done to her that she needed so much to be so nice, so understanding, so 'smiley' all the time?

She was no less mute than the 'Kal' girl from a small town, Veer's (Saif Ali Khan) love Harleen (Giselle Monteiro). The 'Kal' girl at least metamorphed into ***** ******, and had a reason to be mute (Brazilian playing Punjabi, cut all her dialogues, please!).

Anyway, to come back to kisses, my friend Tanmay Agarwal, who's been having a set-to with the Censor Board for a couple of kisses in his indie film 'Chal Chaliye' has devised a table of censor guidelines set for a kiss. Check that out and more on kisses at his site http://www.chalchaliye.com/ and don't forget to take the poll.

it's called taking the piss

2009-08-01T10:31:00.003+05:30

You've been doing a subtle version of the twist, jig and fox-trot for the last 13 & a 1/2 minutes. You've been loosening your facial muscles while contracting other ones in an effort to look normal. You finally manage to find a public toilet and then the gatekeeper demands that you pay up 2 rupees before you enter. You flap your hands wildly and nod your head vigorously and hiss, "I'll pay you later."

In the corridor, the gatekeeper's aunties and nieces in various stages of age, weight and nudity, are sprawled in large pools of water, washing themselves and their clothes. You leap and bound across all of them, in imminent danger of slipping into one of the pools, and adding the contents of your bladder to the soapy torrents of water rushing towards the drain.

Inside the toilet, there is no hook for your bag or your dupatta. Your sunglasses hooked on to the front of your kurta fall off, and you catch them just before they fall into the dodgy contents of the Indian style toilet, immensely relieved that you haven't had to face the moral dilemma of renouncing them or fishing with your hands to procure them back because they are so very, very expensive. Of course, the toilet door doesn't close, so you hold one stem of the glasses in your mouth, roll the dupatta round and round your neck, sling your bag across your shoulder, undo your pajamas, all with one hand, while keeping the other firmly on the door.

Then you semi-sit-squat-stand, and pee, grateful that you learned this trick long ago, much to the chagrin of your more conservative mother.

And it feels more wonderful than anything else on earth. In your relief, you relax a little, and your hand falls off the door. You remember with a fond smile how your insouciant younger self regularly walked into a 5 star hotel in your hometown only to use the facilities. But the security checks at hotels now could be your undoing, you think. Someone pushes the toilet door from outside and jolted out of nostalgia, you push it back with a loud growl of proprietary anger.

Then you complete all the earlier manouvres in reverse, i.e tying up your pajamas, etc., with one hand and now with one leg thrust against the door as well. Ah, someone may say, "what about washing uhmm your uhmm or dabbing with toilet paper?", and you say "the least said the better, this is as far as things can go with one hand and one leg out of requisition".

You come outside, and your spine is a little straighter, and you could be humming if you didn't see the gatekeeper again signaling for the two rupee coin. "This is supposed to be a free urinal", you shout, pointing at the notice. The gatekeeper feigns a contemptuous ignorance of any written material. You fling a coin down and walk away, thinking well, you are going to be OK for a few more hours at least.

(Would love to see Paro's film 'Q2P')

gutter water and ajinomoto

2009-07-22T11:18:00.000+05:30

I said to Hasan & Husein: "Why do you swim in the canal? The water is filthy."

Hasan said: "We find good stuff here. A plate, or a bowl. Sometimes a metal pipe. We can sell it for 100-200 rupees."

I said: "What do you do with the money?"

Hasan said: "We give it to our mother."

Husein said: "We play dhab."

Hasan said: "We hire a cycle to ride around."

Husein said: "I spend it on Chinese food. I like to eat fried rice everyday."

I said: "But don't you fall ill in that gutter water?"

Husein said: "No, we like it in there. I like being in the water all the time."

Hasan said: "We go and wash up with clean water at the Pump. We wash our clothes too."

Husein said: "Yes, we wash our own clothes."

* Dhab - A gambling game

the difference between plastic and tin

2009-07-17T08:54:00.004+05:30

I said to Bai: "Do you know any other hut we can use, like the one we did for your interview?"

Bai said: "That was not a hut. That was a house. It had tin walls and a tin roof. You can't just pick it up and run. A hut is two plastic sheets that you can tie up anywhere. I can make you a hut anywhere you want in 10 minutes."

That's what it's come to, folks.

2009-07-15T19:47:00.002+05:30

There we were, sauntering along, hand in hand, on our way to 'The Proposal'. We met a schoolmate of Dhanno's, exchanged 'hi's' and 'hello's' and carried on.

Dhanno said: "My friends always say, that we saw your mom and you walking around, hand in hand."

I said: "Oh!"

Dhanno said: "Yeah, they tease me, do you still need your mom to hold your hand to help you cross the road?"

I laughed.

Dhanno said: "I tell them, no, my mom needs to hold my hand to help her cross the road."

True enough.

and then what happened?

2009-07-07T10:52:00.000+05:30

A relationship between a film maker and his subject and my two-pice at

getting up close

What, indeed!

2009-07-02T09:11:00.002+05:30

Dhanno said: "Yeah, there's this guy in her coaching classes who likes Bijli."

I said: "And does Bijli like him?"

Dhanno said: "Naaah! He's ugly."

I said: "So if someone is ugly, you can't like him?"

Dhanno rolled her eyes and said: "So now you want us to look at the guy's internal beauty and all? Analyze whether he is marriage material? What, Mom?"

Mom effectively silenced.

torture garden

2009-06-24T16:57:00.000+05:30

Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) was raped as a child by the Jesuit priests who were supposed to educate him.

He wrote, "The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture garden. Passions, greed, hatred and lies; law, social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism and religion; these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering."

Not surprisingly, he embraced anarchism, which aimed to sweep away organized society, and replace it with a culture of equals. He did so, despite the fact that as a businessman, investor, journalist, novelist and dramatist, he was extremely rich.

Mirbeau claimed that he wrote 'The Diary of a Chambermaid' to expose the plight of French domestic servants, preyed on by employment agencies and brutalized by their owners. He used his inside knowledge of the upper classes to attack them.

Celestine, the protagonist of the book, is a cheeky, voluptuous maid, exploited by men and women alike for their sexual fantasies. Celestine moves through various upper class homes, with barely concealed contempt and disgust for her employers. She sees it all - shoe fetishes, women with dildoes, a dying boy's sexual urges, sadomasochistic frenzy, pornography, bestiality, never losing her own perverse sense of humour.

In a scathingly cynical end, Celestine chooses to marry Joseph, a gamekeeper, a virulent anti-Semite, a sadist and probably a sexual murderer. Joseph steals their last employers' silver and uses the money to open a bar in a small, seaside town. Celestine and he settle down, become rich, and Celestine with 'upper class' fastidiousness, begins to complain of her "thieving, shameless" servants.

In 1900, the book was taken as erotica rather than crusading fiction. Celestine was too robust a heroine to be identified as a victim. She took too much pleasure in the cruelties perpetrated on her.

- Taken from John Baxter's introduction to the HarperCollins 2006 edition of 'The Diary of a Chambermaid'.

While I was reading the book, a daylight robbery occurred in our housing complex. Four men knocked on a door, entered the house by force, and holding up an old woman, went off with her jewellery and cash. The fact that they entered this particular house on a Sunday afternoon, indicates that they must have inside knowledge of it, they must have known that they would find only an old woman there, and plenty of loot.

Security was beefed up, the security agency got a stern warning, the lift-men and watchmen were scolded harshly for failing to provide adequate security. I am sure all the residents wondered at least once, secretly or openly, as to which one of the security personnel was party to the robbery.

What surprises me about Indian society today is not the amount of crime, and violence that exists, but the fact that there is not more. One only has to look at the inhuman conditions that the people who work for us live in, particularly in cities like Mumbai; their unfairly low wages which ensure that they will never get out of those living and work conditions; the day to day treatment meted out to them, usually rude indifference coupled with an expectation of gratuitous politeness or humility from them; a 365 days per year work schedule; to know that there is something skewered in our system, and sooner or later it has to collapse.

As for sexual exploitation and abuse, there is no dearth of that either in our society. Is there? Sexual needs in our employees, particularly those who live with us, make us uncomfortable. We actively discourage the girls working in our houses from having boyfriends and turn a blind eye to the measures taken by the male workers to fulfill their needs, most of whom live away from their families. However, our own sexual need of our servants is taken for granted. When found out, it could be understandable, forgiven as a momentary lapse or condemned, depending on the manner in which it comes out. The shame is in the nature of the proof, and not the deed itself.

The relentlessly unforgiving stance of Celestine in 'The Diary of a Chambermaid' makes for an effective critique of the bourgeoise, their grotesqueness hidden under a thin veneer of respectability. Perhaps in 1900, the book did shock French society out of its complacence.

But does Indian society today react any more to such expose´s? Has not the intrusion of the media in every aspect of our lives, made us more insensitive to any portrayal of stark reality? Does not every new expose´ make us more cynical, more thick-skinned, even abetting us in our own evasions of morality?

Each employer that Celestine works for, insist that they will call her 'Mary', as 'Celestine' is a name too fancy for a servant. What they of course seek to do, is stamp out any trace of her identity apart from being a maid. While in our society, we do not change our maids' names, a 'Sunita' is easily replaced by a 'Lalita'. Extreme poverty ensures that there will never be a shortage of servants in Indian society, at least in our lifetimes. The few days of hardship suffered by us while the turnover takes effect is to be grumbled about, a calamity rocking our domestic peace.

The hardship of our servants is perhaps pitied if we are sensitive souls, but usually dismissed as their 'karma' even by themselves. We all know that the poor are poor because they drink, because they are superstitious, illiterate, lazy, stupid. If only they had been clever enough to be born as us.

hopelessly off-key

2009-06-18T12:09:00.005+05:30

"You don't have to be a Bengali to resonate" - Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Observation 1 on making 'Anuranan' after years of ads for Britannia and the like.

"I'm not so sure about that." - Banno, Observation 1 on watching 'Anuranan', having relinquished the habit of ducking Britannia biscuits into tea since years, in a bid to count calories.

"There is a certain kind of film making that seems to be peculiar to Bengali cinema. Mystical talks about nature, emotions sublimated in abstractions, poetry posing as ordinary dialogue between people in the most humdrum situations. Visual elements include Kanchenjungha, intellectual women in spectacles and handloom saris, moonlight, old trees, old houses, a copy of 'Love in the time of Cholera', whisky being quaffed in every other scene, a living room party where everybody dances and people air kiss each other. While the protagonist looks at bookshelves." - Banno, Observation 1 continued.

'Anuranan' is meant to explore the resonance between two individuals, between man and nature, between freedom and marriage. An architect Rahul prone to spouting poetical observations into a dictaphone (Rahul Bose), a wife Nandita, who is loving but childless (Rituparno Sengupta), a cold, indifferent business man husband Amit (Rajat Kapoor), a romantic yearning wife Preeti (Raima Sen). The four meet each other in various drawing rooms, and the empty space outside marriage, between Rahul and Preeti begins to resonate. It takes them first to an old tree, that Rahul calls Kanchenjungha and then to Bagdogra where Rahul is designing a resort for Amit's company. Rahul is moved by the moonlight on the mountain, and Preeti follows him there in her quest to be a bird.

"But why does resonance happen only between two intellectual souls? Why can't Amit and Nandita resonate? Why does the businessman necessarily have to be unfeeling towards nature? Or relationships? Why can't the poetry spouting architect actually be cold and cruel to his wife, as in many instances of real life? Why must the wife suffer only because she cannot have a child? Why can't she be just fed up and bored of his philosophical allusions and his relationship with his dictaphone?" - Banno, Questions 1 to 7, Observation 2.

The film brings to mind Satyajit Ray's 'Kanchenjungha', perhaps is influenced by it. Of course, the master's touch is in the completely identifiable characters, dialogue that reveals the innermost workings of their minds without being facetious and unreal, the use of light, shade and mist to enhance the human drama, nature in fact colluding with man to create an unique narrative of a particular day in the lives of several people.

"Is there a single Bengali film made in the history of cinema without reference to Tagore or Satyajit Ray?" - Banno, Question 8, Observation 3.

"If so, can anyone please tell me about it?" - Banno, Question 9, Observation 3 contd.

"It is tough enough to sustain the interest of the viewer in a hyperlink film, as there is no one character or plot that one can identify with. To create a further disenchantment by making the characters unbelievable is to be deliberately yawn-inducing." - Banno, Observation 4, full and final, on 'Anuranan'.

Am racking my brains to remember what Rahul's full and final observation was, the night he died, before he reappeared as a ghost meditating before the Kanchenjunga. Rahul died with his dictaphone in his arms.

I cheered myself up with Anjan Dutt's 'The Bong Connection'. Raima Sen seemed more believable as the rich, young strong-headed girl, Sheela than she did as a bespectacled suffering wife.

Ray and Tagore did come up, but in a palatable way. Except when Apu's (yes, Apu!) boss says with grudging admiration of him, after a huge showdown between Apu and himself, "Aparajito".

Anyway, this is what I get up to while Dhanno has a posh dinner with her friends, and Teja earns a living. Watch films that no one will ever watch with me. I remember as a young woman emotionally blackmailing my boyfriend to go to a re-release of 'Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje' with me. My mother, usually indulgent, refused to go see this one. She as a rule, disliked actresses with flamboyant facial expressions and heavy duty 'ada's. I, on the other hand, loved flamboyance in all its forms, and sulked and sulked until I did get the requisite company for the film.

"With the years, I've become kinder to my loved ones and don't expect them to prove their love for me by seeing all the films I would like to inflict on them." - Banno, Observation 5, in vain attempt to resonate.

* ada - accomplished, beauty, blandishment, charm, coquetry, fulfilled, grace, paid, performed, posture

a memo to old people

2009-06-15T13:05:00.001+05:30

Old people should age gracefully.

If we are expected to sacrifice part of our busy, important lives to taking care of them, then the least they can do is not be miserable, cranky, bad-tempered, depressed, moody or ill.

Under no circumstances should they emit embarrassing smells, fluids, vapors or other substances from their bodies.

If they had any sense of decency, old people would pass away quietly in their sleep before they actually became dependent on anyone for their physical or emotional needs.

Unless of course, they have the money to take care of themselves. On the other hand, even that money is actually going down the drain.

If they have to go in a few days, the earlier the better, so that the nest egg they leave us is all that more substantial.

Of course, we are justified in expecting this much of old people.

After all, when we were little, did they not teach us always to behave in a particular way, not to be naughty, or selfish, or violent, or lazy?

Did they not scold and beat us till we learnt to control the flow of our bodily emissions in a socially acceptable way?

Did they not push and prod us to spend the better part of our days in institutions?

Did they not make us aware of the money they were spending on us, and how we ought to repay them?

Oh, old people are cunning. They'd like to forget those days when they stood over us with a controlling hand, and appeal now for pity.

But how can we forget that we need to pay them back?

(I'd written this a while ago, when I found myself irritated at the demands an old friend was making on me. Or angry at the unreasonable behaviour of my depressed mother. It came back to me when I read this a couple of days ago. And added the following footnote.)

And as for old people seeking sex, love or companionship, even the thought is reprehensible. And punishable. For didn't they teach us to repress our sexual feelings when we were young? And didn't they punish us for loving inconveniently?

that old parenting trick

2009-05-27T08:53:00.000+05:30

So, in the middle of shooting a rugby match,

and untangling spools and spools of red tape for a shoot at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus,

previously called Victoria Terminus,

and the hot hot sun which tanned even me,

and gave me a black nose,

(bad sun!),

there was a shower of fresh water on my head.

Dhanno scored 91% in her ICSE Std. X Board exams.

with a 95% in Maths.

Inspite of us.

We did all we could to make things difficult for her.

Refused to send her for coaching classes.

Tempted her with movies every day.

Dragged her off on shopping trips,

railroading her carefully worked out timetable.

Packed her off to sleep early.

Shut off the early morning alarm she had set, once she was asleep.

Told her that marks were not everything.

Rebelling against parents takes strange forms.

Hers was to do well.

And all of us old-timers,

rebels of the first order in our youth,

are secretly pleased with her performance,

despite our professed disgust.

real life dharamji

2009-05-17T12:56:00.004+05:30

Dhanno has pasted on her cupboard doors -

6 posters of Drake Bell,

4 of Hillary Duff,

3 of Avril Lavigne,

1 of Ranbir Kapoor,

1 of a bulldog in a blue denim jacket,

1 of a poodle in a pink jacket,

1 photo-shopped picture of her with Drake Bell,

A school group photo of me in Std VIII A, in St. Anne's School, Pune, 1977,

and

A school group photo of her in Std. VIII A, in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land, 2007.

So that I don't feel left out, Teja found me this. It was flying around on his studio floor.

My crankiness after a 3 hour drive back from town disappeared instantly.

Teja said: "Happy?"

I said to Teja: "He's just like you."

In fact, Teja is a real life Dharamji. No, no, not looks. Lest all my friends gasp at my blindness. But in his sweetness.

Thankfully, minus the excess boozing and womanizing.

and you thought all i was thinking of was dhanno

2009-05-06T13:13:00.001+05:30

Read my rant 'To Poo or Not to Poo' on Upperstall.

i'm not letting go

2009-04-30T13:20:00.000+05:30

While Dhanno gets ready to climb the Chandrasheela peak,

Banno thumps her way around the 333 metre 'murmur' mud track, good for the joints,

in the BMC garden in T-Village.

Banno's soul however hovers over Surat station,

waiting for the Delhi-bound August Kranti

that will take Dhanno, her cousins and her friends away on their 12-day trek,

and Banno's soul wants to lie down on the floor of Platform no. 2 or 1,

and trash its hands and feet,

and cry hysterically, "Dhanno, don't go, don't go."

All these years, Banno didn't mind,

almost welcomed Dhanno's holidays with her aunts or cousins,

it gave her some relief from Mummy-dom.

But now, Banno's soul cannot care less about being a wise, kind mother,

letting her little bird fly and all that.

All it wants to do is cling, and cling.

And cling.

litmus tests

2009-04-27T19:52:00.000+05:30

At various times, I've been convinced I have TB, a weak heart, eczema, skin cancer, AIDS, a bad liver, deafness, the beginnings of Alzheimers' and so on. I only have to read the Mumbai Mirror in the morning to be convinced that I am perishing of something quite serious.

Though this warrants several checks in the bathroom mirror between midnight and 3 am, it still takes a lot of nagging from Teja for me to go and see the doctor. Maybe because my doctor usually puts my niggling doubts to a definite rest.

In the last few months, 3-4 friends had been talking to me about their thyroid problems, and with my usual empathy, I checked off all the symptoms they mentioned on my own list of 'yes, I have that' - dry skin, dry, thinning hair, fatigue, unexplained weight gain. (the unexplained part being that I never explain my weight gain to anybody, the fact that I don't diet and don't exercise, yes, that's unexplained.)

Anyway, after weeks of anxiety over my supposed hypothyroidism, I thought I'd be smart and prescribe a thyroid test for myself. The lab was smarter and gave me back a report that made no sense to me and which I would need to take to my doctor to decode.

Me: "Dr. M, first I must apologize because I took a test without you asking me to."

He raises his eyebrows.

Me stumbling on my words: "It's just that I feel so tired these days."

Dr. M: "Everyone is tired these days."

I raise my eyebrows.

Dr. M: "It's the heat. And our diet. The fruits and vegetables we eat are so full of pesticides. The water we drink is unhealthy. The pollution. The stress. Also, you know, there are no movies being released these days."

I don't take too kindly to these generalities.

Me: "No, no. It's not just that. I don't get sleep. I feel my skin burning. My throat hurts. There's a humming in my ears. I sweat all the time. My nose feels cold ..."

He has heard several variations of this litany from me over the years he has known me, so he just takes the papers and looks at them intently. He turns them around, and looks at them upside down. He looks at the back of the papers. He looks at the front of them once again and then hands them back to me.

Dr. M: "The T4, T3, TSH counts are normal."

I look disappointed. He feels sorry for me.

Dr. M: "Maybe you should take some more tests. Check your cholesterol, sugar, haemoglobin. Maybe you are not getting enough calcium. Look, let me prescribe some vitamins for you. Take them for a month. And if you still don't feel well, come back, and I'll write you some tests."

I nod happily. I pay him his fees and come away clutching the precious prescription in my hand.

I feel quite alright that evening. Until the next morning, I read of Cushings' disease and am convinced that my body is reeling under an excess of cortisol. However when I read up Cushings' disease on the internet, the tests sound way too complicated and expensive to undertake. I decide this time, I will suffer quietly.

what do bullet holes say?

2009-04-15T11:39:00.001+05:30

Dhanno has her hair streaked purple to match her purple cell phone, both gifts for working incredibly hard all year, giving her Std. X exams.

Teja gets ready to board the 'Ladies Special' local train. No, he is not abandoning me, not just yet. Only prepping for a TV show.

I, meanwhile, try to make sense out of bullets.

Bakery Wall, opp Nariman House, Colaba

Bakery Door, opp. Nariman House, Colaba

Lift door, 6th Floor, Cama Hospital, Azad Maidan

The bullet holes make pretty patterns, but no, they don't make sense at all.

catnaps

2009-04-12T12:43:00.005+05:30

I find the best way to work in the sun is to accept the heat and the sweat pouring down every inch of your body. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you can grab a few winks every now and then in a little bit of shade.

Western Express Highway, Santa Cruz, April 2009

Paper shredder unit, Colaba, April 2009

Cats in an alley, Colaba, April 2009

lost and found in translation

2009-04-01T10:49:00.002+05:30

read my post on documentary interviews at the xxx factor

on Upperstall Blogs.

pigeon shit let's see

2009-03-30T10:26:00.000+05:30

If nothing else should deter you from the film, this poster should. Read my rant on rickshaws, pigeons and 'Aa Dekhen Zara' at Upperstall. Image courtesy Upperstall.

uncle, make-up and films

2009-03-28T20:57:00.001+05:30

Guaranteed to banish the doldrums is Jacques Tati's 'Mon Uncle' (1958). Google Search throws up 4,190,000 search results for the film, so am not going to add my 2 bits about it.

But here's a photo of my make-up box. Brought for me by those migratory birds that come in from Paris every year. Placed on Dhanno's dressing table which is way more stacked than mine. Shot by Teja.

Make-up is yet another thing that makes me happy. Well, no, just a kohl pencil and a pink lipstick, really.

While Dhanno and I watched Tati yesterday, and marveled at how each frame tells a story all its own, I remembered a film I saw at IFFI, Goa last year. Milky Way/Tejut (2007) by Benedik Fliegauf, Hungary. Curiously, the review I link to, mentions Tati too.

Fliegauf puts together a series of sketches within a frame. None connect to the other in narrative and yet weave together seamlessly to create an experience of time and space. When Pu and I came out of the theatre, I jotted down a few sketches that I remembered.

1. An old woman walks across a playground, swing in foreground. She sits on a bench, then starts moving back. Midway, she collapses. A neighbor comes to look at her. He picks her up and carries her back.

2. A woman walks across a boat jetty with a pram. She leaves the pram and walks back. A boat comes towards the jetty. A man gets down and looks at the pram. The woman comes back and takes the pram.

3. Two cyclists practice on a pile of rocks on a mountain top. They stop to look at a crane working down below. Dogs bark somewhere. The cyclists disappear below frame.

4. A man walks out of a tent on a field at night. He walks across the field and pees. He walks back to the tent. There is a lot of wind. Two men come out of the tent and struggle with it. The tent flies away. The men chase it and disappear bottom of frame.

5. A truck enters an open ground. Two men get down. They unload big rolls of plastic, red, green, yellow. One man sets up a table. The other man starts pumping up the plastic. Soon, there is a plastic playhouse. A little girl and an old man enter. They pay the man on the table, and enter the playhouse. They lie down on the floor and disappear from frame.

6. Two boys practice dance on a rooftop overlooking the city at night.

There were more, the images striking enough to have stayed with me after these many months.

What stayed with me also is a conversation I overheard while I scribbled - between two film students, a Mallu from FTII, Pune and a Bong from SRFTII, Kolkata. Both chose to speak in Hindi.

"Yeh film kya thee?" (What was that film?)

"Isko samajhne ke liye akkal chaahiye thee." (You needed brains to understand it.)

"Accha hain, tu idhar dekh lee thee, udhar tere ko dekhne ko nahin miltee thee." (It's good you saw it here, you wouldn't have been able to see it there.)

All those who know a Bong and a Mallu in real life will know what's funny about this conversation. They are prone to mix up their genders in Hindi. Everything is feminine, usually.

humpty- dumpty

2009-03-26T17:01:00.002+05:30

There are some days I just collapse. And I don't know what to do.

There I was, a pretty, silver balloon bobbing along with a few other balloons held snugly in a woman's lap riding pillion on a scootie on Ellis Bridge one afternoon in Ahmedabad.

If it had been a prank played by a child, maybe I could have laughed. How exactly does one laugh though, after one has popped?

What made it worse, that it was the deed of a lout, a common one, like many others you see on the street.

There was no question of laughing. And there has been no bobbing back.

Maybe if I had been a boat bobbing on the Sabarmati I'd stand a better chance. But no, I'd have sunk for ever more. Have you seen how dirty that water is?

What if I had been a duck? Would I have done better at bobbing then? No, that's too same to same as above. I'd just have been slain, and that would have been that.

The only thing that comes to mind is a phoenix. But a phoenix is too grandiose, and is it even real?

So while I figure out what I could be that would guarantee a bobbing back after an out-of-sorts except being a phoenix which I certainly could never be, you could have a look at some photos of Ahmedabad which may make more sense than my words.

Rakhiyal, March 2009

Painter Atul's stall, March 2009
Rakhiyal GIDC, March 2009

Sabarmati Station Road, March 2009

Ellis Bridge, March 2009

what am I doing here?

2009-03-15T11:02:00.000+05:30

Alone at noon in a theatre, I feel disoriented. It is curiosity about Anurag Kashyap's work after seeing 'Dev D' that has brought me here, as I am sure it has the others in the auditorium.

Continue reading my review of 'Gulaal' at Upperstall

here

Image courtesy Upperstall

India on the move

2009-03-13T09:40:00.000+05:30

For those of you in Canada or with access to CBC, please watch an exciting series 'India Reborn' on March 15, and March 22, 8 pm.

It's a 4-part series, and I worked on the episode 'India on the move', as the Indian producer. After a long, long time, I did documentary work that was purely journalistic in its approach. It helped that I was working with hard-core veterans, Neil Docherty and Sarah Spinks, idealistic, fire-brand producers rarely encountered in present-day television. A lot of television programming now is 'reality TV' in one form or the other.

For me, it was a personal challenge, as for a long time, I had been working on shows that hovered around Bollywood or Mumbai. I wanted to be a part of the episode on the economy, a subject I hadn't much thought about before this in an academic way.

It was a mad time of flight-hopping, huge treks through the countryside on bumpy roads, travel, travel and more travel, stories of extreme wealth and extreme poverty. But what came with the sense of sadness at so much that is wrong, was also an immense sense of pride. As Sarah rightly says on the website,

"This is a hard-working country that has continually confounded the predictors of gloom"

For more on the series, check out the CBC's website

here.

Viewed the book

2009-03-09T11:24:00.000+05:30

Teja likes to switch on his night lamp and open a book the first thing he gets into bed. He started doing it first to impress me. Now it's a habit.

The other day, I walked in and he was holding up a book. I rolled up his 'charsa' and put it over his eyes. He continued holding up the book.

I said, "You are still reading?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "I've covered your eyes, and you are still reading?"

He said, "Yes."

I gave up, and removed the 'charsa' from his eyes.

I said: "How?"

He said, "I've decided to give 30 seconds to each page. That's it. That's the only way I'll ever complete a book."

I said, "So whichever line you are at, when 30 seconds are up, you move to the next page, is it?"

He laughed.

He said, "You are very funny. What's it got to do with the lines?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "How would I know 30 seconds are up when I am reading?"

I said, "Yes, how?"

He said patiently, "Obviously I cannot read the lines. I keep my eyes on the page, and I count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 up to 30. Then shift my eyes to the next page."

I was tongue-tied.

He said, "I sense some things on the page. And make up my own story."

I said, "Hmmm. Nice."

He said, "Look, this last page, I know there is a girl waiting at the bus stop, it's late at night, she was at a disco earlier. Maybe, there will be a murder, maybe something else."

I said, "Seems as good a way of reading as any."

'Boi Dekha' or "Viewed the Book" is popular Bengali slang for watching a film. So, Teja is in good company, as Punjab-da-Puttar would affirm.

Later, at dinner, Teja missed an entire conversation between Pu, Sesh and me. After the Ramayan was over, he said, "You know there was this story about Ram."

I said, "Teja, where have you been? We've been talking about this for the last 10 minutes."

He said, "Oh, I was talking to Sesh."

I said, "You were not."

He said, "Yes, I was. Without saying anything."

It didn't matter that Sesh hadn't heard him.

We all agreed that Teja is moving to greater philosophical heights than we are yet aware of.

cats on a hot tin roof

2009-02-25T13:59:00.003+05:30

The other day, Dhanno was watching 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na' all over again on TV. Of course, I was watching along.

Though the film seemed to be even blander than it did the last time, "a nothingness", as Sur says, I didn't have much of a problem with Aditi or Jai, or their friends, even though they didn't have anything other than relationships on their mind. Even if they seemed silly, immature and shallow, well, we've all been there, done that.

But what had me fuming were the supposedly "coolest parents in the world", Aditi's parents - Pamelo and Pamela/ Potato and Pumpkins/ Peachpie and Parrot/ Popcorn and what have you/ whatever, whatever.

Scene 1 in which they appear - Cool parents dancing at their grown up kids party. Eww!

Scene 2 - Cool parents discussing in garden - Our daughter is 20. She graduated today. Let us talk to Jai and fix up their marriage. Before people talk. High time they settled down. Or we'll have to deal with the relatives and various proposals. (Unsaid - She wants to be a film maker? Let her get married first. Then, we'll see).

Scene 3 - Cool parents talking to Jai - So when do you get married? (Unsaid - Oh, you don't have a job, you've only graduated yesterday, but that's all right). Misunderstanding ensues. Jai and Aditi convince them they are only friends.

Scene 4 - Cool parents - If you are only friends, and are together all the time, how will you find partners? And your partner won't like your mate. (Unsaid - And you must find your partner, the sooner the better).

Soon enough, Aditi has an arranged meeting with a family friend's son, and gets engaged on the same day.

Scene 5 in which parents appear - Cool parents play scrabble while their daughter has got engaged to the first man they introduced her to. He is a friend's son so they haven't done any background check on him. The only indication that things may not be what they seem is the word father makes on the board 'Discomfort'.

Scene 6 - Cool parents wary that their reclusive son will embarrass them in front of their prospective son-in-law. Cool parents thrilled that their son seems to like their prospective son-in-law. Cool parents clueless about their son's thought processes or facial expressions.

Scene 7. Cool parents bid Aditi goodbye at airport.

A day earlier Aditi has come back with a huge bruise on her cheek. We never see or hear of them noticing it, talking to her about it, questioning her about why she has broken off her engagement or confronting their friend or his son about it.

Aditi sitting alone on Band Stand seems to reconfirm the fact that she cannot depend on her parents for emotional support. That she is alone. It is left to Jai to notice her bruise and avenge her.

So these are supposedly educated, super rich parents, who have lived all over the world. What happens to girls in middle class families with not-so-cool parents?

Somehow, brings to mind the crazy mother Kiron Kher plays in 'Fanaa' who packs off her college going blind daughter to a strange city for the first time with the prayer that she finds her Prince Charming there. The daughter willingly obliges, and falls in love with the first man who comes her way. The mother, hearing this news on the phone, and that her daughter is going to get married to someone they have never met is ecstatic.

We grew up with the thought of marriage dinned into our heads. My parents wanted me to 'see' a boy at the age of 15, and get engaged. My sister, friends and cousins all had the same pressure, give or take a few years. Some of us rebelled and found our own partners. Some had secret flings before they married partners of their parents' choice. Some did as they were told. The 'cool parents' were those who made no fuss about their children choosing their own partner.

But I can safely say, that in 90 cases out of 100, girls and their parents spent no time or just about 1/10th of time to career options or a need for a career as they did to finding the right partner for their child. And I've seen so many brilliant minds underutilized. So many wrong choices made because of the haste. So many lives forced to live out marriage for the sake of marriage.

So has nothing changed in 25 years?

Around us, children as young as 11 and 12 are playing the dating game. I can understand that they are hormonally charged up to do so. I can understand Dhanno and her crushes, and the enormous peer pressure to date. What Teja and I cannot bring our minds around to, is her dating or being sexually active, until an appropriate age, to our minds 18 and after.

But of course, we have a few 'cool' parents around us, too. A mother consents to her 12 year old going steady with a boy 5 years her senior, because the girl says, "I cannot live without him." The boy is in college, in another town. The girl's studies and sports performances which were brilliant earlier, have suffered.

A few other 'cool' parents have promised their girls they can start dating once they finish their Xth Std exams, when they'll be 15+.

Another 'cool' parent met Dhanno for the first time, when she was 13 and asked her to pirouette, and said, "Good, you are sexy." One could pass it off as a casual remark, if her own daughter was not obsessing about her looks all the time.

Now, while I love watching Dhanno dress up, make up and preen before the mirror, there's no way I am going to encourage her to think of her looks beyond a point. Not that she needs any encouragement from me, as is evident from when she was 5.

Dhanno, 5, oil pastel drawing by Banno with a few flourishes from Dhanno , 1998

However, I would think it criminal to even suggest that she absolutely needs to find the right partner and marry if she wants to live a fulfilled life.

Teja is clear that even if Dhanno has a few hang-ups about relationships because we are strict, she will grow out of them. But he certainly does not want any boyfriend-shoyfriend business right now. He is willing to be the villain of the story, if need be.

As for me, I feel confused. What about our own wild days as young people? Our rebellions, our fights for our personal freedom? I know that a dear friend, Fi will read this and mail me saying - "Ba, sau choohe khaake billi Hajj ko chali" i.e. the cat goes to Hajj after eating a hundred rats.

delhi-6

2009-02-23T10:19:00.002+05:30

Delhi-6 wallpaper courtesy Upperstall

Read my review of the film on their site here

hips never lie

2009-02-19T10:42:00.002+05:30

So, the other day, I had a hip into a man's face. Then, a hand up a man's thigh. A couple of hand brushings. A pat on a man's head. I'm like a terrified bird in crowded public spaces. Arms and legs flapping, and going god-knows-where. Any wonder then that I prefer to stay at home?

Later, in the train, a gentle lady next to me explained patiently to all contenders coveting the 4th seat, "We all have hips". Since the 4th lady too usually had hips herself, she didn't grumble, or try to squeeze in nevertheless, as a younger girl with no hips may have.

B, 1993, Charcoal drawing by Teja

For more adventures in the local train, read 'the grasshopper in a local train' on my blog at Upperstall.

at home on Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T13:08:00.003+05:30

Dhanno came back home and said, "I am very impressed with my friend Ish."

I said, "Why?"

She said, "Her friend Hit is gay. But Ish said he's her best friend."

I said, "So?"

Dhanno said, "But it's just that Ish is not even bothered by it. She takes it so normally."

I said, "Why shouldn't she?"

Dhanno said, "No reason. I don't mean to say being gay is wrong. But just that ... I mean, I've never known anyone who is gay."

I said, "Well, as you grow up, you will know more and more people who are gay."

Dhanno said, "Yes, but isn't it abnormal? I mean .."

I said, "No, it's not."

Dhanno said, "Yes, mom, even biology says that you have sexual organs to attract the opposite sex to be able to reproduce."

I said, "Whatever. But when a large proportion of people are homosexual, then how can that be abnormal?"

She said, "Hmm."

Then, she said, "I'm just so impressed with Ish. I mean she takes it so normally."

I said, "You are so fazed by this, because of all the gay characters you usually see on TV or film."

She said, "Come on, it's not that. I know they are not bad people."

I said, "No, it's not about good or bad. It's just that you see gay people on screen wearing strange clothes, walking and talking in strange ways. So, that's what you think they will be. But gay people look just like you and me."

She said, "That's true."

I said, "For instance, Rock Hudson. He was gay."

She said, "No...o...o.."

I said, "So what? Does that make him any less good-looking, charming, less of a star? Does it make you like him less?"

She said, "Why did you tell me? I like him so much. Now please don't tell me Leonardo Di Caprio is gay."

I said, "Why not?"

She said, "Because I like him."

I said, " So will you like him less if he is gay?"

She said, "Mama, I like him. As in like him. As in, when I am 21 and he is say, 45, and we meet, I could marry him."

I say, "Oh!"

She said, "Why did you tell me Rock Hudson is gay? I like him. I wanted to meet him."

I said, "But he is dead."

She said, "Oh no. Mama, how could you do this to me on Valentine's Day? First, you tell me he is gay, then that he is dead. Did you need to do that?"

Teja and I then threw names at her at random, saying "Oh, this one is gay, and that one is gay. And that one too. And that one is bisexual."

She hit back by saying that we were the most boring couple she knew, since we had no plans for Valentine's Day, then ignored us, and thought it was time for dinner.

By the way, don't miss checking out

The Stags in The Steam Room

Preview here

PS: Dhanno says I have my biology all wrong. It's not our sexual organs, but our secondary sexual characteristics like color of skin and hair, body odour, and voice and their differentiations between male and female that are meant to attract the opposite sex. It's back to the classroom for me.

some bubbles burst, some are still floating around

2009-02-10T20:41:00.010+05:30

Corporate job, alcohol, table tennis, blogging, cricket, poetry, teaching, video rental store, general store, accu-pressure, yoga, drugs, sex, affairs, violence, drudgery, tantra, mantra, rings, numerology, boredom.

Mummy said when she saw 'Luck by Chance' - "It's about all of you, the struggle."

The word 'struggle' implies a fight for some noble cause. And while, 'the strugglers' are noble enough in their faith, their optimism, their belief that some day things will work out for them, what is the fight for?

To be rich enough to order food from Mainland China and buy a diamond ring for your wife?
To be successful enough to ride in an air conditioned car with tinted glasses?
To be able to reject one film and accept another?

Romy Rolly, the producer, after years of success, still struggles to make his next film.
Zafar Khan, the superstar, faced with a rival, suddenly begins to see the end of his reign.
Friends who are working, are unhappy with their work and those they work for.
Friends who are not working, are unhappy with those who are working.
Sona accepts that she is happy acting in television, she is happy once she accepts that she will never be a heroine.

But what will happen the next day, and the day after that? When she finds that even in television, the better roles go to the prettier girl, even if she is a bad actress? That the prettier girl gets paid at least 5 times more than her, that the prettier girl gets the better makeup room, the better hotel room, while she has to share a room with the hairdresser, that the prettier girl gets mineral water and food of her choice on set, and she is served tap water from who knows where. And yet, does Sona have a choice to be anything but happy?

A filmmaker friend recently said to Teja, "I'm going to make only commercial films now." Yes, you can make a choice to make commercial films, if you know the stars and the CEOs of the production houses. But if you don't, can you do anything but make a low-budget film without stars and probably, without release? Or worse, sit at home, wondering what you should do with yourself.

Corporate job, alcohol, table tennis, blogging, cricket, poetry, teaching, video rental store, general store, accu-pressure, yoga, drugs, sex, affairs, violence, drudgery, tantra, mantra, rings, numerology, boredom.

Meanwhile, Dhiraj, a bright little boy we shot with last year for the Canadian Broadcasting documentary program 'India on the Move', continues to do well at school. His mother who was a garment worker in Bangalore lost her job due to ill health caused by ulcers and now works as a housemaid.

And I wonder if the bubble boy I shot in 2002, is still around on Juhu beach, and how he is doing.

if you have a horse, you can get by almost anywhere

2009-02-07T15:20:00.042+05:30

Since it was agreed upon that the film in my last post was 'Azaad', Jo began to belt out 'Raju, chal Raju..' ignoring the flowers, the chandeliers and the glittering guests.

Speaking of horses, Cubbu said he saw a Dara Singh film where Dara Singh on a horse, called Chetak he thinks, races electricity. A girl on a hillock is connected to an electric wire from another hillock. As the villian switches on the current, Dara Singh and Chetak race against the electricity to reach the girl in time and cut the wire before she gets a shock. The failed electrical shock falls in a blue sparkly shower to the ground.

Sorry, I don't even know the right scientific terms for such phenomena.

Speaking of horses yet again, Cubbu said, Kantilal Shah who was famous for roping in big stars for major appearances in his B-grade films by promising them to finish their work in a day, got Dharmendra to appear in a film.

He shot Dharamji astride a horse, then a close shot of Dharamji simulating being on a horse. He cut the close shot with a shot of a girl writhing on a bed. He showed the film in Punjab to full houses. Some relative or friend in Punjab informed Dharmendra after which Dharamji and Sunny stripped Mr Shah and had him parade naked in Juhu. "That's a legendary story," Cubbu said.

Speaking of parading naked, Punjab-da-puttar said our FTII senior Mithun-da used to walk around naked at the Institute from Boy's Hostel to Main Gate which is pretty much the entire campus. "He had a beautiful body, and perhaps that is why Mrinal Sen cast him in 'Mrigayaa'", P-d-p said.

Well, for a bunch of 'Ai, Institute', as Rolly the producer taunts the scriptwriter for suggesting something remotely arty in 'Luck by Chance', and as industry-wallas have been traditionally happy to dismiss institute-wallas, we were full of industry gossip that day.

We were there to celebrate my batchmate, Resul's Oscar nomination for sound on 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Most of us were happy to drink, eat, and meet up with old and new friends, but there weren't too many enthusiastic about the film. I haven't seen it yet.

Googling around, am wondering if the Kanti Shah film with Dharmendra was 'Loha'? If it is the same Kanti Shah as in the Cubbu story?

Mithun-da appears in 'Loha' too!

While you are here, please go read my post 'ladies make inappropriate mistakes' at
Upperstall Blogs.

Just because there are only so many rasgullas you can eat at one time

2009-02-03T13:06:00.013+05:30

The other day, I watched Dharmendra in a chamber with a slanting floor opening into a pit with acid bubbling inside. As he tried to avoid falling in, he looked up. A fancy glass chandelier over the pit had a Gandhi cap stuck on it - it belonged to someone he had known. The cap fell into the pit, and the bubbles swallowed it up immediately.

Meanwhile, gas began to spew out of vents near the floor. Then, a big dog rushed in and attacked Dharmendra in a bid to loosen his grip on the floor and make him fall into the pit. The dog then turned into a stuffed toy with which Dharmendra wrestled making huge, grunting sounds. Then Dharmendra threw the dog into the pit, and the acid bubbles sizzled again satisfyingly.

Dharmendra used the door left open by the dog to move out of the chamber and into a corridor where immediately big saws started rotating towards him threateningly from both sides. Then, some huge drills started coming at him from the floor. He avoided all those and escaped through the blades of a huge exhaust fan onto a shabby terrace full of sad looking potted plants and discarded furniture. Shetty, the dark bald evil man was waiting for him there, and he made menacing sounds. They had a fist-fight.

Meanwhile, Ajit and Prem Chopra went down a corridor. A door opened automatically and closed when they had passed by. They opened a large oven. The skeleton of a dog was delivered to them covered in ashes. They wondered what had happened. They peeped through a window of the chamber and saw Dharmendra had escaped.

Dharmendra defeated Shetty eventually and looked down from the terrace. A saddled horse was waiting patiently near a tree. He whistled and the horse came obediently nearer. Dharmendra jumped from the terrace, landed on the horse two stories below, and galloped off.

Ajit and Prem Chopra came running out. Their house was in a forest. They asked their goons to chase Dharmendra. Everyone set off on their horses.

I switched off the TV. Too much pleasure can be a bad thing.

I wish I knew which film this was in. Teja who was in the same room as the TV, says he does remember seeing Dharmendra but none of the above since the TV was on only for a few minutes. Dhanno refuses to believe that I actually saw all this. She thinks I made it up. It seems just the kind of thing I would make up.

A few days ago, I also saw Dharmendra and Hema Malini on a ferry. They were having an argument, in the course of which he lifted her up, put her over his shoulders, smacked her on the bottom and then threw her into the water. Dhanno doesn't believe I saw this either.

I need some Youtube proof. And I need to stop surfing TV channels. And I need to watch entire films in one go, or at least until I figure out their names.

Lakshmi in pink

2009-01-19T12:43:00.001+05:30

Lakshmi (Shabana Azmi) started well enough in 'Amar, Akbar, Anthony' (1977), enterprising, feisty, in bellbottoms. Luring eager, lecherous men into dark corners to be hit upon by her stepbrother (Ranjeet) and his goons. Turned out that she didn't really want to do this work. Her grandmother meanwhile protected a set of gold earrings meant for Lakshmi's wedding from her stepmother (Nadira), and seeing this, Inspector Amar (Vinod Khanna) was convinced that Lakhsmi was a good girl. Promptly, he invited her grandmother and her to live in his house, and promptly they agreed.

The next we see her, she is wrapped up in a sari, demure, picking Amar's washing from the clothesline, while he swings on a hammock, book in hand. She looks longingly at him, he sings of love, looking not at her, but at the sky. Though later, he does consent to sit back to back with her on the porch, while it rains outside.

The next we see her, she happens to be on the same road where her stepbrother is kidnapping Jenny (Parveen Babi). And like all true blue Hindi film heroines, she runs towards trouble and not away from it. She hides in the trunk, to be caught moments later by her smarter stepbrother.

The next we see her is as a reluctant bridesmaid to a reluctant bride Jenny.

And in the end again, demure in a sari, family photo time.

For a fortnight, the vision of that bridesmaid would not leave me. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see a woman in pink. Shocking pink. A pink gown, a pink train edged with white frills trailing behind her, a pink veil pinned on her head, with bunches of pink lace flowers on either ear.

She looks trapped, helpless, in a state of shock, very, very unhappy in her pink dress. She looks like a kid who has been told that the school bell is never going to ring again, and she will never be let out of the classroom. She looks like she is about to burst out crying like my brother Rolu on his first birthday, hot and scratchy in too-much-finery.

She has reason enough to cry. She's pitched against Parveen Babi who looks glamorous in whatever she wears, lemon yellow, or postbox red, with matching hats, handkerchiefs, purses and shoes. And Neetu Singh, who couldn't care less what she's wearing. Shararas and burqas are not a big deal for her, since she's even carried off checked shirts, high waisted polyster pants and square eyebrows with her bubbly charm.

I wondered how long I was to see this pink before my eyes. Until I saw blue.

Lily (Sonia Sahni) in 'Andaz' (1971). Now Sonia Sahni was a glamour icon for me in childhood, and I longed for the day I could wear dresses with holes in the unlikeliest places like her. Sadly, that ambition was fulfilled only once.

Anyway, so when she appeared at Badal's (Roopesh Kumar) party, wearing a gown made of blue Banarasi silk, I grinned with pleasure. The halter back was pretty tame, as also a small round hole on her belly. But what had my eyes popping out were the slits on both thighs that almost touched her waist. While she lurched around drunkenly and even cavorted brazenly on the floor, I went into super-protective Mom mode, wondering where are the shorts? Is she actually wearing a thong for this number? I hope she doesn't flash.

Badal however remains indifferent to her seductive charms, since he has 2 firangi babes on his arms, and even one firangi girl serving drinks, and several other firangi couples smooching around the room. Fed up of her throwing herself at him, he pushes her across the room.

However, the next morning when his pal Satish walks into his bedroom, as people in Hindi films usually do, Badal in bed, with a girl snugly ensconced on either side gives a super-quick glance under the blanket and asks: "Where's Lily?"

What? Or what?

I'm wondering what I made of this when I saw this otherwise sweet, family film at the age of 6.

But at least, the woman in blue has made the lady in pink go away.

i'm gonna 2-time

2009-01-13T12:23:00.003+05:30

Flabbergasted by my comment on my last post 'Copy Chris, Paste Ghajini' that I quite liked 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi',

My brother Rolu called me and said accusingly: "So you liked 'Rab ne'?"

I hemmed and hawed and defended myself sheepishly: "Well, you know, we saw it on New Year's day, and it was sort of just right for an evening after a hangover, quiet and simple."

He said: "It was worse than 'Ghajini'."

I said: "No, 'Ghajini' was so violent. 'Rab ne' was not."

And Surinder Suri in his polyster checked shirts and polyster pants, with the goodness of a loving provider, reminded me of my father, and of course, I am a sucker for anyone who reminds me of my father, and I cried and cried lots.

And I knew that Taani would choose Suri, rather than Raj, as any girl with any sense would,

and I loved that moment between Bobby and Suri, when they are drinking and Bobby passes out, and Suri says wistfully, 'We were having so much fun'.

What to do? It really didn't matter to me that Suri was rather idiotic in his attempts to woo Taani with a lame makeover, because we are allowed to do idiotic things when we are in love,

and Hindi films are full of idiotic disguises anyway, which are such great fun.

And I just like SRK better than AK.

Rolu said: "Well then, we can ask Teja-bhai to shave off his mustache, and you can start having an affair with him."

Not a bad idea that.

Copy Chris, Paste Ghajini

2009-01-08T10:44:00.001+05:30

Teja decided to take Christopher Nolan with us to see 'Ghajini'.

I said: "Is that a good idea?"

Teja said: "Well, it's a copy of his film, so ... "

I said: "Yes but, do we have to be the ones to tell him?"

Teja shrugged: "It's too late now. I have already asked him."

I said: "Then you'd better sit in the middle. I'd like some distance between us when he starts getting angry."

A long note on short term memory after the opening credits totally went past Chris who was still shuffling around in his seat, excited at being in an Indian cinema house.

The opening scene with a computer graphic map of the brain, and a medical college lecture that went "The brain is the king of all organs. The brain controls all the other organs" invited a small snort from him.

Medical student Sunita finds a file on Sanjay Singhania. She pretends interest in his condition of short term memory but actually she thinks he's cute. Her professor rightly judges that and asks her to stay away as SS is a police case. 'But, but ... ', she says. He glares at her, she looks down meekly. She wonders what SS is doing right now.

SS was on a killing spree.
He took out his Polaroid, Chris gasped.
SS made notes, Chris stopped breathing.
SS went home, Chris made a small gurgling sound when he saw the maps on the wall.
SS went to the bathroom, and a note asked him to remove his T-shirt. His 6 pack body was revealed with tattoos all over it.

* Drawing from 'The Star' series by Teja

SS's eyes popped out, and he made growling animal sounds. Chris's eyes popped out, and he made growling animal sounds.

He flung himself out of the chair and stomped out. Teja's tub of popcorn was scattered all over the floor.

I hissed: "Does he know that cost 65 rupees?"

Teja remonstrated: "It's not a huge amount for him. And he's angry right now, Banno."

I said: "I don't care. Go get me more popcorn. And get him to pay for it, if you can."

Teja found Chris stalking before the uniformed boys lined up before him, in their uniform 'Ghajini' haircuts.

"What's with this haircut?", he was saying. "Do you know my film is about memory and how it plays tricks on the best of us, and how it's the basis of the identity we create for ourselves, and who we are, and all that? What's this hair got to do with it?"

Teja calmed him down and said: "Haircuts are an important part of actors' performances here, Chris. They are crucial to the actor's interpretation of the character."

Teja led Chris back to his seat. I skulked in the furthest corner of mine, keeping the new tub of popcorn well beyond his reach. Chris was better behaved for the rest of the film though he continued firing questions at Teja every few minutes.

1. Chris: "Do ad agencies in your country work like this? With in-house models who get promoted to head model if they have rich imaginary boyfriends?"

Me: "I wish."

2. Chris: "There is no photo of Kalpana in SS's diary. Then how come the police officer who is reading the diary know what Kalpana looks like? How come when Sunita reads SS's diary, she too knows what Kalpana looks like?"

Teja: "Because Kalpana was a model. She did the Hamam soap ad. She was famous."

3. Chris: "Are those tattoos? They look like they have been written with permanent marker pens. No, they don't look like tattoos."

Teja: "They are meant to be tattoos. So tattoos they are."

4. Chris: "Why is this Ghajini character such a sidekick? Isn't he supposed to be the main villain?"

Teja: "He's the star's friend. And all the star needs is a sidekick. He doesn't need a powerful antagonist who may steal the show away from him. It's all about the star, Chris."

5. Chris: "Is this Sunita chick dumb? Which psychiatry student asks a patient - 'So what happened to you? Did you get hurt? Who hit you with a rod? Who killed your wife? So sad, no.'"

6. Chris: "Is this Sunita chick dumb? Instead of going to the police, she goes to Ghajini, has a look at his slimy self, and the 6 goons behind him, flourishing their knives and their knuckle-dusters, and says - 'Sir, I think I should warn you, this mad man SS is going to kill you.'"

7. Chris: "Is this Sunita chick dumb? When SS has had his tattoos wiped out and can hope to start a new life, she reminds him of Kalpana's murder, and provokes vengeance in his heart all over again?"

8. Chris: "Is this Sunita chick dumb? She leads SS to the villain's den and then says - 'Hey, I think we should come back another time. This is so not safe.'"

Teja: "Her brains have seriously been affected by studying very hard to get 97% in the Board exams so that she could get admission in medical college, and then listening to such illuminating lectures as 'the brain is the king', so forgive her, Chris."

9. Chris: "Is this Kalpana chick dumb? When confronted with Ghajini in the middle of the night who tells her that he has just cut 2 girls to pieces and will do so to anyone who threatens him, she answers him with - 'It is because of people like you that girls cannot go out of their houses. Who all should girls protect themselves from? Their teachers, their bosses?' Then she turns and walks away, and goes back home. And he lets her?"

10. Chris: "Is this Kalpana dumb? When her police informer tells her that Ghajini is going to kill her, and that his people are already in her house, she uses a power failure to go further into the house, rather than just leave from the door right behind her? She doesn't think to call or SMS anybody for help? Not the police? Not her innumerable friends? Not her boyfriend? And of course, like all the idiotic members of the audience who never switch off their cellphones, she doesn't think of doing that either."

Teja: "Chris, Kalpana is an angel. She helps people cross the street, and gives them street directions, and gets them jobs and such like. She has to die. And if to die, she has to be dumb, so be it. She is too good to live. She cannot, must not live. That's the rule, you see."

11. Chris: "Is the police informer dumb? Why does she wait for Kalpana to reach home before calling her?"

12. Chris: "Are the people in SS's employ dumb? When he was normal, a convoy of 4 BMWs accompanies him even when he goes to pee, and when he is ill, all they can manage is an ineffective, 'Why don't you come back home, Sir?'. No bodyguards, no nurses. They just leave him to roam around mad on the streets, killing people?"

Teja: "Maybe the manager wants SS to die and get a hold of all his money?"

13. Chris: "Is Ghajini dumb? He is the owner of a huge pharmaceutical factory. Why then does he indulge in small, sidey rackets? And even if he does, why does he get down to street fights with iron rods, instead of hiring people to do his dirty work?"

Teja: "Because those are his roots. He's a humble man, he hasn't forgotten his roots, where he comes from. He believes in equality, he believes in getting his hands dirty. He wouldn't have his men do anything that he wouldn't do himself."

15. Chris: "How come the police woman knows the details of Kalpana's death, if she was not there herself, Kalpana is dead, and SS has lost his memory? When SS regains consciousness, who reminds him about Ghajini, and sets him up in Kalpana's flat with the essentials like a walker and a punching bag, for those crucial 6 packs?"

Teja: "It's called poetic license, Chris. Suspension of disbelief. How else can you make a film, or watch it?"

By then, Chris was convinced that 'Ghajini' was a better film than his own. Thanks to Teja's patriotic defense of Indian cinema. Chris was also convinced of the merits of copying. After the film, he stalked off with bulging eyes and puffed up face, like SS.

I said wearily: "Is he going to copy that now?"

Teja said: "Yes, he's even going to get the 'Ghajini' hair cut."

I sighed. I knew I should have concentrated on my own abs rather than go to watch someone else's photo-shopped ones.

1st January 2009

2009-01-01T12:16:00.005+05:30

After 6 glasses of smooth red wine made in Nasik, bought in Goa, consumed in Malad,

and

a mainly-qawali night from our very own 'fairly talented when drunk' troupe

and

coming home

when one man was already jogging in Goregaon East, a woman in Saibaba Complex was feeding some stray dogs, and a man outside another gate was tying white rags around a couple of stray puppies to protect them from the cold,

and another man in a lungi, plastic bucket in hand, was on his way to finding a private corner for his morning ablutions on Western Express Highway,

and

before going to sleep, first packing up the leftovers of palak paneer, rajma, mutton curry and peas pulao, cooked for 25 people, and eaten by 10 to the capacity of 5, because everyone had stuffed themselves with liquids by 2 am,

I am not really at my scintillating best, so I shall content myself

with wishing all of you a Happy New Year

and excuse myself for all your posts that I have not read yet.

Maybe tomorrow my head won't be throbbing quite this much.

hardworking kids, lazy mom

2008-12-24T10:22:00.000+05:30

Dhanno said yesterday: "After my Board exams, I'm going to take Time and put It in the mixie, and grind It, and take It out and throw It on the floor, then mop It up, and throw the mop in the dustbin. I'm going to waste and waste Time."

Her friend Shy said : "We'll just sit at the window and not even talk to each other, that is how much Time we will waste."

Poor kids, studying hard for their Std. X exams.

I meanwhile, continue to waste Time, gadding about unabashedly.

That is factually incorrect, the gadding about and the being unabashed. But I did so want to use those words.

3 years overtime

2008-12-17T09:15:00.000+05:30

Apparently, I ought to have retired 3 years ago. Or perhaps curled up and died?

John Abraham in today's Bombay Times, the Chak De, Mumbai column which has a new celebrity response everyday, on 26/11 -

"I think the message is out there. 60% of the population is below 40 which means we have the largest 'thinking' population in the world."

Does anyone out there know how I can switch that 'thinking' button off now that I'm way past 40?

I am charming :-)

2008-12-12T11:49:00.001+05:30

This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY – nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

Grasshopper gave me this award because she says I am "A fellow FTIIan, I feel closer to her as a fellow blogger than I ever did before." And I feel the same way about her.

It's strange how many people I feel that way about. I've known them ever so long, and yet, feel closer to them now as fellow bloggers. And so I pass on this award to ..

1. Space Bar - She takes me into realms which I'd conveniently avoid if left to myself. Like poetry.

2. Sur - She is a next door neighbor whom I hardly ever see. But Sanah and she make me relive those early years with Dhanno.

3. Paro - I always thought she was a little formidable. But as it turns out, I like her.

Then, there are the people I've never met. But want to, some day, in this life.

4. Memsaab - She has an amazing taste in films, actors, directors, costumes, sets. That is to say, she has a taste that absolutely matches mine! She reminds me of all those childhood days, those dingy theatres and the magic of those films.

5. Beth - She differs. But she has strong opinions. And she's fun.

And then there are those who astound me with the power of their writing and their imagination. I'd like to meet them one day too. But I'd probably be a little shy around them.

6. Indeterminacy - His is a blog you simply can't ignore. Fabulous stories accompanying pictures sent to him by friends.

7. Madeleine - She's become really busy with her online magazine, Greenbeard. So her blog is rather neglected. I miss her.

8. Stan Johns - His blog, Half Dentist, is quirky and obscure and leaves so much unsaid, and I love it.

And though I've run out of my quota of awards, I cannot leave out

9. Dipali - She writes of home, kids, dogs, holidays and life. And I feel as if I've grown up knowing her.

10. Shweta - I love the name of her blog, Apni East India Company. And I like her film reviews.

fat and dumb

2008-12-07T13:20:00.000+05:30

Coming back from IFFI Goa 2008, Pu and I were latched on to by a fellow film buff. That's one of the dangers you encounter at film festivals, the single male who thinks females without male escorts are simply waiting to be bored.

During the 13-hour journey, we were subjected to about 10 hours of monologue on his part. His love story, work schedule, assets, liabilities, future plans, diet, piggy bank habits and so on. He also saw fit to be nasty to a fellow traveller who mistakenly asked us for details about the festival. And proceeded to give Pu a lecture on how she should not talk to strangers, because she insisted on answering the man's queries. Pu bravely argued for 4 hours while I glared out into the darkening evening.

As a quick aside to me he asked, "Have you always been this fat, or have you put on weight recently? You should take care of yourself, you know. Don't you walk? Do you like eating too much?"

Pu and I were shocked enough to be dumbstruck. In the rickshaw back home, when we had finally shaken him off, we spluttered with ineffective rage. The next day I read in Mumbai Mirror of the ruckus between Shiney Ahuja and Isha Koppikar. Getting back to a shoot schedule after a 3 week break, he said to her, 'You've grown fatter." She retorted back, "And you've grown uglier." He skulked off, apparently.

Oh, how Pu and I need lessons in repartee! What's the use of comeback lines that come to you a day too late?

And coincidentally, I had written this before I went to Goa, but not posted it, just because ....

The trouble is that the ripply, wavery lines and the wobbly bits in the mirror don't bother me. I'd have a better chance of sticking to my diet and exercise regime if I didn't quite see myself (and everyone else) with the same eyes that I see a Renoir painting or a Meghalaya landscape . The trouble is I like both the banyan and the coconut trees. I like watermelons as much as I do strawberries. I like flat stomachs and round stomachs, young faces and old, wrinkled ones. Muscled bodies and flabby bodies both tell their own stories to me.

That's not to say I haven't spent a considerable amount of time in the last decade agonizing about the kilos I piled on during one extremely stressful phase of life. But the agony was brought on mainly by people whose idea of conversation-starters is "Oh God, you've become fat." Or "You've really lost weight. The last time I saw you, you were fat."

I really wonder what people are thinking when they assail friends, strangers, family, all and sundry with retorts like:

1. You're looking much better these days. Less ill.
2. You're looking awful. You have a double chin.
3. What's happened to your hair?
4. You've grown older. You used to be so pretty.
5. What's up with the crow's feet?
6. You never used to have those shadows under your eyes. You should sleep more.
7. You should exercise more. Don't you go to the gym?
8. Are you happy? Are you still with the same guy? Just asking.

Maybe I should start using the grass wheel, eh Grasshopper?

Drums and old Hindi film songs at 100 decibels

2008-11-20T10:51:00.000+05:30

It's impossible to think with this din. I feel as if my brain is being battered. One wedding and two days of persistent noise. If the sound blares so on the 13th floor, what is it like for those down there, and how can they tolerate it? How can this be their idea of fun or celebration? I hate these people. I curse them, may their marriage never work.

There's pink and there's pink

2008-11-16T12:42:00.000+05:30

Yet another thing that keeps me sufficiently and suitably distracted from film making is my obsession with lipsticks.

One of the things I like to do, when I really need to do nothing at all, as opposed to not having anything to do,

is chop up bits of lipsticks which are old, or the wrong colors, or simply boring now that they've lasted forever, and just won't give up their mortal existence,

and mix them all up.

I used to melt them over a pan of boiling water, now I just put them into a tiny tin and mesh them all together with the end of a nail file or a cut off ear bud. I mix in lots of lip balm too.

There, I have a new color in my life, which is usually the same color as most of the others I have, i.e. pink. Plus I satisfy my cheap, middle-class housewifely urges to recycle.

Grasshopper though has a different opinion about lipstick.

wrong place, wrong time

2008-11-10T13:55:00.001+05:30

I did a series of short films on Mumbai for an internet channel in California, when internet movie uploading and watching was at an experimental stage, and so like a lot of my other work, the films were largely unseen. (My heart wails)

I used to shoot the films on a small 3CCD mini-DV, sometimes by myself, sometimes with Teja, sometimes with any other cinematographer friend who'd oblige.

This is one of my favourites. I was wandering around Juhu beach on my own, and I could see from the corner of my eyes, these 2 men hovering just outside the edge of my frame. I turned the camera on them, and out poured this:

just nudging

2008-11-07T16:50:00.000+05:30

you a bit to go read my post 'Pigeons and Papayas' on Upperstall Blogs.

last Sunday

2008-11-05T20:35:00.000+05:30

Spent 1050/- rupees on 7 tickets for 'Fashion'.
20/- for parking.
Say a 50/- on petrol
300/- on popcorn and colas.
5/- odd rupees on Dispirin for everyone in the evening. Because all of us came back grumpy, with headaches. Having missed our afternoon siesta. Which the scrumptious Parsi lunch at Dorabjees deserved much, much more than it did a dose of 'realistic cinema'.

It was just that it had been almost 3 weeks since we went to a theater.

Dhanno, who's 15 and could be 18, has been walking into adult films with us occasionally, when Teja and I deem fit to ignore the censors. OK, I don't see how 'Music and Lyrics' with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant rates an 'A' certificate, and 'Tashan' or 'Neil & Nikki' rates a U/A. So, I'd rather trust our own judgment.

But the Pune multiplex was packed with kids. Golu, who's 11 and could be 8 walked in easily, as did a lot of other boys his age. And of course, he was bored silly.

Later, he said: "If it (i.e. the film) was a man, I would have kicked it hard."

A river left behind

2008-10-19T12:21:00.001+05:30

I read this story at the Caferati meet yesterday. It's a story that has been with me for a long time, and is one of my personal favourites. I'm still not sure whether it's 'done'. But ...

It came from a documentary recce shoot on a mini-DV, Shanker and I in the city. How I wish I'd made a copy of that tape before I sent it off to the producer in the US. Regrets born out of disorganized living.

Malti lived with Raju on a big, empty ground surrounded by apartment buildings, somewhere in Jogeshwari East, Mumbai. When Malti had come from her village many years ago, there had been empty grounds all around her, green fields, and lots of cattle sheds. The smell of the buffaloes, the clinking of the milk pails, and the milkmen in their yellowing white dhotis had reminded her of home.

But now, there were no green fields, and the cattle sheds were wedged between concrete buildings so tall, that Malti had to strain to see the tops of them. The ground that she lived on seemed to have been forgotten for some reason, in the building frenzy.

Malti did not miss her village all the time. But she did miss having a bath everyday. In the village, she could walk into the river any time she wanted, whenever she was feeling hot and dusty, and splash around to her heart’s content. But here she was able to have a bath only once a week.

Raju had to fetch buckets of water from the well near the tea stall. The tea stall owner had become the unofficial owner of the well, and even though Raju paid two rupees for every bucket of water he took, the self-proclaimed owner stared disapprovingly at him whenever he took a bucket too many.

The little boy, Muttu who worked at the tea stall would help Raju lug the buckets to and fro, and bathing times on Sunday mornings became a big event. But even twenty buckets of water could not give Malti the pleasure she had had splashing in the river back home.

Every Sunday, after the bath, Raju would take Malti to the South Indian temple in Matunga. It was a long walk, but they earned a lot of money on that day, because the temple was crowded with devotees, and each one of them gave something to Raju and Malti. Malti would be decked in all her finery, and everyone would turn to look at her, she was so beautiful. Malti would stare back with smiling, crinkled eyes.

Malti loved to go to the temple. The lane outside smelt of flowers and incense; the women were dressed in brilliant colors and the children laughed happily at her. The roads were not too crowded on Sunday, and it was a pleasant walk for Raju and Malti.

On weekdays, Raju would eat his breakfast late, at the tea stall. Malti would wait till he was ready. Then they would start walking on their regular rounds. Past the cattle sheds, crossing the busy highway, crossing the railway tracks to the more affluent western side of the suburb, Andheri where there were many small South Indian eateries, whose owners always had a little something to offer Raju and Malti. Malti hated to cross the highway, with its roaring trucks and cars that never seemed to stop.

Some days they met Indu and her keeper, Mahesh. It did not happen too often, but some times, they would be called together for a wedding party or a film shoot. Indu lived far away in Mira Road, and Malti was happy whenever they did meet. Indu and Malti could talk to each other all day with their eyes.

Indu was Malti’s daughter, born to her in the village many years ago. Malti and Indu had come to the city together, but had been separated when they came here because they worked different rounds. Malti had another daughter, Anu who lived further away in Kurla, and whom Malti had never seen again after they came to the city.

One day, Malti and Indu crossed each other near the crowded Andheri station. It was more than a year since they had seen each other. They were on opposite sides of the road, but oblivious to the traffic around them, they stopped in the middle of the road, and called out to each other.

The traffic policeman glared at Raju and Mahesh, who goaded both the females to move ahead. The cars piled up around them, the drivers honking furiously. But Malti and Indu did not hear the noises around them, or even feel the prod of Raju’s and Mahesh’s sticks, but just continued to stand still and look at each other.

Suddenly, a large red bus with an impatient, irate bus driver nudged Malti on her back and moved forward. Malti, shaken out of her stillness, was hurt by the weight of the bus and moved back a step. Across the road, Mahesh too nudged Indu again, and she reluctantly, but with a lingering glance at Malti, moved away. Raju skillfully guided Malti through the traffic, ignoring the abuse of the drivers around him, and with great patience brought her back home.

That night, Raju lay awake, hearing Malti moan for Indu. Her eyes were shut, probably she was asleep after her long walk, and the injury on her back must be hurting, but Raju thought perhaps she was dreaming of her daughter, Indu and the village to which she belonged.

Raju wondered if he should walk to Malti’s side of the ground and stroke her, but he lay where he was, listening to her soft crying. Again he thought of their silent walk back home, and felt a little proud that he had managed to bring her back without any further accidents, she had been so distressed that day.

After a few minutes, he picked up his thin mattress and sheet, and walked up to her. He stroked her gently and murmured softly into her ear. Malti moaned back.

Raju was a kind mahout. He had often told his owner, Jha-saab that Malti, Indu and Anu needed male mates, but Jha-saab had stopped bringing elephants to Mumbai.

It was too expensive to transport them, too expensive to keep them. The three females he had brought years ago were still paying their keep, but it was certainly not worth its while to invest more money in animals, what with the new rules and regulations. Anyway, where on earth would the elephants mate in Mumbai? There was no place big enough for that in the vicinity. Open grounds no longer existed, and they were lucky they still had place for the three elephants in the city.

Raju shrugged helplessly in the dark as he thought about Malti and her daughters, and their longing for their loved ones. Then he thought of his own wife back home in the village, and wondered if she too moaned for him like that in the dark. He laughed at himself and his fancies, as he remembered his silent Sarita going about her work at home and the fields, and sighing softly he turned to go to sleep.

When Malti woke up the next day, she was still a little sad. Every time she met Indu, she was sad afterwards for days, missing Anu, missing her village. But today, Raju fetched buckets of water, and gave her a bath, even though it was not Sunday. Malti sprayed water on him with her trunk, and tried to be cheerful for his sake. Raju, soaking wet, laughed, and threw yet another mug of water at Malti’s back. The little boy, Muttu came running towards them with a fresh bucket of water, and sprayed by Malti, he too laughed.

Ghostbusters

2008-10-18T10:36:00.000+05:30

The other day, at the fag-end of a party, with only 8 or 10 of us still around at 3 in the morning, conversation turned from Vipassana, meditation and prayer to corpses and ghosts. Don't ask me how.

Our hostess who lives alone, was a bit annoyed. We made a second start. Talk of food and recipes slid quickly down to corpses and cannibalism. Play-school level lavatory jokes too went the same way.

The men at 4 am were quite willing to leave our gentle hostess with the stench of decaying flesh and go off. They were drunk enough to fall off to sleep the minute they reached home.

But I know well how horror strikes in the early hours of the morning. I insisted we talk some more, of nicer things before we left. This time we tried films, and everyone sobered down, recalled to their professional selves.

Though we left behind a mass of dishes, dirty glasses and cigarette butts when we did say our goodbyes, I'm pretty sure we didn't leave any ghosts behind, thanks to the Magic of The Movies.

Circle limit IV

2008-10-16T11:56:00.000+05:30

Life is quite like an Escher painting. You see angels, angels, angels, then suddenly all you can see are wicked devils. And try as you might, they don't go away. Except suddenly again, with another blink of the eye, they are angels again.

The trouble is once you've seen the devils, you know they are there even when you are seeing the angels.

some memories of August

2008-10-11T17:48:00.003+05:30

These are the worst days of the year in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land. Hot, hot, hot in a piercing way. Still, sticky, no wind. The sunlight exhausts your eyes. So, to cool down, ....

What I noticed only this year, and loved, were the umbrellas and the raincoats used by boys and men. Very few blacks, or khakis, or greys. Out there in all the colors of the rainbow. Very metro-sexual, hey?

The broken people

2008-10-08T22:14:00.002+05:30

Last year, I thought it was time for Dhanno to begin cleaning her own bathroom and toilet. When I proposed it to her, she was shocked. Until then, usually I and sometimes Tai had cleaned it for her.

Perhaps she had never realized that someone did the job for her. Luckily, she was reading bits of Mahatma Gandhi's 'My Experiments with Truth' then, and we crossed over several issues with the thought that Gandhiji cleaned his own toilet.

It's the same with our public spaces. Most of us assume there is someone to clean up. So, it's chuck, spit, pee, shit.

Read my review of 'Untouchable' by Mulk Raj Anand, here.

alternative modes of transport

2008-10-03T11:25:00.001+05:30

I was watching Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee on a snow peaked mountain in 'Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hain', don't ask me why, I wouldn't know. No, wait, it was to do with the Friday release of 'Drona' and I wanted to see the director's earlier film, from an academic point of view. No, really, that's me.

Anyway, suddenly, I got an a-ha moment. Teja and Dhanno will tell you I often get a-ha moments, where I basically realize after a considerable amount of time what most people know from their mothers' wombs. A lot of my a-ha moments are to do with the working of taps, bottle caps, door latches, turnstiles, elevators, tetra-packs and other such mind-boggling things. But that's another story.

Right now my a-ha moment came while Teja said: "Where are they dancing?"

I said: "The Swiss Alps." Though I didn't know for sure, it's good practice to give answers confidently.

Since they had just reached the Swiss Alps via a Film City set just by virtue of singing a song, I said: "I'm sure if we sing a song right now, we could be in the Alps."

Teja said: "Yes."

I said: "We'd have to move our arms around in synch."

Teja said: "We could do that."

Dhanno said: "But both of you will reach there. I'll be left behind. I want to come too."

I said: "We'll sing a family song."

Much singing (completely off-key on my part, perfectly pitched on Teja's and Dhanno's part) ensued accompanied with much flailing around of arms and legs. But we stayed firmly ensconced in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land.

I said: "We need costumes and make-up."

Dhanno said: "We need a camera and lights."

Teja muttered to himself: "Love means doing stupid things together. Love means never having to say sorry (to yourself) when you do stupid things together. Love means ..."

Meanwhile Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee had come back to the Alps after a brief sojourn to some grassy flowery meadow in Ootacamund. They looked at each other, they looked at the camera, they did some posing of the romantic, dreamy kind, you know the arms outstretched, twisted necks variety.

I thought the way they are shot, and their dance steps are, they could well be performing in front of a blue screen in Mumbai. Most songs are choreographed this way nowadays. The backdrop could be Milan, Mauritius, Muscat, or a painted screen in Mehboob Studios, Bandra. How does it matter? The actors don't relate at all to the place they are in, the dance movements have nothing to do with the space around them.

I missed suddenly with a deep pang, the cavorting, rollicking, rolling in snow, sliding down snow peaks, throwing snowballs - Shammi Kapoor and Saira Banu in 'Junglee', Raakhee and Amitabh in 'Kabhi Kabhi', Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore in 'Aa Gale Lag Jaa'. I missed the sweaters and the pom pom caps and the woolen mittens and the faux fur collared jackets. Rani was wearing a chiffon saree, Abhishek was wearing something that I forgot even as I looked at it. Certainly not made for goofing around in the cold. Sigh.

Anyway, since the song and dance routine didn't work for us, we'll just drive down to Pune for the weekend.

The one or the other

2008-09-26T20:25:00.003+05:30

A friend sent me this sms today.

'6 am rush hour. Getting stuff ready for school. I get a call on my cell. A polite male voice wishes me 'salaam walekum, bhai jaan hai?' ... I stammer 'nahi, nahi'. My mind is blank, being yanked into a different world. I search earnestly, is it -- salaam walekum or walekum salaam? .. What was the right thing?... Only when the voice asks for bhaijaan again that I remember to say wrong number. He says sorry .. I go back to world but thoughts creep between my stupidity of salaam or walekum and my son's lunch boxes. Could that be a terrorist? .. Strange how easy it is to make me suspicious, even with all my intellectual upbringing which seems so skin deep.. How easy it is to break my faith on the other Indian who i've never learnt to wish ...'

It prompted me to write this.

That in turn, led me to dig up a short story 'Alias', published last year in 'Stories at the Coffee Table'.

1, 2, 9 or 10?

2008-09-22T16:22:00.006+05:30

Poor Suzi in 'The Evening in Paris', the heroine Deepa's twin sister, lost in childhood. Not only does the hero, Sam detest her for smoking, drinking, and asking for a kiss, her long-lost father rejects her too because she dances in a night club. As if it was her fault she was kidnapped when she was a kid by a drunkard villain. Even at the end, hit by bullets, she is passed on by Sam to his friend, Rajendra Nath to take care of her, and that's the last we see of her. Did she recover, did she die? Who cares, as long as Deepa is fine.

Not my favourite double role. Though Sharmila Tagore looks delectable. Dhanno says she is the prettiest heroine she has ever seen.

My favourites in some sort of order are 'Seeta Aur Geeta', 'Ram aur Shyam' and 'Sharmilee'. The first and the last, not least, I guess because both Hema Malini and Raakhee are at their most gorgeous best. 'Ram aur Shyam' because Dilip Kumar is astounding.

Amitabh Bachchan does not do that well in 'The Great Gambler', both Jai and Vijay look and behave in the same way. Shahrukh Khan does much more with his double role in 'Om Shanti Om'.

Somehow I can't seem to remember that many double roles in Hollywood films, except the twins in 'Parent Trap' and of course, the roles were played by twins. Though I love Baby Sonia in the Hindi take-off 'Do Kaliyan' better.

I suppose The Star loves himself so much, and we love The Star so much, what could be better than 2 of him in the same film? 9 or 10 of him?

* Drawing from 'The Star' series by Teja

Most of these links will take you to 2 of my favourite blogs, Beth loves Bollywood and Filmi Geek. My other favourite, Memsaab Story has not written about any of these movies. How come, Memsaab? Anyway, this triumvirate of women between them have an impressive list of Hindi films that they have reviewed.

the rabbit and the raft

2008-09-17T13:13:00.006+05:30

P-Bapu had a few preview screenings of his film 'Khargosh'. Teja has shot the film. A lot of times at private screenings, people make polite noises and slink off quietly. While we may hold forth censoriously on big-budget films on our blogs, all of us are too well aware of the difficulties of making films on low budgets, lower than The Star's bath water budget in the Alps (only Evian, good for the skin), to make smart aleck remarks after a trial show.

But after 'Khargosh', a lot of the people wanted to hang around for a while, chatting, making occasional remarks about the film as it sank into their consciousness. Some people grouped up and left together to drink away the evening, and presumably talked of the film amongst themselves. A little bit, at least, one hopes.

A lot of the audience at all the 3 screenings was from FTII. I, being a two-pice member of Khargosh's unit, doing what I love best, making wise-woman comments on other people's work, hung around at all the screenings. Watching FTII mates before and after the film, I thought this is what brings out the best in all of us. Going to the movies.

We may argue in the most pedantic way about the smallest issues on our wisdomtree mail group. We may run each other down malevolently when we are working together. We may get most nostalgic only about our drinking bouts and our subsequent brawls, passing them by word of mouth from year to year, as the stuff of legends. (Witness Tanmay's film 'I love the friends I have gathered here on this thin raft' - A tongue in cheek look at the FTII fraternity at the Wisdom Tree Film Festival)

But we are all shining faces and solemn grins when we go in to watch a film. That moment when the auditorium lights go off, and the screen lights up, is the moment we all forget the frustrations of working in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land, the anxieties about our career paths, the middle-of-the-night musings on whether we should not have listened to our parents and become bankers, IT professionals, NASA scientists, architects, doctors, therapeutic masseuses or whatever else but filmmakers.

It's at a screening we realize we are mates, after all. And our work matters. And our opinions matter. Even if they piss off everyone else.

OK, this includes not only friends from FTII, but everyone by default, who loves the movies. Anyone who cannot watch a film without analyzing it, criticizing it, taking it to pieces and putting it back together. Who cannot watch a film without a 1000 spoken and unspoken ideas on How One Would Have Handled That.

recuperating or resuscitating or whatevering with the rajputs

2008-09-11T22:20:00.000+05:30

Watching 'Rajput' through one entire evening, 4 hours on Set Max with lots of ads, but a long film, in itself. Like the viral fever all over again. Drifting in and out of stupor. Time seemingly standing still, and yet taking quantum leaps forward. Don't know if it's today or yesterday.

I went to take a call and came back to a son born and a husband come back happy now that a child that is not his has been born to his wife. He cannot help but know that the kid is not his, since he has never slept with her ever. And been away since the first night. Because he cannot forget the sight of a dead man's body over her unconscious one. A man who was kidnapping her. I do not understand, just as I did not understand the strange dreams of my feverish slumbers in the last few days. The explanation for everything, anything is 'We are Rajputs'.

Towards the end of the film, I have to check up on IMDB who the director is. Vijay Anand. I cannot believe it. Ugly rape scene with villian and victim tied together, shots of bleeding female legs, all about honour and dishonour, eew.

Teja and I sat there as if we were trapped, as if we could not switch off the TV, as if it was not a perfectly beautiful evening outside. I guess we both still felt weak and feverish and too tired to bother doing anything else.

PS: The imdb plot summary is more coherent than the film.

Left to myself

2008-09-03T11:16:00.002+05:30

for a day, I:

1. Jump on the trampoline every once in a while for 5 minutes.

2. Drink an extra cup of tea.

3. Eat left-over dal dhokli for lunch, and plan to revamp left-over rice into masala bhaat for dinner. Or better still eat only fruits. I finally order in Chinese Chopsuey. Sinful. And actually quite yucky. And something Dhanno and Teja would never let me order. Because they don't like it.

4. Load more music into my iTunes library and spend chunks of time entering track names, album names, artist names, genre, my rating details.

5. Look at the photos on my desktop. Mostly shot by Teja.

6. Join up Bloglines and add feeds of some of my favourite blogs. Until I get fed up of so much organizing.

7.Clean the Mack with disinfectant. Even the tangle of wires at the back.

8. Watch part of a Jeetendra-Babita film. Aulad (1968). All about lost sons. Achala Sachdev always seems to play a mother who is very vulnerable, needs a lot of attention, and yet someone who can be very selfish, very much into doing the socially right thing. Someone very real. Was it only the roles she got, or something she brings to them? I watch her closely, the way she sits, looks down, looks up. The way her sari is draped. She seems like someone I know. Like a lot of people I know.

9. Almost fight with Teja over the phone. About something very silly. Then decide it is too silly. Call back pretending I did not almost fight.

10. Queue up a whole lot of old Hindi films on our Bigflix account. Since Teja is not around to laugh at me.

11. Watch almost all of 'Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai' (1961). Until Dhanno comes in and makes me pack up. The chemistry between Dev Anand and Asha Parekh is great, specially in the song 'Yeh Aankeh Uff Yu Ma'. * Sizzling. Makes you want to fall in love again. Dev Anand was 38 when he did the film, but I can discern no difference in his look from his earlier films. Asha Parekh was a sweet 19.

12. Oh yes, did a bit of writing too.

* Deepuvel's YouTube homepage also has some of the other songs from the film. Worth a watch.

The Humble Mosquito

2008-08-25T13:06:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, Teja scolded me for sitting on my script, in the hope that it would hatch into a film with my body warmth. In 2 months, I have sent the script to 2 producers. They haven't got back to me, and I have not followed up, too polite to chase.

Both producers are not-big.

Teja thinks I should approach AC, SK, AK, KJ, to produce the film. He thinks if I need to get immune to rejection, I might as well start with the big guys and work myself down.

Perhaps I need lessons from the ubiquitous mosquito who can find its way into even the hermetically sealed life of The Star. As long as I don't get swatted.

* Drawing from 'The Star' series by Teja.

I know what I did last week

2008-08-23T20:33:00.000+05:30

Was thrown over the edge of the world wide web by my internet service provider. A terrible week when I realized that I simply needed to blog everyday, compared to my average of two blogs a week in a good week.

Around 50 calls to the call centre, service centre and even the head office. Each call picked up by a different person. Explaining the case history each time. And getting a similar response from each person. 2 minutes, 2 hours, by noon, by evening, first thing tomorrow morning.

Someone finally realized 2 days ago that there was a problem with the modem. I've been given a temporary demo modem this evening which works ever so slowly. No fun at all.

Right now, I have a house full of kids. Dhanno's 15th birthday party. 23 kids. I've cooked biryani - chicken and vegetable for around 50 people I think.

So will post in more detail next week. If I'm not thrown off again. And we've washed all the dishes.

Deadine

2008-08-14T13:09:00.004+05:30

Faced with a deadline,

1. I decide I have to read Trollope's 'Orley Farm'.
2. I cook a huge meal, rajma-rice, masala aloo, grilled chicken, rice kheer.
3. I watch 'Kashmir ki Kali'.
4. I feel ill, feverish.
5. I want to scrap everything that I have written so far. Who wants to read this crap? Does it make any sense at all? Is it meaningful? NO.
6. I take photos in the rain.
7. I spend evenings analyzing myself.
8. Find new blogs to link to, and new networks to join.
9. I use the Thesaurus option as I have never done before. Using four words where one would do. I just want to reach the 100,000 mark as soon as I can.

I hope my editor is not reading this.

Staroids

2008-08-11T16:48:00.004+05:30

* Drawing from 'The Star' series, by Teja .

Traffic Jam

2008-08-09T16:37:00.005+05:30

When I say: "I'm sure, there must be a traffic cop ahead, Teja. I'm telling you. They always create a jam."

- Sometimes Teja clenches his teeth and wonders how many more times in his lifetime, does he he have to listen to this statement?

- Sometimes he laughs affectionately and wonders, how many more times he has to listen to this statement in his lifetime.

- Sometimes he replies patiently: "Banno, what has the traffic police done to you? The poor guys stand all day in this noise and pollution and keep things moving."

I say: "No. They don't move their hands fast enough. So they keep one lane going. And all the others block up. Simple."

When we do pass the traffic police performing their antics at a busy crossroads, I smile triumphantly and say: "See, I told you so."

When we don't pass a traffic policeman, but a perfectly legitimate reason for a traffic jam like an overturned truck or a pair of cows confabulating in the middle of the road, Teja smiles triumphantly and says: "See, I told you so."

All said and done, I'm hoping that if Teja draws more traffic jams, he'll be less angry when we are actually stuck in one.

* Drawing by Teja

All you people out there, please call.

2008-08-07T11:23:00.000+05:30

Dhanno goes through my cell phone and says: "The last message you sent someone was 2 days ago."

I say: "So?"

Dhanno says: "I suppose when you are old, you can't just send messages to people like 'Hey, how you doing?' "

I say: "Why not?"

Dhanno says: "People might think you have no work."

I say: "It's not that, really. It's just that I have no friends I want to send messages to like that, everyday."

Dhanno says: "I feel so sad."

I say: "You don't have to feel sorry for me, just because I don't have people to text messages to."

Dhanno says: "I am feeling sorry for myself. What if I don't have a daughter like me, when I grow old? What will I do?"

I say: "So you think my life is pretty sad without you?"

Dhanno says: "Don't you think so? You write about it like that on your blog. You know, Life's punches, and all that."

I say: "That happens to everyone. Things go wrong some times. Doesn't mean your life is sad."

Dhanno says: "Is that necessary?"

I say: "What?"

Dhanno says: "For things to go wrong?"

I say: "No, but they do. Sometimes. It's OK. It would be crazy if nothing went wrong ever, and I was as sweet at 43 as you are at 15."

So, now I know I am old, friendless and pathetic.

western express highway

2008-08-06T17:05:00.001+05:30

staying at home this weekend

2008-08-02T13:06:00.000+05:30

Have decided not to watch
Ugly aur Pagli
or
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
and am feeling very relieved.
Not to mention
the 1000 odd rupees
I will save.
Can't speak for the middle of the week though
When the urge to be in a theatre
and eat popcorn
will overcome me.
And Teja.
And Dhanno.

stranded

2008-07-30T11:57:00.002+05:30

Don't we all look rather stuck?

Sometimes, life feel likes that, too.

Then, I guess, you just have to wait for the tides of the Brahmaputra to come rolling in.

word count

2008-07-24T11:24:00.001+05:30

I am doing 377.58 words a day.
When I should be doing 5000 words a day
By all accounts.
Or at least a 1000? (Me, desperate!)
But I write 479 words
And delete 122.42.
So my total word count divided
By number of days
Averages out to
fewer and fewer words a day.
That is
Not counting the 1000 odd words
Like these
That I needn't write
at all.

Rolu and Polu go abroad. Alone. Without me.

2008-07-16T14:33:00.006+05:30

Rolu and Polu were invited for a business meet to an island resort in the Phillipines.

I, suspicious as ever, say to Rolu: "What kind of a business meet is that? Why are they paying for your air ticket? And Polu's as well?"

I say: "You know, anyone can set up an impressive web page. Or get a journalist to write nice things about them. But will you call up a few people and check if this company really exists? That it's not a front?"

I say: "Empty all your bags, check them thoroughly and then re-pack them, before you come back. What if someone slips in a packet of drugs in your bag when you are not looking?"

I say: "What if the person you are going to meet asks you to bring back something for him? What are you going to say then, haan?"

Rolu says: "I won't accept anything unless I open the package and see what is inside."

I say: "Will you please not wander around at night? It's a strange place, after all. A strange country."

I say: "And don't drink too much. Better still, don't drink at all. If you have to drink, come back to your room and drink, OK?"

Dhanno says: "Rolu Mamu is not a kid, Mama."

I say: "Yes, I know."

He's taller than me, bigger than me. Presumably, stronger than me. But to me, he is still that puckered up, dark, ugly little bundle lying next to my mother, whom I was taken in to see at the hospital, as a little girl.

Teja, chivalrous as ever to the women folk in the family, says: "If you are so worried, ask him to go alone. Not take Polu. That way, if anything happens, he can leave, fast."

I say: "No, if anything happens, and he is alone, he'll panic. Polu is more careful."

I say: "Can you at least make a list of some references there? People you know. People you can call in case of an emergency."

So, duly fortified by more advice than they needed from me, Rolu and Polu left for the Phillipines, last week. And they will soon be back. Without having been drugged, robbed, or assaulted.

20 years ago, I would have packed my bag, and said: "Can I come too?"

But some pretty severe punches on the face by none other than Life, and having Dhanno, have made me into a real worrier. Oh well, the way my mind works, I can always get a job in TV news reporting.

2008-07-14T20:35:00.002+05:30

As long as I can wear cut-offs,
and not have wet hems flapping against my ankles,
I am quite happy
to walk in the rain.

Scenes from the making of 'Chaman in love', no, sorry, 'Love 2050'

2008-07-07T16:22:00.002+05:30

Mummyji: "Listen, Chaman's father, Chaman is now exactly like Hrithik Roshan. It's time now we launched him."
Daddyji: "Chaman's mother, what are you saying, is Chaman 6 ft, 2" now?"
Mummyji: "That's what I am saying to you."
Daddyji: "Oh, you deserve a diamond necklace for this."
Mummyji simpers: "No, no, what have I done?"
Daddyji: "Why, you have fed this handsome son of ours with milk and parathas, looked after him so well, made him into a strapping young man. Now see what I do. My son will blast this industry."

Dialogue writer: "Sir, I thought this can be his catch-line. 'Karan Malhotra, Age 27, Status single and ...' the last word keeps changing. You know, depending on what he is doing, sitting, standing, whatever."
Daddyji: "Good, good. But make that 'Age 23'."
Dialogue writer: "But Sir, I thought Chamanji was 27. It's there in all the papers."
Daddyji: "No, no, once we say he is 23, he will be 23. Anyway, who reads the papers?"

Daddyji: "No, no, Chaman, please don't act. You must not have any expression on your face. Please. When you make any facial gestures, you stop looking like Hrithik Roshan. So, please, just listen to what I am telling you. No, no acting. You can jump, swing, run, dance. Walk like a stud. Move your whole body, but not your face, please."

Daddyji: "So Chaman, there is this butterfly, who will live through the ages, and show you the way, whenever you are stuck. It works better than the Global Positioning system or Google. So, you never need to take the phone number, address or email id of the girl you love. The butterfly will find her for you, wherever she is. And when the butterfly falters, your Uncle's time machine will come in handy. Isn't it lucky for you that your Uncle lives in the same remote town as your lady love? And that he gave up his job in NASA to work on his time machine? All for you, son, all for you. After all, even God bends his rules for those who love."

Daddyji: "Chaman, Chaman, so what if the country has not changed much in the last 200 years, in the next 42 years, it will jump ahead in leaps and bounds, son, in leaps and bounds. That is technology. But you are the hero, you must not look amazed by it. You must take it all in your stride, shell houses, flying cars, cute robots, androids and all. Please, please, no expression, no expression. Poor people? In Mumbai 2050? Oh, they will be eliminated. Deleted. Maybe, they are underground. I don't know, Chaman. Stop irritating me. This is not a story about poor people. It is a story about love."

Daddyji: "So what, Chaman, if you are in a strange, futuristic city? You are a hero. Of course, you can suddenly become a rock star, and get a stage show at the top place in town. You don't need luck, you have love, after all. No, no, no. Dance as a form never changes. What Hrithik Roshan did in 'Kaho Na Pyaar Hai' is classic dance. It will remain in peoples' hearts forever. Do that, do that, just listen to what I am telling you."

Mixing engineer: "Sir, will you come soon? We have a crisis here."
Daddyji: "What happened?"
Mixing engineer: "Chamanji insists on dubbing in a deep voice."
Daddyji: "I'll be right there."

Daddyji: "No, no, Chaman, please don't speak in your natural voice. You must have a nasal twang. That is what made Hrithik Roshan a star. Yes, yes, slip back and forth from Punjabi accent to unidentifiable NRI accent. Our people love it. It makes them feel as if you are like them, fake accents give you a little-boy charm. No, no, through your nose, through your nose. Please, Chaman."

Daddyji: "Chaman, if only you had had an extra thumb. I did everything I could. But what can I do if God didn't give you an extra thumb. If you'd had it, you'd have been a super-hit, son. A super-hit. No, Chaman, the story has nothing to do with it. Of course, it's a good story. Has anyone else thought of this idea before? Getting back a girlfriend from the future, time machine and all. It's very original, son, very original. No, it's nothing to do with not letting you act. Or your nasal twang. It's the extra thumb, I tell you. That did us in. Chaman's mother, you should have thought of that. Maybe we could have done something about it, when he was growing up."
Mummyji sighs sadly.

'Chaman' is often used as a nick-name for someone who is goofy, a little dumb, a little out of it. Teja insists on calling the hapless hero of 'Love 2050' "Chaman".