Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind

Bol Bhole Bol Tujhko Kya Chahiye?

2008-07-19T06:10:04Z

[Inspired by the song “Bol Bol Bol” from the Subhash Ghai mega-flop “Trimurti”. For those who have never heard it, here is the song.

Original lyrics:

Bikta hain sona mitti ke mol,
Bikti hain mitti sone ke mol,
To bol bol bol bol bol bol bol
Aare bol bhole bol tujhko kya chahiye?

Aashiq hoon main dildaar hoon,
Is dard-e-dil ka beemar hoon,
Mujko dard-e-dil ki dawaa chahiye

]

Re-sung in the context of the confidence vote on the UPA government.

Female chorus: Ai Ai Aaaaaaaaaaa………

Deep Voice:

Bikti hain vote sone ki mol,
Bikti hain MP heeron ki mol,
To bol bol bol bol bol bol bol
Aare bol bhole bol tujhko kya chahiye?

Udit Narayan voice:

Ajit hoon main, Charan ka beta hoon
Chote party ka malik hoon,
Mujko baap ke naam pe airport chahiye…….

Heeeen Heeeenn Heeen Heeen….

Shibu hoon main, aap ka sevak hoon,
Is khel main purana khiladi hoon,
Sabko pata hain mujko kya chahiye…….

Heeen Heeeen Heeeen Heeen……

Nirdaliya hoon main, dil dariya hoon
No-confidence ke liye jeeta hoon
Mujko aaj mast “pay day” chahiye………

Heen Heeen Heeeen Heeen…………

Regional party hoon main, power hungry hoon,
Nayee state ke liye bimaar hoon,
Mujko bas ek badiya kursi chahiye……..

Heen Heeen Heeen Heeeen…………

“Khichudi” hoon main, 24 Karat bhi hoon,
China ke liye sirf paresaan hoon,
Mujko hakka chow with vodka chahiye……….

Deep voice:

Jo maange tu le jayega,
Warna sarkar hil jayega……….

Heeen Heeeen Heeeen Heeen..

Ai Ai Aaaaaaa………………..

Pariyon Ko Chod

2008-07-19T00:12:30Z

[Pariyon Ko Chod is the name of a Sonu Nigam album–for some reason I find the spelling very inappropriate.]

In misery after having a wisdom tooth extracted, there is nothing better that I can focus on (read that as take perverse pleasure in) than the misery of others .

Like Sonu Nigam’s misery. Last in the news for having been the subject of same-sex proposals from a Bollywood reviewer (not me), which resulted in what Sonu called “Sonu-spanking”, he was, a few months ago, forcibly kissed [image courtesy desihits] and also scratched by a female admirer in a manner reminiscent of the way Ricky Ponting was smooched by a man during a bat auction, an action that some believe led him to lose his cricketing Mo-Jo.

Of course, Zoom (isko dekho) suggests that the whole kissing incident may have been stage-managed [video link]—-as if Sonu Nigam needed to desperately show, for some reason, how much women love him. Needless to say, this accusation is totally false as can be evidenced by footage of Sonu Nigam that shows him distraught and terrified. And as all of us who have seen “Kaash..Aap Humare Hote” and “Jaani Dushman” know, Soni Kudi Nigam cannot act for his life.

As to Sonu Nigam, he coolly collects himself and modestly brushes away the incident thus:

Koi bhi artist jo accha kaam karta ho stage per woh stage par hota hain to ekdam spiritual huya hota hain us samay. And suddenly koi aake jaise woh Vishwamitra ki neendra ..meditation..ko kharap kar de koi waise koi baat ho jaati hain.

But Sonu is grateful that this Menaka was at least, biologically, a woman. Having just recently escaped from the attention of an obsessive man, he counts his blessings always.

Ladki thi to itna buda naheen lagta.

Not so lucky is this poor man. As if being in jail was not cause for misery, his travails were compounded after he was miserably cheated by Shah Rukh Khan’s endorsement of a talcum powder. First he was seduced by the advertisement which as reported by this blog goes thus:

The actor (Shahrukh Khan) is then seen to be caressing himself in the bathroom with talcum powder telling us how he feels cool and efficient with its use.

Convinced about the efficacy of the powder, the poor man applied it on himself, did feel thanda thanda cool cool at first but then his body started itching and he felt a “burning sensation”.

I can see this poor man’s genuine grievance in front of the court being devastated by SRK’s attorneys when they shall possibly prove, using possibly doctored evidence, that the burning sensation he felt when he applied the powder might be due to “factors” other than the talcum powder.

Where is Ram Jethmalani and Nandita Haskar when you need them?

Finally completing this troika of misery is our poor old Aamir Sohail, famous for brandishing his willow at Venkatesh Prasad and for pronouncing bowlers as “bawlers”. He is unable to understand why despite the fact that Pakistan has fearlessly lead the war against terror, in the same efficient manner that Shoaib Malik has lead the Pakistan national team, none of the Western “allies” want to tour it.

What is happening in the country is basically the result of Pakistan leading this war against terror,” Sohail said. “We are paying for fighting it. Countries such as Australia and England are our allies in this war on terror, yet they are not supporting us here. Are we real allies or are we just being used?”

Yes indeed Aamir. Indeed so.

As the great Billu Badshah Clinton would say “I feel your pain”.

Kashmir Ki Boli

2008-07-17T05:51:50Z

There may be a few reasons that could be put forward as to why someone may oppose the temporary allocation (now rescinded under “public” pressure) of degraded forest land for the erection of “pre-fabricated structures” to temporarily house Amarnath pilgrims in Jammu and Kashmir.

The first possible cause for objection stems from principle. Namely that the State should not be in the business of interfering in matters pertaining to the administration of religious bodies and that a decision taken by a Governor that directly impact an entity that he heads (Governor Sinha, who signed the allocation order, being also the head of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board) is ethically questionable from a “conflict of interest” viewpoint. [Offstumped explains it here]

The second is an environmental one—of the precedence set in appropriating vast tracts of forest land for human use. Though it should be noted that the forty hectares of land under consideration are “degraded” forest land and much of it is already being used by Amarnath pilgrims.

The third is of course the most obvious and the one that has mobilized radical Kashmiris all over the valley— the mass communal hysteria that the Hindus are “re-colonizing” a land from where they have been ethnically cleansed. Of course the pity is that noone here is “owning” the land by any stretch of the word. Nor would Hindus be crazy to come back to Kashmir to “resettle”—-after all our capital is New Delhi and not Tel Aviv or Beijing (two countries who do follow a official policy of demography change through resettlement). Its not even the case that any permanent structures are being constructed for the benefit of the Hindus—-certainly not one with a computer center, bank and conference facilities as the to-be-constructed Haj complex in New Delhi (cost= Rs. 300 million).

The reason the proverbial shit has hit the Karakoram, though of course intensely political and religious, does have an economic origin.

A single family, the Maliks, descendants of the legendary Buta Malik who supposedly first discovered the cave, used to be the custodian of the shrine till 2000. While the fact that a Muslim has been the guardian of a Hindu shrine has been hailed as a manifestation of Kashmiriyat or “spirit of tolerance” , it would be only the most naive who would not note that one-third of the temple donations went to the Malik family thus providing a pretty strong financial reason for their secularism.

In 2000, however the administration of the Amarnath shrine was taken over by the Shrine Board and the Malik families lost their source of income.

Now a family do not a disgruntled minority make.

However in 2008, with the Shrine Board taking control of a sizeable amount of land on which development (even temporary) would take place, the local Muslim population which depends heavily on the Amarnath tourists, perceive an attempt by “outsiders” (read Hindus) to tap into their revenue streams—-after all if tents and other structures are constructed on the 40 hectares of land, a significant portion of tirth-yatris would no longer depend solely on the “Kashmiriyat” of the local population.

One can read between the lines in this statement from the Kashmir Bar Association (quoted here and here) and get an idea about the real reason for aggrievement.

This is a planned conspiracy to civil occupation of Kashmir’ by New Delhi, Ronga said, “We are not against Hindus and Amarnath Yatra, but we are against the transfer of land to SASB. The Muslims have been at the forefront to provide all possible help to the Yatris during the annual pilgrimage over the years. However, now the SASB is communalizing the issue”.The KBA president said that the SASB would use the land to raise permanent structures to settle non-Kashmiris, thereby changing the Muslim-majority character of the Valley. “It is a conspiracy to civil occupation and to change the Muslim character of the Valley,” he said.

Anti-outsider feeling is not unique to the Valley—from the Bengali “parar chele” (locality boy) who feels miffed that the cement contract went to a “outsider” (and then breaks your car window) to the manus who feels angry at the Bituwa whose taxi is plying his “route”, this antipathy to the Johnny-come-lately is universal.

However this being the Valley, the sense of religious entitlement is immense, justification for violence immediately available, Hindus and Indians universally hated and one community’s perceived economic misery immediately becomes the “people”’s Jihad.

In conclusion, let me make a few observations about an episode of “Face the nation” that I saw on CNN IBN which I found fairly interesting. [Video]

1. Note the topic of the SMS poll. It says “Is Jammu and Kashmir hostage to hate politics between communities”? This to me subtly implies that the politics in J&K is being driven by “mutual” hate between communities, whereas the reality in J&K (in other parts of the country it is different) is that the “hate” is not exactly two-way.

2. Note Omar Abdullah’s statement:

Why suddenly this year it is necessary to transfer the land and confine the yatra to that. Where in the order does it talk about temporary structures? It talks about tunneling; it talks about rail links, it talks about road links. I don’t see the word temporary being used,”

He is later told (and that’s what all press outlets reported) that the decision was only regarding the construction of “temporary structures”. Now since I have not read the original document, I do not know what is written there but this talk about “rail links” and “road links” is something only Abdullah mentions. The bigger question is—what is wrong in having rail and road links to Amarnath, should one be planned (not that it was)!

Of course Mr. Abdullah justifies the “anger of the Kashmiri”s with a ridiculous “Why was not there one (presumably structure/rails/tunnels) last year? There has been none for one hunderd and sixty years. Why now !” Dude. The answer is simple. It’s called progress. The same reason why there was no cell phone when your dad was your age. Is the great Kashmiri hope really that ting-a-ling that he expects the rest of India to not see through the fact that he has no leg to stand on.

3. Note Omar Abdullah saying:

The simple questions that we ask and this is where the problem arises because you start seeing things through the prism of religion and communalism. We are seeing it only through the prism of nationalism and protecting our right to our land.

We? Nationalism? Please Mr. Abdullah explain. Is Kashmir being referred to as a “nation” as distinct from India?

4. Note the journalist (Pravin Swami) from the China mouthpiece ironically named “The Hindu” in his sweeping statements blaming everyone—the Muslim and the Hindu politicians all around for spreading a message of hatred. Ho hum. Now I am sure that if the Hindus were the aggressors, the criticism would be much more focused and blame more selectively apportioned.

5. Also note this Swami’s closing comments

Mr Omar Abdullah’s party and Mr Baig’s party have lost a lot more lives to terrorist bullets than the BJP. More Muslims have died at the hands of terrorists than Hindus. The truth is everyone is out to turn trivial issues into a means of sharpening divisions between people. It is sad.

Just a second. Maybe the reason for that just could be that Hindus (who were always a minority in Kashmir) have already been driven out of the Valley. As a result, no Hindu party can have a sizable presence in Kashmir and hence cannot make as many “sacrifices” as Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Baig’s party. Did that possibility ever occur to you? (Kindly do remember the sacrifices that Mr. Baig’s party’s head honcho Mufti Sayed made when his daughter was “kidnapped”)

5. Note how our great Sagarika Ghoshe puts everything in perfect perspective with a most incisive closing line.

With all the politicking over his shrine, Shiva himself, the most powerful of Gods is angry and his lingam, in fact as a columnist said recently, is melting.

[Please keep the discussion civil. I know this is a most emotional issue. But still. I may moderate if I feel a line has been crossed. Also remember that the opinions in the commentspace are those of the commenters and not mine.]

Love Story 2050—the Review

2008-07-08T05:38:10Z

Mumbai 2050.

A sinister extra-constitutional figure (as QT, the femmebot, says “wo itna powerful ki sarkaar bhi usse koi sawaal naheen kartee” [he is so powerful that even the government dare not ask him questions]) whose voice bears some resemblance to Darth Vader rules the city. (The movie does not say whether he was an ex-cartoonist).

He is helped in his sinister designs by an exclusive personal army of tube-light wielding droids who have a dislike for “outsiders”.

The menial labor is being done by robots who speak Bhojpuri, in the process betraying their roots, when they wish to communicate a secret.

Yep. The future in Mumbai sure looks much like its present.

Anu Malik still recycles music from the likes of Beyonce and lyrics are as profound as “Hey you lover boy, will you be my toy?”

And the cityscape is an eclectic collection of “concepts” you have seen before in Bicentennial Man, I Robot, Minority Report, Sixth Element and Star Wars.

Welcome to Harry Baweja’s truly original and imaginative “Love Story 2050″ —yes the same Harry Baweja’s whose genius last gave us Teesri Aankh, the Hidden camera (which had two of my favorite dialogs “abh kahaan chupayenge humare ma behenon ko”and “yeh sarkari danda hain”). While his previous movies had been trend-setters in their own right with their bold handling of themes like the proliferation of hidden cameras (Teesri Aankh), lecherous politicians with X-ray vision (Karz), patriotism (Diljale), bio-terrorism and the dangers of Sanjay Kapoor (Qayamat: City Under Threat) “Love Story 2050″ is in a different league altogether—being at once a genre-bender (blending supreme sci-fi with Mills and Boons romance replete with diaries, butterflies and overall pinkiness) as also as an elaborately constructed launch vehicle for his son, Harman Baweja.

Watching “Love Story 2050″ is an amazing, multi-layered experience. At one level, you are watching an elaborate advertisement for “targeted” products like Xbox 360, Panasonic, Ceat Tyres, Lux, TATA Indicom, Lawman etc placed “in movie” with Sunny Deolian subtlety never seen since “Yaadein” . On another level, you feel as if you are, like a voyeur, getting an exclusive butterfly-eye view of the actual love story of Priyanka Chopra and “Her Man” Baweja as they exchange sweet words of sugary nothingness .[Not that they are officially a couple as Priyanka Chopra keeps saying that she and Baweja are only “friends” though Harman Baweja tries his level best to get across the message, overtly and covertly, that he and Ms. Chopra are, using Bollywood lingo, an item.]

And on yet another level, you are actually watching a masterful tour d’force of an acting performance from Harman Baweja.

No I do not mean his playing the character of Karan,the lover boy who follows butterflies, speaks to his dead mother and whose middle name, like Austin Powers, is danger.

Rather I am talking about the “role inside a role”—-Harman Baweja’s brilliant portrayal of Hrithik Roshan.

Had it not been for the insane plot, Boman Irani’s overacting , his slapping the fembot QT on the bottom and the standard presence of over-precocious toons, Love Story 2050 could very well have been a biopic of Hrithik Roshan. If Jamie Foxx won the Oscars for becoming “Ray” in the movie based on the life of Ray Charles, Herman deserves no less for his uncanny portrayal of Hrithik Roshan in a movie that has more than a bit of thematic resemblance to Roshan’s debut movie “Kaho Na Pyar Hain”. From the dance steps to the hairstyle to his sartorial style to the smile and to the inflection of voice (the only thing that doesn’t match is unfortunately the “face” and that too not because of any lack of effort on Harman’s part), Harman’s portrayal is so spot on as to be positively disquieting.

I used to think that the duplicate of Shatrughan Sinha who reportedly cut his cheek to resemble his hero, was the height of creepiness.

After seeing Hanuman sorry Harman aping Hrithik, I realize I was wrong.

Mention must also be made of the brilliant dialogs —-a pink teddy robot Boo while going to fetch “blue tea” saying in supremely accented fashion: “Boo Tee (booty) kahaan hain” and Harman Baweja’s deeply Freudian message to Priyanka Chopra: “Tumhara life hain na, it’s like hotdog without a sausage” as also Priyanka Chopra’s finely nuanced portrayal of two very different characters—-cliched, madly-in-love uber-mushy girl and cliched, madly-in-love uber-mushy girl with red hair.

In conclusion, I can do no better than to paraphrase a few lines from songs of Harry Baweja’s creations to sum up my assessment of Harman’s debut flick.

Love Story 2050 is a “tere dimaag main aapni asaar chod jayega” (Imtihaan), a “ho naheen sakta” (Diljale) and a “kudrat ne banaya hoga fursat se” (Dilwale)-type movie, a searing cinematic achievement and a true “Winkie Dinks” (name of a pink talking glove in the film) among Baweja classics.

Op-Press

2008-07-03T05:24:05Z

In the summer of 2005, the world was informed by Times of India of Aishwarya Rai’s plans to wrestle with a 380 pound woman and date a former male stripper on a reality show. The article even named its source: a website called spoof.com

At that time, a neophyte blogger speculated whether the word “spoof” in spoof.com had set off any warning bells in the minds of those responsible for this most amazing article. He also wondered whether the newspaper concerned had any editorial control over what was published under its name.

[The original article was pulled down by TOI, it’s cache too has vanished into the ether. Thankfully the text of the article is still here]

Of course this was hardly the only example of stellar journalism over the years. Fake boy genius wins fake prize at NASA. Bhojpuri star is feted by the press for being the first living Indian to have a stamp released after him only for the media men to have a “pipe main hoi jaayi soo” moment once it is brought to light that anyone can go to a certain website, pay a certain number of Euros, upload his digital picture and have his mug on an official Dutch stamp. Yes anyone. Including the ones who ran this story without bothering to do some elementary fact checking.

I should mention at this point however that I am no journalist. Which makes it difficult for me to judge what is fair use in Indian journalistic practice and what is ctrl-c ctrl-v.

From the Times News Network (no byline):

What do dating a married man and devouring a hot fudge sundae loaded with almonds, whipped cream and lots of sauce have in common? Both taste devilishly good, and both are sinfully bad for you. Sure, it’s human nature to want what you shouldn’t have.But while the ice cream concoction might expand your hips, loving someone else’s man can twist your heart in ways that are infinitely more disturbing than a little weight gain and much harder to bounce back from. [More]

From IVillage, Lure of the Married Man written by Sherry Amanstein

What do dating a married man and devouring a hot fudge sundae loaded with almonds, whipped cream and lots of sauce have in common? Both taste devilishly good, and both are sinfully bad for you. Sure, it’s human nature to want what you shouldn’t have.But while the ice cream concoction might expand your hips, loving someone else’s man can contort your heart in ways that are infinitely more disturbing than a little weight gain — and much harder to bounce back from. [More]

Ahem.

Recently, several newspapers carried the strange case of a 88 year old Nazi war criminal named Bach, who had killed many Jews in a concentration camp called “Marsha Tikash Whanaab”, being nabbed by “the intelligence wing of the German Chancellor’s core” in Goa while trying to sell a rare piano. The only problem, as all of us no doubt already know, was that the whole thing was a hoax that originated from some journalists from Goa , the people behind the blog “Pen Pricks” who had circulated a bogus press release. [Read details here] in order to expose what passes for mainstream media reporting.

At the bottom of the above linked post, look at the long list of eminent newspapers that fell for the gag hook line and sinker. Yep. Noone bothered to do a Google search on the name of the war criminal or on the concentration camp. Noone paused even a second about the address of the “German chancellor core”’s domain-name: berlin.com or bothered to actually type berlin.com in the address bar. And while most of the newspapers (The Indian Express, Times of India..) merely paraphrased the bogus press-release, the Telegraph went further and added more than a bit of cheese –perhaps trying for the Pulitzer and the Booker at the same time.

Here is the link of the Telegraph article in Google cache –the original having been removed from the online edition.

Note the beautiful map that highlights the path of the noted war criminal with only Yemen being listed as “unconfirmed” no doubt hinting, not so subtly, that the rest of the locations are indeed “confirmed”. Note also the information obtained from “IB sources”. Also admire the additional layerings of truth, over and above the press release, that would not be out of place in “Odessa File: The Goa Chronicles”—- how “Bach smelt a rat” and how “he realized he was being followed and slipped into the woods”—-of course forgetting to add that the surprisingly sprightly 88 year old Nazi metamorphosed into a vampire and would have flown away had not IB’s special investigator, a man named Van Helsing, put a stake through his heart.

Of course very soon the venerable Telegraph did a volte face, claiming to have detected a “whiff of a hoax” [link] ( just like one detects the whiff of a human presence in the adjacent cubicle of a public latrine) when they reportedly “tried to follow up” the incident.

Ahem. Once again.

Les Be Happy

2008-07-01T01:58:44Z

Before people remind me of my ban on Bhojpuri music at RTDM (a tat-for-tit ban imposed because of Mithun-da’s movies in Raja Bhoja-land), I will say that just when I thought I could go on to other topics, Bhojpuri music has scaled yet a new height of excellence, a height that compels me to blog about it, despite my best intentions.

Long time readers know that I admire Bhojpuri music videos for their vision of purity — their “saadhgi” which stands in stark contrast to the decadent Western wanton lasciviousness we are bombarded with through television, radio and Times of India. In an age where innocence is as extinct as the dodo, Bhojpuri’s concentration on loosening jeans, double duties of newly married wives, hyperactive tailors and ladies with Pepsi cola in their lehenga has earned my unending admiration.

As also that of migrant laborers, like me, all over the world.

So what is this new height that I talk about?

The love of a woman for another woman. What narrow-minded people call “girl on girl action”.

Of course Bangla movies had laid the groundwork for this many years ago (after all what Bengal thinks today, Bihar thinks tomorrow). In a movie called Troyee (tentative English translation: Threesome), Mithun Chakraborty, Debashree Ray and the other guy in the threesome go to a park dancing and singing a song [Video] that can be again tentatively translated as ” We are on the road known and unknown. One and one makes two, two and one makes us.” Their song disturbs a number of couples canoodling in the park. For a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, we see one of the couples—-two girls.

Now of course this great tradition of acceptance has been perpetuated by our good Bhojpuri friends. The first song in today’s series is “Gaune ke raat dukhdayee re” which depicts a typical scene from the Hindi heartland—-a newly married girl recounts the events of her marital night by re-enacting the sequences with the said sahelis [Video] (quasi-NSFW) Truly a “banno rani tumhe siyaani hona hi tha” though to be honest she doesn’t seem too “anjani” from her saankhiyaans.

The second of this series, direct from the land where Rabri is the ruler, is a song about what else… Jalebis.[Video]. (quasi-NSFW) Jalebis magically appear from, what seems to be the posteriors of the ladies and find their ultimate repose somewhere else. The mutual attraction that these ladies share are not so evident as they more or less keep their hands off each other, perhaps because their ample paunches might bump against each other.

However what is even more entertaining is the video response they provoke from the Bhojpuri spice girls.

Yes I am talking about their iconic song “Kahe Jalebi ke tarse godiye, bada maza rasgulla main” [Video] (quasi-NSFW) which not only has plenty of physical expressions of girlie love and affection but also climaxes with the girls sucking on a rasgulla, an action which I think is Bhojpuri’s first same-sex liplock.

This video together with the similarly open “Chapra Sawaharwa Se” [Video] (chronicling the mutual love and admiration of two village girls) (possibly NSFW)has brought to the forefront, like Bhojpuri videos do, the hopes and aspirations of another persecuted but really “hot” minority—–indian women who love women.

As they say in the heartland: “Hum sab to lesbian hoyee gawa”.

Legends and Heroes

2008-06-24T22:41:55Z

[For detailed reminiscences of the 1983 World Cup, please read this.]

[Update: I was invited to do a much shorter version of the above post for the BBC. It was for their Hindi edition. The article is here. The translation to Hindi was, needless to say, not done by me. Neither did I give the title of “Dekho Maine dekha tha ek sapna”….after all without a “Phoolon ke seher main hain ghar aapna” the words lose much of its meaning.]

Many many years hence when I sit on a porch, rocking on an armchair with a shawl wrapped around me and a cup of tea with thin arrowroot biscuits in hand, I shall , in the manner of grandparents, smile self-contentedly and tell a group of wide-eyed children, voice soaked in trembling emotion —” Yes I saw it. I was there. Sometimes in front of a radio and sometimes a television. It happened right in front of me”.

I shall tell them of a red-handkerchiefed wizard who with bat and ball subdued the most powerful dragons of his time. I shall recount stories of how I, all of seven years, was in drawing class, holding my paintbrush still lest I miss the sounds of the radio and the accompanying cries of “chakka” (six) from the adjoining tea stall as India recovered from 5 down for 17. I shall wax eloquent on Balwinder Singh Sandhu’s magical out-and-in swing delivery and about the arrogance of the most powerful Dragon Viv Richards whose mis-timed pull led to the most memorable catch to be ever taken by an Indian cricket player.

I shall tell them how that victory on June 25, 1983 laid the seeds of a revolution. Of how the World Cup set in motion a sequence of events that culminated in cricket becoming a national obsession and a multi-billion empire within the next twenty years. And how that glorious summer day taught a perennially under-performing nation lacking in self-belief, that yes we “could do it”.

Of course do expect me to embellish my tales—-in my stories Yashpal Sharma will become a powerful bull of a man, Madan Lal a force of nature, Sandip Patil one of the greatest batsmen we had, Balwinder Singh Sandhu an elf. In my yarns, Malcolm Marshall will be hurling deliveries at the speed of sound, Joel Garner would be fifteen feet tall, Clive Llloyd would be wielding a 20 Kg bat and Kapil Dev would have driven a BSA SLR bicycle into Lords seconds before the final. And I would have known all along that India would win.

After all, it is the prerogative of the tellers of history to be able to add something of themselves in the story they tell.

Else how can history become legend and ultimately myth?

I shall of course not explain the sad irony behind the fact that the players who brought India their greatest victory were given 1 lac rupees each for their efforts while their successors ,who would capitalize on the tidal wave they had unleashed, would get more than a million dollars for a month of mediocrity. I shall neither talk about a heartless BCCI, the biggest beneficiary of June 25 1983, penalizing and humiliating those same heroes for trying to make a living by joining an “un-approved” league nor about how I refused to pay up a bet I lost (a Re 1 rasogolla bet I had made with my uncle that India would lose the semi-final)

I shall also decline to mention that with that victory, Indian cricket lost its innocence for ever as bookies and big money came into the game ultimately casting its pernicious shadow on the greatest Knight of the Prudential World Cup and his legacy.

And why would I omit these?

Because grandparents exist only to tell wondrous stories with happy endings.

As for teaching the not-so-pleasant lessons to the little ones—well life, as it always does, shall take care of that.

Isko Dekho Please

2008-06-15T22:24:53Z

Welcome to GB TV’s “Isko Dekho Please” . The date today is June 14, 2012 and we have for you an exclusive round up of the big releases this summer.

Abh Bas Bhi Karo Sarkar: The “Sarkar” saga continues with the fourteenth installment of the mega mafia drama. This time Abhishek and Aishwarya’s son, Mangalik Bachchan is crowned the new “Sarkar” making ” Sarkar” the first movie series in cinema history where more than 50% of the cast comes from the same family. The story is totally new: Sarkar’s empire is under attack from movie reviewers/failed movie makers, all jealous of the genius of “we-all-know-who”.

Armed with a blog, the new Sarkar attacks each of his enemies viciously with enormously laborious point by point deconstructions of their reviews. Noone is spared from his wrath—not the over-acting Masand, not over-genteel Khaled Mohamed, not the treacherous Madam Deepa Gehlot (not Gehloth) and definitely not the biggest threat of them all: Public Enemy Number 1, Rediff’s Raja Sen, a one-legged, one-eyed devil who according to Rediff message board, eats little children for dinner and deliberately uses big words in his reviews.

Directed by Ram Gopal Verma, directorial highlights of the movie are 25 minutes of total darkness where the only sound is Mangalik Bachchan’s keystrokes as he blogs, shafts of light that stream in every 30 minutes, another two scenes inspired by the Godfather series and most famously a guest appearance by Verma-friendly reviewer, Taran “Usool” Adrash who comes in 10 minutes before the interval and explains why his reviews are always laudatory to the big-shots with the very original line “Maine aap ka namak khaya hain Sarkar”.

[Cholche cholbe…What is will continue]

Main Hoon Kahawaat: Inspired by Will Smith’s “I am Legend” this movie opens in a future Kolkata where the dangerous Bandh-virus, unleashed by its mad creator Dr. Mamata Banerjee, has wiped out much of humanity. Those who have survived remain as undead zombies, hiding during the day and doing no work, coming out at night to protest against SEZs and to buy their copies of Ganashakti. Arrayed against them is the only person immune to the virus, crazy scientist Buddha who passionately hunts “bandhies” while frantically searching for a cure.

Is humanity saved? Does Kolkata go back to normal? Or is this what is normal in Kolkata?

Watch to find out.

[Prabhuji —Does a Licking and Keeps on Ticking](Picture courtesy “I love Trashy Movies“)

It’s Time to Deesco: [Idea inspired from a comment here]

Prabhuji (played by Mithun Chakraborty) is a faded disco-star. Running a dingy hotel, telling tired travelers tales of his glory days when “Aooooaa Aoooaaa” ruled the country and in generally drinking himself to ruin, his life is interrupted one day when a priest, Father Anthony comes to his door with a overweight young kid. Father Anthony tells Prabhuji—this is his son, the product of a night of passion with a groupie. Prabhuji has blanks in his memory, there had been nights when he had maangta”-ed many Julies and Sandras from Bandra. So he accepts the overweight kid as his own and calls him Momo, after his favorite dish and devotes his time and his savings in making Momo the biggest dancing star in the world.

Prabhuji sells his hotel and most of his clothes, takes Momo (Mimoh Chakraborty) to New York, cleans his soiled underwear and cooks for his son just so that Momo can learn to dance (and at the same learn Astro Physics at NASA) and the win the deeesco competition at the world-famous International Youth Conference, where he would have to defeat the notoriously demented “Son of Sam” , the offspring of the legendary “Sam” whom Prabhuji humiliated many years ago in Disco Dancer.

Just before the event, Prabhuji gets word that there will be a terrorist attack from the Shiv Sakti Organization at the conference. But what really shocks him is when Father Anthony confesses that he had lied—Momo is actually good friend Aoooo (played by Shakti Kapoor)’s illegitimate son.

So what does Prabhuji do now? Will he dance again with his guilty feet that got no rhythm and help Momo humiliate the Son of Sam? Will he again assume his alternate identity, Gunmaster G9 and save the world from certain ruin ? Will he accept Momo as a son or will he hang him to dry by letting him make his debut in a movie directed by Raj Sippy with a budget of 1 lac?

[Take that, India.]

Jasbaat, Junoon, Jung Aur Jangiya

Directed by Mahesh Bhatt, the plot of this movie is, like most of Bhatt’s offerings, most original. It involves a director having an extra-marital affair with a mentally unstable actress, an Indian who becomes a terrorist due to the oppression of the government, a tri-angular love story that involves murder and “sheets-covering-body” sex in front of a dead body. And yes it also involves Emran Hashmi, Shoaib Akthar, Kangana Run-Out, totally original music from Preetam. Needless to say, it will have its premiere in Pakistan (which explains the profusion of Urdu words in the title).

[Oh how hot I am ]

Ek Aur Mohabbatein

Shahrukh Khan (Raj Aryan) is a strict jailer who runs a men’s prison called Gaand-u-Kool. He also does not believe in love, especially of the kind that flourishes in the common bathroom areas. Into this colorless world comes a new inmate —Gaytunde (played by Karan Johar) , once a prison-guard at the same facility who was fired by Aryan for helping an inmate pick up a bar of soap. Soon the ordered world of the jail and of the jailer is thrown topsy-turvy. What is Gaytunde’s gayme? Does he want to engineer a prison riot and undermine Raj Aryan’s authority? Or does he want to teach the prison warden the beauty of love —a love that Gaytunde has for the jailer even today?

Watch out for a special item number by Ritu-bondho Ghosh in the jail shower—the song being “Hakka Bakka Hakka Bakka Hakka Bakka Hakka, Ikka naheen, Chauka naheen, chakka chakka chakka”.

Bullah Ho Gya Kharah—the Rise of Bullah

The long-awaited prequel to Gunda —this mega budget movie has been years in the making. Tracking the “rise” of Bullah, it begins with Bullah (Mukesh Rishi –official website), Chutiya (Shakti Kapoor) and Munni (arbit actress) coming to Mumbai as innocent bacche and their consequent loss of innocence as they transition from people “jo din main boot polish aur raat main tel malish karte hain” to the dark side of the force through the machinations of the evil Kafanchor Neta and Bacchu Bagona.

A treasure trove for Gunda fans, people will now get to know how Bullah and Pote became fast friends, why Chutiya was fed only London se sex ke goliyaan, the story of Ibu Hatela and his carbide-ripened kela, the strange case of Nirodh Kumar and Lucky Chikna and yes even details of the how Lambu Atta breast-fed Bullah in his nascent years (”maine usko doodh pila pilaake ke bara kiya aur abh woh mere chathi chabana chahata hain mere chathi” as Gunda fans would remember). Violent, profane and also allegorical, this prequel of “Gunda” is the most anticipated movie event of the decade.

And with Sanjay Leela Bhansali at the helm, one can be sure of blue and green tinged lenses, grand sweeping songs like “Jaha Nimboooda Nimbooda naheen ghusta wahaan nariyel ghused dete hain”, the “chinaals” from Lucky Chikna’s “latakta circus” brothel dancing in lock step to “Humara Baaje re baaje re baaje re”, a gritty castration scene softened by “Maar dalaaaa” in the background and of course Chutiya (Shakti Kapoor) wiping his buttock with a gossamer thin sheet.

A sure fire hit.

Humare Woh Aap Ke Haath Main Hain

Brought to you by the Bore-jatiyas and the world’s biggest adult features producer Vividly Video, “Humare Woh Aap Ke Haath Main Hain” is a genre-bending experiment that takes two of the world’s most successful cinematic formulae—the great Indian family drama and erotica and fuses them together in a way that noone ever thought possible. Comprising a multinational caste that constitutes Alok Nath, Reema Lagoo and Bindu on one hand and Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson and Slyvia Saint on the other, HWAKHMH tells the story of two innocent girls from the mountains(Jenna Jameson and Sylvia Saint), their doting dad (Alok Nath) and how once one of the sisters (Jenna Jameson) dies after she falls down the stairs, her other sister (Sylvia Saint) takes over her duties in the sasural.

Not much about this movie is not known except of course the picturization of an item song titled “Hoton se choo lo tum”. However we have managed to get hold of a few exclusive clips.

As we conclude this week’s Isko Dekho Please, we leave you with these scenes.

Scene 1:

Ganga (Slyvia Saint) Radheshyam ji, aap ko hum aise thoree jaane denge. Itne dinon ke baad aaye hain. Aap ko to mooh meetha karna hi padega. [Radheshyam ji, I shall not let you go like this. You have come here after so many days. You cannot leave without making your mouth sweet]

Radheshyam (Pariksheet Sahani): Ganga tum bhi. Tumhari itni badi ho gayee hain par bhi kitni natkhati ho. Tumhare baat to maan na hi padega. Magar mera ek shart hain. [Ganga, you are too much. You have grown so much and yet you are so naughty. I have to give in to you. But I have a condition.]

Ganga: Kya Radheshyam ji? [What Radheshyam-ji?]

Radheshyam: Yeh ki tum mujse aapne haathon se khilaogi [That you feed me with your own hands]

Scene 2:

Anandamohan (Ajit Vachchani): Aap to Paharganj ke misaal hain, Deendayal babu. Is umar main bhi aap sara din come karte hain. [You are Paharganj’s legend, Deendayal babu. Even in this age, you keep your hands busy all day]

Deendayal (Alok Nath): Kya kahen aap ko. Woh to jawani se hi adaat par gayee hain, din bhar come karne ka. [What to say to you.I have been working my hands ever since I was a young man.]

Scene 3:

Deendayal (Alok Nath): Ganga beti tum to Ganga jaisi pavitra thi. Aur aaj tum ghar ghar main apne…chi…chi..chi..sharm ata hain mujhe tumhare peetaji kahelate huye. Aise tumne kyon kiye beta? [Ganga my daughter you were as holy as the Ganga. And today you are going from door to door and…shame shame…I am ashamed to call myself your father. Why did you do this my offspring?]

Ganga (Sylvia Saint): Peetaji, aap hi to kahte hain ki aapki beti paraya dhan hain. Main to sirf logon mein woh dhan ko baant rahi thi . [Dad, it is you who keeps saying that your daughters are someone else’s property. I have just been sharing that wealth with everyone.]

Scene 4:

Bari-ma (Bindoo) [to Lajwanti (Jenna Jameson)]: Badchalan ladkee, kahaan se aayi hain mooh safed karke? [Lost in translation]

Stop That !

2008-06-10T18:09:12Z

Our Indian way of life is under attack once again. And if you thought a bomb at the bus stand or the rising price of petrol or the deteriorating law and order situation were the biggest challenges to our national well-being well you obviously have been thinking with just your brain.

Cause they are not.

A new menace is here, an insidious agent of malignancy that creeps silently into your bedrooms (and yes even offices when the boss is not around). Assuming the form of electron streams, it activates pixels on your computer screen with certain poisonous RGB values which, before you know, sap you of your morals, your humanity and also more than a bit of your energy.

For those of you who have no idea of what I am saying and for those of you pretending not to understand, I am talking about a certain “Bhabhi”, India’s first sensual comic character, whose excapades with a lingerie salesmen and budding cricket players have become a threat to the nation’s moral security.

Now I am sure a lot of you are mocking me right now. You are saying “How is this different from any adult themed site?” Why am I suddenly so bothered by this?

Well because this time the peddlers of smut have gone too far. As articulated beautifully by an outraged Netizen, a person who suggests the CBI to step in to arrest the content creators of the site.

In my opinion this site is more dangerous than a normal adult site since it targets young Indian audience and degrades women.

I agree. Most normal adult sites do not target younger audiences and depict women as fully-rounded individuals with feelings as opposed to just a composition of attractive body parts.

This site however is different. It is exclusively aimed at corrupting young Indians by striking at the very root of the Indian family. And with the Tehelka pointing out the cleverness of the people behind the endeavor—-in the month of April taking advantage of the post-budget season they had the bra-salesman, in the month of May they had a cricket-themed story in line with the IPL craze—I suspect a Pakistani plot hatched by the Bhab-i-Kharabi faction to trigger a collapse of the Indian family system. An endeavor in which they are being supported by the intellectuals who are sprouting fashionable words like “sexual consumerism of a post-colonial nation” to cover up the worst kind of perversion.

And the effects are already being felt. And no not just in locality boys knocking their balls into certain neighboring balconies with increasing frequencies or the friendly vacuum cleaner salesman asking for a glass of water at every house he visits but in increasingly weird behavior from our ma behen.

[Link from Times of India]

Aarti (name changed), 24, a marketing manager admits, “I fantasize my husband tying me to the bed and spanking me, abusing me and playing hard on me. It makes me feel like a wild cat waiting to be controlled.”

More such perverse ideas detailed here at the Times of India. Expect a few of these to make it to a certain comics strip.

Disgusting !

Well I sincerely hope that this site (whose URL if I provide I might be in trouble under Indian law) gets banned and its creators forced to sell men’s underwear in a prison.

Only then can we revert to the age-old rural innocence that is our tradition, a chaste utopia unsullied by the Net perverts.

A “mahaul” where a newly wed wife sings about multiple shifts of “duty” in her husband’s home in “Duty double sasurar main” .

Or an environment where a song is introduced as “Bihar main chal rahe teen din se devaron ke hartal aaj samapt hui. Mukhe mantri shreemati Rabri Devi unke maangein sweekar karte huye Bihar ke tamam bahujaiyon ko phagan bhar ke liye free karne ki ghoshna ki hain. Devar jab chahe, jahaan chahe, jaise chahen apne bhoujaiyon pe rang dal saakte hain” [Link]

Or a world where a devar can ask “Arrey Bhabhi, zyara mera doodh-badaam aur koyla dena to!” and be given a reply as apt and as innocent as “Arrey wah, devarji, badan ke liye doodh-badaam, aur daaton ke liye koyla?”

[Addendum: The last line is from an old advertisement on Doordarshan peddling daant-manjan—Colgate tooth powder. Clarification provided for those too young to have seen that ad]

Sarkar Raj–the Review

2008-06-08T04:43:35Z

Throughout much of “Sarkar Raj”, villains who seem to have had too much of “mirchi ka achaar” in the morning make vile cartoonish faces at the camera in a way that even Lambu Atta (Isharat Ali) from “Gunda” would find more than a bit excessive.

And if the exaggerated facial contortions, the “Vora naheen Woraaaa” type inane dialogbaazi, hackneyed proverbs about omelettes and the presence of a mysterious gloved assassin who communicates exclusively using hand gestures is not enough to convince you that these are nasty people with black hearts, the fact that they sit in dimly lit rooms definitely ought to.

However if for some reason you forget that it is The Varma at the helm, worry not. Cause every few minutes, RGV asserts his directorial presence by making his camera snake about objects and dive below a seat where it waits till a few artistically apposite rays of light come in through the darkness.

At which point of time it leaps out for an extreme focus on the protagonist’s face.

Other directorial touches include the background music screeching to a crescendo where perhaps a moment of silence would have added more menace and the thematic ‘Govinda Govinda” mantra, chanted sometimes in the same cadence as “Kabaddi Kabaddi”, that appears so predictably that you pray for Govinda Ahuja to materialize out of nowhere in purple trousers and say “Arreee control Yaar”.

Despite all the above-mentioned heavy-handed directorial flourishes that often make one scream out “Ooh pleeze we get it, we get it !” , “Sarkar Raj” is RGV’s best movie in recent times which is as much a testament to its solid mafia story, its brilliantly twisted last half an hour and one man’s superlative performance as it is to the extremely low expectations one has for the man who, a year ago, gave us “Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag”.

Of course I use the word “mafia” in the loosest sense of the term as it is quite evident that the Amitabh-Abhishek duo, modeled rather transparently on Maharashtra’s first family, are portrayed most sympathetically as extra-constitutional “heroes” whose actions are not guided by greed, money or power (the ignoble intentions are exclusively of the teeth-gnashing villains) but by “usool”, “adarsh” and the selfless urge to leave behind a legacy of development and prosperity for Maharashtra. Needless to say, any other implied motivation for the Sarkar’s actions would have been injurious to Ramu’s health.

Coming back to the movie, “Sarkar Raj” is saved by a command performance from Amitabh Bachchan as the titular Sarkar. He transitions beautifully from regret to anger, from anger to sadness and from vulnerability to strength, often wordlessly and subtly. To his credit, Ramu, for the most part, lets Amitabh take control over his scenes no where more so than in a beautiful sequence where he and the character played by Abhishek Bachchan (Sarkar’s youngest son) try to come to terms with the death of his eldest son (killed in the first movie). As to the other main protagonists, Abhishek cobbles together a competent performance, albeit sometimes intensely grumpy, while Aishwarya is once again pristinely plastic and absolutely unconvincing in her emotional outbursts.

But then again, every little weakness is swamped out by the Big B the moment he enters the frame.

Overexposed over the last six years. True. Repetitive. Perhaps.

But make no mistake.

The Balasaheb of Bollywood can still dominate the screen like no other.

In conclusion, definitely worth a watch despite its glaring shortcomings.