Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind

It Is Still The 90s

2009-11-05T18:54:12Z

It’s still anyone’s game. The ball gets hit to the extra-cover boundary.

The second run is on. The entire country is on its feet channeling Rajesh Khanna’s ( Disco Dancer) “Ga beta Ga” in a collective “Bhaag beta Bhaag”.

And then the two teams draw apart. Once again.

A flat beautiful under-pressure throw comes in at the ideal height for the keeper. Typically Australia.

The Indian player running to make the crease decides not to dive. And gets run out by a frame. The match is lost. Typically India.

Haag beta Haag.

Watching today’s game was like walking through a time-portal. It was the 90s all over again. Australia power to a humongous score losing just four wickets. If you looked at the right hand side of the score-card and blanked out the left (i.e. names) you would be forgiven for thinking that Mark Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Michael Bevan had been the batsmen.

And then when India bats, there is Sachin at one end, towering, imperious and carrying the weight of billions of people on his shoulders. And a few Mickey Mouses at the other. There is a brief Ganguly cameo. Oh wait that was Sehwag. Then there is a middle-order collapse—was that Azharuddin who just got flummoxed by a ball that jumped on him? No it was Yuvraj. Surely that cant be a Youngistan player who doesnt run covering the wicket from a throw but actually swerves away, in the process taking extra steps as well as giving fielders a view of the stumps, something that should be burnt into any international cricketer’s DNA as a “no-no”? Emm it actually is.

Is that Jadeja who commits kamikaze, ants-in-pants and totally loses the plot? Yes it is. Not that Jadeja. A new Jadeja. Same difference.

Is that thumping cover-drive punch from Sachin? Is it? Yes it is. Will it be curtains the moment he gets out?

It certainly will.

So there you have it folks. Another whole day wasted, like the many days wasted in the 90s, watching a game India manages to lose in the last over. Principally because in this decade, we are still decades behind Australia in running, fielding and finishing.

Okay maybe not wasted. Because we got to watch a Sachin master-class with some of his off-stump play being of the 98 vintage—his annus mirabilis. Yes we know. He could not finish it off. But maybe that was all for the better—–the rest of the Mickey Mouses did not deserve to finish winners today.

And so deja vu. Sachin Man of the Match, morose and disconsolate at the podium, accepting a prize for yet another superhuman effort with a touching “Playing for India has always been motivation enough” message, something perhaps a few of the IPL stars in the team need reminding. The Australian captain with a “We rule” smile on his face. Dhoni with the “Aaj haar” (defeat today) expression we grew up dreading.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Sadly.

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The King And I

2009-11-04T22:43:34Z

[Long Post]

I had gone to see teenage-wet-dream Divya Bharati and hiding-fat-by-wearing-sweater Rishi Kapoor movie “Deewana” the very day it was released, little knowing my life was going to be changed. It was then, just like how Moses saw God behind a burning bush when he least expected Him, that I saw a similarly magnificent vision, sliding on a block of ice, singing “Koi na koi chahiye pyar karne waala”. I had seen him before in “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” but there I did not know it was him, his performance being overshadowed by an attractive lady, playing the architecture student in a hat, a lady who would since go on to be a God of Big Size Things in a different domain. After an intense hand-throwing performance with a curious propensity to curl his lip and make his eyes red, something I had never seen before and which at that time made me go “Wow aisi deewangi dekhi naheen kaheen”, this man slowly started vanishing into the woodwork of Bollywood, like Avinash Wadhavan and Ayub Khan, sometimes being seen driving Nagma on bicycle (King Uncle), dancing behind Divya Bharati as she worked it in a delectable black top (Dil Aashna Hai), being whispered about in the men’s room for “that” scene in Maya Memsaheb or playing second fiddle to Nana Patekar as the loveria-afflicted hero in “Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman”, a movie conjectured to have inspired the growth of Satyam under Ramalinga Raju and also the “taali bajao” theme song of those who walk the middle path— “Aaee Raju Chal Aaja Re Baaju” [Video]

And then he rose from the dying. Having gone to see a low-buzz movie called “Baazigar” only to enjoy Anu Malik’s signature “Main milee tu mila duniya jaale to jaale” vocal riff (which I still worship), I was blown away. From that iconic “Madaannnn Chopprraaaaaa” supremely bloody male-male penetration (even today that scene lingers with me, for instance when I saw “Dil Bole Hadippa” the other day I had this urge to shake my lip, yell “Adityaaaa Chopprraaaa” and run into a high-tension wire) to the historic Knight Riders-throws -down-Rajasthan Royals from the top of the building (a scene that totally caught me by surprise, in a way the ending of “Usual Suspects” did) to the naughty “zip up” move on the heroine’s behind to the scene of Shahrukh Khan in a towel playing tennis and jumping into a pool (a scene that electrified, I have been told, more people than Kajol’s towel dance in DDLJ). “Baazigar” was simply history. The launch of something epic.

Desiring more of this man, I went first-day first-show to Priya cinema hall to see “Darr”. That day for some strange reason the Kolkata chapter of the Sunny Deol fan club had booked tickets en masse (all dressed in bandanas like Sunny Deol in the movie) and as luck would have it, my seat fell right in front of them. And throughout the length of the movie, these maniacs kept screaming “Sunny tor baap” “Juhi tor maa” (Sunny is your dad, Juhi is your mom) whenever the love-obsessed anti-hero would slant his head, slit his red eyes and quiver his lips. Thanks to these inconsiderate fans, I could not fully appreciate “Jadoo Teri Nazaar” which would go onto become the anthem of frustrated stalkers as every Romeo from Khardah to Kankurganchi went K-k-kiran at bus-stops nor could I wrap my mind around the superhuman feat wherein Sunny Deol starts chasing the anti-hero from the mountains of presumably Switzerland right to the beach.

With my Higher Secondary exams over and reeling under a disastrous Joint Entrance Exam, I went to see “Anjaam”. I came out shaken (one of my friends said “The Higher Secondary exams were better than this movie”) unable to decide which was more terrifying—–Madhuri Dixit’s stuffing money down throats, eating human beings or Dipak Tijori as the hero. What however I am sure about is there was more blood spilt in “Anjaam” than all the blood spilt in the seven Saw movies. No two ways about it.

Karan Arjun came and went—primarily a two hero flick with the star turn being provided by Rakhee with her maniacal “Mere bete Karan Arjun aayenge. Dharti cheed ke ayenge. Aasman todke aayenge”. So did “Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na”, making not much of an effect at the box office, despite an endearing (some would say his best along with Swades) performance as a golden-hearted loser and one awesome awesome musical score including my personal favorite “Kab se kare hai tera intezaar”.

And then it happened. Possibly his greatest triumph. “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” —a movie that rewrote Indian movie history. Fresh in college and suffused with the lovey-doveys, I swooned. As did an entire generation. Na Jaane Mere Dil Ko Kya Ho Gya. Abhi To Yaheen Tha Abhi Kho Gya. Soon everyone was standing at bus stops, swinging their head sideways, imagining an SRK dimple on their cheeks as they sang to their imaginary muses (mere khawabon main jo aaye) hoping that one day, while on the Canning Local squeezed in like sardines between the vegetable vendors and industrious pickpockets, they could stretch out their hand and a Simran would grab it. Come fall in love.

However DDLJ also killed the man for me. From that time, he became eternally typecast, trapped in the alternate reality of the Chopra-Johars, unwilling to take a risk with his image essentially strait-jacketed playing the “lover boy” . With even the same name. Rahul. Mar gya Rahul. Rahul naam to yaad rahega. A character so infuriatingly real that recently an American terrorist was planning to travel to India to take out a prominent Indian actor identified as “Rahul” [Link].

Which is why I did not like “Yes Boss”. And could barely sit through “Dil To Pagal Hain”, a movie I am sure was commissioned by the military-industrial complex to sell red heart-shaped balloons (remember the song “Chand ne kuch kahaa”). Ditto “Pardes” (Agar Ganga se pyar karna gunha hai…to [goaty bleat] hai…hai…) helmed by Subhash Ghai who brought novelty to the genre by telling people to “rise in love” (in Taal) rather than “fall in love”. The final nail was driven into my devotion for the man when in 1998, the Karan that Rakhee had prophesied in “Karan Arjun” arrived, forging a Big Ears-Noddy duo, the greatest commercial alliance to be seen in Hindi moviedom. “Kuch Kuch Hota Hain” came into being, bringing into existence the most irritating over-precocious kid ever captured on screen and strengthening the formula that would be the bane of Bollywood till today.

Not that he was still was not making some delectable movies. Like “Ramjaane” which created a cult of white coats and red ribbons around the head in Kolkata and the reciting of poetic lines like “Raat badi choti hai lekin baat bari long ala ala ala long ala long”. Or “English Babu Desi Mem” where…oh who am I kidding….that movie I loved because of Sonali Bendre and “Bharatpur loot gya ui mere amma” and “Abhi abhi solaah baras ki hui”. Like “Koyla” by far his most intense action movie with some of the most spectacular sequences ever shown in mainstream Bollywood.

My final falling out with the King happened when we went to see “Duplicate”. For one, porn MMS’s had more detailed plots than that one had. If that was not enough, I was sitting beside a guy friend, a friend who worshipped the King so much that he had a bare-chested picture set as his desktop (his retort was “What do you expect? Me to put a picture of Sonali Bendre? What will my parents think?”). As the hero took a bath, I whispered to him “So paisa wasool”? Immediately a slap hit my cheek. It was my friend, in great wrath, lashing out at having his private moment ruined.

That was it for me. Getting slapped in public for him. Yeh thappad ki goonj and all that. The last straw on the camel’s back. Honestly. My faith was finally broken.

Then doing graduate studies in the US, I went to see Asoka with a few friends. My verdict was simple: this movie was the revenge of the Kalinga rajya on Asoka’s legacy for two reasons: the genocide perpetrated on them and the dropping of Debashish Mohanty. Reducing one of the greatest stories of sin and redemption to a princey romance story with Samrata Asoka leaping out of lakes in superslow motion and making underwater love this was one King’s desecration of another. Then there was Mohabbatein, the five love-stories-in-a-movie, with the King playing Kapil Sibal trying to scrap exams so that his wards may make music and make love. Followed by Devdas which we went to see from Stonybrook in a group of about fifty, sitting in front of the Indian theater playing Antakshari (we had arrived two hours in advance) and then entering to find that the Indian proprietor had oversold tickets. Which meant many of us saw the movie sitting on the stairs, as we were blown away by the assault of colors and the “maar daala” overwrought acting. Followed by “Veer Zara” where his acting as an old man was distinguished from that of young man’s by a slight shake of the head and three strands of white hair, though the final scene where he recites “Main quadi no 786″ as the Pakistani judge starts clapping was deeply moving, a sentiment captured by an Youtube commenter

thanks are due to you dude, for uploading such kind of ultimate videos…. long after i saw the movie in theater, i recalled the moments when i was literally crying at this very moment.. great? movie, great scene, great moment, great words spoken, great acting by the kingly person, and great work by you to have uploaded it..

There have been many more—of failed marriages with Kings XI owner and of rebirth and of a government employee who is unrecognizable without a mustache— none of which have had a fraction of the impact his dozen “Aiiiiis” in “Army” or one nod of his head in “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” had on me. Why— I have often wondered? Is the King no longer as magnificent as he used to be? Or has the King remained the same while I have moved on?

Of late as old age approaches and each day means that I am closer to the end, I contemplate more and more. Was I wrong all along? Is He not the King but God himself? Commentator Rajib thinks so and he has made a very compelling argument in the thread of this post. And he may have a point. When I went to see “Om Shanti Om” in Laurel in a packed theater, the moment He came onto the screen brandishing his six packs, an auntie sitting in front of me screamed “Hai mar jawaan” in what I can only explain as religious rapture. Not only she but also an uncle cried out “Ohhhhhh” in a way that was distinctly orgasmic.

Yes it make sense. After all in Veer Zara does he not sing “Main Yahaan Ho Yahaan Ho Yahaan” thus informing us of his presence in everything—-T20 franchises, calling card advertisements, wedding party dances, Bollywood nights, game shows, press conferences, in cricket stadiums handing out CDS of his latest movies? Is this not the ultimate proof of his divinity?

Recently He turned forty-four. On the occasion he announced his ambitious plans for the world of mice and men, in a style that he has made his own. [Link]

Now I want to do something in return. I want to bring a smile to the faces of youngsters. I don’t want to start an NGO, but I do wish to do something for the cause of the girl child… The feeling of wanting to give is stronger now than it has been. I think of life as work. I want to introspect as to which direction I should take my life in. I want to do something to save the environment. Honestly, I haven’t done my bit yet but I will start now.

Bringing smiles to young people. Do something for the girl child. Introspect. Save the environment. Sell money transfer packages to India. And dance to “Love mera hit hit”. Which mortal can do all this?

Happy birthday King or God whoever you are. Where would be all without you?

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The Phantom Menace

2009-10-29T04:11:51Z

With chapters of my book having come back with edits and with a new chapter I have been working on together with talking to the cover designer, I have been on a blog-break of late.

However when sensational things like Arundhati Roy justifying the reign of terror unleashed by the Naxals and Kamal Khan hurling a waterbottle at designer delicate-flower Rohit Verma (who weeps like somebody has died when asked to cook) on Big Boss Tritiyaa happen then I am forced to break the silence.

Sensational yes. Surprising no. After all both Ms. Roy and Mr. Khan push the envelope of outrageousness for the expressed purpose of self-promotion, a game known as Rakhiopoly wherein one is forced to continually raise the bar of provocativeness in order to keep oneself in the public gaze.

That is however where the similarity between the two ends. Because MNS’s-worst-nightmare KRK, with his silver gun locket and his “I am a multimillionaire whose milk comes from Netherlands” fondness for the endowed “Ka-Laudia” , is immensely endearing and totally entertaining.

Whereas Ms. Roy’s recycling of Chomskian rhetoric (”You have an army of very poor people being faced down by an army of rich that are corporate-backed”) in a way even Pritam would scoff at being unimaginatively unoriginal and her monumental hypocrisy (”If all corporations are evil, why does she take payments from publishing houses and if the environment is being destroyed, why does she let trees be destroyed to enable her to make money off selling her prose?”) is plain tiresome.

Yet what provokes me to post is that for many what she says about Naxals finds resonance in that Naxals are considered to be “independent” Robin Hoods fighting the system on behalf of the dispossessed, a militant reaction to state-oppression from tribals and other marginalized folks. This explains why the arrest of people like Chhatradhar Mahato is met with email petitions (like this one) [the argument being that Mahato is not a Naxal but a tribal leader even though Naxals were holding hostages demanding the release of "non-Naxal" Mahato) and people, like our prime minister, go to great lengths to point out that Naxals are not terrorists .

The argument as to who is a "terrorist" and who is "misguided youth" is a never-ending one (For instance, in the Western "liberal" media, the people who attacked WTC are terrorists but those who attacked the Indian parliament are "militants") that has been fought over so many times that it is not worth going into again. However what requires comment is that Naxals are anything but the "little guys fighting for justice pushed into a corner" that their PR people like Ms. Roy would have us believe. They are an organized army-like entity with a leadership structure whose principal goal is the destruction of the Indian state and the rule of law. They terrorize the populations they claim to protect, extort and appropriate resources from the dispossessed and engage in violence against people who do not represent the state. Their arms are sophisticated, they are financed by India's enemies and they are allied with SIMI tapping into their organization and their funding channels.

However unlike your average SIMI terrorists who at least publicly are condemned by one and all, the Naxals have widespread support and sympathy among the chattering classes (who ironically will be the first persons strung on trees and their possessions taken if the Naxals attain their aims). In an age where the battle is not only fought with guns and bombs but also with TV cameras and boom mics, this makes the Naxals even more dangerous.

In West Bengal, allied with the state "opposition" (who are ironically part of the government at the Center and playing a heinous double game [Link] of opportunistic collusion) and provided full support by the intellectual base in Kolkata consisting of a motley crowd of marginal actresses/directors/theater personalities/poets one of whom even donning Maoist fatigues while meeting the “non Naxal Naxal leader” Chattradhar Mahato , they have won a string of major victories by weakening the state and derailing development. And not coincidentally after their major victories, the armed insurgency in the region has also seen a remarkable escalation with the state government finding their hands bound by the deluge of public opinion, misguided and all-informed it is, in favor of the “tribals” –a campaign of misinformation orchestrated by Naxal sympathizers in the media and influential sections of the intelligentsia.

Given this, it becomes contingent on us to raise our voices, even when a book needs editing and release deadlines approach and annual evaluations are due and midterms need grading and project work need to be completed, to call out the Naxals for what they are.

Terrorists. Deshdrohis.

Which incidentally is the name of Kamal Khan’s iconic movie.

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The Gully Cricket League

2009-10-19T20:19:30Z

I presume that rarely in my many years on this planet have I been as disinterested in the cricket that is on offer than I have been over the last few weeks. The Champions League has been on and I could not care less. There is Duminy from South Africa (and a Mumbai Indian) representing a South African T20 team facing off against fellow South African Jack Kallis wearing a Bangalore jersey. Then there is Gibbs from Deccan Chargers who does not turn up for the team we associate him with but for a different franchise. If Delhi Daredevils had advanced and New South Wales had not, then would David Warner switch loyalties midway through the tournament and turn out for his IPL team?

Why single out the Champions League you say—national lines are blurred inside IPL also. But there at least the allocation of different international stars to different teams is kind of fixed—-Bravo plays for the Mumbai Indians, Hodge and David Hussey are not supposed to be on the winning side. Over here, even that association is torn apart creating weird situations like what would happen if Beckham, in his Real Madrid days turned up for Man United in a tournament just because Real Madrid had not qualified for it. This of course does not happen since players like Beckham play for one club at a time unlike in cricket, players are journeymen playing in different leagues at different times of the year with someone like Brendon McCullum being associated with three franchises concurrently(Otago, New South Wales and Knight Riders).

The only good thing about the Champions League is that it reminds me of gully cricket growing up in Calcutta when the big bullies would be captains, do a toss (usually done by guessing correctly if the opposing captain has the pebble in his right or left hand or has it/dropped it) and then alternately pick players based on strengths (I was always the last person selected)so that every afternoon the composition of teams would be different. Of course the Champions League lacks the joy of breaking glass or getting shouted at by second-floor “masi” for putting the ball in her balcony (not our fault that it is straight in the mid-wicket region where all cross-batted hoicks go). Which is why I have avoided it totally this year.

Now coming to what I do care for.

With respect to the forthcoming ODI series against Australia, the board of selectors once again showed their sagacity by laying the blame for India’s latest debacle on where it was due—on the shoulders of Venkatesh Prasad, cricket’s very own Latin Lover whose legacy to a game of pace and speed has been slow delicate caresses and sensual massages as symbolized by his slow and slower deliveries. When he was hired as India’s bowling coach, my first impression was that he would be the glorified ball-fetch guy, since he never revealed great sagacity while bowling. Evidently he proved everyone wrong being felicitated for India’s awesome pace prowess last two seasons. Recently however with the wheels of the great Indian pace machine coming off, the Board has decided that Venkatesh Prasad is the real villain. And so the axe has fallen, slowly of course, on the shoulders of the great Venkatesh. And if Batman gets chopped, can Robin be far behind? So out goes Robin Singh. And if RS gets booted, can the other RS be far behind? So there goes R(P) Singh and Yousuf Pathan as part of the ritual bloodletting that must follow a bad campaign, the Board of selectors has once again cycled back in Munaf “Bobby” Patel (context here) —though something tells me that it is just a series or so before RP Singh comes back in as part of the selectorial musical chairs.

Of course the most controversial omission was that of Rahul Dravid. Several questions have been asked with respect to why he lost his spot—-did the selectors just choose him for one series as a fire-fighting measure? Was he omitted because the Indian pitches are flat and will he be recalled once again when we tour? Does Dravid deserve this kind of “Now you are needed, now you are not” treatment? Or was this because Dravid, in the match against Pakistan, ran horribly between wickets and that Gambhir, never the most even-tempered of persons, threw away his wicket frustrated at Dravid’s inability to rotate the strike at a time Gambhir was in sparkling form?

Or were the reasons elsewhere?

[Link]

Following India’s first-round exit from the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa, a senior player in the team made it a point to call Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, Chief Administrative Officer, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and told him that some of the youngsters don’t have any feeling of sadness losing.

Of course they don’t feel sad. Why would they? When I used to play “gully” cricket even I never felt sad when my team lost. Why? Because there was no “my team” since if I was in “Sunil-da”’s team today I would be in Paplu-da’s team tomorrow and in Tunku-da’s team day-after-tomorrow on Wednesday (Paplu-da has maths tuitions on Wednesday afternoon and does not play). The only thing that made me sad was if I did not get my batting, especially after having made to fetch the ball from the fourth floor three times while fielding.

I would think that with cricket being reduced to gully cricket in terms of team loyalty, thanks to the money-sharks at the ICC and BCCI and the proliferation of tournaments like the Champions League , its useless blaming the players for not feeling too distraught at a defeat.

After all is not the “Indian team” yet another “club side” (after all didnt the BCCI argue that the “Indian team” represents a private entity and not the nation), just one of many, for which they play throughout the year?

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God Is a Match Fixer

2009-10-14T03:01:47Z

A very interesting article in the New York Times today.

Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I’m not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I’m talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, put this idea forward in a series of papers with titles like “Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal” and “Search for Future Influence From LHC,” posted on the physics Web site arXiv.org in the last year and a half.

According to the so-called Standard Model that rules almost all physics, the Higgs is responsible for imbuing other elementary particles with mass.

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

Read the whole article for a more full understanding.

Or perhaps not.

What the theory implies that some agency, let’s call him/her/it God, prevents the success of the Large Hadron Collider project because the discovery of the Higgs Boson is something “He/She/It” abhors, perhaps because it might destroy everything that there is. The idea is not new and there have been variants of this basic premise. According to another kind of speculative theory, there are infinitely many possible universes , with each decision point creating multiple universes. Out of these multiple universes, there is a subset of “feasible” universes (for instance one where Abhishek Bachchan is not married to both Karishma and Aishwarya or one where Akshay Kumar is an ascetic or one where water flows down and not up) and we are currently in one of those “feasible” universes. Taking this idea forward, there may be other parallel universes where the Large Hadron Collider has succeeded (i.e. Higgs Boson produced) though the one in which we reside is NOT one of them. According to Nielsen-Ninomiya, since the production of Higgs Boson itself may render an universe infeasible and since we reside in a feasible universe, the experiment will never succeed. This is essentially an extension of what is known as the anthropomorphic view of the universe (for more on this read Lisa Randall’s “Warped Passages“) which essentially says “Since we, important as we are, live in this universe things must always work out for the good in order to keep us existent”.

This of course explains a lot of things. For instance why Satyen Bose, after whom boson is named, never won the Nobel prize because God, being self-loathing, abhors Bongs as well as Bosons. It also gives a way the seemingly ridiculous event of Obama winning the Nobel prize may be rationalized —-any other path in space-time with an alternative winner would lead to the destruction of everything. This is why God “fixed things up”, in essence snipping off branches in the decision tree with foreknowledge of what would happen if those paths were taken suggesting the possibility that many of what we think are “choices” do not exactly exist and that “match fixing” might have religious significance. This also explains many other mysteries from why I got out 37 of 100 in the nightmarish Maths Second paper in Class 12, why Gatting tried to reverse-sweep Alan Border to why Uday Chopra ever acted in a movie . Simply because the universe might have been annihilated otherwise.

And finally it provides a complicated, intellectually-masturbatory framework for justifying what grandma is fond of saying: “Bhagawan jo kartein hai acche ke liya kartein hain”.

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In Defense Of Bangali Men

2009-10-12T17:52:13Z

Recently the Telegraph, a Kolkata-based newspaper published what I can only consider an attack piece on Bangali men in the same vein that Karan Johar attacked Marathi manoos by using the “B” word in “Wake Up Sid”.

It is just because we Bengali men do not have a Raj Thackeray in our midst that Telegraph can get away with this. In an ideal world, we would have an army of MNS (”Moonmoon and Nirad Chowdhury Shoinyo”) supporters throwing smelly “shoontki maach” in front of Telegraph offices till the said reporter apologized and the paper retracted this insulting article. But since most Bangalis have no energy left over from burning buses and singing along with Babur Suman to protest on the things that matter, namely the vilification and the emasculation of the Bongosontan, nothing like this will happen.

Given that, let me make my humble attempt to frisk this piece as a representative of those who have been so ridiculed.

A significant number of contemporary Bengali men, unlike their forefathers, condemn fish. Excepting ilish, for the men love it too. “I don’t have fish, only ilish,” many men have been heard confessing in a tender moment. Since they love ilish, they will not care if others do so as well.

Now I know that there are a few Bengalis, the same minuscule minority who detest Sourav Ganguly and support Salgaocar in football, who say “ami maach khai na” (I don’t eat fish) and may be prejudicial when it comes to fish. But I can say, no assert, as a representative of the contemporary Bengali man, that just like our forefathers we not only love ilish but also swear by chingri (shrimp) and kaankra (crab), worship our bhetki and bhola maach, lust for small tengra maach cooked with brinjal and salivate over pabda, parshe, pomfret and rui, in the same manner that we do over Roopa Ganguly. The day we cease to do so, Bengal will become like Gujarat in that there will be development and industry. Since that is not so, it shows that we still love our fish. Of all types. QED.

There is also some other innuendo that Bengali men are petty enough to hog the “peti” pieces and more specifically leave the “stricken with thorns” gada pieces to the women. Alas the author knows not the pleasure Bong men derive from munching on fish bones though yes sometimes they do have a nasty habit of getting into the windpipe. If you ever see a Bengali man silent, then that’s possibly the reason why he is so.

A similar Powerpoint presentation will explain why the leg piece of the chicken is also reserved for the man at the table. There is an additional reason here. Growing Bengali boys, who keep growing into growing Bengali boys, need more “protein”, which is good for the “brain”. The “brain”, when encased within the head of a boy, is a collective Bengali obsession. Nurtured by his parents, Horlicks and chicken legs, it will be a potent weapon when he grows up: it will be the highest point reached by a man with a steady, decent job, besides being the embodiment of sex appeal. A Bengali man draws women towards him with his “brain”.

Again I do not see where the problem is. According to legend we like to believe, millions of years ago, when the Great Enlightened One (whom we Bangalis call Jyoti-Babu) made the universe, he asked the Bangali man which organ would be like to be made robust and strong. To his surprise, the Bengali man, perhaps to be contrarian, said “My brain”. And from that time onwards, Bongo-sontaans have stayed away from the light in their dark studies solving “sums” from KP Basu and KC Nag and studying the intricacies of gerunds from Wren and Martin while every other children of man have gone about exercising their powerful organs in more pleasurable ways.

Given the choice that the first Bangali man made, what is the problem if he likes his Horlicks and has a Maltova Mom and has a fondness for chicken legs—why should that be a matter of derision? What is the problem if the second most sold medical product in Bengal is the brain tonic Brainolia (the first being Livosin which no self-respecting Bengali with his chronic stomach problems would ever be caught without).

And before I forget. The chicken leg. Every waking hour the Bangali man leads a meek apologetic life, being flattened like sardines in a sweaty public bus, working low-paying jobs under non-Bangali masters, forced to endure the increasing insignificance of our state to the rest of India. Beaten and bruised throughout the day, when he sits for his dinner, his equally bent and ancient stainless steel plate becomes his castle and empire. There he wants to sit, like a king for ten minutes, his hand balanced on the side of the plate caressing the grains of the rice like a tender lover as his hand sensuously gets wet with the watery daal. It is then that he expects and demands that his chicken not be a size zero Kareena Kapoor bird. Is that too much to ask ?

But men actually look down on women for chewing fishbones. Or for eating green chillis on the side with their meals

Bengali men do not have green chilllis? Really? Dear Telegraph author, what kind of Bengali men have you been interacting with? Do you not know that the first quadrant of the Bangali man’s plate, right next to the leboo (lemon) and salt is the region we call “Sri Lanka” ? (Lanka is Bengali for chilli)

Many men still make that slurping sound as they eat. They sneeze, cough and yawn louder.

Here is a question I want to ask the author. Has he/she ever experienced the pleasure one gets from draining the tea from the cup into the saucer and drinking it with a noisy contended slurp? Note the double-standards dear readers. While the newspapers sex columns will advice the female reader to vocalize her pleasure, the standard are different when it comes to men. Cause if a Bangali man, deriving carnal pleasure from his lau-sukto so much as makes a contented slurp then it is derided as downmarket, sloppy and so very “issshhhh”.

In public, they admire Nandita Das. In secret, they want to be Salman Khan

Please do not generalize. I for one do not admire Nandita Das one bit. For me there is only one. Nandana Sen. And as to our desire to be Salman Khan, thank your lucky stars it is a “secret” desire—-if we started taking our shirts off at every opportunity the sight will not be pretty I tell you.

Once they would only be doctors, engineers or IAS officers. Now they will be MBAs. The rest is “same to same”.

Perhaps this is the only place where the author speaks the truth. Bengali men have two dreams in life—-to lord over others and to not do any real work. Getting an MBA allows them to do both.

Romance means lots of poetry and sublimity

Again this is shown as a negative. Evidently things would be better if we said “chalti hai kya nau se baraah” rather than quoting from Neru-Da, Nero-Da (any bald-headed intellectual) Deri-Da and the great Dero-Da (the bearded one—-Rabindranath Tagore). If indeed this be the case, women only need to say it. We will be equally comfortable singing “Challenge nibi na sala, panga nibi na sala” if that is what is needed to get the Suchitra Sens today all warmed up.

Which doesn’t take away from the fact that few Bengali men look good in jeans and a tee. For the same reason, they seem to be rolling on the dance floor. From where they are often not picked up. Understandably.

Don’t make me laugh. Bengali men do not know how to dance? Two words. Tito De. I challenge Prabhu-Deva to do Sukhen Das’s belly dance in “Hoyto amake karu mone nei” or Hrithik Roshan to execute Tapas Paul’s “Jai Baba Phootballnath” jig in as graceful a manner. If there is anyone who can out-dance a Bangali man it is one Gauranga Chakraborty better known as Mithun-da. Oh wait I forgot. He too is a Bangali.

For a video demonstration of the Bangali male dancing style, I ask you to watch this.

They think growing hair on their upper lip will make them more “manly”.

Yes right. All Bangali macho men have hairy upper lips—Uttam Kumar, Soumitro, Biswajit, Tapas Pal, Bumba-da? Right? Wrong. Let me say dear Telegraph writer, if you are looking for a region where the mustache is worshipped you are in the wrong part of the country.

Dressed as they are in their executive suits, they are often sighted at a sweet shop gorging on langcha, mishti doi or telebhaja at the para shops, looking guilty, before returning home from work.

While men from other parts of the country would go for comfort to a female friend, this act of eating sweets and oily fries is the most egregious expression of rebellion against marital authority that a Bangali man will show. Yes that is the sad plight of the Bangali male. From the mid 30s onwards, the Bangali body, not a marvel of engineering at the best of times, starts developing some problems arising out of a lifetime of sugar coursing through its veins both from rosogolla as well as from Subinoy Roy’s syrupy Rabindrasangeet and also from more than a bit of cholesterol accumulating in its plumbing not to speak of the whale blubber that cover the six-packs.

This is when their Bengali wives start “monitoring their diet”. Which shorn off the euphemism essentially means that they impose a regime of healthy eating at home through a series of measures even the Stasi and the KGB would find excessive. And it is to break those strict controls that scores of Bangali men stand in front of mutton roll shops or “mishtir dokaan”, furtively looking over their shoulders, as they bite into a chomchom or a Kobiraaji cutlet with the guilt and a fear of a married man going to a house of ill repute.

Now reading this piece, one would be surprised that this is the case. Cause according to the learned author, Bangali men totally dominate their women giving them the bad pieces of fish, making them do the dishes, being boorish and chauvinistic. Nothing can be further from the truth. In a Bangali family, it is the lady who cracks the whip and while the husband may be granted the odd bit of license like getting the gossip page of the newspaper first thing in the morning, on the things that matter the Bong woman is firmly in control. Of course the Telegraph plays up to stereotypes of the coy and submissive Bangali wife, oozing with sensuality and all eye-fluttering femininity. In reality, the Bipasa Basu thing is only an act and within a few years of marriage, Bangali women reveal their true selves and become a Mamata or Matangini Hajra.

Which brings me to the last line of the article.

The Bengali boy’s mother thinks he’s “flawless”. He secretly agrees.

The truth is slightly different. The Bangali’s “mama’s boyness” which is being lampooned here is essentially a concomitant of his being afraid of women. Before marriage, he is mortally scared of his mother as he is forced to, whether he likes it or not, to become a “khokon sona” . Then he gets married and a power struggle ensues. The wife is pissed at the son’s unquestioned subservience and the mother’s insistence that the son, being a reflection of the mother, is perfection personified—a sentiment reflected in this Telegraph piece. What it misses (mischievously no doubt) is the mother’s perspective as she rues how her son has become “distant” and “different” after marriage. Very soon brass utensils are being banged a bit too loudly, poisonous glances are being exchanged, mother tells son to “stand up and take control” (i.e. listen to your mother) while the wife says “How long are you going to let others take your decisions for you? Be a man” which is Bangali woman-speak for “Worship my every word”.

Torn between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (which is which I leave to the judgment of readers) the Bangali man sits at the dinner table, looking down at his plate, morosely biting into the chicken leg or the “peti” fish piece with the weight of the world on him, from the peasants of San Salvador and Singur to whether he should wear the punjabi his mother presented him (but wife says “It’s …mm….okay) or the Chinese collar shirt wifey insists looks smart on him (but mother looks and says “Does not bouma’s brother also have one of these?”) for Ashtami dinner.

And it is at this poor Bangali man that the Telegraph author unleashes his/her sarcastic bile , grudging him his only diversions—a bit of extra meat or fish or the privilege of massaging his pot belly or of liberally applying talcum powder to avoid “ghamachi” (prickly heat), a disease he hates even more than the common cold.

Shame on you. Chi chi. Khoob dushtu tumi. Very naughty you are.

[Picture courtesy Abhik Ranjan]

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The Obama Lama

2009-10-10T22:48:34Z

The founder of Miss World Eric Morley’s estate must be wondering which wrong turn the late Mr. Morley took in life to not have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize. After all there is perhaps noone in the world who has done as much as him in providing a platform for attractive people to spew warm air about “world peace”.

Because today the Nobel Committee officially announced that that’s all you need to do in order to get a Nobel Prize. That is you need to be a good-looking person with a nice deep baritone who just “talks” about disarmament and world peace. Obama’s achievements on the world stage, and I challenge his biggest supporters to show otherwise, has been nyada.

Zilch. Zip.

He has given one flowery speech to the “Islamic nations”, he has mollycoddled Pakistan (as expected) by giving them massive amounts of aid with the full knowledge that it will be used to promote terror in India, he has sat for months on sending more troops to Afghanistan and he has pandered to China by refusing to meet a “deserving” Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dalai Lama.

But of course we all know that the Nobel Peace Prize is a gigantic “get your PhD in a week by correspondence” kind of scam handed out by a gushing Europe to people whom they admire/want to suck up to because of the prevailing political climate. Which is why Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize because Europe in the 30s was fully behind colonialism and Britain. Neither did Jawaharlal Nehru even though he was a world statesman whose non-alignment, obsolete today, was a powerful movement for world peace at the height of the Cold War and his initiative together with Tito and Naseer to form a peaceful alternative to a nuclear armed USA and Russia was an awardworthy effort.

Which is why Sakharov, the pro-NATO Soviet physicist-cum-dissident, was given the Peace Prize for condemning his country and glorifying NATO at the height of the cold war. Which is why a terrorist like Yassir Arafat is a Peace Prize awardee. And which is why a humbug like Gore who gave his voice over for a documentay on environment also has a Peace Prize in his trophy cabinet despite his frequent very un-environment friendly lifestyle choices.

But then again many of the controversial peace choices did something positive, even though one may argue that they did more for the cause of war than for the cause of peace during their lifetimes. Obama however has done absolutely nothing. He simply has not had the time.

So what explains this award? Irrational exuberance? Europe unambiguously sending the message “We expressed our disapproval for Bush’s policies by refusing Obama , when he was wearing his “the representative of the US” hat, the Olympics. We now express our total devotion to Obama, the man, by giving him a Peace Prize?” An attempt to mend bridges with the US after the uneasiness over the last few years? Was Celina Jetley, the courageous crusader for LGBT rights and lower necklines, and Yash Chopra, the greatest proponent of “romantic lovey dovey for all” the only other nominees on the shortlist?

We may only conjecture. But there is no doubt that an award like this to Obama, right when he is in a battle internally over his healthcare bill drawing flack from the Left and the Right, just provides his critics with one more “Haha total snake-oil salesman” stick and sets him up even more spectacularly to fail on the world as well as on the domestic stage.

Plus it demeans the achievements of the genuine few who deserve the award like Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, though some may point out with good reason that the Nobel Peace Prize has been a travesty for long.

Well in that case, we can say is that this then has been the final nail in the coffin of the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Filmfare Awards now have competition.

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Hawa Desi

2009-10-04T20:33:29Z

Welcome to Hawa Desi, the airlines which promises you “Hawa Hawa Khusboo Luta Dey” everywhere in the plane, totally Desi style.

We would like to extend a special warm welcome to any Hawa Desi executive, politician or administrative bigwig or his wife, daughter, son, son’s wife, daughter’s husband, their sons and daughters, their cousins and their transitive closure thereof, who might be traveling with us today “free of cost” —–remember yeh aap ka baap ka plane hai. If anyone of you havent been upgraded to business or first class yet, please get in touch with a member of the crew who will be happy to help you and polish your shoes so you so please.

For the rest of you paying customers, we have only one thing to say ” Work harder. Earn more. And get on another airliner next time you travel. Till you cant do that, you beggars might as well shut the eff up and stop whining.”

Finally also a welcome to our special guests in our “barely legal” special section—- the jump seat of the pilot and temporary crew seats [Link]; your kind consideration towards our purses is greatly appreciated.

Our pilot Captain Pay-Me More asks you to review the safety features of our ancient airliner in the front pocket of the seat in front of you. It contains prayers of various religions. In addition, he reminds you that in the event of an emergency, follow the stream of water that is leaking from the lavatories to find your nearest exits. He also asks you to mind the chewing gum on the left hand exit row —no that is not filth dear passengers but just the way the left wing is held in place. You are also asked to note that the aircraft you are currently in does not burn jet fuel but the money of taxpayers , crores of it every year, as it serves its national purpose of pandering to those in power. If any of you have a problem with that, you can take it up with the boss. I am sure you will get a sympathetic hearing.

Our cabin crew, trained in hospitality from prisons and sanatoriums nationwide all committed to our service ethic “God help them who help themselves”, will be happy to refuse you with a scowl on their face should you dare to ask for a blanket and will be even happier to twist your finger should you keep on pressing the “Help” button despite our best attempts to ignore you. If you have any connecting flight to catch, we recommend you buy a thick book at the next airport (preferably “War And Peace”) to act as both a pillow and time-pass as you stay stranded for days on end as we shall try our desperate least to re-route you. Finally if you were foolish enough to have checked in baggage with us all we can say is that this should serve as a lesson for next time to travel light—yes the luggage to “hawa ho gya”.

The in-flight entertainment on Hawa Desi is as usual unique and shall consist of Hawa”-s driven free-style punching, wrestling and biting between cabin crew and pilots once the plane is in the air bringing to the air the ambiance of a bar-room fight during Oktoberfest.

And now sit back (as much as those seats allow you to), get into a fetal position (that’s all the leg room you get) and enjoy the flight.

As best as you can.

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Dil Bole Hadippa—the Review

2009-09-30T04:02:24Z

Stardate 2009.10. This is Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. Caught in an ion storm, we have been thrown off coordinates in a remote corner of the galaxy and are currently orbiting a M-class planet…

[Bridge of the Enterprise]

Spock: Captain, I have been able to get some information from the archives about this planet. It is in an Earth-like planet with an nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere called Yashrajton. In this planet, there is always bright sunshine, most of it consists of green fields with yellow flowers everywhere , happy people with nary a worry in sight sing and dance about, the dhol plays always, background dancers magically arrive every twenty minutes, one elaborate family function gives way to another, India and Pakistan exist as brothers and play cricket together for a cup called the “Aaman Cup”, the education system consist of Gurukuls where teachers instruct students in the ways of love, whenever people break into song (and that’s as often as a man with loose motion taking a dump) they sing in the voices of Sonu Nigam or Sunidhi Chauhan, there is a very limited set of names for people (Veer, Veera, Rohan, Rahul), everyone talks with exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, where a woman will be mistaken to be a man the moment she puts on a beard and a man will be rendered unrecognizable if he shaves off his mustache and most importantly, everything is lovey-dovey.

Kirk: Don’t they have days and nights here?

Spock: No they do not. They have shows. The same story repeats itself every show. Because this planet exists for one reason only—to make money. That is why the same thing is cycled and hashed over and over again. Sure seasons change—some times it is called “Mujse Dosti Karoge”, sometimes it is called “Veer Zara”, sometimes it is called “Dil Bole Hadippa” but the essential ingredients and the trappings remain the same. Because the Gods realize that the way to make money is to set your world in rural Punjab or in London. This is because the most lucrative market for Hindi movies happens to be expatriate Punjabis, in London and elsewhere and the Planet Gods are convinced that these people will buy a ticket as long as the story is set in Punjab and has lots of Punjabi thrown in. And of course many other brain-dead zombies wHo TyPe Lik Dis will flock to see such muck as long as there are cuteys like Shahrukh and sweeties like Shahid Kapoor.

Kirk: Sulu, do a magnification of the planet on the front screen.

Sulu: Yes Captain…

Kirk shrieks in pain.

Kirk: Oh my sweet heavens. What was that which just flashed before my eyes? Was that Harbhajan Singh in a bikini ?

Spock: No Captain. That was Rani Mukherjee playing cricket disguised as Harbhajan Singh.

Sulu: So this explains why Bhajji bowls like shit nowadays. It is actually a “doosra” person pretending to him.

Spock: In the story currently playing down on the surface, Veera or Rani Mukherjee is a girl who is the best cricketer in the village. But since girls cannot play in the Aaman Cup, she transforms herself into a gabdu jawaan Veer by wearing a beard and a turban and dropping an “e” from her name. No body of course notices, among other things, the feminine voice of the man “Veer”…..but then again

Sulu: Give it a break. Even Sachin has a rather feminine voice….so what does that prove?

Spock: [Raising an eyebrow]. Point taken. In any case, after Veera’s transformation what happens is a predictable cross between every other Yashraj movie and Chak De India and a whole lot of sermonizing and Punjabisms….

Kirk: Chak De India. I remember that movie. I like it. Whenever I reach the “final frontier” of some intergalatic babe I always tell her how her world is going to be rocked in the next seventy minutes by some Kirk lovin…

“Sattar minute. Sattar minute. Sattar minute hai tumhare paas. Shayad tumhare zindagi ke sabse khaas 70 minute.” [sidey grin] And you can bet that always has the effect

Uhura (murmuring): Sattar second is more like it…

Spock: Captain I am picking up strange readings from the planet surface. Seems like not everyone is humanoid there. My tricorder is off the scale..Is it a Klingon? Is it a Borg? Is it a Romulan? Is it a space insect? No it is Rakhi Sawant and she is also present there lending her class to the venture as well as Sherlyn Chopra —-two aliens who like “Dil Bole Hadippa” are made out of spare parts of other better products. There is Shaheed Kapoor also trying to do a bad imitation of Shahrukh Khan whether it be the song sequences or the Chak De India type tough coach parts.

Kirk: Let’s check the planet out. I think we should beam down. [To the com:] Scotty, prepare the transporter[throwing out the last words in William Shatner style]

Scott: Oye oye captain.

Kirk: Did I just hear that right? Doesnt Scott say “Aye aye captain”? What was that?

Suddenly a horrifying visage appears on the front screen.

Kirk screams: Battle stations. Man the phaser torpedoes. What in the balls of Orion is that?

Spock: Captain, that is the resident spirit of Yashrajton. I think it has taken command of the ship and its crew…. that’s why Scott was saying Oye Oye…

Kirk: Sulu, full power to the impulse thrusters.

Sulu: Oye shawa shawa. Balle Balle Captain. Tu to bada changa munda hai..

Kirk: Spock, that entity has taken over Sulu. Quick take over the helm.

Spock (face turning blue): Must c..o…n…t..r…o…l emotion. Must not…..Captain…universe mein kitni hai nafrate phir bhi dilon mai hai chahate…….Must not……Halle halle se hawa laagti hai…..No No I cannot be….Captain….

Kirk runs over to Spock. He shakes his shoulders as Spock doubles over. His painful face is replaced with serenity.

Kirk: Are you all right Mr. Spock?

Spock stands up, raises one leg and breaks into dance.

“Bhangra paunde”

He then moves over to Uhura and says “Soni lagdi tainu soni lagdi”……

Immediately the bridge door opens and Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel run in with blue handkerchiefs in their hands singing “Hadippaaaa”…

Kirk sinks into his chair…

Sulu Sulu….warp factor 5 gaddi chak de…..

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Wanted—the Review

2009-09-25T16:23:45Z

“Wanted” is not so much a movie but a rip in the space-time continuum, a relativistic worm-hole through which the Bollywood of the 80s has crashed into the 2009s bringing back the glory days of single-screen chawanni-flying and CT-marooing dhisoom dhashoom action and chakoom chukum “abhe chamiya ek chummi de ke ja” romancing into the Rs 500 nacho-selling world of fancy multiplexes.

Take that Sanjay Gupta and all you Tarantino- Leone worshipers who think its cool to take inspiration from Spaghetti Westerns and pulp fiction while neglecting our glorious heritage of Garam Halawa—”Wanted” is a box-office cracker raking in so much green that will make you turn wannabes green.

And take that Aamir Khan— “Wanted” is as non-nonsensical as your “Ghajini” but with none of the six-pack “inspired by Memento” pretentiousness that characterized that pile of hot steaming turd.

Prabhudeva’s “Wanted”, evidently a frame-by-frame lift from his own “Pokkiri” has no story. Absolutely none. Its DNA contains the nucleotides of Action, Song and Random Act of Villainy arranged in a repeating pattern. There is no ambiguity, no non-linearity, no homo-erotic friendships and absolutely no attempt at character or narrative development.

Instead there is plenty of Neanderthal machismo coming from the greatest caveman of our times—-Salman Khan. With his puffed-up “sharaabi” cheeks he now resembles his dear friend Shoaib Akthar and when he moves thrashing the bad men to pulp sending themselves into orbit with an escape-velocity imparting fauladi mukka, this is as close to a human embodiment of a 30 compartment steam express that you are going to get, a spectacle of violence sure to send shivers down the spines of pavement dwellers and endangered species.

Did I say Neanderthal? I think I did. If you believe that women should be characterized as well-rounded independent people in a movie then maybe “Wanted” is not for you. Well let me qualify that. Women are represented as “well rounded” but that’s about it.In a throw-back to the 80s, there is nothing size-zero (except perhaps the magnitude of her histrionic abilities) about the heroine Ayesha Takia (the hero calls her a “zyada charbi-wala gosht” in one scene and in another sparklingly classy sequence tells her “Aisa dhakka naheen maarne ka..hum log mens log hain na…delicate delicate jagga main taqleef pohunchta hai”) and the only reason she is in the movie is because there are two reasons she is in the movie. And the camera spends a lot of time highlighting those facts.

There is the old-school Johnny “Liver” type comedy sequences and in yet another another shocking throw-back, the greatest of Shakti Kapoor is channeled by Mahesh Manjrekar playing a lip-licking lecherous cop who along with the other galaxy of other bad men engages in not-so-random acts of shoulder-ripping “Main kutta hoon jawani ko soong leta hoon” depravity of the “Lijjat” (=Le Ijjat) kind, the type one never thought one would see after Y2K.

Mention must be made of Prabhu-deva’s direction style which is Godard-style God-ly and Dard-ly. If you think only Quentin can do “in references” you haven’t experienced Prabhu-deva who doffs his cap to some of the greatest sequences of masala moviedom, all without even realizing doing it. For instance, the villain (Ghani bhai) takes off his dark glasses and the camera goes close to focus on his evil visage in a tribute scene to Gulshan Grover doing exactly the same thing and saying “Kismaatttt” in the movie “Aatish”. And then as a crowning glory, there is a “maut ka date fix” kind of sequence which is a shout-out to the greatest movie of all time.

But my most favorite moment was when during the climax the villain tries to set Salman’s shirt on fire and he takes it off and Prabhu-deva holds the camera on him, almost extorting the crowd to get up on their seats and throw everything at the screen.

It was at that precise instant that my mind was sucked back into the time-hole as a magic slideshow of images flashed before my eyes—-of the original Slumdog Anil Kapoor punching evil men with his fists on fire and then flailing his arms in an epileptic dance with heavyweight Farah to “Jab jab teri nazar se milta hai mera nazar” as gulaaal bombs burst behind him in “Rakhwala”, of Sunny Deol thrashing the living daylights of bad men in “Lootere” as a buxom Juhi cavorted on the beach to “Main teri raani tu raaja mera” sending my hormones into overdrive and Jeetendra, in white trousers and shoes slapping a 250 lb behemoth gunda in “Zahreelay”: “Yeh is hapte ke liye. [Slap]. Yeh aagle haapte ke liye. [Slap] Aur yeh us ka baad ke liye [mega slap], of Jackie Shroff breaking a brick with his forehead in a movie (most probably “Sadak Chaap”) and of course Prabhuji catching bullets and doing “aisi ki taisi” with Newtonian mechanics in countless celluloid classics.

Awash in nostalgia and with tears steaming down my eyes I, a child of the 80s, once again felt “wanted”.

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