Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind

Veer—The Review

2010-02-04T03:18:51Z

“Yeh mere dadda ke talawar firangiyon ke gardanon ke liye hai” yells Veer (Salman Khan) the eponymous hero of Anil the Gadar Sharma’s moving epic “Veer”. Now most people in their right minds know that when the Dadda in concern (movie name: Prithvi Singh, the general of a tribe of drunks called the Pindaris) is being played by Mithunda the God Of all Mega-sized Things, they should do well to stay clear of his dangling talawar.

King Gajendra, played by Jackie Shroff, however oblivious of Prabhuji’s power and over-estimating his own, decides to betray the Pindari tribe to the British within the first few minutes of the movie.

Big mistake.

Barely settling into your seats balancing your popcorn, you catch, through the corner of your eye, Jackie Shroff’s arm flying across the screen cut clean off with one scythe off Prabhuji’s sword as the tune from “Ude ude hain” echoes in your ears, the song “Ude Ude Hain” being from the famous Mithun-Jackie sleeper-hit “Yamraaj” where they shared screen time under happier circumstances.

And before you can catch your breath, ‘ Hawkins ki citi baaji, khusboo hi khushboo udi” and Mithunda’s wife (played by Neena Gupta who remains in our mind for that Hawkins ad) gives birth to a baby power-house Veera, of course after much citi bajaana that mercifully takes place off-screen.

This baby Veera “chuttar dhone se pahele bandook chalana seekh jata hai” (to quote Ishqiya) and is soon robbing trains, travelling ticketless and doing nayan matakka with comely Princess Yasodhara (played by Zarine Khan, a pudgier version of Katrina Kaif continuing the tradition of Salman Khan acting with duplicates of his girl-friends like Aishwarya-look-alike Sneha Ullal in “Lucky”)

But Prabhuji has plans for his son Veera. That being to send him over to the United Kingdom as a student so that he can understand the twisted mind of the colonialists, come back to India and cut off some English limbs and gardanein. There together with his brother Punya (Sohail Khan) who not co-incidentally rhymes with Sunya, Veera sprouts quotations from George Bernard Shaw in broken English to silence the racist teacher, participates in college fests (complete with a person of African descent dancing hiphop), fights with the evil Indian royals (played by Aryan Vaid and Bal Bramhachari Puru Rajkumar) who speak in horrible British accents, dances with hotties, runs over pavement dwellers—-in the process ripping open the British empire from stem to stern. (Some have conjectured that the UK government’s recent decision to suspend the granting of student visas to Indians has been motivated by “Veer”).

Coming back to the country, Veera then hatches a twisted plot of infiltrating King Gajendra’s lair (King Gajendra having by then replaced his cut-off hand with that of C3PO’s– of Star Wars fame) as well as of winning over Princess Yashodhara , a plot which will culminate in people biting people’s hands, people tearing off other people’s love handles, a Troy-inspired fight with a man who goes by the name of Mahabali Rhino and a climactic hand-to-hand battle that will make even Hector and Achilles cry with shame.

But the story, great as it is, is not the most awesome thing about ‘Veer’.

Indeed ‘Veer’’s cinematic magnificence rests on two foundations.

The first of these is Salman Khan. The actor. You know this is going to be all about the Khan, known for his love for animals (particularly those on the verge of extinction) the moment the movie begins as the following message is flashed on the screen.

All animals appearing in the film have been treated properly and without any cruelty. Also the horse falling scene in the film is done computer generated animated shot.

Cinema historians will note that this is the movie when the torch of Godliness passed definitely from Mithun-da to Salman. Calling himself Veera (a reference to Mithun-da character Heera jo chaku se bullet ko cheera), Salman Khan recycles a line originally used by Mithun-da (Cheetah jail theke beriyeche. Saaper chobol ar cheetar khabol jekhane pore arai kilo mangso tule ney which translates to ‘Cheetah is out of jail. Whenever the snake strikes or the cheetah bites, they take with them 2.5 Kg of meat’) by repeatedly saying ‘ Jahaan se pakroonga paanch sher gost nikaaloonga’ . This is as great a homage to Prabhuji that has ever been given on screen.

There are many wow moments in Salman’s performance like when he pins down Puru Rajkumar on the ground and starts inserting and withdrawing his sword into the ground right next to the supine Rajkumar while groaning “Haaye haaye” or when a tiger roars in the background as he fights (it sounds like his stomach is rumbling) or when he executes the “Ek garam chaaye ki payeli ho” dance move with three memsahebs. The most glorious moments however are left for when Salman and Mithun-da share screen-space as son and father. Nowhere is this magic more evident when after Veer comes back from the UK, his drunk dad asks him , in the manner that all fathers do when they meet their phoren-returned sons, ‘Mere liye koi memsem naheen laya?’

‘Veer’’s second foundation is also Salman Khan. The script-writer. Co-written with a man called Shaktiman, this is slated to become one of the scripts students of film will pore over for many years to come.

Sample1:

Memsaheb (shocked expression): Accidentally, your father’s hand came out.

Sample 2:

Indian coolie: Angela-ji….
Memsaheb: Angela
Indian coolie: (flirting) Good. You are good.
Memsaheb: Thank you. But this jungle is no good.

Sample 3:

Character1: So what time?
Character 2: Wrong time.

If the sharp dialogs have made you dizzy, there is the costume design wherein Veer wears anything that makes him look hot (jeans etc), period be damned, the overall acting style wherein it seems that actors were paid on the basis of how much they could shout and of course the same kind of subtle direction that we saw from Anil Sharma in Gadar Ek Prem Katha.

In all, an epic of epic proportions. Unadulterated heaven.

[Reminder: The May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss book giveaway is still on here]

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss Contest 1

2010-01-31T23:48:19Z

Here is the first contest for “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss”.

The rules.

1. On your blog, provide a link to this page. (http://greatbong.net/book). Embedding the above picture in your blog would be nice but not needed.

2. Then write down your top 10 Hindi movie lines or top 10 English movie lines (You can do both if you want. Only one set is required for the contest). If you cannot think of top 10, make it top 5. Cannot think of even 5? Make it top 3. No problem. Only restriction: no two lines from same movie. This done to make it fair for other movies so that they dont get swamped by Gunda or Loha or Sholay.

3. Tag five friends to do the same.

4. Come over to the comment-space of this post and post your blog’s link so I can go and read it.

Remember: Before starting the tag, paste points 1 and 4 on your blog so that the rules are available to anyone who wishes to pick the tag up from your blog.

What if you dont have a blog? Put your “Top list” in the comments section of this post and tweet the link to your friends (No need to tag specific people). Please use #MIHYAP so that I can pick it up. No twitter? Link to your comment from Facebook/Orkut status message and add me as a friend @Facebook or at @Orkut so I can see the message. [Prefer Facebook if you have accounts in both places]

Prizes: Two prizes will be given. One prize will be the post I like the most. The other prize will be a random drawing among everyone who picks up the tag. Note a blog entry will be considered valid only if a link to http://greatbong.net/book is provided AND 5 people are tagged [They do not need to pick the tag up for your entry to count though], a “comments-in-RTDM” entry will be considered valid only if the link is tweeted with #MIHYAP tag or posted as status message on FB that I can see.

And what’s the prize? No it is not an iPod, iPad or [insert fictitious prize item here]. Prizes will consist of a copy of my book “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss” which will be sent to the winner once it is published.

Note: Very important. The prizes will be delivered by Harper Collins ONLY to addresses within India. If you are outside India, you would need to provide them with an Indian address.

And yes this is a shameless promotion stunt. I have a book to sell. So bear with me please.

My favorite Hindi movie quotes. For the tag you do not need to put the explanations i.e. in what is in the []s—just the lines.

1. Mera naam hain Bulla. Rakhta hoon main Khulla (Gunda) [Simply the greatest line. Ever.]

2. Main dhobi ghaat pe tuteli khaat pe leta leta ke maroonga. Tuje aisi ulti palti kareka marega ki tu khoob ki ulti karke marega (Loha) [Poetry and violence have seldom met so beautifully]

3. Main aap ka dard baatne aaya tha Mr. Shankar. Aapko mohabbat dikhanein. (Mohabbatein) [Multiple meanings]

4. Pushpa, aye Pushpa I hate tears.(Amar Prem) [I say this to myself whenever I am depressed]

5. I want to hit somebody, I want to eat somebody (Waqt Ki Awaaz) [Strictly speaking, a song line. But then again its a Mithun-da flick. ]

6. Yehi ma kaheti thi–Beta, ro naheen. Dudh peeke so ja. Le duddu le duddu. Ro rahe bete. Dudh peeke baccha jab shant ho jata tha to ma usse jhulati. Baccha phir rota to phir se dudh deti thi. Hai na Ma? Aur woh baccha phir se, phir se aaj bhi ro raha hai. Lekin aaj is chaati mein dudh naheen rahe gya. Khoon sirf khoon bacha hai… (Agni) [Link] [No comment]

7. Aaj humme bahoot bade dakoo ko pakdna hota. Takle ko. Roti khata. Is liye boo ata aur badhajmi hota. Ab hum abhi jaata jhaadi ke peeche. Tum peeche mudke naheen dekhta. Varna shame shame ho jata. (Teen Ikke)[Follows beautifully into the famous Lota dance]

8. Kelerk poonjipatiyon ki tarah beimaan naheen hote. (Clerk) [The West Bengal government made us memorize this line in Class 8]

9. Main chota sa, pyara se, nanha sa baccha hoon (Chalbaaz) [The joys of childhood]

10. Kahaan chupayenge humare ma behenon ko?” (Teesri Aankh–the Third Eye) [The eternal problem]

1. Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God! (Dr. Frankenstein (1931))

2. Emily: Really Charles, people will think-…
Charles Foster Kane: – -what I tell them to think.(Citizen Kane (1941))

3.You know you’re not too funny today, fat man(On the Waterfront (1951))

4. What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got little save pitiful, portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited.((Clockwork Orange (1971))

5. I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart! (Godfather 2 (1974))

6. I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream; that’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor… and surviving ((Apocalypse Now (1979)).

7.I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… Time to die.(Blade Runner (1982))

8.What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. (Scarface (1983))

9.The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. (Usual Suspects (1995))

10.I’ma get medieval on your ass (Pulp Fiction (1995))

Ok one more.

11. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.(As Good As It Gets (1999))

Thank you !

2010-01-31T07:01:05Z

The Webevent was a great success ! It went on for three hours which was about two hours more than I had expected it to. The conference got interrupted in the middle (i.e. connection dropped) because it was set for two hours and apologies for that. Many of you re-connected and we started chatting again. Thanks to Saurav Mohapatra at Dimdim for the facilities and thanks everyone for attending. It was a most lively and interesting session.

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss Online Event

2010-01-29T03:28:51Z

This is a reminder that “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss”’s online event will be held on Saturday January 30, 2010 at 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time which is 9:30 am Indian Standard Time on Sunday January 31 (Please note the difference in dates due to time difference). You only need an email id to register. Once inside the conference, we can discuss any and everything—from book, to the blog from KKR to KRK.

Here is the link to the meeting that will be active during its duration.

The link to the Kolkata event is here. Please do sign up (not mandatory) if you want to drop by. And here also is the link to the Delhi event.

Phir Hile Sur Mera Tumhara

2010-01-29T02:36:38Z

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara is, without doubt, one the most iconic symbols of late 80s Indian popular culture. Some love it for the music. Some for the visuals. Some for the memories associated with it—of father coming back from work as it played on the TV or everyone rushing into the living room to catch a then-rare glimpse of Amitabh Bachchan.

And some, like me, for the sight of P K Banerjee (who gave Bengalis such enduring phrases as “Dui Milan-r Milan” while presenting Italian League soccer on DD) wiping his bald spot as he and Arun Lal get down from a metro train, with the same cool swagger that would later inspire Quentin Tarantino in “Reservoir Dogs”.

So when I heard of an attempt to re-mix and make Mile Sur more relevant it for a new generation, my heart brimmethed over with joy at the brilliance of the idea. After all what could be more sure to succeed than to take a much-loved work of art and try to make it better. After all, look at how RGV improved on the original Sholay and made that movie whose name I forget but which rhymes with Haag. I was even more excited when I heard that Zoom TV, the guys who know how to make use of their zoom lens like no other (witness this expose wherein scratches made by adamantine claws on Deepika Padukone’s back prove conclusively that Wolverine is the new man in her life), were the brains behind this project. I was now sure that the focus of this new Mile Sur Tumhara (called Phir Mile Sur Tumhara like Phir Hera Pheri and Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi and Phir Haathon Mein Sharaab Hai) would on the common people, like the man rowing the boat or the mahout as it was in the original, and less on Bollywood because after all Zoom Isko Dekho.

Once I saw the new Mile Sur Tumhara, I was blown away by the same euphoria that overpowers me everytime I come to the scene in the original when 16-wickets-on-debut-and-never-anything-after-that Narendra Hirwani, the dashing youth icon of the late 1980s, walks down the beach in a sweater.

This was the perfect re-adaptation of the old favorite, one that was guaranteed to strike a chord with the “Let’s have some raunak shaunak, let’s have some party now, let’s have some ralla rappa” generation with glamor exuding from every frame and the peppier, more happening “Yehi life ka gist. So let’s twist” demented variations on the overtly simple original.

Of course there was one major fail for me. No it was not the outlandish length of the whole thing—-after all rubbing sande ka tel on anything does extend it outrageously as we all know from engineering college hostel. No what was really shocking for me, was despite the theme of the torch being passed on from one generation to the next (hence Prakash Padukone becoming Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan spawning Amitabh Bachchan), there was no room for Jeetendra’s son Tusshar Kapoor and more importantly for Mimoh. I mean come on now. No Mimoh. Remember Mithunda in the original? Remember the elephant also?

But then this flaw, major as it was, was still swamped out by the other glittering successes of the music video.

Success 1: Aishwarya Rai channeling the Sharmila Tagore expression from the original.

Success 2: Abhishek Bachchan popping out from the back with a “I come as a package deal with dad and wife” apologetic smile.

Success 3: Rituparna-mashi and Bumba-da (Prasenjit , the outrageously bearded Paaji [Bengali for naughty] Paaji [Hindi]) representing the best and brightest of today’s Bangali intelligentsia (in the 1988 version it was people like Sunil Gangopadhyay , Mrinal Sen, Suchitra Mitra and Nirendranath Chakrabarti)

Success 4: Deepika Padukone doing a Liril tribute (after all the director of the music video is the man behind the original Liril Ad)

Success 5: Shiamak Davar proving once again that he is the Johnny Lever of dance.

Success 6: Aamir Khan doing the old Bam Bam Bole meets Aati Kya Khandala facial expressions and “I am a superstar and watch me blend me with commoners” act that he does so well.

Success 7: Pagal-e-Azam Sonu Nigam, looking as fresh as he stepped out from the sets of “Jaani Dushman”, doing his excessively exaggerated gayiki and ada-kaari.

Success 8: Shahid Kapoor continuing his Chance Pe Dance act

Success 8: And finally and awesomely, Shahrukh Khan, in his hammy goodness, packing in seventeen seconds of undiluted over-acting concluding with his “never-seen-before” arms-outstretched romantic pose just to remind you, in case you forgot, the filmy flimsiness of the whole act.

Yes I can truly see this becoming the new song of a new India.

Now I wait eagerly for “Phir Baje Sargam Har Taraf Se” with Pritam, Himesh and Rakhi Sawant.

Sixty

2010-01-26T06:34:14Z

When I heard Shahrukh Moon Crater Khan tell us how humiliated he felt as the owner of the KKR at the treatment meted out to Pakistani players and more tellingly how Pakistan was a great neighbor to have, I could not resist doing my version of the dimple-cheeked, smile-to-the-side thing that turns women into moonshine and admire this man’s supreme business sense and his indefatigable desire to make money, if more proof was needed for that given his propensity for dancing at weddings.

SRK may be God and even bigger than him. But that still does not change that he is at a crossroad in his career, given the less than sterling box office of Billu and the failure of his TV avatar and of course the joke that his cricket franchise has become. To make matters worse, Padma Bhushan Aamir Khan has just delivered one of Indian film history’s biggest hits, (the equivalent of scoring 550 in 50 overs in the first innings of an ODI) and SRK, given his fiercely competitive streak, must be feeling the pressure even more. If there is any time when he has needed the support of every fan, and that includes a sizable number of Pakistanis in Pakistan and abroad, it is now just before ‘My Name is Khan’ hits the screen.

Of course dhanda hai yeh uska purana. Shahrukh Khan has always aggressively pursued the Pakistani and Bangladeshi audience by consistently filling his team with Pakistani stars and even with a supreme Bangladeshi dud, brought for an amount that makes even less sense than ‘Ramjaane’. The approach of cultivating foreign audiences has worked with less success in sports because unlike movies, where people enjoy all kinds of garbage as long as SRK shows his six-packs and monkeys around, in cricket you actually need to win some games so as to get ’support’ and not be the butt end of jokes.

Some of you may ask—but does not pandering to Pakistan by calling them a “good neighbor”, an adjective as over-the-top as Shahrukh Khan’s performance in Chahat, risk alienating his fan-base in India, given Pakistan’s consistent acts of enmity that include letting the perpetrators of 26/11 walk free as heroes? Not quite. Most of the man’s fans in India could not care two hoots about his public pronouncements, just as they care two hoots for story and originality, as long as he does his SRK-ianisms. Secondly 26/11 is old news and even though people may have joined Major Unnikrishnan–the True Patriot Orkut group a year ago, they never really visited it being too busy with the interesting discussions under ‘Kajol SRK Cute jodieeeee’, too wrapped up in the intellectual cut thrust of Aamir vs SRK to be even mildly offended at SRK’s certificate of “goodness” for the kind neighbour whose consistent efforts have laid to rest many such true patriots.

Given everything— past history, the nature of the Pakistani and the Indian audience, his strategy of cultivating a South-Asian fan-base all driven by his own single-minded pursuit of money , what SRK said makes perfect sense. Which is why all it gets from me is the SRK-ian chuckle. However what makes me Madann Choppraa mad is when I find, in some bulletin boards, SRK’s religion being dragged into this, not only a simplistic and totally wrong explanation for his pronouncements but one that (and this is what makes me mad) mirrors exactly the kind of hateful rhetoric that our delightful neighbors delight in.

When wrong-footed Sohail Tanvir says “Hinduo ki zehniyat hi aisi hai” (Watch video from 4:21 to 4:23) I understand. Coming from Pakistan, where the education system packs them with lies about winning wars with India and equates Hindus with India and Muslims with Pakistan, I did not expect the man to say anything better. He sees the world through the exclusive prism of religion and that is understandable since it forms the very basis on which Pakistan was founded.

Not India. Exactly sixty years ago, our politicians created, through an amazing process of deliberation the details of which you must read in Ramachandra Guha’s “India After Gandhi”, the Indian constitution which among other things defined India not in terms of religion but in terms of nationality. It is this foundation on which our history of the last sixty years has been built, a history that has seen us, despite several missteps and catastrophes, arrive at a place noone expected us to be on January 26, 1950, when we were prophecied by one and all to collapse as a country, to become an eternal hell-hole plagued by internecine religious and caste-based feuds. There are many reasons why we have stayed together (and it would take a much longer article to even begin enumerating them) but one of the main contributory factors has been our constitution and the principles of secularism, much abused as it has been by each and every political party in India, that are enshrined in it.

We in India understand August 15th and its significance. It is the day we won independence from the British. It’s 26th January whose importance many of us have difficulty in wrapping our minds around.

Not to take away anything from the day or the efforts of our freedom fighters, but independence in a way, given the extant political climate at that time, was inevitable. If it was not in 1947 it would have been a few years later. As it was for many Asian and African countries.

However what was not inevitable was the continual perpetuation of the Indian democratic system, a system forged formally sixty years ago. Since most countries who became independent around the same time have not been able to sustain it in the same way as we have.

One only needs to look at our bestest neighbor and its inevitable collapse into warring provinces to see first-hand what would have happened if we had had no Republic Day. Because Pakistan, in the strict sense, does not. Well it did once upon a time on March 23rd which was a day chosen to co-incide with the date of the Lahore Resolution (1940) when the formal demand for Pakistan was articulated. When General Ayub Khan abrogated the constitution, March 23rd lost its “republic day” significance and has since been celebrated as the birth of the idea of Pakistan (Pakistan Day). Not that Pakistan does not have a constitution, but it is one that like the scripts of Shahrukh Khan movies are always re-written according to the whims of the reigning superstar with the express intent of giving him the most screen-time, story be damned.(As an aside, one of the public holidays in Pakistan is Defense Day, which is celebrated on the day Pakistan attacked India in 1965, encapsulating, as if it needs any more encapsulation, the way our good neighbors define themselves)

And as you lay back on the couch on January 26th, enjoying a public holiday and watching re-runs of “Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani” and “Oh Darling Yeh Hai India”, it might be worth the time between advertisements to salute those remarkable men who drafted that marvelous achievement of our greatest generation—our constitution—the BR Ambedkars, the Nehrus, the Patels, the Prasads, the B.N. Raus, the Hansa Mehtas and the S.N. Mukherjees.

By salute I dont mean “raise your diet coke in their honor” but endeavor to intellectually assimilate the principles on which the country was founded.

If that sounds very vague, just try not to think and sound like Sohail Tanvir. You owe it to these great men. And this great day.

{Keep discussion clean. Anything I find objectionable will be removed.}

The Thappad

2010-01-23T23:51:36Z

I had stayed awake for the IPL Auctions for one reason and one reason only. And that was to watch live my favorite team KKR display its razor sharp acumen in the same way that it does every year. They did not disappoint me of course—– buying, at the highest possible price, Shane Bond, who was cannon fodder last time he played in the ICL and whose propensity for break-downs reminds of the song from Kishen Kanhaiyya ‘Band ke saath o Mama, tum break dance dikhlana, breakdown ho jaaye, par tum break lagana” . I am sure SRK must have had his reasons—maybe someone told him to invest in bond markets, maybe his kids love James Bond and he bought Shane Bond by mistake, maybe he will have a “My Name is Bond/My Name is Khan” tie-in or maybe the auction theory experts that KKR hired just felt this was a game-theoretically proper decision. I was kind of hoping for those that favored Butt and Gayle to see the wisdom in getting Poleard and Pornell. But what to do?

But the KKR-fun was dwarfed by the other story of the night. No I am not talking about Bangalore once again playing its cards excellently but of the mass thappad given on the faces of the Pakistani players. Now putting on my unemotional, rational hat this was something that could totally have been avoided. The franchisees and the IPL administration knew very well, beforehand, the security implications of having Pakistani players on team rosters. Given that, there was no need for this drama. There was nothing to prevent the IPL bosses from politely saying no to the PCB like last time, citing inability to guarantee security, except of course their own vacillations and the divergent pulls of different considerations (the Pakistani market vs the possibility of incidents). If the IPL had acted, firmly either way, this tension need not have been created, a sad of state of affairs that puts on the backfoot track 2 diplomacy attempts between the two countries.

Now since we are talking about a country who about a year before butchered our citizens and who allow the perpetrators of that crime against humanity to walk their streets amidst adulation and approbation, allow me to throw my rational hat onto the dust.

Let me tell my readers this. If you want peace and harmony and political correctness, go to the Aman people.

For those that havent left yet, here is what I felt when none of the franchises bid for Pakistani players. I felt happy. Perhaps unintentionally and through pure mismanagement, the IPL franchises have done what our government could not pull of. It has given a resounding slap– jiska goonj bahoot din tak sunaai dega. Without the embarrassment of troop-buildups from which everyone and their uncle knows that nothing will come out of.

This snub has drilled into Pakistan that thing that burns them up so much. Namely that “India call the shots because they have the money”, the extent of which can be realized when Parnell, hired for the Delhi Daredevils for 610K USD, says that his idol is Ashish Nehra. Yes that’s the extent of India’s financial muscle.

If we had had a quiet word with the PCB before the auction, I am quite sure that Afridi and the likes would say ” We are not for sale. The IPL is not challenging. The KFC Big Bash was a better tournament. Plus we want to concentrate on our country commitments” and Pakistani supporters would say “We care a shit for India.” Now of course with the sight of Afridi and the gang standing on the street side in leather skirts and heels and pouting desperately, hoping to be picked up, and with the Indian franchises driving past them without rolling down their windows, even Pakistanis, who otherwise say that they defeated India in every war they fought with us, will find it a bit tough to spin this as a “glorious Pakistani” victory.

Some may say that these people were participating in the IPL as individuals and not as representatives of the country. I would disagree. It is because of their performances as representatives of Pakistan that they are being considered for selection. Some may say that these are some of the best players in the world and demand a minimum amount of respect. Well from a personal point of view, for this group of players, I have little sympathy. If this included Wasim Akram, my all-time favorite idol, I would perhaps react differently because for me, he is simply the greatest bowler I have seen and I don’t care where he is from. Yes I know. I am not being consistent here. But didn’t I just throw my logical cap on the ground?

And what makes this so entertaining has been to see the reactions of Zaheer Abbas and Abdul Quadir and of course our eternal favorite, Javed Miandad, who has been frothing so much at the mouth asking for ICC to take-over the IPL and then articulating the national fear of India when he says “I fear a day will come when world cricket will be run by India alone, so I fear if Australia, England, Sri Lanka and the West Indies don’t realise this, world cricket will be at the mercy of India.” in such a transparent expression of unbridled jealousy that one cannot but smile. And what makes one laugh out loud is when the man who has married an offspring into the family of the biggest mafia in the world calls IPL a “mafia”

Fear not. Just get Kasab to claim that Afridi is an Indian by the name of Dhwajadhari Basu Bhowmick and the problem is solved.

But till that happens, to paraphrase Mithun-da from “Classic Dance of Love” —”Yeh snub naheen, humare krodh ka rang hai. Chatega isse?”

[Reminder: Please do try to attend the Delhi book event if you can.]

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss

2010-01-20T06:55:51Z

Standing balanced on two bikes. Bursting through the screen. Ala re Ala.

‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss’.

Here ladies and gentleman is the first look at the cover for my first book. Not just the cover but the entire spread. Some minor re-touches are being done but this is more or less the final cut. Please click on the small picture above to see a more full-sized (or what is technically called the Shakeela) version of the book spread.

The cover was designed by Pinaki De. Its one and only purpose is to “hebb the attention in plissant phashion” of any casual browser in a bookstore, hopefully enticing him/her to pick it up and leaf through its contents.

Okay. Now I have three announcements to make.

First one is that Ladies and Gentelmen… meri beti Samantha ki aathra baras hone ki khushi mai maine uski shaadi US ke meshoor businessman Sam ke eklauta bete Lotiya Pathan ke saath taye kar di hai…

No of course not.

First announcement (a repeat actually):

The official launch of my book ‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss’ will be at Casuarina Hall, in India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road on Friday March 5th, 2010 (High tea at 6.30pm followed by event at 7pm).

Everyone is invited. There is an event page for this in Facebook. Visit it please if only for the nice picture at the right hand top, which represents for me, the ideal of a successful book launch.

Second announcement (new):

An event for ‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss’ will be held at Crossword Elgin Road, 8 Elgin Road, Between Forum and Bhowanipore College, Kolkata – 700 020 on Friday March 19th, 2010 at 6:30 pm.

Again everyone is invited. Like the Delhi event, there is no need to register or get passes. Just walk in. I will have a Facebook page for this too. Presently.

Third announcement:

Before that—a little context. When I saw Subhash Ghai’s ‘Yaadein’ I was deeply influenced by not only Kareena Kapoor flinging her jacket in the face of a crocodile but by the surrogate advertisement of Passpass in the whole movie. I realized that for a truly great artistic product not only do you need a solid corporate tie-in but you need one whose name has the same sub-string repeated twice. Like Passpass.

Which is why when I was thinking of doing a virtual book event for those not in the cities of Delhi and Kolkata I could look no further than Dimdim, the open-source (jo apna code rakhta hai khulla….), zero-install, fully browser-based web-conferencing service. And so when the good folks at Dimdim gave me, most kindly, a Pro account (which allows 100 concurrent participants) I felt as grateful as I felt when the end credits of ‘Yaadein’ rolled.

The virtual book event will be held on Saturday January 30, 2010 at 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time which is 9:30 am Indian Standard Time on Sunday January 31 (Please note the difference in dates due to time difference). You only need an email id to register. Once inside the conference, we can discuss any and everything—from book, to the blog from KKR to KRK.

Here is the link to the meeting that will be active during its duration.

Please watch this blog and the Facebook group for further updates and contests.

Not The End of An Era

2010-01-19T01:18:22Z

In the summer of 1977, at one of the biggest political rallies ever seen at the Brigade Parade ground, a diminutive bald-headed man in a spotless white kurta and dhoti, declared–’As long as the people remain with us, no one will be able to efface us.’ [Source]. The sea of humanity roared back, believing in the ability of the interlocutor to bring ‘change’—change that could be believed in

On a cold January in 2010, the same man took his last journey. The mood, as Hindustan Times reports, was markedly different. Glaringly so.

But the crowd that gathered outside Advanced Medicare & Research Institute, the hospital where Basu was admitted on January 1, seemed smaller than the one that had gathered for his acolyte Subhas Chakraborty a few months ago.

At 3:05 in the afternoon, when the hearse carrying Basu’s shrunk frame emerged from the hospital, the crowd shouted “Jyoti Basu zindabad.” It failed to turn into a roar, one befitting the stature of the man whom they had voted for a record successive five times in office.

As the 24-car convoy wailed and roared through Salt Lake, Basu’s address for the 20 years, the calm neighbourhood maintained its stiff upper lip. None lined the houses on either side of the route, nor was a curious bystander in sight.

Just across the road from the hospital soccer-crazy people were going to Salt Lake stadium, where the FIFA world cup trophy was on display.

A couple of labourers kept hammering the boards of a make shift gate at the stadium with a loud and continuous thud.

Some youngsters even confessed to have stopped by to catch a glance of filmstar Mithun Chakravarty who had come to the hospital at noon.

Kolkata, the city of emotions, had failed to open up its heart for the man who was its most famous resident for decades

Jyoti Basu had been effaced. The people remained no longer with him.

It is difficult for someone like me, who grew up in the shadow of his rule, to remain unemotional about Jyoti Basu. His name would be taken when the power went out. So would it be taken when stuck in a CPM maha-micheel (grand procession)-induced traffic jam or at home during a ’spontaneous’ Bandh. As it would be invoked every day in the morning when looking over the newspaper, eyes running over stories of flight of investment capital, police malfeasance or while hearing infuriating stories of deserving candidates being passed over in academia and administration because they did not belong to the ‘party’. This perhaps explains why, barring a few exceptions, the coverage of Jyoti Babu’s death has been so negative (an example here and another here), that is even more surprising given our cultural proclivity for speaking softly about those that have passed on.

However in the middle of all the angst and villification, one would do well to remember that it was not Jyoti Basu who physically blocked the thoroughfares during work or who stayed at home, snoozing happily during a Bandh day. It was not Jyoti Basu who, overwhelmingly voted for his party, year after year. While it would be easy to say ‘CPM rigged elections’ the truth remains that for three decades, the CPM genuinely had the overwhelming mandate of the people of Bengal. It was they who validated everything Jyoti Basu did.

There is no getting around the fact that Jyoti Basu’s reign, as supreme and uncontested as it was, persisted only because he managed to tap into something very close to the heart of his subjects. And that was the overtly emotional core of the Bengali, the romanticization of poverty and passionate support for those perceived as underdogs. Some leaders bring out the best in their people. Jyoti-Babu unfortunately brought out the worst.

People not of the state would perhaps marvel at how much of Basu’s speeches concerned Cuba, US imperialistic designs, Palestine and Israel, CIA plots to destabilize the country and the evil designs of the capitalist class and how eagerly people lapped it up, quite oblivious to the decrepitude of his neighbourhood or the fact that there had been no development in the state for years. Calling himself Sarboharar neta or the leader of the dispossessed, Basu was able to spin Bengal’s poverty as a bizarre ‘badge of honor’ —capitalists avoided the state because here, we people, principled and ‘awake’ as we are, do not put up with their exploitative shit and Bengalis are jobless because the Center is furthering the World Bank’s /Dr. Evil’s agenda.

And people bought this. Hook, line and sinker.

Encroachers on private land became revolutionary heroes, our local Bangali Sandanistas.

Illegal Bangladeshi migrants were excused with the “Oh they are poor people crossing the border to serve as plumbers, masons and odd-jobs-men. Surely we cannot be as dis-compassionate as to slam the door in their faces”.

CPM goons running unlicensed shops that sprouted on city footpaths, forcing people to walk on roads and blocking genuine shops, came to be glorified as ‘poor people just trying to make a living.’ with any attempt to displace them being perceived as ‘big business influencing public decision-making’.

Of course Basu’s reign was not built on just touchy-feely. It was a masterful enterprise built on the infiltration of the party into every aspect of the administration and the democratization of corruption whereas everyone in the party was allowed to benefit from the fruits of power, no one too much that it became an embarrassment and no one too little that he felt slighted. And when the ’soft’ approach did not work, there was always some other means available to make people see the party way.

Another of Basu’s pillars of support was that he was a bhodrolok, classy and understated, not crude and crass. Bengalis felt pride that our Chief Minister, unlike his fellow chief ministerial colleagues, did not have hair sticking out his nostrils, knew which wine went with lobster, was impeccably turned out in white dhoti and kurta, did not play chaddi-phad Holi, did not get weighed in gold at public functions and did not expect ministers to roll on the ground and touch his feet as a gesture of obeisance. Now chief ministers who expected their sycophants to write their names in blood may have been doing a better job at administering than our man, but that was irrelevant for Basu’s constituents.

Of course in conversations, people grumbled about Basu, made jokes about his summer trips to London and the Bengal Lamp scandal with the rider that such small things happen in politics—at least our Jyoti-babu does not take kickbacks in millions from arms contractors or get caught smuggling watches.

The first major blow to Basu’s emotional connect with his subjects happened during the ill-fated Operation Sunshine, an attempt to clean up the hawkers who had illegally set up semi-permanent structures on the footpaths forcing people to walk on the road for years, causing traffic snarl-ups and accidents. Concentrated primarily in Sealdah and Gariahat, two places coincidentally where there were powerful Congress hawker’s unions, it was a PR disaster for Basu. As bulldozers razed to the ground illegal constructions, people were aghast, not at the fact that such operations had been allowed to continue for years but because their beloved Jyoti Basu was behaving like a capitalist, kicking the stomachs of poor people.

It was at this point of time, with the game on the line, that a champion went for the ball. While the police backed by CPM muscle laid siege to Gariahat crossing (I stayed nearby so I saw this firsthand) and with the Congress, typically outnumbered and vacillating, one woman rushed right into the action almost daring the police and the CPM to bring her down. Who was this courageous lady in white, standing up for the underdogs and rushing into the paths of bulldozers, the same lady who had her head split open by CPM goons years before, undeterred and brave?

Bengal was to find out soon.

Mamata-didi, Jyoti Basu’s bete noire, became his biggest disciple in terms of following in exactly his footsteps. From then on, it was she who had the inside track to the Bengali heart faithfully regurgitating the rhetoric and disruptive mode of agitation that had served Basu so well in his struggling days with the Bangla Congress and SS Ray. With Basu’s successor Buddhadeb’s attempt to at least partially break with the Jyotian tradition and bring investment, development and other cusswords into the state, Mamata’s Jyoti Basu avatar became even more potent. There was one aspect in which she lagged—-she lacked Basu’s urbane educated appeal (which is very important in Bengal). She realized this and that explains her much lampooned ‘PhD from East Georgia’ (link), her attempts to sing “Aaye Mere Bhoton Ke Logon” in her “My bhoice is bhary choked” appearance on Saregama and her adventures in poetry [Link], efforts that would make Wordsworth ’stop here and gently pass’ (Sample: Until and unless we change such politics, Politics will be lost in its own whirlpool of politics).

But then with Nandigram and Singur and with the total endorsement given to her by worthies like Mahasweta Devi and other assorted intellectuals, Didi has filled up that lacunae.

She is now finally ‘there’. Ready to step into the shoes of the man who, with absolutely no democratic challenge to his authority, for twenty-three continuous years ruled a state. A state that has still not changed its fundamental character.

And so while one may think that an era has ended, the truth remains that it is just beginning. Again.

Jyoti Basu is dead. Long live Jyoti Basu.

Ek Aur Do Barah—the Anger

2010-01-18T17:14:18Z

While the tamasha of the Golden Globes was going on today, had a chance to watch Sidney Lumet’s ‘12 Angry Men’. A tight, claustrophobic movie about twelve men in a jury room on the ‘hottest day of the year’ deliberating whether a eighteen-year old kid from a rough neighborhood, against whom evidence is stacked, is guilty of murdering his father, ‘12 Angry Men’ is a fascinating look at justice, prejudice, the wisdom (or lack of it) of the crowd and perhaps the best explanation of ‘reasonable doubt’ that one is likely to find in popular media—a concept most of us (myself included) often seem to forget as we fulminate in anger when we find courts releasing criminals whom we know ‘did it’. If you have not seen ‘12 Angry Men’ , then I recommend you do so. This is as close to cinematic perfection you are going to get, more so in the season of vacuous-special-FX-being-made-to- pass- off -as-great cinema. Or in short— ‘Avatar’.

Though I have not watched it, I do know that ‘12 Angry Men’ was re-made in Hindi as Ek Ruka Hua Faisla. I think it can re-remade again as ‘Ek Aur Do Barah —the Anger’ , this time with more masala and more of the Bollywood aesthetic. Since it has to make money, we have to have song (Dilip Sen Sameer Sen), dance (Bosco-Caesar) and flesh. And we need big-name stars for every juror.

Here are my first thoughts on casting with every Juror being given the same character stereotype as the original. [Spoiler free]

Juror No 1: Jury foreman. Ineffectual leader. Hardly gets in a word edge-wise. I would get Alok Nath to play this role, as he would periodically be able to say “Mahashaye aap itne vichalit kyon hai?”

Juror No 2: A wimp. A follower who is eager to be led. I am thinking Tusshar Kapoor for this. For obvious reasons.

Juror No 3: Loud, voluble, eager for ‘revenge’. The principal antagonist. The man whom the hero calls the executioner. Sunny Deol. No one else. Of course one may argue that if it was Sunny Deol, he would not waste 97 minutes of screen time to convince the other jurors but simply ram his dhai-kilo ka haath into soft tissue and then choke the life out of the alleged criminal. But bear with me here.

Juror No 4: The cold calculating banker. The one who claims ‘never to sweat’. Suave. I would put black-goggled KRK here for the gravitas that he would bring to the table.

Juror No 5: The man who has worked upwards from the slums. A man who finds trouble fitting in and feels he is discriminated even now. Emran Hashmi would be a good fit here.

Juror No 6: Not too bright, blue-collar guy in the original with a healthy respect for elders. I would make him female, if only because this movie would otherwise resemble the common room of an engineering college. So in my movie, this would be a working woman who would, when it starts raining, wander out into the balcony and dance seductively. Played by Rakhi Sawant.

Juror No 7: The “I-could-not-care-less” juror who wants to get the whole thing over and go to a baseball game. Johnny Lever is needed here if only because the movie needs comedy, fart jokes and mimicry. Around the time when the jury goes to 9-3 in favor of conviction, I want Lever to do his ‘Ashok Kumar playing kabaddi’ routine to relieve the tedium.

Juror No 8: The hero. The sole dissenter. The voice of reason. The shining knight dressed in white. While this suggests Jeetendra, I have to go by emotion on this one and cast Mithun-da. Why? Cause it’s my movie and Prabhu-ji has to be the main man. Plus no one can whip out a knife or say the smart lines like ‘Dushmon ke laashon pe bhangra karne waale kabhi landha naheen hote’ as he does.

Juror No 9: The perceptive old man. Juror No 8’s first ally. A K Hangal is synonymous with ‘old man’. Plus his jodi with Mithun-da has never been revived after Saukheen.

Juror No 10: Racist, vile, not really interested in justice. This has the largest scope for overacting, frothing at mouth, shaking lips, rolling eyes. Yes Yes. You know where I am going with this. My Name is Ham.

Juror No 11: The watch-maker. The smart immigrant with intelligence written large on his face who starts off slow but grows in stature as movie progresses. I think I will ask Uday Chopra to do this since he is perfect for the part and more importantly that might get me some investment from Yashraj.

Juror No 12: The ad executive. Thinks himself to be smart and cool but whose dumb-ness is revealed the moment he speaks. Viveik Oberoi.

In addition, I would make sure that even the minor characters are played by experts. For instance, even though the murdered old man never appears in the original, for my movie I would get Moonmoon Sen to play him since her acting abilities are best displayed when she has no screen time. Aamir Khan would play the 18-year old criminal because he likes to think he is 18 and because he will be able put a lot of method-acting into his 3 seconds. Himesh will be the bored judge, since he spends most of his time nowadays judging reality shows. Sherlyn Chopra would play the defective fan who will remain off during the first part of the movie and then be turned on. Upen Patel would be cast as the wooden table at which the jurors sit. The court clerk, who occasionally comes into the room, to provide exhibits for the perusal of the jury would be essayed by Neha Dhupia who is the world-acknowledged expert of exhibiting.

Anyone willing to finance my venture?