tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286733595156636072024-03-13T06:51:44.763-07:00Side DishMadhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-47203635346995913472017-09-25T08:59:00.001-07:002017-09-25T08:59:37.851-07:00Newton: Westminster laughs in the dark deep of Dandakaranya<p dir="ltr">Cancel you look at India's democracy with a mix of pride, irony, cynicism and gentle humour from a godforsaken corner where Mythology meets Maoism, tribals meet modernists and eternal simplicity meets industrial onslaught in a miasmic play of strong yet vulnerable characters?<br>
India' Oscar entry this year, manages to pull it off in elegant pace, despite its abstract and abrupt end that dents a fabulous build-up.  The rugged landscape of Dandakaranya, the frail ways of small town characters and the idiosyncratic mannerisms of uppity officials make this a dark comedy meets cinema vérité treat. Am not sure if it deserves an Oscar but it is a milestone in a long list of classics exploring the hearts and minds of India's hinterland in its determined tryst with destiny. From Do Bigha Zameen to Newton via Nishant, Aakrosh and Jaane Bhi Do Yaro, truth emerges like the weaves of Khadi. Flawless acting by Rajkumar Rao,Sanjay Mishra, Pankaj Tripathi and the incredible Raghuvir Yadav is topped by Anjali Patil who somehow reminds you of the dusky, earthy beauty of Smita Patil. Amit Masurkar is a director to watch.</p>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-69185833753034126962017-09-03T08:32:00.001-07:002017-09-03T08:33:21.043-07:00Shubh Mangal Saavdhan: British sex comedy in desi milieu Jaljeera with Whiskey.<p dir="ltr">Can Indians laugh at themselves? The answer is finally yes. I loved"Shubh Mangal Saavdgan" - an unlikely comedy of manners and behavioural idiosyncrasies in a society transitioning from a moribund sanskari inertia to a more liberated value system. It is tough to blend British style sex comedy with a small town Indian milieu, but director R.S. Prasanna, who earlier made this movie in Tamil, pulls it off,aided by earthy UP-meets-NewDelhi dialogues. This is what happens when mausis and tayajis meet malls and multiplexes in an age of feminism and the Internet.</p>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-27550685413326281372017-03-04T06:37:00.000-08:002017-03-04T06:42:17.369-08:00Rangoon: Epic Meets Masala. Yeh Kya Ho Gaya Saala?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There is always a challenge for makers of period films as
they engage a current audience with a journey to the past. Is theirs an effort
a fantastic one to recreate as authentically as possible the reality of a
bygone age or is a bygone reality a muse upon which to construct a fantasy of dubious authenticity? Vishal Bhardwaj’s Rangoon is largely on the latter
side. It has already been slammed by leading critics but could do with a
treatment that deserves more sympathy than the amount he has extended to his
characters. It is a magnificent effort, with much to admire and celebrate but
served in a manner that can understandably underwhelm critics and audiences
alike. Nevertheless, it is watchable for it has efforts on nearly everyone’s part that is rare in Bollywood –
starting with the very simple fact that we have not seen Indian cinema offer
much of World War II in the digital era with its immense possibilities – not counting the occasional Madras Pattinam in Tamil
or Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “1942: A Love
Story. The latter is remembered more as Rahul Dev Burman’s Last Hurrah than a path-breaker in period
cinema.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Bhardwaj’s first fault -- if one might call it that -- is that he has made movies that have
raised our expectations. “Maqbool”, “Omkara” and “Haider” with their
magnificent interpretations of Shakespearean themes raises one’s appetite. Rangoon has warts that show up bigger like a small meal after
a series of fine appetisers.</div>
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Rangoon, to start with, has no shot of Rangoon – and I was
hoping to see a pagoda shot or Bahadur Shah Zafar’s tomb alongside Kangana
Ranaut. But that is not to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, there is much to celebrate in the movie that
critics have underemphasized. Glorious outdoor shots of Shahid Kapoor and
Kangana Ranaut locked in a sandy romance are set in templates that are classically period. Cinematographer Pankaj Kumar romances steam engines fuming black smoke across lush green
landscapes, relentless rain in tropical foilage infested with leeches and
lizards, bamboo huts, rope bridges, sepia-toned bombings and air raids. Maharajahs and sundry wives in princely costumes give us plenty of time travel.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffd966;">Bhardwaj's audacity in trying to combine Julia, a takeoff on
Fearless Nadia, with the struggles of the Indian National Army is enriched by a
characteristic use of a vulnerable woman torn between two
lovers as a metaphor for a nation struggling between moderate and extreme
efforts to seek Independence from British imperialism</span>. Like a nation that has
to choose between going with a colonial power or partnering with a racist Nazi aggressor in its quest to
find an identity and freedom, Julia struggles, despite her penchant for
stunts – as one weakened by her dominating lover and her own fluttering heart
that flows kindness at the drop of a hat and shows gratitude to a strong-arm saviour.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is plenty in the film that brings us memories of
classic cinema. General Harding with his ruthless mannerisms who
reminds us of Colonel Saito in David Lean’s “Bridge On the River Kwai” (the ultimate
Burma movie). There is a colourful dance
scene for cheering soldiers clearly inspired by Coppola’s Suzie Q shots in
“Apocalpyse Now.” The sand and the mud
rolls are like Oliver Stone’s “Platoon”
and the propeller-driven air raids are so quaint that you love them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kangana Ranaut as Julia, Shahid Kapur as army man Nawab Malik
and Saif Ali Khan as film maker Russi Billimoria give their best (and a doff of
the hat for some beautifully shot interiors of a Parsi home with all the
costumes).<o:p></o:p></div>
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But, but, but…<o:p></o:p></div>
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At some point, there is a line from Saif that seems to speak for the
director: <i>“Hum funkaar hain: jhooth ko sachhai se jeena hamara pasha hai</i>” (We
are artists. To live the lie honestly is our profession).<o:p></o:p></div>
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And we want to ask: Dear Vishal, have you?.</div>
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The script is too laboured and there is a point where the
labour falls into the trap of trying too hard – particularly because there is
plenty of compromise in the basic soul of the story in dialogues that sound so
multiplex that we are constantly jolted to the present. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The music and lyrics are too folksy to be classic. Some outsourcing
might have lightened the burden on the director. This is not a low-budget
Gulzar-and-Vishal heart-tug show for the genteel, patronisingly cerebral middle
class. This one is an intended epic for posterity.</div>
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Do you wear a tuxedo with Kolhapuri
chappals?</div>
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There was no ear-worm that I could spot, only the "Bloody Hell" bit that has helped Rottweiler critics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Weaned on Greek theatre and Shakespearean dramas that set characters
with tragic flaws in shades of grey, we look for the director’s tragic flaw, which turns out to
be his obsession with tragedy. You can’t go overboard with a stretched climax on a rope bridge with a Romeo-Juliet kind of drama that seems Maudlin, and worse,
depressing.<span style="background-color: yellow;"> Here is an audience that regularly buys large buckets of overpriced
popcorn to celebrate Rajkumar Hirani’s overdose of high-school optimism. Do
we need this cross-continental, anachronic obsession with tragedy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: yellow;">O Tempora!</span></div>
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And so, like Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar we may call
Rangoon an honourable film. Friends weaned on
his Haider, Romans who have relished Hollywood classics and countrymen
brought up on happy endings may each have something to grumble about.</div>
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But Rangoon
has to be admired still for its guts, ambition, cinematography and fine editing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Take a deep breath and rewind and taste the movie in your
memory, and there is a lot to celebrate. When General Harding speaks English,
he sounds authentic, but when he spouts Ghalib in a faux accent, you know it is
Bollywood. Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai!<o:p></o:p><br />
-- Madhavan Narayanan</div>
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Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-24845722195483711882016-10-11T05:12:00.001-07:002016-10-11T05:19:27.283-07:00'Rekka': Idli chic with oregano flavour<p dir="ltr"><u><u>'Rekka'</u></u>: new age gangsta chic in Tamil. Dimpled hero with a stubble and golden heart disproportionately bashes comical bad guys and celebrates small town family values. Bashfully bold lady love  is a cross twixt rustic daddy's girl and romantic urban belle. Mall meets Mela. Vijay Sethupathi and Lakshmi Menon make a fine pair with an engagingly vulnerable appeal. This is what software does to Jallikkattu country.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-65gAs1CEtrM/V_zYpR4wn2I/AAAAAAAAETQ/IG8H8QiPGdM/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-65gAs1CEtrM/V_zYpR4wn2I/AAAAAAAAETQ/IG8H8QiPGdM/s640/images.jpg"> </a> </div>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-30437908287185191012016-09-01T08:28:00.001-07:002016-09-02T01:42:54.914-07:00Jio Beta! Is RIL hiding a secret sauce?<p dir="ltr">Reliance Jio is creating a flutter in India's telecom market. Mukesh Ambani seems to be using a late mover advantage by going in for aggressive pricing because he has not spent much on buying spectrum, in contrast to big incumbents such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and idea. This gives his Reliance Industries Ltd more elbow room in terms of flexibility.<br>
At the same time RIL is targeting 100 mln customers in a short span of time. He can hope to play the volume game. But where will the profit come from?<br>
My guess would be that it would come from data science.<br>
By being flexible on handsets, adding content and using smart software to figure out profit opportunities, a retail-savvy game can be played.<br>
Here is how.<br>
By combining Lyf-branded house phones, partnerships with low end brands like Intex and content providers, RIL can get high volume semi-rural consumers. <br>
Reliance Retail can be the e-commerce play using supply chain management efficiently.<br>
There is also room to create, procure and manage in-house content. Remember, Ambani controls Network 18 and Viacom 18 is famous for Nagin serials! </p>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-6371782097133929552016-06-08T05:10:00.001-07:002016-06-08T05:10:51.340-07:00Iraivi - Mini review <p dir="ltr">Saw Iraivi by Kartik Subbaraju who earlier directed Jigar Thanda, a comically chilling exploration into the hitman next door. Powerful tale blending feminist views with theft of temple idols in a metaphorical embrace. Many plot twists and much violence makes it skid. But KS is Tamil cinema 's unique blend stylistically mixing Sudhir Mishra, Anurag Kashyap and of course, Tarantino. He explicitly recognises the influence of writer Sujatha and director <u>K</u> Balachander. A deft mixture of art with crime, realism with everyday entertainment, misplaced machismo of weak men with emerging assertiveness of empowered women and visual motifs with hard-hitting dialogues makes the overcooked plot still worth it. </p>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-41358396597068302532015-06-08T08:18:00.000-07:002015-06-08T08:18:34.421-07:00Flawed Machismo And Philandering Femmes: Tanu Weds Manu Returns<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Two archetypes of Modern India.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Tanuja Trivedi a.k.a. Tanu - from UP. Romantic, aggressive, self-confident</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Kusum Sangwan a.ka. Datto - from Haryana. Confident, dutiful, athletic.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Then you have </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Manu Sharma a.k.a. Manu - A man torn between the two women</span><br />
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">In the trignometry of modern India's changing gender equations, writer Himanshu Sharma and director Anand Rai explore patterns that go beyond the obvious.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Marriage meets betrayals. Lovesick Romeos flaunt flawed machismo. Girls lose their heads and find their feet as freedom comes with its warts. Tanu Weds Manu Returns is a subtle comedy of manners spiced with a depth that arrives elegantly when Kangana meets Kangana in a voluptuous meeting of dialects and dialectics. See it for her histrionics and the rugged charm of a plot that celebrates the vulnerabilities of hinterland India.</span></div>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-24493855566685702592015-05-31T23:12:00.002-07:002015-05-31T23:22:35.986-07:00Selfie Verite - When stand-up comedy makes you sit down<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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'Time stands still in Calcutta. That is where ambition goes to die. It has a high return on investment on nostalgia'- says <a class="profileLink" data-gt="{"entity_id":"10514926670","entity_path":"\/profile_book.php"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=10514926670" href="https://www.facebook.com/comedianpapacj" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Papa CJ</a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
It was delightful attending his <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/event.php?id=1822056041353428&extragetparams=%7B%22source%22%3A22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1822056041353428/?ref=22&source=22" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">PAPA CJ - NAKED (Gurgaon - Sun 31 May)</a>show on Sunday. It is more than comedy. It has a deep literary flourish, with a visceral sense of pathos as he journeys into his own past to mix the ribald with the profound and the profound with the poignant. There is always a challenge in making stand-ups rise above the simp<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">le stringing of gags. CJ, reveals much more (body and soul) in what you could call Selfie Verite -- a click into his true persona. He does that in a fascinating way, combining impromptu interactivity with audience with a part-nostalgic, part-incisive recollections of his own past.</span></div>
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Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-61218657723221102272015-05-24T23:49:00.000-07:002015-05-25T00:08:47.971-07:00Pronounced bowels and digestible consonants: Piku<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is only so much you can guffaw when the bowel is a muse.<br />But beyond the ablutions lie the intuitions that provide a richer variety of humour.<br />Piku is brilliant. Beyond its toilet humour lies a sense of character and souls trapped in a rubble of conditioned habits and ways of the flesh. The richness of cultures ingrained and established is nothing when worlds collide between souls in search of harmonious understanding. </span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RfwEUJ_aR1A/VWLFTmUPbpI/AAAAAAAACeo/ADQA1mWX4Jc/s1600/Pikuposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RfwEUJ_aR1A/VWLFTmUPbpI/AAAAAAAACeo/ADQA1mWX4Jc/s400/Pikuposter.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Writer Juhi Chaturvedi excels in a matrix where characters are stripped naked of their habits and social mannerisms to a point where you see the constant permanent over the variables of everyday idiosyncrasies. Shoojit Sircar's ability to weave in little oddities and rich textures of culture within single-frame detail and short-lived gestures is amazing.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">We are quite used to excellence from Amitabh Bachchan, but he can excel himself sometimes -- and the more weird the character, the more is his ability extract the juice of mannerisms, twitches and eccentricities. </span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Irffan Khan, by now Bollywood's uncrowned king of understated elegance, can somehow combine the ruffianesque with the sensitive as only he can do, it seems.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But what is fascinating alongside is Deepika Padukone's ability to retain a sense of modern, independent, aesthetic style even as she sinks into a messy role that reflects a character steeped in the hallowed weight of traditions and responsibilities beyond what her tender shoulders might permit. Some things, when chewed well, can be very digestible and delicious.</span></div>
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Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-31709530203250022252015-05-23T21:52:00.002-07:002015-05-23T21:52:29.111-07:00Gangsta Chic Rum in Vintage Wine Glass: Bombay Velvet's Underwelming Underbelly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Smart Alec Parsees and uprooted Punjabis melt with tycoons and labour
leaders in a cauldron that brews struggles for power, status and wealth
amid rising skyscrapers and squalor. This is an excellent setting for a
saga of wounded souls embracing and conspiring in romance and
lust.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eqSgFedWTgY/VWFYTjcZnnI/AAAAAAAACeA/eQMY_2TDqhY/s1600/BombayVelvetposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eqSgFedWTgY/VWFYTjcZnnI/AAAAAAAACeA/eQMY_2TDqhY/s320/BombayVelvetposter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
But overambition is a crime, be it an urban underbelly's
anti-hero serenading a Portugese-scarred songstress or a Banaras boy
trying to be a desi avant-garde Hollywood icon.<br />
Anurag Kashyap, like Johnny Ba<span class="text_exposed_show">lraj
played by a dedicated Ranbir Kapoor, shows spunk in a montage of taut
plot, moving lyrics and nostalgia jazz. Yet Bombay Velvet underwhelms. It gets caught in a crossfire of style and crafting flaws. </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">The characters jump too quickly in, with little etching. They all shake hands in curt Hollywood fashion in clumsy self-introductions. Close-ups make up for lack of aesthetic long shots or zooms. There is too much of Sphagetti Western influence that eats into the jazz mood. The characters are strong in some way but are way too middle-class in articulation. </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Karan Johar tries too hard as a manipulative wannabe, Ranbir shines with sincerity and Anushka Sharma fits the role despite her persona of not being a vulnerable screen figure. The music, inspite of the staccato violence that peppers the movie, stands out in poignant elegance. A lot of hardwork has evidently gone in: Sri Lankan locales, a pastiche of double-deckers, old-world brands and sepia knick-knacks.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">But still...</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Because
India is not America, 1960s isn't 1930s, gangsta chic is not period
authenticity, emotional trignometry is not social history.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">And Kashyap is
not Scorcese. </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Rum in a wine glass.</span></div>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-87717750609515073702015-04-05T04:18:00.001-07:002015-04-05T04:18:19.924-07:00Calcutta Remixed, with some overcooking - Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (mini review)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Trams and hand rickshaws. Japanese agents and Chinese gangs. British power and Bihari workers. Murders, betrayals and shaky notions of love, loyalty and idealism. Dibakar Banerjee uses Detective Byomkesh Bakshi's thriller-sleuthing as a wonderful excuse to capture the dynamic 1940s in Calcutta, when Imperial lines and impoverished Indians crossed path in an ugly global game that involved opium peddlers, street politics and conspiracies of many hues. The movie is a magnifice</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">nt high for a Bollywood Renaissance, but its end is overcooked, giving us a David Lean like period feel with a questionable aroma of the blood-and-psycho realism of a Tarantino. And the use of disco and rock occasionally in the soundtrack is a jarring throwforward in a nostalgic high.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Costume design (inlcuding some by</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"> </span><a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=731176500" href="https://www.facebook.com/manoshi.nath.31" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; text-decoration: none;">Manoshi Nath</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">) give an authentic feel in a strange aesthetic that involves worn out cottons, long dhotis, Raj-era uniforms and loincloths amid mildewed walls and industrial machinery. And</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"> </span><a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1228886323" href="https://www.facebook.com/kvenugopal.menon" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; text-decoration: none;">K Venugopal Menon</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">'s daughter plays female lead in a role that reminds you somehow of Smita Patil. Classic wine in multiplex bottle.</span></div>
Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-91827146565424568832014-10-25T10:04:00.000-07:002014-10-25T10:04:01.935-07:00Crazy art with desi heart: the importance of Happy New Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: white; color: #545454; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'In the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">dark
times</span></b></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> will
there also be<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">singing</span></b></em>? Yes, there will also be <em><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">singing</span></b></em>. About the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">dark
times</span></b></em>.'<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #545454; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Bertolt Brecht<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> When critics belonging to a narrow clique sharpen
their claws to rip apart a successful Bollywood film, they usually sink their steely
knives into their own social and emotional illiteracy. Farah Khan, on the other
hand, thrives on precisely these literacies that define the structure of such
cinema. But where she scores as an artiste (yeah, right), is in the robust
creativity with which she approaches what is disparagingly called the Formula
Film. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Ms Khan turns the formula into a cult celebration and cliches into raw material with which she weaves a patchwork quilt of dubious aesthetic but colourful originality. She turns escapism into an
act of self-conscious evolution. She turns enjoyment into an introspection of
sorts. She makes a thinking film for the feeling types who do not know how to
think. Her formula to achieve this is to convert the conventional formula into
a spoof so that you can have an out-of-the-body experience: you know you are
watching a film even as you are immersed in it. You feel a fictional narrative
woven into a Bollywood documentary that becomes a toolkit of the stereotypes,
mannerisms, situations and cult lines. It is an experience in which you jump in
and out of the movie with a dolphin intelligence – the way dolphins jump in and
out with amphibian aplomb in one of the scenes of Happy New Year, her latest
work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Happy New
Year clearly defines its ground with several cult lines, the most audible of
which is a simple statement: There are only two kinds of people in this world:
winners and losers. If we look hard enough, the trick to produce a Bollywood
winner is to focus on the losers as an audience, and give them a feeling of
being winners in an immersive experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So we have
identifiable characters: the cowardly, liquor-loving Mumbai “Ghati” Nandu Bhide
(Abhishek Bachchan), the rugged northern workman Jag (Sonu Sood), the South Bombay “Bawa” Tammy (Boman Irani), and the bar
dancer Mohini (Deepika Padukone) in the company of more urbane losers: the English speaking, entrepreneurial Charlie
(Shah Rukh Khan) and the Uncool Geek Rohan who won’t get a date but will happily hack
into powerful computers to prove a point (Vivaan Shah).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The Diamond
Heist is an old formula. So is the hero’s revenge for the wrong that visited
his father by the villain. What works in
Happy New Year is the way diamonds can be turn into a metaphor: For the geek, a
Wall Street IPO is it. For a Marathi
speaking girl from the dingy lanes of Parel, it could be winning a reality show
that rewards her dancing skills. For Charlie-like anti-hero hucksters, it may
be small business. When various skills come into a collective experience, it
even connects with nationalism. At a deeper level, Happy New Year could be a
subliminal tribute to the social dynamics that took a tea-seller to the prime
minister’s chair in the year of its release. After all, building a coalition of
political supporters is just like making a hit Bollywood film: a hundred crore
people there, a hundred crore rupees here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">HNY’s
biggest secret is the plot-less plot that indirectly asks questions that need
to be asked: Why must every film necessarily mimic reality or try to craft a
realistic pattern? Indeed, why must it even try to be real? Why can’t it
celebrate the dark times of danga and panga with a salute to the tiranga in a
mish-mash song and dance pastiche of reality shows, gloss, high-rise Dubai
buildings and such? In craft, such a film may be compelled by box-office
necessities or multiplex requirements, but hey, there is nourishment even in
popcorn fantasies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Happy New
Year mocks the stereotypes even as it supplies them with a how-to manual that
draws liberally from films such as Lagaan or Chak De India: Play on your
skills, work as a team, celebrate the magic of life and yes, keep your izzat
up. These are not soulless, heartless characters. They just do not have the
life skills and have not heard of psychiatrists and even less can afford them.
So they need a Bollywood director with a mother-like warmth (with triplets for
proof) to tell them the stuff: “You are okay!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is
difficult not to like Deepika –who manages to ooze grace even in a caricatured
role a bit outsized for her elegant shoes.
SRK may be just adding his tadka of Red Chillies to the masala film.
What works is the pastiche of cinematic clichés – like Bollywood laughing at
itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As a
cinematic experience, it is spoof as high art with a heart. As formula it is difficult
not to imagine the Indiawale song at new-year DJ-blessed bashes. It is
difficult not to enjoy crossword-solving moments where old Bollywood scenes,
lines and situations are recreated with self-conscious we-are-like-this-only
attitude. Ms Khan could well be regarded as a Bollywood impressionist, with
more historical significance than she might herself realize. In Om Shanti Om,
she played on Karz, the re-incarnation drama. In Happy New Year, she subtly
plays on the Deewar formula at some deep level as she crafts King Khan into an
angry young man who must dance, joke and conspire in the new century to achieve
the same objective that Amitabh Bachchan’s Vijay did in the cult movie of the
1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In that
sense, Ms. Khan’s tribute to cinema becomes an extension and a celebration of
the Bollywood masala film – with its special undercurrent of social relevance
with a soul. There are characters you
can sympathise with, lost in a big bad world where the calculating mind
triumphs over the innocent, joyful heart. In turning the ordinary into the
extraordinary, HNY does what shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati have been doing
on prime-time TV, contributing to a new Indian awakening with a new sense of
confidence. If Shah Rukh Khan’s Charlie
shows an extension of Deewar’s Vijay, Deepika’s Mohini is a 21<sup>st</sup>
Century of Mother India that Nargis played – a moral icon, a striving figure
seeking respect and justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">You can
sing and dance in dark times. Stereotypes and archetypes can create a new
mythology. So what if they are a spoof? They have hearts that beat and souls
that reflect. To laugh is a necessity. To cry is a compulsion. And losers must be made to feel like winners. In a reality show called Bollywood, ticket-buyers are judges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-82731223154457990632012-08-26T20:47:00.000-07:002012-08-26T20:48:20.063-07:00Gangs of Wasseypur II - a quick mini reviewGangs of Wasseypur II: Loved the first part better but the parts together are a brilliant slice of contemporary social history, viewed from the points of view that escape metropolitan worldviews. A seminal work. It is a Mere Apne of its times, which had great new finds. <br />This one includes Richa Chadda, Huma Quraishi and a couple of actors whose names still not familiar. The surprise is Zeeshan Qadri, who apart from being "Definite" in the movie, is also its story writer. Downside: the climax reminded me of Gulaal. Come on, Anurag Kashyap, you could have fixed that!Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-87707987365224553582012-03-10T19:28:00.010-08:002012-03-11T04:54:31.529-07:00Deconstructing AromaleMusic, as it goes, a meandering waterbody, sometimes a river, sometimes a stream, sometimes an ocean, connected and yet not, in a melange of notes and rhythms, caught in a gurgle of sounds....yet, like picking up a handful in the seashore and measuring where the little drops come from....is a challenge, is a joy!<br />Here's what I heard last night...<br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vjkZDoZd6GY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />And memories came tumbling on the possible influences that A.R.Rahman may have had (and probably did) in coming up with clearly a work of world music embedded in a connected world.<br />Here are some I could smell...<br />Watch the guitar plucks and the humming here.<br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HiDOMuhpqUo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />And then go on to how Black American music retained and lost its identity in a brilliant lecture-demo chat by Ali Farka Toure<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/y5Nem-PNHLY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Go back now, and listen to a raga alaapana (aalap) by Shreya Ghoshal) in reprise of the original Aromale<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nwNmzO-oukw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />And catch the original, purer, raaga here....more subtle..and yet in a clearer etching of the tones that make up the raga, with the gravitas of the veena<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/49G4Fg1yJLs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Go on to the jazz influence back again....this time Reethi Gowla (with a touch of other ragas in the free fusion) acquires a majestic flow in the guitarwork of John McLaughlin...but watch the violin as you ago along<br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8srcXmtjlOM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br />If you had listened to the violin, you could catch the final snatches of Shreya Ghoshal's alaapana mixing with the violin. And in the stepped-up chord, accompanied by the orchestral arrangements, I could catch a glimpse of the Moody Blues classic, Nights in White Satin.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MjUqfRrWwcM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Catch a handful of water on the seashore. Measure where they come from.<br /><br />Catch again the chorus of a crescendo in Aromale. There is now Abba's Eagle.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YB1Om-L_O2Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Soar, like the Eagle. Soar, like the breeze coming from the mountains that Aromale talks of. The majestic bird becomes the Beloved!Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-56321582428408227672011-12-01T02:07:00.000-08:002011-12-01T02:23:39.103-08:00Resignation - A poem<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7ymFf7BwCM/TtdTDCfTB9I/AAAAAAAAAtE/iZu36ZgwfEA/s1600/ratrace.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 138px; height: 141px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7ymFf7BwCM/TtdTDCfTB9I/AAAAAAAAAtE/iZu36ZgwfEA/s400/ratrace.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5681100766624024530" /></a><br /><br /> by Ganesh Venkatraman<br />(Translated from Tamil)<br /><br /><br />The thought occurred<br />to quit.<br />When I arose from my seat<br />the hands were tied.<br />A pair of golden handcuffs?<br />Or a slender, sacred thread?<br />As I shook off my hand,<br />uncaring,<br />a wail arose.<br /><br />"Don't go!<br />Don't leave me!"<br />Took a while to learn<br />it was my manager.<br />"Oh! Don't leave us!"<br />-- said the Manager's Manager<br /><br /><br />Well done!<br />Everybody can hear me get up<br />Clearly<br />Before my voice becomes<br />Immune to their ears<br />And their ears shut close<br />It is best to depart.<br /> --Ganesh Venkatraman<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ivMoXsAdPLQ/TtdS5ce4tJI/AAAAAAAAAs4/Om2FwW93nEs/s1600/ratclock.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 225px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ivMoXsAdPLQ/TtdS5ce4tJI/AAAAAAAAAs4/Om2FwW93nEs/s400/ratclock.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5681100601802929298" /></a>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-48370909448355489802011-11-19T19:35:00.000-08:002011-11-19T20:09:11.504-08:00Rediscovery of Captain HaddockWhen does a schoolboy comic figure become a literary character? <br />Perhaps when the pre-teen reader turns to his magical years in nostalgia as an older man. The events are now a plot and the dramatic personae are now characters. More still, you begin to see the authors behind the words, the curiosity of the creator behind the sketchy visage of the protagonist he has created.<br />Tintin came back to me this week in three dimensions.<br />Make that four, as the special glasses borrowed from the multiplex staff was supplemented by an Einstenian fourth. Time.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv30hFv-4zQ/Tsh6s1j3h5I/AAAAAAAAAsg/v6PyZeZcJUY/s1600/haddock.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 294px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv30hFv-4zQ/Tsh6s1j3h5I/AAAAAAAAAsg/v6PyZeZcJUY/s400/haddock.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676922241010861970" /></a><br />Memories come tumbling, and suddenly, two facets emerge. One is of how a book reader, more so a schoolboy, essentially paints the works he consumes with his own vivid imaginings -- and then does his own editing. Every comic box in a graphic-novel mind is as dwellable or as skippable as one chooses to do.<br />I remember Snowy and his dogly antics. The little corners of the frame were always special for Tintin lovers for the cute white thing in very wordly wags of the tails, discoveries of the nose and the little politics pets play with other non-human animals. They were largely intact in Spielberg's audacious remake.<br />So was the curiosity of Tintin. It turns out Tintin is us. Or, if you please, Mr. Herge. I remember that my first visit overseas was to Belgium, where, a complete desi lost in a European autumn, I groped for comfort. And then I learnt Tintin was Belgian. I stayed in a hotel run by South Asians and it overlooked a chocolate factory on top of which lay the icon of the intrepid reporter with the tuft. Suddenly, I felt I was staying at a cousin's place.<br />And then, there is Captain Haddock, making his debut, in the comic book and in the world of cinema, as the secret of the Unicorn unravels.<br />Now, there is a twist in the tale that never really changed.<br />I now see Tintin as a Western character with a cultural location in Francophone Belgium, poking fun at the British Scotland Yard in a humour that now has shades of European rivalry.<br />I now see the bumbling Thomson and Thompson twins as a caricature. We have, you see, a French author who takes a Sherlock Holmes agency and turns it into an Enid Blytonian Mr. Goon in the form of fumbling Scotland Yarders!<br />Exotic locales in Morocco now tell me the tale of colonialism. And suddenly I imagine George Clooney playing the main role in a remake of Casablanca, colourfully remade to capture the spirit of Humphrey Bogart in a different age. My ideas fly in different directions -- though the story is the same.<br />Bianca Castafiore now reminds me of Tansen's lighting of the lamp with his song, and, as she breaks a glass case with her operating highs, I think of the masterly way in which the author combines the classical excellence of her art with the popular imagination that hears comical sounds in her falsetto sounds.<br />And then I see Captain Haddock.<br />The crazy man with a fantastic vocabulary for creative abuses is in my mind now a loser with a strong work ethic and a sense of family pride. I see him in a different world, the stuff of serious literature, not comic books. The seafarer and his lonely quests overpower the billions of blistering, blue barnacles in my mind.<br />Did Herge read Joseph Conrad, I wonder.<br />Beyond the 3D magic, the action-packed climax, the sights and the sounds in the etching out of the action sequences that I used to kind of skip in my schoolboy visitations of Tintin -- and the sheer razmatazz of a Spielberg movie -- I rediscover Captain Haddock, lonely and proud, lying in the bottom of the sea like the lost treasure that goes with the secret of the Unicorn.<br />I am Tintin, still,looking for new clues.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5pNhiGKcL74/Tsh7bqUfnFI/AAAAAAAAAss/zbm_s7WYUZ0/s1600/tintin.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 202px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5pNhiGKcL74/Tsh7bqUfnFI/AAAAAAAAAss/zbm_s7WYUZ0/s400/tintin.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676923045447441490" /></a>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-69199654914004992792011-10-14T05:34:00.000-07:002011-10-14T05:38:57.505-07:00Designer puns in Hindi, anyone?Here is an exchange (edited) between me and Shunali after we heard about Hermes making a saree for Indians at Rs 200,000<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Madhavan</span>: And at the wedding, with Hermes di saari, they'll take Saath Ferragamo? ;-)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Shunali</span>: Will also say: Kuch aur bhi Dior na ladkey waalon ko.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Madhavan</span>: Aunty will say: Dulhan ke liye kuch aur Cardin?<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Shunali</span>: Ladki khush rahey hamaare to yehi Armani hai. Khoob Giorgio or aur khush raho.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Madhavan</span>: Aur nazar utar te hain. Kisi Moet ka nazar na lag jaaye hamari beti par ;-)<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Shunali</span>: Shaadi khoob Dom (Perignon) dhaam sey honi chahiya.Have I made myself Cristal clear?<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Madhavan</span>: At ladies sangeet, many old women will dance with their Hilfigers ;-)<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Shunali</span>: And will say: Shaadi sey kabhi mat Gabbana.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Madhavan</span>: Honeymoon Goa ke monsoon mein. Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi woh Versace ki raatMadhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-3933903327435401092011-07-07T06:30:00.000-07:002011-07-07T06:37:51.505-07:00Splendid isolation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6D-joKIOPUo/ThW2Pi2YMaI/AAAAAAAAApQ/qktPc9ZPorI/s1600/isolation.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 184px; height: 141px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6D-joKIOPUo/ThW2Pi2YMaI/AAAAAAAAApQ/qktPc9ZPorI/s320/isolation.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626603687638479266" /></a><br />They won’t let you in the club.<br />You’ll have to start your own<br />and let others look at you the way you did once.<br /><br />So you can turn them down<br />With some company that you gathered<br />In the select twilight of your own left-outness <br /> That sparked your journey.<br /><br />Loyalties will mingle, bonds <br />will grow stronger<br />until the ship you shaped<br />freezes from its float<br />to a hard ground,<br />congealed like an ancient blood<br />With memories of those who were there when it all happened <br />swarming like flies on a wound.<br /><br /><br />They won’t let you in the club<br />You’ll form your own enclave of splendid isolation<br />with meandering roads that weave a labyrinth over time<br />spruced with hedges that will stay becoming<br />until time turns them into thorny barriers<br />or wicked walls that beckon and boo.<br /><br />The wannabes, aspirants and mystery wanderers<br />Seeking the ways of the Other Side <br />shall queue up<br /><br />Your glass-paned walls shall see<br />faces peering in<br />monkey-pressed in urchin yearnings<br />And your pity and your glory<br />shall keep you exalted<br />until time walks its walk<br />like it has on great nations.<br /><br />© N. Madhavan, 2011Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-72098017375285374272011-06-28T03:04:00.000-07:002011-06-28T23:23:05.050-07:00When Gulzar meets Eliot: Poets in the shadow of urban angstI take a line from Thomas Stearns Eliot, and remark, casually in Tweet that his lines are Gulzaresque. Friend wants me to explain. I have no real clue. Just the imagery, I suppose. At least initially. Here is that line.<br /><br />Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,<br />The muttering retreats<br />Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.<br /><br />Those lines are clearly Gulzaresque to me, but I had no easy answer. And hours later, something stirred within, as this song started playing in the head.<br /><br /><br /><iframe height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/i_w4OeYMAWw" frameborder="0" width="425" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /><br />It kind of fell into place.<br /><br />"Ek Akela Is Shahr mein" -- on a lonely man in the city, an angst-ridden song. Bhupendra's gravitas-laden, somewhat muffled voice, giving a sombre shape to Gulzar's lyrics.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nCk3be7uB4E/TgnNLODeMpI/AAAAAAAAAo0/5hZM_QbYlu0/s1600/gulzar.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 190px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623251202383688338" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nCk3be7uB4E/TgnNLODeMpI/AAAAAAAAAo0/5hZM_QbYlu0/s320/gulzar.jpg" /></a><br /><br />So I look at the first lines of the same poem by Eliot ( The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock). I have read and admired snatches of this poem before, but never really asked myself why, apart from being taken in by the sheer dexterity of the expression and the feelings embedded.<br /><br />And so it begins.<br /><br />Let us go then, you and I<br />When the evening is spread out against the sky<br />Like a patient etherised upon a table<br />Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets.<br /><br />I now look at the lyrics of Gulzar's song for the film "Gharonda" -- an arthouse film about a couple's anxious search for a home of their own in Big Bad Bombay.<br /><br />Din khaali khaali bartan hai, aur raat hai jaise andha kuan<br />in soonee andheree aakhon mein, aansu ki jagah aataa hain dhuan<br /><br />(The day seems like an empty vessel/And the night like a bottomless well<br />In these vacant, dark eyes/In the place of tears out comes smoke)<br /><br />So I look at Eliot's lines again.<br /><br />The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,<br />The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes<br />Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,<br />Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,<br />Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,<br />Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,<br />And seeing that it was a soft October night,<br />Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.<br /><br /><br /><br />The imagery is stark. You can feel the city. And Eliot, suddenly, with his American accent, is kind of telling you, "Ek Akela Is Shahr Mein."<br /><br />In umr se lambi sadkon ko, manzil pe pahunchte dekha nahi <br />bas daudte firte rahati hain, hum ne to thhaharte dekhaa nahi <br />is ajnabi se shahar mein, jana pahchana dhoondhta hai <br /><br /><br />(In these streets long as life/one's never seen destinations reached<br />they meander and run for ever/one's never seen them pause<br />In this stranger of a city/one looks for the comfort of the familiar)<br /><br /><br />So here is Eliot, in the same poem again.<br /><br />Streets that follow like a tedious argument<br />Of insidious intent<br />To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .<br />Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"<br />Let us go and make our visit.<br /><br /><br />Streets that flow like an argument -- Eliot<br /><br />Street long as life - Gulzar.<br /><br />Sounds familiar?<br /><br />And then Eliot goes..<br />Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets<br />And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes<br />Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F2syaiREDis/TgnNS0NCv8I/AAAAAAAAAo8/Q0k9YErLaNw/s1600/eliot.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 176px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623251332883464130" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F2syaiREDis/TgnNS0NCv8I/AAAAAAAAAo8/Q0k9YErLaNw/s320/eliot.jpg" /></a><br /><br />By now, I am certain that Mr. Prufrock is the Akela in the Shahr. And I look at the "mukhda" --the starting refrain -- of Gulzar's lyrics.<br /><br />Ek akela is shahar mein, raat mein aaur dopahar mein <br />Abodaanaa dhoondhta hai, ashiyana dhoondhta hai <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(A loner walks in this city/At night, and in the afternoon<br />Searching for morsels to munch/And a sanctuary to rest)<br /><br /><br />I now see the imagery of a day, snatches of urban angst, and loneliness gripping the London-influenced Eliot and Bombay-honed Gulzar intertwining with full force as I read these lines.<br /><br />For I have known them all already, known them all:-- <br />Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, <br />I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; <br /><br /><br /><br />Then Gulzar goes:<br /><br />Jeene kee wajah toh koi nahee, marne kaa bahana dhoondhta hai<br /><br />(There is no reason to live/And one looks for an excuse to die)<br /><br />If there is any doubt left in me, it is cleared by the following passage in an introductory remark on the Eliot poem, published <a href="http://public.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/eliot.html">here.</a><br />"The poem displays several levels of irony, the most important of which grows out of the vain, weak man's insights into his sterile life and his lack of will to change that life. The poem is replete with images of enervation and paralysis, such as the evening described as "etherized," immobile"<br /><br />And I realise the immense commonality of two poets in urban angst -- continents and languages apart and separated by three quarters of a century.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pwd0c83FNsA/TgnPRT3NWrI/AAAAAAAAApE/lu1KwBLZX7s/s1600/angst.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623253506045336242" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pwd0c83FNsA/TgnPRT3NWrI/AAAAAAAAApE/lu1KwBLZX7s/s320/angst.jpg" /></a>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-85759867728451857252011-06-15T22:09:00.000-07:002011-06-16T04:15:19.071-07:00When Bollywood bodies mess with Sufi souls: A day out at Coke Studio, India<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2WQrJkVMpxs/TfnklJI3qxI/AAAAAAAAAos/u9Ij1M-CaRE/s1600/cokestudiolezz.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2WQrJkVMpxs/TfnklJI3qxI/AAAAAAAAAos/u9Ij1M-CaRE/s320/cokestudiolezz.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618773336880818962" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>It is all</strong> in the point of view.<br />Sitting on the 18th floor of the Westin hotel on the Western Express Highway – or is it the 17th? – the view is stunning as we look at the distant condominiums with a golf course in the Goregaon area – green, serene and resortish. The perspective from the coffee shop’s charmed glass window is not quite the Bombay we are used to – noisy, bustling, congested.<br />We are on our way to Malad, the Coke guys and us, and there is a sense of thrill. Finally, Coke Studio is happening in India, and over some eclectic banter on the flight with Coke’s senior brand manager Abhijit Datta, I get some interesting tidbits on the phenomenon that has become quite the rage in a new-new South Asia.<br />Apparently, Coke Studio was not born in Pakistan, as it is often believed, but in Brazil, as Coke Estudio. And the man who made it happen there – Ricardo Fort - - was, believe it or nuts, until recently posted in India as vice-president, marketing, though it beats me how this novel experiment of putting rock stars, folk singers and sundry musicians in a novel, milkshake concoction did not happen during his Indian reign.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2lcHJqisAo/TfmSbVZJp0I/AAAAAAAAAoM/2Ybgy4Hm1Yc/s1600/DSC00810.JPG"><span style="font-size:100%;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618683008418162498" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2lcHJqisAo/TfmSbVZJp0I/AAAAAAAAAoM/2Ybgy4Hm1Yc/s400/DSC00810.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span once="" none="" of="" these="" coke="" marketing="" dudes="" look="" to="" me="" like="" the="" sellers="" cola="" brand="" that="" was="" symbol="" american="" imperialism="" perceived="" or="" sugared="" water="" is="" still="" same="" brown="" but="" much="" has="" apparently="" datta="" tells="" he="" looking="" for="" new="" sounds="" and="" voices="" make="" studio="" thing="" rich="" in="" it="" a="" tall="" especially="" whole="" lot="" indians="" who="" have="" tasted="" blood="" pakistani="" sufi="" veterans="" such="" as="" meesha="" safi="" sain="" zahoor="" latter="" plucked="" out="" some="" remote="" made="" magic="" when="" they="" combined="" with="" rock="" sheer="" husky="" glamour="" visage="" voice="" sanam="" marvi="" them="" came="" host="" defiantly="" creative="" modern="" pak="" acts="" mekal="" hasan="" zeb="" timing="" facebook="" twitter="" were="" this="" just="" kind="" stuff="" ought="" go="" viral="" innovative="" loaded="" cult="" thousands="" shared="" youtube="" hastily="" burnt="" cds="" legend="" traveled="" now="" time="" revenge="" different="" exploded="" nukes="" at="" kahuta="" because="" we="" did="" music="" brewed="" heady="" desirable="" an="" added="" ingredient="" cocktail="" indian="" version="" called="" those="" found="" mtv="" baring="" sublime="" acousting="" souls="" guys="" loads="" money="" their="" electronic="" perfect="" strange="" political="" patterns="" are="" playing="" not="" cold="" war="" us="" divide="" india="" right="" notes="" remind="" people="" heritage="" spanned="" centuries="" before="" few="" decades="" soured="" no="" longer="" import="" adopt="" western="" decadence="" osmotic="" way="" globalize="" could="" be="" payback="" div="" style="font-size:100%;">* * *<br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong>Beyond</strong></span> the fish-smelling suburbs of a sultry Mumbai afternoon suburbs, beyond the Shiv Sainik posters promising moustachioed regionalism, beyond scurrying, emaciated Mumbaikers, we reach a place that is now Coke Studio for us. This could be a haunted house in a nice Bollywood flick, where they have the final fight scene. It is some old Goanese-style mansion. Inside, I see a counter-intuitive sight. My bad. I expected some cosy, concert-like atmosphere with a decent crowd being enthralled in sequence by a procession of talented musicians. But, no. This happens to be just a studio, where the focus is on the recording. Just a few moveable chairs strewn in the darkness for us.<br />And like a Bollywood movie, there are takes and re-takes and re-re-takes and re-re-re-takes.<br />Sabri Brothers (the local brew, not the original Pakistani singers), are busy doing what could be a rock qawwali of a song that we used to sing more in jest than in profound musical experience as children: “Hamein toh loot liya milkey husn walon ne, kaley kaley balon ne gorey gorey gallon ne.” The folks apologetically tell me as I see 18 re-takes that it is not always this bad. Songs move faster in the series of recordings that preceded this. Guided by Aditya Swamy, MTV India’s channel head, I am taken to a waiting van outside (the kind in which Bollywood stars dab make-up and give interviews to Page 3 journos). In a laptop, they make me taste the sounds that happened before. Good stuff, actually. There is Harshdeep, there is Shaan, and there is a Bengali folk singer called Sourav Mandal and a Tamil folksie, “Chinna Ponnu” (literally, Little Girl). It is clear to me by now that the magic of Coke Studio, is, well, in the studio. Much mixing and bartending will make this drink hit you. And a big question hangs. Why is this all so Bollywoodesque? The Pak version was more Sufi rock, wasn’t it? Inside, Leslie Lewis, the talented composer, producer and guitarist who ought to be the alter-icon to any Rahman-respecting aficionado, explains in a simple analogy the daunting challenge he has faced in the 40 days of a Lent-like penance that audaciously straddles the superficiality of the pop culture and the richness of a heritage it is trying to court. “I am giving them some bitter chocolate. And then I given them the chocolate they are used to, in the hope that later, they discover the bitter taste.” To good effect, he adds his own intuition as he experiments away. Ramya Iyer, the dusky “English pop” singer I hang out with as the Sabri Brothers drone on in re-takes, has a rich voice and so Lezz decides to do away with all musical instruments for her -- but for a sound pad. With her is Roop Jolly, a poetess. The surprise is that Ramya sings a Urdu ghazal (Aaj jaane ki zid na karo) and Roop intersperses it with recited poetry.<br />This is all so experimental.<br />Lezz has not slept much for 40 days, and his supportive wife is hanging in there, helping him every step as he walks the crevices of an uneven, glacial musical landscape. And Lezz is no mere composer, but a medicine man. His plaited hair waving, he gestures to the musicians from a console as he brews what he hopes will be a trick that works. In another console a few yards beyond, Samar Khan, with a crutch to guide him after an accident, watches as a key member his team <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz17UDDECww"> is guiding the cameras </a>like a soccer coach shouting to half-backs.<br />The mission of this man, who directed the 2008 movie “Shaurya” is to add to the event some of the Red Chillies (the SRK company) he works for now. The red-and-black colours of the studio glow amid the cameras and I get one more hang of what will eventually become a TV experience: angles and lights and sounds in a Coca-Cola concentrate formula. The logic of the focused factory over the magic of the spontaneous craft. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZXePVJ6pnrI/TfmUL6-9KvI/AAAAAAAAAoU/tAhO63TAwZE/s1600/DSC00805.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618684942654188274" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZXePVJ6pnrI/TfmUL6-9KvI/AAAAAAAAAoU/tAhO63TAwZE/s400/DSC00805.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />As I get ready to take the flight back, the music seems more evolved. There is seasoned Kay Kay and there is the talented Mathangi, trying to do a pleasant, quicker version of the S.D. Burman classic, “Khilte hain gul yahan.” The humming is nice, the reverb just fine and the song somehow sounds alluringly new.<div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cWUc6b5baj8/TfmWsef3dHI/AAAAAAAAAoc/Pi07QWRokIQ/s1600/DSC00812.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618687700966536306" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cWUc6b5baj8/TfmWsef3dHI/AAAAAAAAAoc/Pi07QWRokIQ/s320/DSC00812.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The challenge for anyone who has tasted the Pakistan stuff is to shed the baggage and look at the Indian Coke Studio with a new pair of eyes. The burden for the Mumbai gigsters is to be odiously compared with the geniuses of Lahore. The challenge for Leslie Lewis is to make it all somehow popular with the kids who watch MTV (er, aren’t they drooling on foul-mouthed Roadies, otherwise?), while he tries to transplant a Sufi-folk soul into the humdrum of the Bollywood culture.<br />Bitter chocolates are so hard to sell to sugar-high kids.<br />Somehow, one hopes that India’s own Coke Studio will provide the respectable view of the kind I got on Mumbai from the top floor of the Westin. In the end, it is all in the point of view<div></div><br /></div></div></span>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-20263731042514524672011-04-13T23:55:00.000-07:002011-04-14T05:30:25.075-07:00The name is Bond. Tamil Bond (poem for New Year)ஆண்டு ஆண்டு பழுத்து கிழத்த கலைஞருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />மாண்டு மாண்டு தோய்ந்து போன தொண்டருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />சாடிசாடி அரசை நாண்ட அம்மாவுக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />அவள் காலைத்தொட்டு வணங்கி நின்ற அமைச்சருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />ஓடியாடி உலகைவென்ற டோனியருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />அழகிப்பட்டம் ஆசைப்பட்ட சோனியருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />வயலில் வாடி பயிரை வளர்த்த உழவருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />அயல் நாடு சென்று கணினி வென்ற இளைஞருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />மாதர் தம்மை ஒங்க வைத்த "பெமினி"யார்க்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />அச்சம் நாணம் மடம் பயின்ற அம்மணிக்கும புத்தாண்டு<br />மாணவரை ஞானவராக்கும் முனைவருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br />இந்தப்பட்டியலில் விட்டுப்போனஅனைவருக்கும் புத்தாண்டு<br /><br />வாழ்க வாழ்க என்று கூறி இறைவனை நாம் வேண்டுகிறோம்<br />புது ஆண்டு உம்மை நன்று வைக்க தமிழை வைத்து "பாண்டு"கிறோம்<br /><br /><br />(c) N. Madhavan, 2011Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-15426471746909342182011-02-12T08:18:00.000-08:002011-02-12T08:46:22.146-08:00Yeh Saali Zindagi: Rock n Roll Raagini with Rajma Risotto<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9s6BKqDHGHE/TVazq8viffI/AAAAAAAAAlo/HWmL3v41Un0/s1600/ysz2.bmp"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 227px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 164px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572839139358965234" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9s6BKqDHGHE/TVazq8viffI/AAAAAAAAAlo/HWmL3v41Un0/s400/ysz2.bmp" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPm-pAlrzUg/TVazjxHJIiI/AAAAAAAAAlg/1eaKHmcKGFI/s1600/ysz1.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 259px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 194px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572839015977656866" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPm-pAlrzUg/TVazjxHJIiI/AAAAAAAAAlg/1eaKHmcKGFI/s400/ysz1.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>Look at Priti. Look at her hard. She could be Jessica Lall. Singing in a band, in a tentative “brother-like” relationship with a dubious Punjabi restaurant owner, insecurely struggling with club life as the daughter of a father who “spent his life reading the papers.”<br />Look at Arun. Chartered accountant and gangster extraordinaire, in a gangland of affections and bullets, blackmails and deals, being held leech-like by a boss steeped in murky business even as he wants to run away.<br />“Yeh Saali Zindagi,” Sudhir Mishra’s latest, takes us through characters that seem grey yet colourful, laced with humour and spunk in a world of ironies, where destiny shapes them in a carpet in which each character runs into each other to create intricate wefts and warps.<br />The roles in delightful inter-mix: a money-laundering frontman industrialist who speaks Haryanvi, kidnap racketeers charmed by urban chic, a home minister in sophisticated veneer seeking an elusive social respect, a tycoon on the verge of bankruptcy with a wayward Casanova son, a possessive lover in jail locked in a peculiar relationship with a policeman brother.<br />More: a UP gangster with a cross-dressing half-brother in Georgia, an old Delhi girl who seeks dignity in a world of shady fortunes.<br />As it tackles possessive and protective love in their various shades of material conflicts, YSZ shows you shades of directors who are leaving their mark on a cinema that I classify as post-modern realism.<br />Mishra’s oeuvre has elements of his own previous films, notably “Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin” – an overnight tale of romance, lust and underworld rhythms; and “Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi” – an Emergency era saga of idealism and mystical, mysterious love.<br />In bringing these together, the director borrows stylistically from his peers in the emerging school of “chic realism” – so we see a Tarantino-like precision of nature quirks, 30-second commercial style aestheticism of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (particularly in Old Delhi scenes), gangland processes that remind you of Ram Gopal Varma and stark, rustic imagery and dialogues that remind you of Vishal Bhardwaj. It must be added, however, that Mishra, even in earlier films like Dharavi, has always had a leaning towards earthy realism.<br />Mishra celebrates Delhi in all its current shades: Gurgaon offices, rustic hideouts in rural Haryana, the magical Purana Qila, the Lutyens homes of ministers, and half-baked characters who pander to the rich and the powerful.<br />For those weaned on the call centre and mobile phone driven mall culture of Karan Johar movies, YSZ could be an antidote, revealing the underbelly of the scam surrounding the 2G spectrum that made those calls possible.<br />But this is no hero-villian tale. Nearly all characters,irrespective of their stature or orientation, are victims of their circumstances or nature, like in a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. All of them, nearly, faced with choices, grapple with love, respect and an elusive emotional security.<br />Mishra’s success lies in the way he has probably managed to connect with a multiplex audience through a quick-footed plotline while keeping a soul that could well belong in an old classic. In Arun (Irrfan Khan in a blemishless performance), you can see the Pyaasa of Guru Dutt blended like a bartender’s special with Deewar’s Vijay.<br />In the last scene, where he leans into the lap of Priti (an effective Chitrangada Singh in a muse’s delight role), you almost see the Amitabh Bachchan of Deewar.<br />But no. Seconds later he sounds like Pyaasa and all of a sudden, you realise that the sad man and the angry young man have blended into a humourous character who celebrates the random ironies of life.<br />If there was a movie to tell you about John Lennon’s famous line, “Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans” – this could be it.<br />Arun the protagonist looks for “Rajma Chawal”-like motherly love in a rock-n-roll saga of guitars, gore and glory, interspersed with the rustic raagini-belt of Haryana. The tapestry works because plots, characters and the sheer style prop up each other in a diary-style thriller narrative. </div></div>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-45112650182739449632011-01-17T06:46:00.000-08:002011-01-17T06:56:12.979-08:00The Mediterranean Rice - A Short Story Set in Tunis<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TTRW-G-BE1I/AAAAAAAAAlU/b0G1-luHqZM/s1600/Benali.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 196px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TTRW-G-BE1I/AAAAAAAAAlU/b0G1-luHqZM/s400/Benali.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563167064732013394" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TTRW0zwyUpI/AAAAAAAAAlM/QfqvL9xzCno/s1600/olivestunis.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 194px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TTRW0zwyUpI/AAAAAAAAAlM/QfqvL9xzCno/s400/olivestunis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563166904957424274" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dear Madhavan</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I must share with you today the story that I have long held back from you. It is no big secret, as secrets of the world go, but then, there are some that must shared at some point for them retain their value. So, today, after a gap of 15 years, I share that secret with you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">--------</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The breeze hits your face hard at Tunis. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hard, real hard. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it can send quite a mysterious chill down a simple Indian spine. The airport, not far from the Mediterranean, is actually called Carthage. It is, I assure you, an exotic feeling. To dream of ancient history from near the point where lay an ancient City named from the Phonenician Kart-hadasht, meaning “new town”. It was a big power in the 2<sup>nd</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> century Before Christ, the same time as the Roman Republic, though we rarely hear of it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Shut your eyes, let the wind wafting across the rainy sea from Europe drench you a wee bit with the drops, and you can imagine Hannibal crossing the Alps. You can think of Swiss cheese, Italian Mafiosi and Greek gods. Tunis does that to you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On that day, I had some wonderful company as well. These were some fine airhostesses, who had just flown in from Casablanca. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Oh,” I can here you say, “He is making that up.” But stand on the tarmac like I did that day, and move into the large spacious hall, and you will see the blinking signs of flights that take you to places like Casablanca and Tripoli, and you can catch a bit of that salty desert on your tongue as you still feel the cold breeze, which, perhaps touched some blue-eyed Arabesque former princess at Algiers before making its way to my sunburnt cheeks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On this day, I stood there, having struck a casual friendship after seeing off the Joint Secretary (West Asia), who had flown in. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I had seen three young, exotic women smile at me. Wearing blue skirt-suits, with flashing teeth and affectionate but efficient eyes, they made my heart aflutter. My looks, and my strange language (I spoke Tamil to the fellow tribal from the MEA) must have triggered in them something of the curious and I decided to make the most out of that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Moroccan stewardesses can be a nice lot. They speak English, but preferred my broken French. Before long, we were speaking of illegal immigrants who make it to Sicily across the waters, and of the land that I came from, of which they indeed knew very little.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A few Gandys, Taj Mahal and Hindoo kind of expressions gone, we felt hungry, when a blue-eyed Almitra, a Moroccan of exotic Georgian mix, declared: “J’ai faim!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then they asked me to make an Indian dish for them. Being the little lost boy that I was, I fussed little knowledge, but they insisted. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Outside, it drizzled a little as we got into a BMW, arranged for me by the personal aide to Yasser Arafat. I had borrowed it, thinking JS might be impressed with that. He was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course, you remember! Arafat was there at that time. Remember when the Israelis bombed Tunisia and the Palestinian camps? I was, as a humble diplomat of the Indian Foreign Service, assigned to Tunis. A punishment posting, they called it, but it turned out to be a glorious one. My friendship with the PLO was in the best interests of the South Block in Delhi and I wanted to make the most of it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I will now let you in on a bonus secret. I made quite a few of the sophisticated guerrilla leaders take a fascination for M.S. Subbulakshmi. Some said her voice went well with Turkish coffee. I would not dispute that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ben Ali had seized power after overthrowing the old dictator, and photos of him smiled across in rugged style in the spick-and-span capital as I drove with Almitra, Nawal and Zubina. Black , chauffeured BMWs speak the same language everywhere, and heads turned to see a brown Indian with three Moroccan girls of enviable disposition. I was taken to an apartment two of them shared and there lay the rub: I was supposed to cook a meal for them. By now, they were in a mood that women are prone to when suddenly convinced for reasons only they know. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was only one dish I knew and it was not difficult to prepare it. But, here on this breezy March morning, I was supposed to do a lot more. I asked for yoghurt, and turned the rice cooker on. I asked them to watch TV and told them to keep off the little kitchen. Martial Arab music, followed by some Russian opera and then, a sombre speech by Ben Ali wafted across the hall into the kitchen. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Arabic spoken by dictators can be soothing, especially to a man who hardly knows the language and is in deep culinary stress.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At<span style=""> </span>Ben Ali’s incantation of the name of<span style=""> </span>Allah, the all-compassionate and all-merciful one, I mixed the sour branded supermarket yoghurt with the rice, which mercifully, had cooked well. It was wild rice, the thick bulbous variety that grows rare in Thailand which Almitra had shopped for in a Parisian store. The yoghurt was more sour than it should be, but something in that seaside weather gave it the right effect. I took some fennel seeds randomly from the kitchenette and let it crackle and also some aniseeds. I can hear you say to yourself something about these not going with rice in southern India. I shall simply smile at that one. Mustard seeds were not available, you see, and neither were green chillies. As the crackling seeds in butter (yes, no gingelly oil, alas), I let them rest on the wild rice mixed with yoghurt. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">By now my imagination was at work. I could hear the girls giggling at some grandiose claim made by the Tunisian leader, as I reached for a tin of canned olives, which I placed at strategic points on the large bed of curd rice. The olives glittered like the eyes of my guests that day, while the yoghurt glowed like their skin. The seeds were spread in the centre loosely like the scarves my guests wore. At some point, I had stir-fried some large jalapeno peppers that Nawal brought in from the flight that brings vain East Coast investment bankers to Casablanca.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As I saw Nawal, who is six feet tall, stretch her stockinged leg on the maroon rug, I went for the tomato ketchup and poured it in an oval shaped ring around the fried seeds.<br />Ben Ali was now saying Allah for the 17<sup>th</sup> time in as many minutes and Zubina hollered in: “Ca<span style=""> </span>va?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Everything looked a lot better than I feared. I cut some brown bread quickly and deep-fried it in long strips and covered the wild rice on four sides with this. Ben Ali was greeting the people of Tunisia yet again on their glory, as I walked in to the living room and placed my dish on the corner of the elegant, glass-topped, round-shaped dining table. The girls, hungry and eager, dashed for the dish.<br />Tongues slurped, eyes widened.<br />Questions were asked but were met with smiles that were a combination of the sheepish and the victorious.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Later, over some hard, black coffee that is so very Mediterranean in inspiration, I shared with them the secret of making an impromptu version of the curd rice, the simplest of my south Indian staples. They seemed to enjoy my ingenuous effort at least as much as my very bad French. After the repast, Nawal left for her own home and Zubina remembered suddenly that she had to meet her distant aunt who was visiting from Rabat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Almitra and I were alone. She tossed her lustrous, long hair that spoke of her part-Georgian lineage and smiled a<span style=""> </span>special smile.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“So, mon cheri, what do you name this dish?,” she asked as she stretched her long legs on the magenta leather couch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The breeze blew in from the French windows as I came close to her and whispered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Arafat Annam!,” I replied. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">You now now why I call it that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think it was a nice, very nice, evening to recall and savour.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Love, Subra</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-35767480469334633652010-11-24T23:01:00.000-08:002010-11-26T21:08:13.198-08:00The Social Network: Lonely Planet Guide to Facebook and the Beatles<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TPCSLQm9TII/AAAAAAAAAlA/U_h0LPN9sEI/s1600/beatlespep.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 223px; height: 167px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TPCSLQm9TII/AAAAAAAAAlA/U_h0LPN9sEI/s400/beatlespep.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544091863427665026" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TPCR8pT0lXI/AAAAAAAAAk4/JKuGJkLsGzA/s1600/beatlespep.jpg"><br /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TPCQ9GAJMwI/AAAAAAAAAko/95CP68TkcU4/s1600/socialnetwork.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 184px; height: 273px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TPCQ9GAJMwI/AAAAAAAAAko/95CP68TkcU4/s400/socialnetwork.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544090520550716162" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> So, Mark Zuckerburg is an<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29"> outlier.</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Picture a lad, with a simple, Jewish background, incredible enthusiasm, loads of computer programming talent, lost in the awe-inspiring Ivy League world of<span style=""> </span>Harvard. He is trying hard to be somebody. He is trying hard to be cool. He wants a girlfriend. Erica Albright, to be precise.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">He can only write code though, and his gauche excellence conceals the seething rage of rejection – or perhaps, a craving for acceptance.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Rigby">Ah, look at all the lonely people.</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Over across the Atlantic Ocean now to Liverpool, circa 1960. Working class youth in Lancashire gang up to emulate and excel in the legacy of a Tennessean Elvis Presley, a truck driver who twisted country-style jazz to father rock n roll. John, Paul and George have a friend called Pete Best, who is the drummer in a group they call The Silver Beetles, which in turn is raised from the ashes of an early teen group called The Quarrymen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">To be somebody in the Liverpoolian suburbs of the teenaged minds, perhaps, you had to strike it big in America. So, yonder the ocean they land in 1963, and Beatlemania happens. At New York, not, by global standards, far from Harvard. This after a journey through Hamburg’s nightclubs.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">At Harvard, circa 2003, Mark <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iim6s8Ea_bE">wants to hold</a> Erica’s hand. But he goofs in a burst of anger after a courtship-turned-altercation, and bitches about her in a blog, which has replaced the guitar as a geeky instrument of arrival and aspiration. He escapes into composing the code that offers succour from heartbreaks. His anger and social outcastness combine in an expression of outrageous enterprise in which the exhaustive might of the Internet becomes a toy for teenage dreams and rivalries. He gets by<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBDF04fQKtQ"> with a little help from his friends.</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The timing is just right in a world where the old Web is giving way to Web 2.0, giving way to an ubiquitous interconnectedness of a world that seems to mock at the exalted isolation of Harvard's exclusive culture, and the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discreet_Charm_of_the_Bourgeoisie"> discreet charms of the bourgeoisie.</a> It takes the gutsy geekyness of a spurned lover to connect the ocean with the Noah's Ark of Ivy League snobbery.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before we know what is going on, there is Facemash that helps students connect, an official Harvard Connection group, and intrigue and excitement as the young Jew finds a friend in Eduardo Saverin and then rivals in the silver-spooned Winklevoss brothers. Zuckerburg turns the gatecrashing of the outliers into the wannabe network of Harvardian mystique in a Web of relationships, rivalries and accusations and defence of intellectual property theft that explodes as fast as social media in the big bad world out there.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It takes a savvy Hollywood mind to capture that in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/">"The Social Network" </a>based on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accidental_Billionaires">"The Accidental Billionaire"</a><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> While Zuckerburg faces a famous Harvard trial that smacks of the Spanish Inquisition, what we see is a tale of class conflict, youthful outrage and friendships turned partnerships.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Facebook happens, like an inexorable event history. The enterprise grows, and its popular might brings for Saverin a happening girlfriend, and Zuckerburg the prospect of<span style=""> </span>becoming the next Bill Gates. Built on lines and lines of code written like musical notes on lonely evenings, over bottle-sipped beer and munched Hamburgers.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">* * *<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">THE </span>Silver Beatles, in fact, were Hamburgers, in a manner of speaking. They played in nightclubs, fooled around a little and cut a record called <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEEC-yhr_Ks">“Love Me Do”</a> that got them going. It is a song that Mark would have loved to sing for Erica, had he only swapped a computer for a guitar. Back in the UK, John, Paul and George – and Pete Best – meet a man called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Epstein">Brian Epstein</a>, a record-store owner who becomes their manager. He takes them to their historic success.</p>But somewhere along the way, in the hunt for quality in the quest for success, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Best">Pete Best</a> is gone and replaced by a trendy drummer called Ringo Starr. They arrive big in the United States, where a post-war baby-boomer generation hangs on to every breath that John takes and back in their homeland, they become somebody.<br />And in the US – or Harvard, to be precise --- Zuckerburg is growing bigger. He is somebody now and he is fuelled now not just by the spunk and the talent but the outrageous style of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Parker"> Sean Parker.</a>Remember Napster? He was one of its co-founders. The little boy who wrote code that helped teenagers share and swap music files, bringing the music industry to its knees. But there was a twist in the tale of Napster.com that suffered lawsuits and combat from the world’s biggest music symbols. Napster’s MP3 manna was eventually turned into a workable business model by Steve Jobs as iTunes, owned by his company, Apple. <p class="MsoNormal">Apple, incidentally, was the record label that the Beatles made famous. <span style=""></span>Sean Parker courts big money for Zuckerburg, the way Epstein pulled a rabbit out of the hat for the Beatles, putting him in touch with the likes of hedge fund managers that right big cheques. Rock N Roll parties happen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But, in the Newtonian gravity of cultural mystique, strange things happen. The affable Saverin feels insecure in the presence of the more gutsy, ambitious Parker, who charms Zuckerburg in the Silicon Valley – which must be to Mark what America was to the Beatles.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Facebook is now bigger than the small dormitory dream of a Harvard student, the way the Beatles were much bigger than the Quarrrymen or The Silver Beatles. Facebook is now bigger than Facemash or the Harvard Connection.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Saverin is eased out. Much the way Pete Best was. The world has its youngest billionaire.</p><p class="MsoNormal">* * *<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:180%;">“THE</span> Social Network,” in the end, is the story of outliers seeking name, fame and girlfriends. Much like that of the Beatles. If John Lennon famously taunted the British Queen in a concert (“Those in the cheap seats can clap. The rest of you can rattle your jewellery”), Zuckerburg is the latter-day anti-hero, poking fun at the Winklevoss clan’s awesome might of smart lawyers and their undefinable confidence that only inherited money and privilege can perhaps bring.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Winklevoss brothers are Olympian rowers. The same game that forms part of the Oxford mystique.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If the Beatles wanted to be cheered where the Americans were screaming, the Winklevosses want to be accepted in the charmed air of the Thames. The water might look the same in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_River">Charles</a>, but, laced with the mystique of social power, the mystery runs deeper than both the rivers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Winklevosses, historically, are outliers in their own right. They may have inherited with their money the same complexes their parental memories instill.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">To row in Cambridge and to row in Harvard cannot be the same thing, right? Where, or when, does the valley become the hill?<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">* * *<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:180%;">DOWN</span> in the Silicon Valley, Sean Parker gets into trouble for a drug party, and Zuckerburg makes a few enemies as the world toasts the latest technological tribute to friendship. Through the back-and-forth pastiche of<span style=""> </span>a hidebound Harvardian traditions and manners (that so smack of a British influence), charmed student games, the mating rituals of geeks and the rites of passages of the code jocks, “The Social Network” tells a Freudian tale of children trying to find the success that eluded their fathers – and forefathers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Beatles fell apart, as they evolved from love songs to<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Mystery_Tour"> magical mystery tours</a> and <a href="http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/maharishi-mahesh-yogi/">Oriental mysticism</a>. Zuckerburg and friends chart much the similar way as fame and money take them to a world beyond girlfriend-hunting.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Friends fall out, albeit in a rich way as lawsuits and conflicts give way to settlements. The pangs of guilt linked to a friendship gone sour do hurt Mark, but such is life. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Saverin loses his trophy girlfriend. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mark<span style=""> </span>is still trying to find one. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">A few feet from him at his Harvardian Inquisition, eyeing his spunk and zest is a comely assistant to the lawyers who are out to get him. She cares for him, and he does return the affection. But they are like Archie and Betty.<span style=""> </span>She eats salad for the same reason he writes code.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Archie wants Veronica, whose name happens to be <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Erica-Albright/100001661371340">Erica Albright</a>. He is last seen asking to add her on his Facebook friend list. Do not confuse his earnings with his yearnings.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band"> Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band</a>. Hope you enjoy the show.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228673359515663607.post-21077730404333699482010-10-09T20:43:00.000-07:002010-10-09T20:48:13.071-07:00Endhiran: Kyunki Hollywood Bhi Kabhi Kodambakkam Thi<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TLE3StrvxqI/AAAAAAAAAkg/IOc6iw0AC8c/s1600/endhiran.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 169px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_34YkbyR65Sw/TLE3StrvxqI/AAAAAAAAAkg/IOc6iw0AC8c/s400/endhiran.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526259012400563874" border="0" /></a><br />Endhiran: A wonderful effort.<br />I fell for the first half, but quite sure the money is being made from the second.<br />Freudian psychology and Darwinian perspective wrapped in post-Asimovian sci-fi narrative with special effects razzmatazz curated specially with Tamil Nadu's feudo-democratic sensibilities.<br />I am afraid the magic of Vairamthu's lyrics and Sujatha's dialogues must be wholly lost in translation for those who watch it as "Robot" --much like the humanoid without human emotions that is the heart of the movie.<br />Special mention for a satirical interlude, where Rangusky, a mosquito gangleader, demands National Bird status!<br />Watch out dear Hollywood, here comes Kodambakkam.Madhavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11825915633309444579noreply@blogger.com1