Newton: Westminster laughs in the dark deep of Dandakaranya

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?
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.

Shubh Mangal Saavdhan: British sex comedy in desi milieu Jaljeera with Whiskey.

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.

Rangoon: Epic Meets Masala. Yeh Kya Ho Gaya Saala?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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).

But, but, but…

At some point, there is a line from Saif that seems to speak for the director: “Hum funkaar hain: jhooth ko sachhai se jeena hamara pasha hai” (We are artists. To live the lie honestly is our profession).

And we want to ask: Dear Vishal, have  you?.

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. 

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.

Do you wear a tuxedo with Kolhapuri chappals?

 There was no ear-worm that I could spot, only the "Bloody Hell" bit that has helped Rottweiler critics.

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. 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 Tempora!

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.

 But Rangoon has to be admired still for its guts, ambition, cinematography and fine editing.

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!
 -- Madhavan Narayanan

'Rekka': Idli chic with oregano flavour

'Rekka': 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.

Jio Beta! Is RIL hiding a secret sauce?

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.
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?
My guess would be that it would come from data science.
By being flexible on handsets, adding content and using smart software to figure out profit opportunities, a retail-savvy game can be played.
Here is how.
By combining Lyf-branded house phones, partnerships with low end brands like Intex and content providers, RIL can get high volume semi-rural consumers.
Reliance Retail can be the e-commerce play using supply chain management efficiently.
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!

Iraivi - Mini review

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 K 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.

Flawed Machismo And Philandering Femmes: Tanu Weds Manu Returns

Two archetypes of Modern India.
Tanuja Trivedi a.k.a. Tanu - from UP. Romantic, aggressive, self-confident
Kusum Sangwan a.ka. Datto - from Haryana. Confident, dutiful, athletic.

Then you have Manu Sharma a.k.a.  Manu - A man torn between the two women
In the trignometry of modern India's changing gender equations, writer Himanshu Sharma and director Anand Rai explore patterns that go beyond the obvious.
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.

Selfie Verite - When stand-up comedy makes you sit down

'Time stands still in Calcutta. That is where ambition goes to die. It has a high return on investment on nostalgia'- says Papa CJ

It was delightful attending his PAPA CJ - NAKED (Gurgaon - Sun 31 May)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 simple 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.

Pronounced bowels and digestible consonants: Piku

There is only so much you can guffaw when the bowel is a muse.
But beyond the ablutions lie the intuitions that provide a richer variety of humour.
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. 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.
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. 

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.

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.

Gangsta Chic Rum in Vintage Wine Glass: Bombay Velvet's Underwelming Underbelly

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.

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.
Anurag Kashyap, like Johnny Balraj 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. 
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. 
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.
But still...

Because India is not America, 1960s isn't 1930s, gangsta chic is not period authenticity, emotional trignometry is not social history.
And Kashyap is not Scorcese. 
Rum in a wine glass.

Calcutta Remixed, with some overcooking - Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (mini review)

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 magnificent 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.
Costume design (inlcuding some by Manoshi Nath) 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 K Venugopal Menon's daughter plays female lead in a role that reminds you somehow of Smita Patil. Classic wine in multiplex bottle.

Crazy art with desi heart: the importance of Happy New Year

'In the dark times will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.'

-       Bertolt Brecht

 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. 

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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^st Century of Mother India that Nargis played – a moral icon, a striving figure seeking respect and justice.

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.

Gangs of Wasseypur II - a quick mini review

Gangs 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.
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!

Deconstructing Aromale

Music, 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!
Here's what I heard last night...


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.
Here are some I could smell...
Watch the guitar plucks and the humming here.


And then go on to how Black American music retained and lost its identity in a brilliant lecture-demo chat by Ali Farka Toure



Go back now, and listen to a raga alaapana (aalap) by Shreya Ghoshal) in reprise of the original Aromale



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



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




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.



Catch a handful of water on the seashore. Measure where they come from.

Catch again the chorus of a crescendo in Aromale. There is now Abba's Eagle.



Soar, like the Eagle. Soar, like the breeze coming from the mountains that Aromale talks of. The majestic bird becomes the Beloved!

Resignation - A poem

by Ganesh Venkatraman
(Translated from Tamil)


The thought occurred
to quit.
When I arose from my seat
the hands were tied.
A pair of golden handcuffs?
Or a slender, sacred thread?
As I shook off my hand,
uncaring,
a wail arose.

"Don't go!
Don't leave me!"
Took a while to learn
it was my manager.
"Oh! Don't leave us!"
-- said the Manager's Manager


Well done!
Everybody can hear me get up
Clearly
Before my voice becomes
Immune to their ears
And their ears shut close
It is best to depart.
--Ganesh Venkatraman

Rediscovery of Captain Haddock

When does a schoolboy comic figure become a literary character?
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.
Tintin came back to me this week in three dimensions.
Make that four, as the special glasses borrowed from the multiplex staff was supplemented by an Einstenian fourth. Time.

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.
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.
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.
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.
Now, there is a twist in the tale that never really changed.
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.
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!
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.
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.
And then I see Captain Haddock.
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.
Did Herge read Joseph Conrad, I wonder.
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.
I am Tintin, still,looking for new clues.

Designer 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

Madhavan: And at the wedding, with Hermes di saari, they'll take Saath Ferragamo? ;-)

Shunali: Will also say: Kuch aur bhi Dior na ladkey waalon ko.

Madhavan: Aunty will say: Dulhan ke liye kuch aur Cardin?

Shunali: Ladki khush rahey hamaare to yehi Armani hai. Khoob Giorgio or aur khush raho.


Madhavan: Aur nazar utar te hain. Kisi Moet ka nazar na lag jaaye hamari beti par ;-)

Shunali: Shaadi khoob Dom (Perignon) dhaam sey honi chahiya.Have I made myself Cristal clear?

Madhavan: At ladies sangeet, many old women will dance with their Hilfigers ;-)


Shunali: And will say: Shaadi sey kabhi mat Gabbana.

Madhavan: Honeymoon Goa ke monsoon mein. Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi woh Versace ki raat

Splendid isolation

They won’t let you in the club.
You’ll have to start your own
and let others look at you the way you did once.

So you can turn them down
With some company that you gathered
In the select twilight of your own left-outness
That sparked your journey.

Loyalties will mingle, bonds
will grow stronger
until the ship you shaped
freezes from its float
to a hard ground,
congealed like an ancient blood
With memories of those who were there when it all happened
swarming like flies on a wound.


They won’t let you in the club
You’ll form your own enclave of splendid isolation
with meandering roads that weave a labyrinth over time
spruced with hedges that will stay becoming
until time turns them into thorny barriers
or wicked walls that beckon and boo.

The wannabes, aspirants and mystery wanderers
Seeking the ways of the Other Side
shall queue up

Your glass-paned walls shall see
faces peering in
monkey-pressed in urchin yearnings
And your pity and your glory
shall keep you exalted
until time walks its walk
like it has on great nations.

© N. Madhavan, 2011

When Gulzar meets Eliot: Poets in the shadow of urban angst

I 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.

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.

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.




It kind of fell into place.

"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.


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.

And so it begins.

Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets.

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.

Din khaali khaali bartan hai, aur raat hai jaise andha kuan
in soonee andheree aakhon mein, aansu ki jagah aataa hain dhuan

(The day seems like an empty vessel/And the night like a bottomless well
In these vacant, dark eyes/In the place of tears out comes smoke)

So I look at Eliot's lines again.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.



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."

In umr se lambi sadkon ko, manzil pe pahunchte dekha nahi
bas daudte firte rahati hain, hum ne to thhaharte dekhaa nahi
is ajnabi se shahar mein, jana pahchana dhoondhta hai


(In these streets long as life/one's never seen destinations reached
they meander and run for ever/one's never seen them pause
In this stranger of a city/one looks for the comfort of the familiar)


So here is Eliot, in the same poem again.

Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.


Streets that flow like an argument -- Eliot

Street long as life - Gulzar.

Sounds familiar?

And then Eliot goes..
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .







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.

Ek akela is shahar mein, raat mein aaur dopahar mein
Abodaanaa dhoondhta hai, ashiyana dhoondhta hai




(A loner walks in this city/At night, and in the afternoon
Searching for morsels to munch/And a sanctuary to rest)


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.

For I have known them all already, known them all:--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;



Then Gulzar goes:

Jeene kee wajah toh koi nahee, marne kaa bahana dhoondhta hai

(There is no reason to live/And one looks for an excuse to die)

If there is any doubt left in me, it is cleared by the following passage in an introductory remark on the Eliot poem, published here.
"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"

And I realise the immense commonality of two poets in urban angst -- continents and languages apart and separated by three quarters of a century.

When Bollywood bodies mess with Sufi souls: A day out at Coke Studio, India

It is all in the point of view.
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.
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.
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.

* * *

Beyond 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.
And like a Bollywood movie, there are takes and re-takes and re-re-takes and re-re-re-takes.
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.
This is all so experimental.
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 is guiding the cameras like a soccer coach shouting to half-backs.
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.

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.

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.
Bitter chocolates are so hard to sell to sugar-high kids.
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