udaipur

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!

'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

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

my review at tehelka

taal se taal mila

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

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'

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.