Random Musings: Gulzar’s ‘Mausam’

Mujhko Bhi Tarkeeb Sikha Koi Yaar Julahe….
Aksar Tujhko Dekha Hai Ek Tana Bunte
Jab Koi Taga Toot Gaya Ya Khatam Hua
Phir Se Baandh Ke Aur Sira Koi Jodh Ke Uss Mein
Aage Bun’ne Lagte Ho….
Maine Tou Ek Baar Buna Tha Ek Hi Rishta
Lekin Uski Saari Girhain Saaf Nazar Aatee Hain Meray Yaar Julahe. ~ Gulzar, (Rough transl: Oh Weaver! Teach me a method too to weave…Often, have I observed  you weaving through one strand…until a thread broke or melted into the cloth…You then take up one of the corners of the cloth with a new thread and start weaving once more….But I, I had tried to weave only once only one relationship…but all the openings in the cloth are so clearly visible, oh friend Weaver! )

A student wrote to me ‘Ma’am there are professors and there are human beings — you will soon transcend the second one to become the first’.  I protested saying that it’s not true, a profession cannot compete with the attribute of being human. The debate was on for sometime and he said that those who teach (especially literature) use sentiments without getting sentimental.  Perhaps, he was right to a certain extent, the need for being scholarly, for being an ‘ideal’ is so strong that sometimes we lose that little gesture of human-ness that would be relevant as a yardstick to setup that ideal.  His statement took me back to my University days (confessional), when one of my Professors had pointed out to a few friends who used to hang out regularly with me and were core supporters of my brainless pranks, ‘Be careful of her. Nothing and no relationships will come in the way of her ambitions — you will fail, while she will will move on to her next destination’ . I had cried the entire night the day that comment had come, nothing was more important for me at that point of time than friends, but perhaps my teacher was right, subliminally I was trying to negotiate my own ways — alone

However, when it comes to feelings and sentiments, no one is an exception — desire to be acknowledged, desire to be loved, desire to be desired is universal and as a human being I have been no exception. We all fail only at the doorsteps of our sentiments.

These personal anecdotes refreshed the memory of a movie that has been a favourite — Gulzar sahab’s Mausam (1975). Thought will pay a small tribute to the maestro on his Birthday (18th August) with this article. It has been raining here profusely and my health, a week of hospitalization, has made me more philosophical  — watched this movie again on my laptop with the rains shimmering down the windows.

A sepia look outside the hospital window

I have been trying to write on Gulzar  for very long, but every time write something, I delete the post.

Mausam

‘Mausam’  reconnects us with these sentiments, emotions, feelings, attachments that are common to all species of the Universe.   It is the story of a medical student Amarnath Gill who comes to live in Darjeeling on a vacation  before his final medical exams and falls in love with an innocent hill-girl, Champa, daughter of the Vaidya. After the vacations he returns back to Calcutta to complete his medical studies and decides to come back to marry the girl. As destiny has  it, when he finally returns it is 35 years later. His life as a highly successful surgeon and manufacturer of a unique pain-killer keeps him busy for all these years. Dr. Gill’s search for the girl begins on a casual note  and starts getting denser with every new mystery, until one day he reaches the place where she actually lived her last life as a mentally challenged person — she died eight months before his coming back to Darjeeling, waiting for him to come back till her last breath. Guilt-ridden the doctor decides to search for Champa’s only daughter Kajri, adopt her and give her the life that her mother deserved. As fate ordains, the doctor finds Kajri in a hen-cooped brothel, mouthing the choicest slang, and living the life of a drunkard, chain-smoker, prostitute. She is rescued from the mohalla and taken by Dr. Gill to the rest-house. He tries to ‘civilize’ her, make her wear sarees and live as a daughter, while not revealing to her that he is the man who is responsible for the destruction of her mother and her own life. The twist comes when Kajri falls in love with the aged doctor and when he reveals to her that he did not come back to Champa because of a shame when he was jailed for an accidental death of a patient during a surgery.  There is some sort of a compromise when in the end the doctor adopts her and takes Kajri back to Calcutta, saying: “Mere saath chalogi? Peeche mud ke dekhne keliye hum dono ke paas kuchh nahin bacha hai.”  (Will you come with me? Both of us have nothing to look back upon.)

Gulzar’s craft is such that little subtleties of life and emotions are captured with an unspeakable brilliance.  In addition, a power-packed performance by Sanjeev Kumar as the doctor and a double-role by Sharmila Tagore as Champa and Kajri, make the movie a classic in its own ways.Realism and masterly acting and craft effortlessly blend in the movie.

There are social messages in Gulzar’s stories, be it Kitab (1977) or Khushboo (1975) or Ijazaat (1987), but what is unique is that they do not sermonize.  Gulzar is a poet and his movies and scripts are poetry in motion and vision, of course with a strong undercurrent of realism. The social messages are embedded in his portrayal of human emotions which seem to be his priority especially interpersonal relationships.

An interesting aspect of the movie when you observe it closely is the casualness with which the movie begins and the seriousness with which it ends. Watching the movie, I felt that the doctor did not come back to Darjeeling with any heightened romantic aspirations of meeting the girl whom he loved through his life. He casually refers to his co-workers when they come to meet him that there was an ‘accident’ — the accident being he fell in love with a girl.  It is only when he starts tracing her and meets several characters, unique in their own ways,  keep giving him fragments of information about the girl, while reminding him,  ‘she was a nice girl, but she was waiting for some doctor to come back…but does anyone come back once they leave?’ With every new character reminding him of his guilt of deserting his love, the passion to search for her grows stronger in the doctor. As the plot unfolds, so do the loss, the pain, the wait, each strand of emotion slowly unfold. Life too reflects this subtlety — emotions sometimes flood, while at other times they wait to haunt you and return to you with a slow, deliberate pace.

Mausam is also about modernization of smaller towns of India and the slow urbanization of the medical system. Encounters between the village Vaidya (Champa’s father) and the Allopathic doctor are remarkable. These seem to be symbolic encounters between two completely different systems of thought.  There are specific names of the herbs that the Vaidya uses. Even Champa is an adept apothecary. When doctor Gill comes back to Darjeeling after a long interval, there  is no trace of the Vaidya Thapa. People of his own locality have completely forgotten him and it is the modern medicinal practices that are ruling in the small towns too. In fact, there is an interesting moment in the story when Dr. Gill has a headache and he goes to the Chemist and asks him to give him an Asprin. The Chemist offers him his own invented medicine. He responds in a tongue-in-cheek fashion to the Chemist, saying ‘no don’t give me Gill’s tablet because that has a lot of Chlorine’.

The girl Champa looses her mental stability while waiting for the doctor to come back.  She keeps telling people around her that she will make Kajri a doctor and get her married to a doctor. Through Kajri, Champa lives in a different form — while Champa is about the unsullied emotion of love, Kajri knows only the language of lust. Kajri is a commentary on the life of girls of small towns, bereft of education or a decent parental upbringing. Champa spends her life in a small weaving factory, weaving clothes, waiting for her love to come back, and fighting her mental derangement. While Kajri is forced into prostitution by the surreptitious moves of her own society and people.

Mausam is an extremely powerful commentary on not only the emotion of love or lust, but also the changing patterns of social and cultural thoughts. Such movies are rare in the history of Bollywood cinema — they make what is truly unique in Hindi cinema. When you are watching this movie, watch it curled up in your bed, with a hot cup of tea, undisturbed by the noise of the world outside, with the rains pattering at your window — perhaps then you get a feel of Gulzar’s art and his craft.

One of my friends recently told me, ‘life is full of options…koi kisi keliye mara nahin jaa raha hai…’move on’ ….’ I have had a few questions — is it intellectual and emotional honesty to regard love in terms of options? When we are talking about human integrity and corruption-less society, does that come from too many options? Does emotional integrity in individuals figure anywhere in building up a superstructure of a larger society? Probably, yes…. Gulzar’s movies show a different trend — they seem to depict a deep emotional integrity, an honesty — a dogged dedication, conviction to one human being or one ideology.  Whether that human being or that ideology is correct or wrong is an altogether different question and different subject.

The Unspoken

In the first week of a long vacation, Iris is back with her weekend post. The laptop is running on battery, Internet connectivity is at its least possible speed. At the moment, there seems to be no trace of electricity, with thunder storms greeting me to the charms of the east. The shadow of bougainvilleas, calmness of the streets, smell of damp earth, and the extreme quietness of the place leads me to turn poetic or philosophical. The hulla of my own world, chaos of my thoughts,  and the calmness of this place are so deeply contradicting one another.

It is going to be an erratic one month. Not sure how often will I be able to get in touch with my readers through this month.

Since the mood is philosophical, thought about sharing some of my musings on the ‘unspoken’. What do you think of the unspoken? Recently, a student wrote a lovely line to me: “ whatever we speak, there is still some beauty in the unspoken”. I have been thinking about the unspoken aspects since.

Actually, it is true – we are so literally understood by what we say that what is left unsaid is something that either no one cares to interpret or else we are apprehensive to interpret. A person is usually adjudged by the personality that she/ he projects to the external world through what she/ he says or does – but what remains within is something that the world hardly tries to penetrate. Who has the time or patience? If you have seen the movie Mera Naam Joker you might understand my implication. In that movie, the character of the protagonist (Raj Kapoor) is taken literally, as a ‘joker’, a ‘clown’ and his love which perhaps was more serious than the love of all the other  male characters in the movie, is interpreted as a comedy by the ladies. His story remains incomplete because he is seen as a frivolous character, with hardly any show of substance or rationality. The joker’s deep philosophy on the nature of life and love as an experience is misinterpreted as ‘non-seriousness’ and the rest of his actual feelings remain unspoken till his death.

The unsaid has its root in human life and human personality. What we read as ‘history’ is the said aspects of human civilization, but what we take as rumour might be a part of the unspoken aspects of human histories that somehow were swept under the carpet of time. I can recollect such an aspect from the memory of a play that I had once seen during my first year at Performing Arts Festival (PAF) at IIT. The story was about the unspoken aspect of Shahjehan and Mumtaz Mahal’s love story  culminating in the Taj Mahal. In that particular PAF play, they had shown that apparently there is a conspiracy theory that the Taj was built with Mumtaz being forced to die in order to give her name to the monument, and to make a great love-story out of her death. I don’t know what were the sources for that play, but they had actually beautifully depicted the unspoken aspects of histories that do not get written in any text-book.

Love-stories and mystery thrillers particularly rest on the trope of the unspoken. They invite you to keep questioning on ‘really?’, ‘what happened next?’ and other such aspects. Real life love stories are heavily dependent on the unspoken. What is said is just a part of the entire gamut of things that remain unsaid. I have seen friends and people whom I know who are in love, keep harping the point that ‘oh there is so much to know about her/him’, there is so much to talk about. Possibly, it is that pull of the unspoken because of which people spend hours over phone (I am against such hour long conversations in principle ), trying to know more about the other.

Perhaps, this burden of the unspoken also forms the core reason behind divorces, and break-ups. In the entire lot that has been said, there also  remain a lot that goes unsaid – because of communication gaps. How often you think of friends, family, or colleagues who have distanced themselves from you because of the unsaid words that cluttered up between you and them? Have you had a friend or a person whom you really loved a lot but with whom you haven’t spoken for months or years? It is when the unspoken piles up beyond proportion that communication failure occurs.  You wish to get in touch or speak to this person for months and years on, but then the weight of words and the weight of that which remains unsaid are so high that finally the necessity of communicating get destroyed. Relationships are so fragile that a few words have the power of destroying or building them beyond imagination.

Not only in love, in professional life too the unspoken has so much of a presence that spoken words get completely interpreted, re-interpreted, and mis-interpreted along the lines of the unspoken. Somewhere you are able to defend the unspoken and at some places, spoken words go defenseless.

The purpose of this brief post was to highlight the necessity of not only the unsaid, but also that which is said. We need sometimes to speak-up our minds, to clear up miscommunication, to talk, and get in touch with people who are important in our lives. Yes, some aspects are better left unsaid, but many more need words and courage. What I feel unfortunate in case of spoken words are, when the character of people, their integrity, their commitment, their dedication towards relationships and life are adjudged along what they speak and what they do not. A joker, or a clown doesn’t necessarily mean to be a joker – it’s just the surface. People choose friends or partners as per their appearances or their outward seriousness of disposition – who assesses the magnitude of what the person is ‘not’ displaying?

With that, I concede that some weeks of Iris may remain unspoken….. Hope to meet you all sometime soon, no idea when exactly, depends on my mood and time. Till then, humming this favourite number of Gulzar saab from the movie Thodi si Bewafai  which seem to echo my thoughts on the unspoken:

Unhen yeh zidd ki hum bulaate,

Hamen yeh umeed ke woh pukaare

 Hain naam hothon pe ab bhi lekin,

 Awwaz mein pad gayi daraare…

Hazaar rahen mudke dekhi,

Kahin se koi sada na aayi..

Badi wafa se nibhayi tumne,

Hamari thodi si bewafaii… 

(Rough transl.: They were obstinate to wait for my call, and I had the hope that they will call me first. The names  still linger on our lips, but the wall of voices within have now cracked….Thousands of miles I turned back to see if you would call me once, but there has been not a single call through these miles…How faithfully have you abided by my slight unfaithfulness)

Do I Hate Love Storys: Bollywood Chapter

The IPL season is not a great time to talk of movies .

Some readers of Iris have been reviewing that Anne possibly likes only Hollywood and Hollywood love stories. Not true . Anne is actually  nervous to review Bollywood — there is so much love, music, and drama here that it’s tough  to leave out some and take others into account. Indians actually in spite of all arranged marriage systems, in spite of parental controls, family inclination, promises to remain dedicated to the sanctity of the marital knot — are the most romantic. Don’t believe me? Watch Balraj Sahni and Leela Chitnis in that song Ae Meri Zohra Jabeen from the movie Waqt (1965).

I am daring to take one step and presenting to you my picks of love stories from Bollywood.  This list is not exhaustive.

Let us begin with the original, the fatalistic, the ultimate love antidote — Devdas (1955) . One movie which has been adapted and re-adapted n number of times. Based on the Bengali novel (1917) of the same name by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Devdas (pronounced as Debdash in Bengali) is a saga of doomed love.  Reading the novel is a different experience altogether. There is a complete dreariness in the writing of Saratchandra unlike the glossy, dramatic effect achieved in the modern adaptation of the novel by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It’s  an existential novel in its own way. In fact, in the novel, at the end, the body of Devdas remains unattended to be taken away by Doms and Chandals (lowest classes of the society). The starkness of the narrative could only be matched by the classic acting of Dilip saab as the Devdas in the 1955 version of the movie.  Directed by Bimal Roy, the movie has epic dimensions. Personally, I could never watch the movie as a child because of Dilip saab’s extremely slow dialogue delivery, and because of the starkness of the background and the slow movement of the plot. Watched the movie very late in my life — the result, I could not watch anything else for months. Dilip Kumar is the very manifestation of Deb, the rich, misguided and arrogant Zamindar, whose love remains incomplete partly because of his own stubbornness and partly because of cultural pressures. Suchitra Sen as Parvati is a dream, without any make-up, without the gloss of the modern adaptations of Paro, she gives the impression of what love as someone’s object for desire can be.  Her eyes are enough to speak volumes. It’s such a surprise to see Paro coming to Devdas a few days before her marriage and pleading him to run away with her — women can be so passionate when they are in love, she epitomizes the virtue of faithfulness in love. Paro is much ahead of her times as a character. Vaijayanthi Mala’s dance number on Lata ji’s song Ab age teri marzi, has always intrigued me for no defined reasons.Bimal Roy is not just an iconic director, in Devdas he is a narrator par excellence who can actually bring love into the visual medium with the starkness of life.

Devdas is not my only favourite of Dilip saab — I am a huge fan of Madhumati (1958) another Bimal Roy creation and written by Ritwik Ghatak. Actually, in the hostel friends used to tease me for watching that movie multiple times with the dialogues like Babuji!! Aap lautke jaldi aaoge na? ….True this movie could make rebirth and love across births a real cliche in Hindi film making.  The movie combines love across births, with haunting, debauchery, life of the plantation workers, and the beauty of the mountains. This is one of my all time favourites of Pran saab in the negative role of the Zemindar Ugranarayan who eyes Madhumati and ultimately leads to her death, when Anand is away to the city. However, Dilip Kumar in a loose Western suit as the manager of the tea plantation, serenading Suhana safar aur yeh mausam haseen…shall remain an unforgettable impression. That terrific dance number “Zulmi sang ankh ladi, sakhi kaa se kahoon…din chhota raat badi”  filmed on Vaijayanthi Mala speaks of the liberal spirit, the untainted life of the mountains.

I don’t know, but usually get stuck in the 1950s. Just one more entry and we move beyond — Guru Dutt. I always resist writing about Guru Dutt, partly because of an awe for him and partly because I consider him as the guru of film-making along with Satyajit Ray.  Pyaasa (1957), some viewers would argue is a social movie. I would however argue that it is also a love story par-excellence. While, Kagaz ke Phool has an actress, as the object of love, I find Pyasa special because of its idea of a class-less love. Waheeda Rehman as Gulabo the prostitute who is the only soul that truly loves the failed poet Vijay (Guru Dutt), seems like eternity herself. Her innocence combined with her cheekiness makes her a delight to watch on screen. She defends and preserves his poems more than her own life. Remember the song “Hum apki ankhon mein duniya ko bhoola den toh?” (rough transl: what if I forget the world by being lost in your eyes?) Gulabo the character stands in stark contrast to Meena (Mala Sinha), the poet Vijay’s love from his college days, the elite, the love that betrayed him to get married to a rich publisher.

I used to host Guru Dutt film festivals in my room during my hostel days — each of the movies, whether Sahib, Biwi, aur Ghulam, Mr. and Mrs. 55, or Chaudvin ka Chand interweave love with social and cultural issues.

I have never been able and nor is it likely to happen in my life that I would admire any actress as much as Waheeda ji and Madhubala. Beauty, charm, and intelligence along with acting manifest themselves in these actresses.

How can one forget the cult, the heavy, the highly literary Mughal-e-Azam (1960). I will not describe this movie much except the fact that through histories it has been proved that if there are chains on a particular emotion, it would find expression in some other form. Pages have been written about the classic song Jab Pyar Kiya toh Darna Kiya… with the gorgeous Anarkali (Madhubala) dancing herself out in lakhs of mirror pieces, looking deep into the eyes of the emperor of the Mughal dynasty and challenging him in the open Durbar to just attempt from stopping her to love Sehzada Saleem. It seems as if pages of history can be turned by just one moment of dark passion. Personally, my favourite song of the movie is Mohe Panghat pe Nandlal Chhed Gayo Re…. This song is magical in picturisation — Madhubala with the half- drawn veil, coyly looking at Saleem, while singing thumri and dancing Kathak on the slow beats, is simply ethereal. That particular song exudes purity and sensuousness. Some sources have said that Mughal-e-Azam marked the high-point in the drama of Dilip Kumar-Madhubala real life love story. The movie is not for the faint-hearted — you should have the patience,  aptitude for Urdu, and the  ability to place yourself in that historical moment.

If I would have been a film-maker, my dream would be to make a movie like Guide (1965). This movie (in my opinion) is a movie that is complete in every aspect. Produced by Dev Anand and directed by Vijayanand, the movie is an experience on celluloid. The interpenetration of love and philosophy with the best quality music finds its complete expression in the movie. This movie remains special for very personal reasons too apart from the cinematic excellence: (a) Dev saab is my romantic dream and my icon. As a tiny girl, I had often said that I want to marry Dev Anand (that hasn’t changed with Salman, Amir, and SRK in the block ); (b) The song Piya tose naina lage re made me break the microphone and a friend’s tabla in the university when I was practicing dance (of course badly) based on that song. Personal anecdotes apart, this movie glorifies love in its most unrestrained and passionate form. Rosy, the wife of an archeologist Marco (who doesn’t care an iota about her), breaks free from the rules of the society and conventions to assert her identity as a dancer. She is helped by the tour guide played by Dev Anand who fights his mother and uncle to make the dreams of Rosy transform into reality. Guide is a movie that shows love in the greyest shades — the love of Rosy and Raju guide being based on unacceptable norms of the society, and Raju’s forgery of Rosy’s signature on Marco’s papers. Remember that scene when Rosy dances her heart out in the snake-charmers hamlet?….ohhhh! what a scene depicting the grey passion of a woman who has been suppressed for ages! I have never seen a better  snake dance sequence. Dev Anand strikes the cord as the ultimate scape-goat to pseudo-religion as the fasting Swami who would bring  rains to the rain-starved village.

Cut to 1970s, Abhimaan (1973) is my Amitabh Bacchan favourite. Personally, along with Chupke Chupke, Shakti, and Trishul, this is my Bachhan favourite. The love story showing the complexities of a married life between two equally talented, same profession couple is just so contemporary and realistic in its presentation. Just love that moment in the movie when Amitabh Bachhan comes back after a very long time to his wife, a more talented singer herself, suffering from the mental trauma of her husband’s indifference,  turned a stone in herself.  He sees her as a lifeless body that is alive only with the hope of his return. That song tere mere milan ki yeh raina… is so absolutely poignant in the visual and the musical effect.In fact, each and every song of that movie is so lilting.

Unconditionally love Silsila (1981), not for Amitabh Bacchan but rather for Rekha and Sanjeev Kumar. A year ago, a friend and I had spent one whole night translating Silsila for another friend who did not understand Hindi (I still imagine my friend translating Neela Aasman so Gaya as Blue sky sleeps, sleeps, sleeps …! ). First time did I realize that the movie is so dense in content and meanings. Apart from the larger than life gorgeous Rekha in her Satin sarees and deep maroon lipstick and long open tresses (that movie can make any not-so-good looking woman duck ), the movie stands out for its extraordinary performance . What I feel uncomfortable about that movie is the last scene forced “Indian” reconciliation to the age old marital bond, where the protagonists have to return back to their lives after a series of misadventures. However, Silsila is more modern in its treatment than many movies of our times.

Love in its multiple facets is a dense aspect in the Bollywood context. The movies that I have listed here were released and made long before I or many of you were even born. However, there are certain emotions that transcend the boundaries of time and space. In fact, there should have been two posts since I am trying to chronologically arrange my picks. I have not dealt with love stories from Bollywood of our times — that is slightly unfair. Nevertheless, this post is dedicated to those immortal souls of cinematic art who considered movie-making as a love in itself and whose movies we still watch. Social, cultural, economic and so many other factors go into defining what is termed as ‘love’ in this context.

Some intellectualize love, some long for it, some detest it, some philosophize it, some are afraid of its negative dimensions, some contextualize it as the ultimate emotion, while some just live it….

That’s all I have on the question “Do I hate love storys?” Iris hopefully should be back next week with a new post and new story . Till then,

The best thing about me is you.
— Shannon Crown

Do I Hate Love Storys?

Got to watch ‘I Hate Luv Storys’  finally after almost a year of the release of the movie.  A friend actually ‘informed’ me that there is Salman in a guest appearance at the end of the movie and the girl gets to marry him — so I didn’t want to miss the movie at the cost of my own life. Salman hardly gets to marry the girl in any of his movies when he is in guest appearance . Moreover, didn’t even check IMDB for the spoiler. Well, then wow! I did it again — watching another LOVE STORY!!!

However, this post is not going to be a ghisa-pita review of the movie, we have enough of reviewers on the block. My intention is to see its practical application (whatever that means) .

For so many years I have been promising myself that I will watch Spiderman, He-man, Shaktiman, thriller, action, even vampire…but not a love story!!!! However, as destiny would have it I land up ‘lyking’ love stories and vice versa. No, I mean theoretically –  don’t really know what am I supposed to explain this as. Academics has so much taken the better of me that these days I think only in terms of theory and labs .

Coming back to the movie, ‘I Hate Luv Storys’  like all the multiplex masala Bollywood movies of ‘our times’ has a confused hero, an equally confused heroine, and a not-so-confused fiance. As cliche has it, girls fall for the attractive and confused good-looking, non-committal hunk rather than the nice guy who would make their lives much easier. There are of course well-meaning common friends who try their best to fix-up the love story, but keep failing. Five-six songs later and an engagement later the ‘oh so confused poor hunk’ realizes that he has to win this girl, and then running through airports, two-three cabs change, a few gorgeous looking tee-shirts later, the girl and the guy are back with sehnais and with happy parents blessing the love story. Grrrrrrrr!! I hate love stories!

However, the crux of my problem today is do I “really” hate love stories? What makes love stories click in the market? There must be some ‘feel good’ factor, some sweet promises that make these stories tick.  In fact, when you come back home tired and lost, why is it that a soft romantic number makes the evenings bearable rather than the strong disco types? Why does Bollywood have to get 14 songs shot in exotic locations in order to make the big bucks? Why do characters like ‘Prem’, ‘Rahul’ and ‘Raj’ still remain (almost) every girl’s fancy? Filmy, that I have always been, ‘I Hate Luv Storys’ inspired me to investigate these questions further.

Even in Hollywood, greater is the love story greater is the bucks that it makes…. Let me recount from memory some of the classic love stories which in spite of achieving hall of fame, thousands of pages of reviews, awards, and accolades, still remain review-hungry.

I have always thought and lived with a dream to meet Humphrey Bogart, the super-cool American expatriate in the movie Casablanca (1942).  The gorgeous Ingrid Bergman and her entry into Bogart’s life in that old club, the mystery of love in the backdrop of a larger-than-life 2nd World War and Nazi concentration camps, Casablanca is a movie that would inspire the romantic of romantics. The exit scene when Rick and Ilsa walk hand in hand into the thick mist mumbling the cult dialogue: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” — stuff that dreams are made of . The statement “one should not fall in love, but rise in love” would best suit the characters in this movie.

Who can forget the chirpy Audrey Hepburn, the pretty princess running away from the tyranny of the palaces into the life of the bohemian journalist Gregory Peck in the classy classic Roman Holiday (1953) ? The combination of charm, beauty, love, humor, and magic — the beautiful princess falling for the ‘common’ man became a model for generations of film-makers. The film has inspired girls to emulate the naughty, wide-eyed princess let loose with a dream man on the roads.

I can name ‘n’ number of movies and review them where the protagonist is no one but “LOVE” … ! Cleopatra (1963) was supposed to be a historical tale recording the life of the young, versatile Egyptian queen, who emerged as a challenge to the entire Roman empire.  In addition to the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor (Liz Taylor was known as the ‘dream of every American man’ in her times) and Richard Burton as Marc Anthony, Rex Harrison as the towering Julius Caesar, make the movie a cult among love stories, with passion and darkness as its core. Recently, while I was reading tributes pouring in for Liz Taylor on her death, the only thing I could remember was the movie, and the shock, the surprise, the intrigue on Caesar’s face when he unrolls the Egyptian rug sent to him as a present by Cleopatra, and finds Cleopatra herself bundled-up within the rug!! These are love stories that write and rewrite histories.

To name a few other such movies Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable ‘s Gone With the Wind (1939) based on the novel with the same name by Margaret Mitchell, depicting the fiery love affair between Scarlett O’ Hara and Rhett Butler, and Sound of Music (1965) would remain  classic favorites in love stories. However, I am slightly more biased towards the novel Gone with the Wind than the movie. That scene when Scarlett pleads Rhett not to leave her: “Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” He famously answers, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”, make you cringe with anger and frustration. I have always had one question at the end of this scene: “how could he do this to a woman who loved him so deeply and frustratingly?”  Sound of Music is diametrically opposite, here it is love that turns the worst moments of human history for the best. Based on the true story of the 2nd World War Austrian war family of the von Trapps, the movie is a spectacle on wide angle. Love can be so cinematic and so musical, was beyond my imagination until I saw Sound of Music. That song: “I am sixteen, going on seventeen” is a fairytale in motion.

Closer in time,  ‘Forrest Gump’ (1994) and  ‘You’ve Got Mail’ (1998) have been my personal favorites.  That moment when Forrest realizes at the flash of a second that he has been running through the coasts for years because of his unrequited love for Jenny, is so mellow and the last scene when after the death of Jenny, Forrest, and Jenny’s son, the little Forrest spend time at the bus stop before the bus comes to pick the kid away to school, give the impression of  time itself  being caged.

‘You’ve Got Mail’ shall remain a dream movie….I remember each and every dialogue, each and every scene, and in fact when I visited United States on a Valentine’s Day (my longest Valentine’s Day), the first thing on landing at JFK I did was to go and buy a mug of coffee at Starbucks, dream the ‘American dream’ and pay a tribute to ‘You’ve Got Mail’ . That brilliant scene towards the end of the movie when Joe Fox stops Kathleen Kelly and asks her: “Well, let me ask you something. How can you forgive this guy for standing you up and not forgive me for this tiny little thing of… of putting you out of business?” and then Kathleen starts to cry, hmmm…makes you fall in love so deeply. The other dialogue that has been a personal favourite through my adolescence, when I was struggling  to learn the computer in school, was of Kathleen Kelly: “What will NY152 say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You’ve got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you.” Hmmm…. The problem of my life was however different, instead of a man like Joe Fox I fell for the computer and the computer screen at that point of time !

Each of the movies that I was recounting above deserve to have at least one article  independently. However, the thing that’s common to all these movies is love in various forms –  in some it is cute and fairy-tale like, some it’s passionate and angry,  some it’s meant to turn pages of history,  some it’s everyday affair, some it’s ego and business, and in some it’s just unsullied affection which remains non-reciprocated.

There is something deeper that I intended to prove through this post. This post is committed to search for deeper human values and bring into light those aspects of life that people are either reluctant to accept or else believe that it shows their weakness or vulnerability. Those who are fighting against corruption, lawlessness, and terrorism, need to first ask themselves how honest have we been as individuals towards our conscience and towards the fundamental aspects of life. LOVE is that fundamental aspect — need not be always physical, always emotional, always social or cultural, it might be just HUMANE. Love is that angle in cinema which brings human beings face to face with their true selves — because internally we all desire and we all live to be loved. Possibly, that’s the reason why love stories sell a lot: “Har insaan ko zindagi mein ek baar pyar zaroor karna chaheyie. Pyar insaan ko bahut accha bana deta hai” ( Pyar toh Hona hi Tha ) We keep on finding solutions to our existence because as human beings our very basis is acceptance, acknowledgment, and reciprocation. Unfortunately, while we are struggling to bring the higher orders of life into stability, the fundamental aspects still remain unattended. Love is a strength and not a failure….

In this context, ‘I hate Love Storys’  is one minuscule of many such fragmentary attempts to glorify love. It’s no where to be compared with the great movies of the past century which I was just cataloguing. But, it did lead me to ask myself the million dollar questions: “why do love stories sell?” and “Do I really hate love stories?”

Maybe will write about some cult Bollywood love stories if my mood permits in the future….Till then,

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;– it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.” — Jane Austen

Coming Back to Iris

A happy new year to all the readers of ‘Iris’.

It’s been six months now that Iris has had a post. Felt many a times the urge to connect with my readers — but what to write always remained a question. I didn’t want to write something which I did not feel about or where there was no connection with the soul of Iris. That’s how this blog site been — it doesn’t post anything which Iris has not been faithful about — no empty promises, no shallow new year resolutions. The love story of 1980s which I had promised to post after my last post remains incomplete because of permission issues.  Thought of tracing the journey of ‘Iris’ and ‘Anne’ so far.

So what should I write about? IIT and life in IIT as a student have become stories of the past, distant, and dream-like. People, friends, colleagues, and contexts have seemed to have drifted far away. However, IIT has been so deeply rooted in this blog that whether I should delete this blog and start anew, a fresh blog, is something that I have been considering now for very long. Whether  Iris should only be issue-based or theme-based is another question. There is additionally the burden of a teacher whose blog posts might be read by students and friends — responsible and self-reflexive writing. Iris always had the fear of losing her readers, just as the fear of losing friends. Interestingly, higher has been this fear the more have been the losses so far. However, ‘Iris’ is not simply ‘Iris’ the blog, it’s been part of an identity — Anne’s identity. It has been a part of the life of a girl who has struggled between ‘intellectualism’, ‘romanticism’, ‘realism’, and ‘idealism’ — the struggle to be an obedient daughter, a fantastic sister, a great friend, an amazing teacher, a supportive colleague, the chirpy-forgiving girl friend, the ‘super-researcher’ — the ‘Indian’ girl in quintessence.  Rebellion is something that is not every person’s cup of tea and in that sense Iris has been conventional, extremely conventional.

2010 as a year has been a year of starts and conclusions, a year of makeups and breakups, a year of dreams and frustrations, a year of new hopes and many achievements, a year of travel and un-settlement — 2010 has been a roller-coaster year for Iris. The number of posts has dramatically reduced from 1 post every week which was the way I wrote during my hostel days, to 1 post  in six months.

I have always been a great admirer of the movie ‘You’ve Got Mail’ — can watch it number of times. 2010 has been a complete manifestation of the story of ‘You’ve Got Mail’ in the life of Iris. As it happens in the movie, in life too there are some worlds which are self-created and the shattering of those worlds is as silent as the worlds themselves.  However, unlike the ‘happy ending’ of movies like ‘You’ve Got Mail’, life may not be having a Tom Hanks coming in the end shouting ‘Brinkley!’ . It’s true — life is not a movie, it’s stranger than a movie.

Hopefully, 2011 brings brighter days and happening evenings in the life of the readers of Iris. Iris doesn’t promise anymore to come back with a new post. We all have ‘moved on’. However and whenever there is a need to connect, the need to share, the need to talk, Iris will be back.But for the time-being “the shop around the corner” (those who have seen You’ve Got Mail would know what am I talking about) has to close.

Apart from Iris and its posts, there is an unrelated passing thought which I would like to share with you before signing off. In India the retirement age of citizens is somewhere close to 58 yrs-60 yrs. Most Indians are healthy and their work-efficiency is still high at the age of 58. The moment they retire from service their right to lead a dignified life is curtailed by society and family. They are viewed as good for nothing, cranky senior citizens and that’s what they turn themselves into. Why do Indians believe in such an early retirement age? In a country where the politicians work beyond 80s, why then has the middle class human being to retire at the age of 58-60 and be treated as a burden on the society and family?Do think about it….

On that note, Iris says a goodbye to her readers …. Have a great and fruitful year ahead.

Departure Lounge…

A few years ago a Hollywood movie  named ‘Love Actually’ had released. I was not particularly impressed with that movie and its medley of half-baked characters except for one aspect — the beginning of the movie. The movie starts with a touching note on the victims of the 9/11 attacks and on those who were on board the two airplanes that crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The movie claims that almost all those last frantic messages sent by the passengers on board the two planes were messages of love — of intense love for those who got left behind, their near ones, friends, spouses, beloveds, parents and children. It starts with the note that at death we do not hate, we love…. So let me dedicate today’s post to those who loved and lost, to those who were left behind and to those who are in a hurry to move ahead in life and in time. This is an article about the departure lounges and the people whom I have observed/met, seeing off their near-ones either to meet again or to part forever.

I am apologizing for the somberness of the tone of this post, but sometimes life also means pausing by, observing, sighing and then moving on. I hope I do not get blamed for being sentimental or for making my readers bored with teary gibberish. Actually, on the contrary getting blamed is a privilege of the privileged. So, I am willing to face the consequences of being called a ‘moron’ or a ‘bore’….

The world is so full of the wonders of technology and the brilliance of what I name as a ‘fast-food noodled’ life that we take a sadistic, pervert pleasure in being called ‘rational’ and ‘calculative’  and take a pride in ‘moving-on’ (speaking about technology and science and its wonders, let’s face it — the best part of it was the joy of discovery and invention and not consolidation and gain).The reasons cited for this ‘moving on’ business are innumerable, sometimes wrapped as a determined decision, sometimes called helplessness and sometimes duty. Fine…understood and noted. However, what is the consequence of this ‘final rationality’, what do we gain? If you calculate the number of enemies you made in your lifetime or the number of friends whom you lost on your way, it will certainly outnumber the friends you have at present. Well, there is another side to it too, if someone decides to board his/her life’s airplane through the departure terminal of a close one’s life then you certainly cannot stop him/her from this ‘moving on’ business.

Before getting into the metaphoric aspects and rhetoric of the departure lounge, let me narrate three incidents where either I was a participant or was an observer of the events at departure lounges. You must have seen the departure lounges and the departure terminals of airports. While the arrival terminal has something cheerful and some anticipation about it, departure terminals have pathos and sentiments for their part.  Let me begin by turning a few leaves of my personal experience. A few months ago I had to leave Mumbai after perhaps the most important four and half years of my life.  It usually is toughest at the finishing point for most people, so was it for me.  I dragged my luggage downstairs at 11 o clock that night and before entering the cab decided to take a last look at all that I am leaving behind. I have been used to departures, being always on a move, but this was the toughest of them all. Met a few friends who used to always see me off at the airport whenever I left Mumbai, they came, shook hands but did not accompany me to the airport. It was time that I start my journey alone without those friends accompanying me any further. While in the cab, many thoughts and multiple memories kept crossing my mind and I was intensely realizing that the life and people which I called my own are not going to remain the same now. They will change, for good or for bad….When I reached Mumbai airport the departure terminal was bustling with people. Since it was the international airport and most international flights are scheduled for late night departures, the place was crowded with travelers. I too had a late night flight for Chennai and had to undergo the security checks meant for international flights. Quietly went around with my ‘business’ but all the while observing my own self and my thoughts. After the security check, went to the farthest corner of the lounge and sat there musing about the life that I was leaving behind and the life that was welcoming me. Not everything would be fine for me, I knew that long ago but had not realized that it would be so difficult to traverse the boundaries. The departure lounge made me intensely sensitive to that part of my journey. Finally, when I boarded the plane it was more a sense of exhaustion and weariness than any sort of pain which took over. There was a slow, rhythmic music being played inside the aircraft and the last thing that I remember was when the plane took off and the mellifluous voice of Lata Mangeshkar wafted through the cabin singing: “Yeh Raatein, Nayi Purani…”

Coming to the second incident, this was at Moscow airport. There was an eight hours gap between my flights and I sat on one of the steps of the lounge chewing a gum and listening to music.  I saw an old Russian couple (must be in their late eighties) come into the lounge area. They were accompanied by a gentleman and an elite-looking lady both in their mid-thirties.  There was anxiety in their voice and the way the younger couple was explaining the older lady in Russian, it appeared as if they were extremely concerned regarding something.  There were tears in the eyes of the older lady and they appeared to be scared of traveling.  The family looked jittery and disturbed. As it happened that apart from me , a boy, perhaps in his late teens was observing this entire conversation going on between those people. He could not resist, got up and went up to them to inquire the matter. He spoke to the family and explained them something in Russian. Finally, the matter appeared resolved and the family looked much more relaxed. I asked the boy what the matter was. He told me that the old gentleman and his wife were traveling to California as they are settled in California, the old man was ill with asthma and a heart problem. The other lady was their daughter and she had come with her companion to see them off. The concern on the younger lady’s face was also out of fear and sadness perhaps because of the fact that whether she would see her parents again. They were worried about the security check and the exhaustion that would be there for the father at US airports. Moreover, they are traveling by economy class so they may not be comfortable through the journey. There was extreme concern for the parents. The boy had consoled them that he will be traveling to California as well and he would take care of the couple on the trip until he sees them off safely. The tensed family was relieved. I was thinking of the lounge where we meet people, fellow humanbeings for a few hours and their help remains as gratitude in our heart for a long time….

The third incident happened at JFK departure lounge on a Valentine’s Day. I was waiting for a flight to Atlanta that evening. I stood at the coffee counter trying to buy myself a mug of coffee but was purely confused in attempting to give the exact change to that person. A very gorgeously dressed young girl and her partner came to the coffee shop and stood there arguing aloud. The girl’s eyes were smudged and her mascara blotched her face making her look rather unattractive. I could make out that she had been crying for a long time now and that her state was rather bad. The man appeared composed but he was equally troubled. He bought a coffee for her and they sat on two of the chairs at the farthest corner  of the lounge. I also went there and committed the ‘sin’ of eavesdropping, curious that I am about human emotions. The argument between the two was heated and as evident the boy was walking out on her because of another female. He tried to explain her as much as he could but she was inconsolable. I felt sorry…tcch tchh Valentine’s Day for a breakup? How painful….But there was another Valentine waiting for him at some other corner of the world…poor chap he too had to ‘move on’. Not that easy, not that difficult as well.  After another fifteen or twenty minutes the man got up and walked away, perhaps he had a flight. The lady sat there with her face buried in her palms, not even looking up once to take a last glimpse of the man that she once might have loved and kept crying for a long time after he had left. Suddenly as if from a dream she jolted herself up, took out a few tissue papers from her purse, wiped her face clean, applied some lipstick, gave a rather rude exterior appearance and then adroitly walked away from the lounge, not even looking back once. It’s perhaps easier for the person who is able to deny rather than the denied one to accept changes in life. Our ego, our self-esteem is so high that many of us take a lifetime to forgive or to understand the fact that this has actually happened and rather keep thinking “why me?” “God why me?”

All said and done, departures are as necessary as arrivals. A death might also lead to a birth…There can be no arrival without departures. However, my contention has been regarding human emotions concealed in departures. Yes, it is painful…yes some departures bring despair, addiction and even death….But, in such extreme cases arrivals and departures are marked by many other  human attitudes and multiple layers of human existence. Somewhere because of struggle, somewhere because of starvation and somewhere because of despair departures are sudden and uncalled for.

There is a famous quote that “life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think”. Too much of feeling is suffocating and foolish, I agree but too much of the “comic” is also buffoonery and unpalatable. I do not know where I exist as human being, as a clown or as a fool? Wish had the answer….

Amarnath Talkies: Cinema for the Small Town

The Indian Premier League (IPL) and the tussle between Producers and Mulitplexes in Bollywood has taken its toll on cinema and cinema-goers. IPL has become another name for “reality show”. It is the baap of all reality game shows – these CRICKET matches. IPL has yet again proved that it has a “power” even over the other most important source of entertainment for Indians — TV Serials, Poll Tamasha and CINEMA. This is because Cricket in India is not just a game, it’s a religion. In general, both cinema and cricket make the staple of our entertainment dose, and in fact move beyond entertainment to being the life breath of people who take these as “national pride”. But, the IPL fever has been such that cinema has suffered a serious setback. For a “cinema worshiper” like myself not going to theatre because of the lack of new releases and “good” movies has become some kind of a punishment. Added to this, recession has made the going extremely tough. While, I see many of my seniors and batchmates struggling for a “decent” pay check even after toiling like hell on their thesis or MTPs in IIT, the only thing I feel like having is a heady dose of a real good masala blockbuster in a theatre.

I am becoming nostalgic and slightly angry! I will come to the nostalgia part in a short-while, but first let me recount the reasons for my anger. Let’s pan the camera towards some of the bigger movies that have released in the last few months: Chandni Chowk to China (CC2C), Dilli6, Billu Barber aka Salon Specialist (latter my addition), Aa Dekhen Zara, Firaq, Raaz — the Mystery Continues, Siddharth…. This list is recollected from memory, apologies for slippages if any. Unfortunately, I do not appreciate any of the above movies. The less said about CC2C is better…Dilli6 had the possibilities of an amazing movie with one of my favorite star cast (Waheedaji) and some of the best tracks that I have heard in the recent times (I like Masakali and Genda Phool immensely). But one has to remember that a movie should “speak for itself” rather than “speak about itself”. I went to watch Firaq in the theatres. It is a technically very well-made movie, but if you ask me about its content I would say that it is flawed. Movies which are made with a “social message” are supposedly “balanced” in their “judgement” of a particular incident. Firaq comes under that genre of cinema and so naturally one expects that it shows a certain kind of “balanced” portrayal of the sensitivities associated with both religions. But….

I am having a hunch that in the name of making “serious cinema” or “matured cinema”, our “cinema-making” capabilities are suffering badly. Added to that, media, cinema-makers and actors have made “gossip” a staple for PRing a particular movie. If you observe the current trend of Bollywood, before every release there is a new gossip to pepper the marketing of a movie but no one bothers to look into the subtleties of acting or making a “real good movie“. I suspect it is the PR-ship of a movie which is responsible for the saleability of the movie rather than the movie itself. Take the war between Khans, the over-hyped and sometimes maligned life of Salman, Katrina-Ranbir/Preity-Ness and innumerable such stories. It seems that the “cinema-lovers” attention has now diverted from actual cinema into the rumours and real life drama in the lives of celebrities. We are virtually given the life of Big Boss viewers. Not that there were no gossips or rumors in the yester-year celebrities. Starting from Nargis-Rajkapoor to Hemamalini-Dharmender or Amitabh-Rekha to the current Sanju-Manyata rumour mills have always been ablaze. These yesteryear stars were not only celebrities who gave reasons for rumours because of their public image, they were also great actors and immensely dedicated to their career.

The trend has changed now. Today the personal lives of stars are so flavored and served in such gorgeously decked-up china platters that they appear more delicious than their movies themselves. For instance, while reading articles one on Sharukh’s pay cut and the other on Rishi Kapoor’s recent interview to Rajeev Masand in a famous news channel, I felt a twinge of sadness and sympathy . The life of an actor like Shahrukh is being measured by the “cut in his pay check” and that he had to accept it in a wedding “for not dancing”! Similarly, it was actually not in a good taste to say that Katrina is “better” than Deepika just about the time when a new movie of Ranbir-Katrina Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani is about to hit the theatres. Is this gossip thing not going a little too far and actually destroying the potential of good actors who are now paying more attention to their lives off-screen rather than on-screen?

That brings us to the “small town cinema” aspect and to Amarnath Talkies.

I am sure that hardly any of my readers might have even heard of “Amarnath Talkies“. It is a small single-screen theatre of a capacity not more than a 150-200 people in the sleepy town of Dhenkanal somewhere in the heart of Odisha. The theatre has a balcony that is called sankha and a small arena called samudra. The balcony caters to the “well-to-do” people of the town and also to the newly married couples who get a rare once or twice in a life time privilege of getting away from their extended families in the name of “taking ‘her’ to the cinema” . The cost of these balcony seats extend not beyond 20-30 rupees per head. The movies that premiered in Mumbai are released in the these small-town theatres after nearly a 7-8 months gap. In those days, we used to read reviews in Cine Blitz or Film Fare, read gossips and wait eagerly for a certain movie to release. The release of a certain block-buster movie carried a great fanfare. A peddle rickshaw decked up with huge posters of the movie and a man sitting inside with a bhonpoo (loud speakers) in hand, would be shrieking and announcing the arrival of a new movie in town: “Heyi heyi re! Asantu dekhiba Amir-Juhinka Dhamaka Ishq apanka nijara Amarnath theatre re (Let’s all go and watch the new movie Ishq starring Amir Khan and Juhi Chawla in your nearest Amarnath theatre) !” I always enjoyed listening to these announcements as they really served to heighten the anticipation for the movie .

Well, we hardly got to watch movies in Amarnath Talkies and the reasons were simple — the theatre was always littered with pan thook and smelt of bidi . The hoot and whistling in the hall almost drowned the voice of stars performing on screen. Generally parents were afraid of taking their “grown-up” daughters to such theatres because the comments were somewhat “below dignity”. Yet, there were unique occasions when parents could not deny taking the kids to watch movies. When movies like Saajan, Ishq, Dil toh Pagal Hai, Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai released, their fame was such that they could be avoided at no cost. These movies came to the theatre almost a year after they were released in Mumbai and by then they had already become mega blockbusters.

My own experience with these small town theatres are highly nostalgic. For instance, an entire theatre in Angul (my parents worked there) was booked by a relative as a birthday gift for me. We all went to watch Raja Hindustani with four-five friends and their families and the relatives’ family in that theatre where we were served tea and juice. In general, on most of the occasions it used to be night-shows in Amarnath Talkies with aunts, uncles, parents and friends and that too with “dinner only at home” as the condition (not like cinema goers of Mumbai). Watching a movie was no less than a carnival. In another instance, we had run away from school to watch Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in one of these theatres. We bunked school after the tiffin-hours and went to the Talcher talkies with friends to watch this movie which had become a cult of our times. But, the fear of being caught and punished kept looming large and made the experience of the movie even more enjoyable. My grandfather took me to a special screening in Amarnath Talkies of the English movie ET and its Odiya adaptation, meant specially for journalists, writers and critics. Those were the times when we could connect to the movie itself and the thought of the movie remained fresh on our minds like the taste of chocolates….

These small town theatres served another purpose. They were the major source of promoting regional cinema in their showtimes. Every Durga Puja or Kali Puja or Id , blockbuster movies released which sustained the regional film industries. But, with the arrival of VCD/DVDs and pirated movies, regional movies suffered huge losses. As a result, today you do not find movies like Amada Bata (The Untrodden Path), Danda Balunga (The Street Loafer) Adina Megha (The Unseasonal Cloud), Samuka (The Shell), etc any more in Odiya film industry. Regional films have actually suffered a huge setback in Odisha (in Maharastra to some extent too) where the audiences are more biased towards Bollywood. Not only the viewers are responsible for the debacle of regional movies, but also the producers/directors are equally responsible with their small investment, verbatim copy of Bollywood movies and very bad cinematography (Telugu and Tamil movies are exceptions to some extent). It is not correct to say that good writers, scripts, directors are lacking in these places. There are good writers, scripts and directors, but the investment is definitely poor and so is the mindset. Moreover, since most of the small-town theatres have closed down so where would the prints be sold? Many of these theatres have been converted into Kalyan Mandaps or worse still have become places where goons, loafers and underworld lives. But the thought of Maharaja theatre, Shreya-Stuti or Amarnath theatre in Odisha arouses the same kind of longing for a “good” movie as does the thought of Regal, Metro or Shreyas in Mumbai.

Somehow, as an ardent movie-fan I wish for a change we made some real cool masala hits, forgetting the “technicalities” and the “processes” of movie making. Recently, I was talking on phone with an aunt in Odisha and she was going gaga over Salman’s God Tussi Great Ho which she got to see in one of these smaller theatres. I was wondering what was so intelligent or cool about the movie? I went back and watched that movie and I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed it much more than Singh is King (the latter was a huge hit)….

Hmm! how I pray that this war between producers and multiplexes end soon. I have already started missing the movies….

Slum Who Millionaire?: a Critique of Slum Dog Millionaire

I seriously have been resisting getting into the debate over Slumdog Millionaire (2008 ) and thought like every busy-for-nothing “type” let film critics, media and editorials battle it out. I was happy with the “Golden Globes” and “BAFTAs” pouring in for A.R .Rehman (one of my favourite music Directors). Moreover, who cares what the rear view of a mirror is as long as it clearly reflects my image on its surface! Then, I watched the movie… re-watched with some friends…then re-watched it alone, this time to understand what comes in the way of my appreciating it and the already famous awards and acclaim that have come for it. I read the reviews, the debates and counter-debates raging over the movie. Decided to forget it — but strangely couldn’t! So, had to plunge into…better than being “sleepless in Mumbai” .

Well, let me try to piece together my confusion…

The movie is brilliantly packaged, technically sound with a contemporary story-line and significantly “cleverly marketed” as a “rags-to-riches” and a “feel-good story of the decade”. The movie lives in its strongly strewn “moments” — of love, of anger, of orphaned existence, of communal riots, of beggary, of brother seducing a brother’s love, of betrayal, of honesty versus crime, and finally the feel-good factor of “love winning it all” and “virtuous-victorious” kind of ending, which of course makes you sit up in the theatre. “And they lived happily ever after…” thus ends the movie on an optimistic note. But, considering the deaths of Salim (the brother of Jamal Malik) and the Don, if we know the underworld well, then Jamal and Latika will hardly be left in peace, they were after-all the reasons for these deaths and also they have 2 crores in hand. If the cops can be after Jamal, so can be the underworld. However, we are not supposed to question while watching a movie–suspension of disbelief. We all love “happy endings”. But, then why did some of us not smile as we came out of the theatre? Two reasons: (a) We have seen something of this movie in many other Bollywood movies, maybe better versions; (b) The cultural part: I mean the “dog” part…

The first point is the crux of my blog: (a) We have seen something of this movie in many other Bollywood movies, maybe better versions. Let me take you back to a series of movies of late 1980s and 1990s, which had similar subject lines: of course not a “Kaun Banega Crorepati?” kind of story, but stories which you identify as “Mumbaichi Katha” with love stories set in the backdrop of “problems”. They were vibrant, pulsating and often “true” pictures of Mumbai, may not be clinically and technically as evolved as Slum Dog , but had in my opinion superior content narrated in a casual matter-of-fact style. Movies that immediately come to mind are: Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro (1989), Parinda (1989), Baaghi (1990), Sadak(1991), Bombay (1995), Satya (1998 ). No I don’t mean to compare and critique Slum Dog in the lines of these stories, my comparison rests on the fact that they belong to the same genre and to the fact that Slum Dog wins a “Golden Globe”, while some of these movies are not even known in the home audience. When you watch Salim Langde pe Mat Ro… you tend to realize how far the tentacles of the underworld seeped into the chawls of Mumbai. There is no glossing over, no overboard styles and no Mr. Bachhan prototypes in the movie. Of course one of the best examples of parallel cinema that I have ever viewed. The plot is set in the chawls of Mumbai, even the restaurants that Neelima Azim and Pavan Malhotra (in title role) frequent can be imagined as any second restaurant near railway stations like Kanjurmarg or Ghatkopar. The Hindu-Muslim equations which Slum Dog tried to portray for our western and diaspora viewers in 2008, has actually already seen its consummation in Salim Langde pe back in 1989.

When you watch Parinda, the aspect that hits right on your face is the innocent love story of Karan (ironically played by Anil Kapoor) and Paro (Madhuri Dixit) and the way they were killed by the underworld Don Anna (Nana Patekar) on their wedding bed. As far as my understanding, Parinda defines the grammar of movies in this genre. Amazing cinematography (watch the pigeons flocking and un-flocking along with gun shots near Gateway of India in the movie) and extremely touching love-hate relationship between the brothers Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff.

Baaghi and Sadak make you fall in love with the young, angry Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt as they battle it out for girls stuck in the red-light area of Mumbai. Sadak especially brings out amazingly well the horror of attempting to tinker with the “business” of these people. Sadashiv Amrapurkar roaring and maneuvering against Sanjay Dutt as Maharani makes you literally shiver. The “murk” of the profession is menacingly narrated with a “shrug-off” kind of narration.

Bombay of Mani Ratnam and Satya of Ram Gopal Verma are cult movies. The first, set in the backdrop of Hindu-Muslim riots of 1991 featured Arvind Swami and Manisha Koirala — a Hindu-Muslim couple strangled in the riots, are looking for their lost twin kids Kabir Narayan and Kamal Basheer in the gullies of riot-ridden Mumbai. The pain of parents who have lost their kids, the pain of two frightened siblings torn-apart by violence and the dangerous communally instigating speeches of the Hindu and Muslim leaders, Bombay is truly a Golden Globe material. I love the A.R.Rahman of “humma-humma” or “Tu Hi Re…” unabashedly more than the A.R.Rahman of “Jai Ho!” The second, Satya of RGV, marked some of the all time highs of Bollywood art.The “cool-suave” Chakravarthy playing the title role gave a new-look to new-generation underworld-operating Mumbai. Urmila Matondkar in the role of “Vidya” makes you fall in love with “innocent love” all over again.

Watch these movies if you have already forgotten them! Mr. Boyle — India has seen it all! But thanks for showing it to the “West”. Slum Dog is a cock-tail of some of these movies, combined with the cultural dimension. That brings us to the second point: (b) The cultural part: I mean the “dog” part…. Unless we learn to love ourselves for whatever we are and whatever we have, we will be kept calling “dogs” . Mr. Sekhar Kapur says in his blog that even Bandit Queen was funded by the West and so was Elizabeth, what’s wrong if Boyle makes a movie on India? Of course, nothing wrong. Except for the “Millionaire” part. Danny Boyle has chosen to make a movie on the slums of Mumbai — he has lived, shot the movie in slums and even appointed slum children as his protagonists. That’s philanthropic! But that is also forms of capitalism and neo-colonialism. Mr. Kapur doesn’t visualize the future where instead of him being a film entrepreneur, he might end up being “employed” by the huge number of Hollywood production houses investing in Indian cinema. I don’t want to see small-time Indian production houses being engulfed by the large MNCs of Hollywood. We will then have cinema made only for people living in the West. The “dog” isn’t actually slums of Mumbai. In fact, “slum dog” can be seen as a metaphor for Indian cinema, for Bollywood especially, and for India which is visualized by the “West” as a gigantic mind-boggling slum. Considering the huge success of Bollywood worldwide, “slum-dog” seems to pun on the fact that Bollywood (the slum of Hollywood) is making it big in the world film circles. However, what seems unfortunate is not the West seeing India as a “slum” but Indians perceiving themselves “through the lens of Slum Dog Millionaire” . Yes! we have slums, we have underworld, we have poverty we have communal tension! Face it! But which country in the world doesn’t have it! Racism in US or England is a different form of communalism. Look at Southern United States, the situation is extremely difficult there. There is poverty in US too — and the poverty there is worse because of its psychological dimensions. In India people who live in chawls, many of them wouldn’t want to leave those chawls for their entire lives. Some of them choose to live there. For example, look at Tehelka’s recent report on Chawls in their website.

If you intend to watch Slumdog Millionaire, watch it for its clever concoction of “Indian” stories and for its cinematography. I have high regards for Mr.Boyle, because he could actually “sell” a Bollywood masala to the West, and showed that India also has its unique story-telling capacity. But my point was that Indian cinema is also capable enough to sustain on its own. The yardstick for Oscars, Golden Globe and such awards should not define our cinema-making capabilities. The movies that I cited above in my article are some examples drawn from both parallel cinema and main-stream commercial cinema. We are capable of matured movie making even without international acclaim.

Maybe that’s what they call — “art for art’s sake” …

Not Our Times… :(

Does this happen to you too?

We went watching “Jaane tu ya Jaane na”… the new movie released a few weeks back. Some thirty minutes after the movie began, I turned to look at Hemant’s face — it had grown pale and distant. “What happened? Not feeling well? Don’t like this movie? Let’s go back” – I bombarded him with questions concernedly. He nodded and said; “no I am well! completely well! I am just thinking” …”Thinking what?” I bombarded back…”No I am thinking that we are growing old…The movie shows that it’s no more my time. I want Madhuri Dixit dancing, Shahrukh Khan or Govinda or Amirkhan, not finding any one whom I know, …this is not our time”. He looked really-really sad and lost. Not that we didn’t enjoy the movie…we loved that. But, it made us increasingly uneasy about our existence in the scheme of nature’s ageing factor and the new social fad of one generation gap no more in ten or twelve years, rather in 4-5 years.

There were certain things in the movie that made us uncomfortable a little bit: (a) each young boy has to have a young girl as “girl-friend”/ “girlfriend” ; (b) everyone has to have a mobile phone in the group (funny? but true) and (c) how handsome/beautiful your companion is (the character rotlu is no match for the beautiful heroine Aditi even though he is the sweetest)? and so on …

Back in my hostel room, one whole night we sat gossiping about the life of film stars — as if we were just their family members. Pragyan suddenly said — “seeing Amir Khan now makes me nostalgic — I crave for our times– I saw him in Akele Hum Akele Tum or in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar or in Rang de Basanti and it made me feel so connected and so very part of the movie”… for her not only Amir was growing ol’ but also reminded her of the little fantasies she had for the characters on the screen…she couldn’t explain more than that… there was no need for explaining more, since I too felt the same…not our times! We were quiet for a few moments before the next piece of gossip began.

But why? Why don’t we feel connected to the things shown in silver screen now? We ARE NOT THAT OLD … I mean seriously, not trying to hide my age , but then why is there this gap between the visual experience and personal experience for some of us? Was hardly seven or eight years when QSQT was released, was in my 10th when DDLJ was released, but why do we identify more with those movies than with a movie of 2000s when we actually grew up to adulthood and understood the meaning of relationships? QSQT or Maine Pyar Kiya for that matter still flairs my imagination and fills me with nostalgia.

I mean it’s not about movies only…art also reflects human life and thinking to a certain extent. Have been thinking about it for sometime now…There is something strange and new about this generation — kids are completely independent (they have to own their personal mobile phones, bikes, gizmos) , parents are no more than silent witnesses to the drama of their children’s’ lives, complex inter-personal relationships in friend circles and many-many more new “occurrences” which are hard to be explained in words.

Last January I was in Bhubaneshwar, stayed there for a longer duration than usually do. What I saw in the city was appalling — the so called new generation comprised school kids who carry high-end mobile phones, wear “interesting new designer pieces” (caught this phrase in a discussion between two teenagers) and spend their time window shopping in the new mushrooming malls. What was a little upsetting was the time that these kids spent sitting in the malls — one day I observed a group of five sitting outside the Big Bazar complex, in the lobby area for more than six hours! We had come shopping for a wedding and had found this group sitting there from around 2′ o clock in the afternoon and they were still there when we left at 8′.15 in the evening. None of the group members as I could make out was beyond 15-17years and each of them had bikes which they sometimes took out to get the female members of the group to their adda (that’s what they were referring to the place). I was shocked to see the amount of time that they wasted admiring the neon-lit corners of these malls and the amount of money that must have gone into the dressing up of each of these kids.

But not just kids, I recently heard that an acquaintance who is around 38 years of age was getting married to a nineteen year female, daughter of a very rich shop owner. Why? Because he has friends who own large cars and land cruisers. This group went out lady-hunting in these cars; impressed younger rich-only-daughters spoilt by parents; took them out to discotheques, Icecream parlours, long drives — and finally short bedroom drives. Some of these lead to marriages and some don’t — but who cares! It reminded me of the movie Jane tu… where the group of friends use the same tactics to meet “new interesting people”. “Life is there to enjoy”, was told by that acquaintance himself…. I still am not clear about the new-emerging definitions of enjoyment.

So what was “Our times” ? I mean how do we define our times? Am sure each of us has a separate definition of “our times” — but to me our times meant the times when we didn’t have the conception of a necessity to have at least one “BF” or “GF” (short for Boyfriend/ Girlfriend) — and when the group meant “friends” and only “friends” irrespective of their sexual or financial status. It also referred to a time when relationships were a strictly private affair — the story revolved around “ONE” girl and “ONE” boy or at best a “LOVE TRIANGLE”. But what one gets to see both in movies and in reality these days are not just one or two or three people, but a “LOVE HEXAGON/LOVE PENTAGON/ LOVE QUADRANGLE/OPEN RELATIONSHIPS” and so on.

The younger generation is a mobile phone addicted generation — they just can’t live without their phones. And not just any phone, their choices are highly competitive while the companies are always ready to cater to the changing demands. For us, there was not only a fear of parents but a fear of teachers, relatives and neighbors too. I remember when we used to go out to the nearest market in Bhubaneshwar to shop in my MPhil days, the news used to reach my parents, staying 180 kms away in no time. We were slightly deviant from our generation by choosing to study and remain single, whereas most of my friends got married just after their graduation or engineering — either to boys of their own choice or to people whom their parents chose. For us, watching the silver screen with Madhuri Dixit dancing, or Amir/Shahrukh/Salman romancing, was a kind of “wish-fulfillment” for things which we could imagine. But now the movies show things which people would say : “arre yaar bilkul apne life ki carbon copy hai! They have stolen from our lives to make this movie”.

Well, I am not blaming the past, the present or the future! We are also to be blamed for not being able to cope-up with the changes which are so rapid that it takes a wink to register one epochal movement. We are slow and therefore feel uneasy in the heat of movement. The “Great Indian Middle Class” is in the midst of these whirlpool of transitions and that which we had earlier thought as the priviledge of the upper classes has slowly penetrated the middle class lives. Some of it is good no doubt, but maybe some of the changes are so overpowering that the balance is topsy-turveyed.

You can see these generation gaps blatantly in IITs between B.Techs, M.Techs and PhDs. Recently something funny happened with a female friend doing PhD who went to a party dominated mostly by B.Techs. One of the B.Tech guys who was a little tipsy came up to her and told her on her face: “aunty you are really very nice. Friends! aunty acchi hain…I like you maam.” Poor girl she was completely embarassed and rushed out of the party with tears. That’s how it is sometimes…

There are many-many such instances where one sees mind boggling gaps in thinking. It’s not always funny and neither always grim. There must be a new crop of researchers/psychologists who should be documenting this fast track change in our society.

But for the time being keep your fingers crossed for “more” … all that can be said is “not our times”… It’s 2 am and I listen to Bob Dylan’s fantastic number “The Times They Are Changing’” where he prophesized in 1960′s the changing times :

…Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’…

… Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.