Pointless reflections

It sometimes occurs to me, that some of us are engaged in practicing certain set of ‘things’. These things, which if continuously practiced, will spew out ye many number of people who are disgruntled, frustrated, unsatisfied and apathy ridden on both sides of all the tables, I so feel.

Let’s start by asking some questions.

What is our societal culture like? What does it rewards? What does it appreciate? What does it tacitly encourage? By 'our' I mean the 'people like us' bubble in which we – the second generation, Indian urban youth – were brought in. Where, our everyday-maneuver is not an undertaking in ensuring our survival. Where we know, before-hand, and are sure about, the outlet from where our next set of daily 2800 KCal requirement and pocket currency is going to dutifully present itself from. This surety, even as it incites creativity, and refined thought-process, propels ignorance and lethargy. It is sort of a shot of opium for the head. As all it then has to do is direct the energies gained into furthering of the 'Ego'.

'Ego' - which puts into picture the ‘Self’. Self-preservation, self gratification, self identification, self expression - all those aspects which furnish to the need of external validation of this very ‘Self’. And mind you, this idea of 'self' was very important when we tried to hunt in packs and ensure that our community lives to the see the next day. The need to be 'accepted', ‘applauded’, ‘appreciated’, ‘envied’, 'feared'.  The current times in which this 'people like us' bubble exists, makes all these aspects and their perceived importance a bit redundant, I so feel. Hence this ego doubles up as our alter-self, whose only job then remains is to 'create' a ‘personality’. Where every word that leaves our mouth should come out of a motive which would help us create this 'personality' better. My inner corruptions – to exaggerate an occurrence because the inflated form helps me further my agenda of getting the idea transmitted 'effectively' and ‘undisputed’, or say, to downplay the aspect of another grey-area occurrence, thereby bypassing the ordeal of dealing with the repercussions which it might entail shall it go out unchecked, unfiltered, uncensored – and many more of my such little deceitful streaks of human fallibility. All of them will come out full blown and in vibrant colors – Tom-tom-ing only the 'positives', either real or manufactured. Everything guided by the fear of the unknown. Quite frequently, it’s a contrived effort to mask the myriad dysfunctions that exist in our lives by airbrushing off anything remotely afoot. (Think here: Why 'Facebook' is actually such a big hit.)

Just look at what happens then, there's now 'motive' behind everything. Everything I write, I speak, I do, I ignore. Everything. Nothing is done for the sake of just doing it, but it is done so that in the next 50 steps of cause-and-effect carousel, something 'works-out' for me. Something. This spike in snobbery, disdain, hypocrisy, and narcissistic behavior out of ye many reasons discussed above, when extrapolated to the matter of bullying someone/some group into accepting what ‘I’ feel is correct, makes tremendous sense.

This need to carve out a new pathway on which a new personality can be based onto, leads to people over-promising and under-delivering. Most of the time if not always,. It is what is at work when you see someone curse and cuss because they are ‘cool’, 'the in-thing', and ‘hip’. It is what is at work when see someone not attend show up at a place to where it assumed they would or at times, expected of them to, because  "look at me, I am the bad-ass, the anti-establishmentarian, the destroyer of the 'authority figure', the disregarder of societal formats.’Like' me already on my FB Album!" . This is what is work when you see people half filling rectangular pegs in round cavities at work, just to generate a fake status report which depicts a fabricated 's' shaped progress curve, so that "I 'get' the ‘incentives’. The quality of the work be dammed. I need the dough to acquire materials and participate in the pop-culture of consumerism. Thereby ‘own’ stuff which’s termed ‘Owner’s pride and neighbor’s envy’. That I am better than someone else and that that someone secretly envies what all I seem to have, is the only reassurance I need to get by the day."

But, society ‘wants’ you to ‘need’ things. So, yeah, I guess…

But, this phenomenon is just so everywhere in our 'people-like-us' bubble. Isn't it? People fail to realize that constantly impressing others is not only exhausting, but also costly, time-consuming, and off-putting. In the foray to get ahead, people are increasingly sacrificing integrity and compassion for a life of sham and a false sense of respectability. Overall, the riptide of social consciousness is making the inhabitant of this 'people like us' bubble fearful, self-absorbed, ostentatious, and disengaged from ‘inner’ reality. This inner reality, which when lit up and strived upon to get to, is what generates the 'greater-good'. To forgo it just because we want to portray ourself as someone who is too cool for the mainstream – not in a 'maverick by virtue' kind of a way but a 'fake hipster' kind of a way, unsure of one’s own actual capacity – seems mind numbingly stupid.

Of course, this all is just putting on all fours what slowly will develop into something called 'mankind behavioral pattern', something to be looked at in retrospect and be dissected to hilt to derive an understanding of how one's culture shapes one's behavior. Stuff of academic interest for some, and things to be amused by for others (me).

But should we? Should we keep continuing this relay of back-slapping? Or, shall I say, should a part of the 'people like us' bubble not turn around and question, ‘why is this happening?’ And, ‘why should it keep happening?’ I mean, I sometimes wonder what are we human beings if not some resource hogging, perennially cribbing, ‘the other’ hating, lying, corruptible blobs of imperfection. But then, I get the answer: This deep seated imperfection is such an important aspect of the larger-than-the-self perfection which warps the whole existence. It this streak of imperfection that is present here to dole out required amount of moral and ethical dilemmas which we should encounter, ..as we wade through this brief window of sentience which we have being offered by some over-riding potent power which we'll ever understand. All our lies, our dishonesty, our lives fraught with hypocritical thought-streams, xenophobic instincts, greed, laziness, short-cut-ism....must be put to use. Or else all we'll be involved in doing is increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the air as we exhale....and systematically notching up the per-capita fraud of this blue-green-dot floating carelessly around a center of the many centers.  Hence, all these aspects should co-exist for all these aspects to evolve in good time. Just as what an Earthworm is to Agriculture so is this reversibility inducing, proverbial opposite opinion, so to say. As Swami Vivekananda once said, "No one goes from the ‘false’ to the ‘truth’; all just go from one ‘truth’ to the other’ truth’." Everything is necessary. This potential difference is what makes the world go round. This Universe – of which I too am an organic product – has an embedded self-correcting/self-balancing, neutral, unbiased mechanism. Hence, regardless of me getting all worked up about pointlessly reflecting upon it or not, everything is already alright. And will continue to be so.

I know, the utter of pointlessness of it all. Sorry for wasting your time.

Barfi!: A ‘My World’ Perspective Review

“….Aaj ka pyaar kaisa,

2-minutes noodle jaisa.

Pet mein gaya aur parrrrr…..

FB pe paida hua,

Car mein jawaan hua,

Court mein jaake gaya marrrr……

Apni kahaani saccha pyaar dikhlayegi,

Khawbon ki satt-rangi phuhar barsayegi.

Gyaan na baateinge,

Na ‘Hug’, na danteinge

Gudgudi thodi karenge….

Picture shuru, hogayi picture shuru.”

And with those words set to tunes warmer than the January Sun, even before the first frame is slid across, ‘Barfi!’ manages to deliver to you a boxfull of milky, soft and sweet, well, barfi. A kind in which when you once bite in, the succulence endures for the entire munch-period only to leave behind a soothing after-taste. I give out that opening bit secure in my knowledge that the fresh coolness of an experience which this said unique opening will splash over you will tide over and hold firm despite this harmless, measly spoiler. And how true this poetic announcement turns out in the end! The story doesn’t reward, doesn’t punish, neither does it try to climb upon a moral high-horse. It just remains as it was intended to be.

Barfi! – written and directed by Anurag Basu (of Life in a...metro fame and Kites, er, de-fame) – is a story set majorly in Darjeeling, West Bengal of 70s. Hence, given is the steam engine on narrow gauges skirting snaky road, misty mornings and bear-hug-y noons and dewy evenings and balmy nights. And racing through these delicious environs is a humble bicycle. Saddled on which is a man who would hear people scream at him post his antics, only that he can’t…On which, is a man who would whistle through his days and nights as he sings tunes-e-melody nonstop, only that he can’t…

That paragraph above, with its three period-esque stroke for eliciting an emotional emphasis is perhaps greater in intensity when seeking sympathy is concerned than this entire film. Right from the sequence – amidst the happiest song of the times – explaining how Barfi ended up so to the end credits montage showing Barfi charm a pool of kids, the film doesn’t dwell around you waiting for you to yield and submit to it crying in pity for the protagonist. No. Instead, it establishes something entirely different. As the title song suggests, here comes Barfi the naughty one, the big ulcer of the foot, the light of the night. Barfi’s so full of all things swift and cheery that every now and then the narrative has to remind the viewer that he can’t speak and listen. Bringing to life this effervescent character is Ranbir Kapoor, who, by his mere presence in a shot, flames up even the fringes of the screen. The brilliance of his acting skills is not a glaring spotlight, rather, it’s a poignant backlit glow. In this magical outing, he has yet again spoken out (without speaking, at that) that he, solely, is his own competition.

Barfi has two companions in the story. Shruti Ghosh (Ileana D’Cruz), the first one, is a daughter of a well-off family, is engaged to her college-mate, is ready to enter a secure wedlock with ‘right’ man, and also, is the one who brings to Barfi his first set stomach-butterflies – the one’s which take shelter in your belly when you experience love for the very first time. Promising to be just friends and nothing further, both conveniently break their set verbal contract and fall for each other nevertheless. With her big, admiring and admirable eyes she speaks quite deftly to this man who can’t listen to her, conventionally speaking. Jhilmil Chatterjee (Priyanka Chopra), the second one, is an autistic child of an alcoholic mother and a gambler father, is a childhood friend of Barfi, is the one who comes back to her Darjeeling home after spending quite some time at a ‘special home’ – Muskaan, at her grandfather’s request who desires to be with her as his last wish. This is when Barfi’s and Jhilmil’s paths cross again only to get further intertwined cutely like their pinky fingers do as the plot catches up. D’Cruz registers an affecting performance as a right girl caught in wrong decisions. The moist of her eyes when she is, in a certain scene, introduced to Jhilmil by Barfi makes you too gulp that throat-lump back in (A lot of credit for that goes to the song playing in background at the point in time too). And not once caricature-esque is the way Priyanka Chopra roles. The hardest role in the movie was hers, I feel, and she has managed to swim through it neatly displaying the professional insight of an established actor. Saurabh Shukla stands out as the potily cop whose incessant chasing has made his waist size go from 52” to 42”. 

And as good are the folks working behind the lens. Especially the one ‘behind’ the lens! Ravi Varman’s cinematography is a character in its own right. The fluidity, with which each frame has led to another, with just-perfect lights and aura, is tantamount to watching birth of a life take place. Something felt so new about the filming that as I searched on more for Ravi Varman’s work, I was not at all surprised to find that he is not an over-used cinematographer in Bollywood. And matching this enchanting visual display was the product of the sounds department. Pritam’s OST and background score are like a walk back to incorruptibility, where even the vices of a soul are condoned as just childish, undisruptive mischief. Blended with it are Swanand Kirkire’s words. Some pure lyrical gems await you in garb of six well written ditties. The film adopts a non-linear narrative which, I feel, could have been done away with. The cleanness of the story is its beauty which is, at times, marred by time-scale jumping. But, this is a minor flaw when compared with the level of achievement of the entire product.

Each scene is stamped with director’s thought-imprint and dusted with the director’s sugary, bucolic visions. Right from laugh-ability of life-altering conditions to the light-hearted acceptance of all things human and awkward. Anurag Basu, a cancer survivor himself, knows what approaching an un-timely death is like. Only a person with that skill-set could have imagined life this way. The more said, the less it seems, when speaking about this aspect of the film.

And look at what the take-home point has been after the experience – Yes, Barfi (Murphy, actually) is disabled, but is bloke of a kind who would make the phrase ‘specially abled’ sound more than just a politically correct expression. What’s that special ability, you ask? The ability to make others feel disabled in their feet as they chase him down narrow streets and broad fields. The ability to evoke such a soft corner in ‘normal’ people which will make them forsake their existence of convenience and comfort and come running back to him only to let him go to where he is actually destined to. The ability to unconditionally embrace people, in the blanket of one’s being, who need not a whirlwind romance but a sought after creed of patient affection and, above all, the ability to cruise through days of one’s life with cheek, vigor, movement, color, risk, love, laughter and smiles. When this registers in firmly you will ask yourself in all earnestness: ‘Were words required at all?’ No, I feel, words fail here.

Watch this one to see how something so sad can turn out something so reassuring just by the way of conceiving it, of feeling it. Watch this one to enable yourself in inching towards a purer you.  Watch this one and come out feeling closer to people you love. That’s it – watch this one.

The Tipping Point - A 'My World' Perspective Review

Back in 1967, a certain Social Psychologist by the name of Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment titled ‘Small World Experiment’. In where, he tracked the chains of acquaintances in the United States by sending several packages to 160 random people living in Omaha, Nebraska, asking them to forward the package to a friend or acquaintance who they thought would bring the package closer to a set final individual - a stockbroker from Boston, Massachusetts. And, they all had to perform this activity under certain condition: They could only mail the folder to someone they actually knew personally on a first-name basis. At the end of the experiment, Milgram, surprisingly, noted that the very first folder reached the target in just four days and took only two intermediate acquaintances. Overall, Milgram reported that chains varied in length from two to ten intermediate acquaintances, with a median of five intermediate acquaintances between the original sender and the destination recipient thereby, coining a pretty famous phrase -The Six Degrees of Separation. This research had massive after-effects, with many people falling over themselves to either side with or trash down the findings. But of all the things, one peculiar aspect caught the eye of a certain British-born Canadian journalist by the name of Malcolm Gladwell, 22 years after the aforementioned experiment. He detailed out a theory based on his observation. And what was theory called? Right, ‘The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.’ - Which is what this book is all about.

The atypical facet which Gladwell uncovered was the finding that just three friends of the stockbroker provided the final link for half of the letters that arrived successfully. This gave rise to Gladwell's theory that certain types of people are key to the dissemination of information.  And ‘The Tipping Point’ here is that critical, threshold borderline which when breached, translates into making ideas, messages, behaviors and, well, products spread like viruses do. An effect which is perpetuated by these set of key people.

The opening leaves of the book are consumed in Gladwell delineating these set of ‘Key’ people, who, when they get to ‘Disseminating information’, end up jacking up sales of a long forgotten footwear brand or becoming famous American Revolution patriot for alerting colonial militia of approaching British forces before the Battle of Lexington and Concord among other things. Now if that isn’t neat and nifty then I don’t know what else is. These ‘key’ people enter in the garb of being the ‘Connector’ i.e. someone who knows lot of people, the ‘Maven’ i.e. someone who takes the new bit and dumbs it down on all four for the lay person’s consumption and finally, the ‘Salesmen’ i.e. someone who is a charismatic  persuader.

The book also talks about the environment and context the above mentioned people would require to successfully swoosh their wand. That’s when the ‘Stickiness Factor’ and ‘The Power of Context’ concepts kick in. Stickiness is that inexplicable something which makes one ‘stuck’ on something and ‘Power of Context’ is that important milieu on the foreground of which the impact of what a ‘key person’ does becomes twice as impactful.

The book, which was named as one of the best books of the decade by Amazon.com, is pretty engaging in the way it written. When a consummate journalist as Gladwell sells his idea to you, you have to give in. Add with it an interesting central idea and an unrelenting will on the part of the author to connect with the reader. 

But the book does tumble down a slippery slope mid-way through, or so I feel. The examples that are thrown in by the author to back the central premise, sort of seems, how to put this delicately, forced. There’s a part where the reason behind the dipping of once-alarmingly-high crime rates in the New York of the 90s is attributed to – and I am not making this up – Graffiti-less metro wagons. I am not belting away the proposed idea altogether. In fact this reasoning does explain why Delhi Metro stations and trains are so squeaky clean while the adjacent Central Bus-Station is not even though the same sets of people frequent both the places. But when you give credit to the ‘clean and crispy public spaces’ to the conduct curve of people suddenly ‘tipping’ and they becoming well behaved, civil citizen from being raving mad gun-shooters, it kind of feels a bit stretched. And that’s the problem with such a book: an inner alarm, that’s which designed to detect ludicrous conclusion coming in, goes off, every other idea from the book then is forced to be taken in with a pinch of salt or two. The other pricky thorn in a erst-while honestly written prose is its trying-way-too-hard-to-convince undertone. A not-so-counter-intuitive idea such as ‘The Stickiness Factor’ is given many more pages than what the doctor would’ve ordered. Gladwell constantly leans on monkeys, cognitive science, psychological experiments, organizational structure of companies, and obscure concepts, in the hope that, together, they coalesce into something that inspires the reader to ‘buy’ his idea. And one does ‘buy’ it, only that the salesman over-stays his welcome.

All in all, it’s a decently healthy book which would make one analyze their quotidian surroundings more deeply as they go about their day and also, take a leaf from it and apply the presented concept to be better initiators, do-ers and disseminators of ideas.

“Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push — in just the right place — it can be tipped.” – is one of the quotes by Malclom Gladwell himself. The book did ‘tip’ so as to say — I mean Gladwell received a US$ 1.5 million in advance for it and it sold 1.7 million copies by 2006 — only that the ‘slight push’ could have been in a more ‘right’ place as far as the presentation was concerned.

Pick this one up for one of those read-rides when you want to take away something tangible once you are done reading.

Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 1 - A 'My World' Perspective Review

Revenge. Payback. Retribution. Retaliation. Vengeance. This deep entrenched, evolutionary instinct – not just confined to the Homo sapiens – has had its strands examined to the nth degree over the times. More in practice than in literature, actually. It can be of various kinds: Handed out for sustenance of acquired power by one group to another, a want to make one right off two wrongs, an ‘eye-for-eye’ idea served cold, or, as in this case, plainly passed on down hereditarily. Because as one of the taglines of this magnanimous, brave, attention-grabbing outing by Anurag Kashyap – Which has a overall (both parts combined) running time of 5 Hours 20 mins, which sports a cast of around 20, which crones out 14 songs – goes: “In Wasseypur, vengeance is inherited.” 

And, oh boy, inherited it sure is. 

Based on a true story by Zeishan Quadri (the script’s co-written with Akhilesh, Sachin Ladia and Anurag Kashyap), the film is set in Wasseypur, Jharkhand, known for gang war between gangster Faheem Khan and businessman Sabir Alam over Scrap business. Of the two, the newsfeeds mention that, Faheem Khan, despite serving life imprisonment at Hazaribagh jail, still runs his gang, mostly comprising family members, from the jail. And Sabir Alam, though out on bail after spending eight years in jail, rarely stays at home due to the threat to his life. The film, which has fictionalized the characterization and the setup using measured creative license, opens with showcasing the town set in 1941 divided among the powerful Qureshis – butchers by profession - and the others. A certain Qureshi by the fearful name of ‘Sultana Daku’ is the quintessential, ‘unseen’, and feared dacoit who runs his livelihood by staking claim on all and any British freight trains which pass through his ‘area’. Shahid Khan (aptly portrayed by Jaideep Ahlawat) taking the advantage of this situations, milks out his share of freight-train pie by posing as Sultana dacoit and looting the grain stuffed wagons – after a playful banter with the train driver, mind you – before the actual Sultana gets to the scene. After Sultana finds this out, Shahid along with his pregnant wife and friend Farhan (Piyush Mishra, too good) are banished from the town and are caused to settle near Dhanbad where Shahid starts working in the coalmine. The sprawling coalmine saga unfolds here on as one thing leads to another and Shahid Khan enters a three generation long feud with the post-independence coalmine overlord -Ramadheer Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia in his acting debut. ‘Scoop’ praised him earlier as the director of ‘Paan Singh Tomar’). This feud eventually sees Shahid Khan getting sent to the astral plain. Thereupon, ushers in the second generation. Which sees – wait for it – Manoj Bajpai (portraying Sadar Khan) as the core of the chronicle. The ‘wait for it’ part was a lame attempt at creating the required build-up to introduce this magnificent actor because of what he has done in this film. Sardar Khan is this hyper horny mammal with an insatiable appetite for power. He is a brutal murderer who will kill the other with marked detached indifference all along being sort of an innocent charmer to the ladies. This role tops his ‘Shool’ performance. It tops his ‘Kaun’ performance. Hell, it tops his ‘Satya’ performance.   

It is well established from the very start that this movie contains within a high-on-testosterone, patriarchal-y angled, male dominated narrative. But, that doesn’t take away anything at all from the emboldened female characters played by Richa Chadda (as Nagma Khan) and Reema Sen (as Durga). The former’s a motor-mouthed firebrands who won’t shy away from craziest street slang and latter’s a coy, feminine lady who will show her true colors shall the need be. These two characters re-enforce the convention of an Anurag Khashyap movie: Females are strong in their own ways and that they won’t simply take it lying down. Suffice it to say that William Congreve got it right when he wrote “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” 

Noted performances by Pankaj Tripathi as (Sultan Qureshi), Huma Qureshi (as the riveting Mohsina), Nawazuddin Siddiqui (as Faizal Khan) have enlivened up an already gripping story. These being the ones who will charter into the Part-2 (out on Aug 8, 2012) so more about them, then. 

The film, captured realistically by Rajeev Ravi’s lens, moves through so many important junctures and curves along its way that it takes an average joe like me some time to get used to the style of the narrative. Tons of characters, impersonating the uber-branched family-tree on both sides of the feud border, keeping popping up in quick successions along the timescale of 60 years. The way all these are dealt with, though, deserves to be complimented. The characters are developed with all the time in the world. Their motives, their background, their inspirations, their aspirations, one is treated to all of these personal facets in minutest of the details. Bit by bit and slowly against the milieu of high-on-action plot. ‘Revenge’ might be a case of logical fallacy for some – those like us, who are cocooned safely since birth in an upper-middle class, urbane bubble – But for the ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, it is something for which they will wait indefinitely for. Wait, to let the situations fruition to required parameters on their own accord so that one will be able to change into action their most cherished phrase, incorrectly transliterated as – “Now I’ll Tell and Take.’’ 

Action Direction by Shyam Kaushal has brought to the fore an all new way of capturing a fight sequence. The scenes are predominantly long, single shots, with vicious albeit elbow-y encounters between the two warring sides. The violence of such kind is not glamorous as it is usually presented on celluloid, but it’s repelling. Repelling maybe to such an extent that it may act as an influence on the general society and get the ‘violence graphs’ treading south. The film’s most visceral, violent scenes are unusually punctuated with transfixing sound tracks. Whether it be G. V. Prakash Kumar’s background score or Sneha Khanwalkar’s landmark Original Sound Track. Both of them seduce you deeper into the storyline. 

Because of the unique way in which she creates tunes, Sneha Khanwalkar’s OST warrants an extra paragraph. Marked by lyrical gems like ‘O Womaniya’, ‘I am a Hunter she Wants to see my Gaun’, ‘Bihar ke La La’ and ‘Keh Ke Loonga’ among the others by various artists, the accompanying music is high-inducing to say the least. I insist you to direct your browsers to the Youtube videos of the making of the songs (‘O Womaniya’ and ‘Bihar Ke Lala’ specifically) and learn for yourself what was so different about the way they were created. And if, say, the songs aren’t already on repeat modes on your players, be guaranteed they soon will be. And while you are at it, listen to other content created by Khanwalkar for MTV’s ‘Sound Trippin’. This Music Director, mark these words, is the next big thing. If she already isn’t one, that is. 

Anurag Kashyap's mode of storytelling, and the way his characters loom over the proceedings without becoming caricatural, is frighteningly original. The blood and gore account has bursts of light moments too – The scene where Sardar courts Durga as she gets some laundry done, or the scene where Nagma asks her husband to eat and bathe well before heading outside to satisfy his carnal needs or the scene towards the end, when Faizal takes Mohsina out on a date are deliciously funny and will bring the house down. That said, please be warned that there’s a devilish sense of dispassion in the way the subject has been dealt with. This one’s not for the lily-livered or the weak-hearted. But if you are up for experimenting with a new kind of cinema with a pinch of viewer’s discretion, this one’s for you. This film is path-breaking in a way that it has blurred the line between alternative and mainstream cinema. It is yet another surprise of the year 2012, where audiences have come of age. 2012 - Where a ‘Kahani’ can co-exist with an ‘Agneepath’, where a ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ can co-exist with a ‘Housefull 2’, where a ‘Shanghai’ can co-exist with a ‘Rowdy Rathore’. And, more importantly, where a ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ can exist at all. 

Watch it for the ‘real’, for the ‘rustic’, for the ‘raunchy’. Watch it, above all, for the ‘raw’.

Satyamev Jayate - A ‘My World’ Perspective Review.

 Satyameva jayate nānṛtaṁ

satyena panthā vitato devayānaḥ |

yenākramantyṛṣayo hyāptakāmā

yatra tat satyasya paramaṁ nidhānam ||

-          Mundaka Upanishad (Mantra 3.1.6)

Truth alone triumphs; not falsehood.

Through truth the divine path is spread out by which

the sages whose desires have been completely fulfilled,

reaches where that supreme treasure of Truth resides.

Truth alone triumphs. And the process has, maybe, started. 

A show, called Satyamev Jayate, which was in brewing mills for past two years, which was to be the first ever show in Indian Television history to be aired simultaneously on a private channel network STAR and a national broadcaster Doordarshan, with dubbed versions on regional language channels viz., Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and Bengali, which was to have 16 songs exclusively composed for its soundtrack, which was to have the makers of show book around 2,000 slots for the broadcaster’s promos in 27 hours for an amount of 6.25 cr - reportedly the highest costing promotional campaign for any Indian television show –, and, which was to have one of the most cherished, celebrated and revered actors of Bollywood produce and host it, went on airs this 06/05/2012 at 1100hrs. 

And just as it did so, twitter lines jammed up, Facebookers went ‘like’ing, Google Trends showed the phrase trending on top spot and the show’s own website went down owing to sudden increase in traffic. What caused this, you ask? Let’s explore. 

The show’s concept is described so on its website: 

“What you will see is the truth. The truth that lives alongside us all… in the house down the street, in the next room, on your pillow, in tomorrow’s breakfast. 

The truth in all its facets – beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking, stark. 

We believe that Satyamev Jayate is not afraid to look the truth in the eye, take its hand and embrace it. After all, it belongs to all of us. 

And when we recognize the truth, when we discover that it is part of us, part of the things we cherish, then what? Then we know it’s time to think – perhaps to act.”

Treading on the said path, the first episode, directed by Satyajit Bhatkal, talked about the issue of the desire for a male child and the accepted, though illegal and highly immoral, practise of female foeticide. Yes, that thing which we all read about for the first time in our hard bound Social Studies text books in high school classes. And if we, somehow, did not manage to pay enough attention to the concept then, we are treated with this bizarre appendage of our society with alarming frequency on the front pages of our national dailies. But it is one thing to read the statistics as a distant, even if as a ‘concerned’, observer and quite another to listen to a woman narrate her story where the above mentioned monster threatened to snatch away her new-born lease of female life from her and, as in one instance, eat her face up. And I mean that last phrase literally. 

The show brought to light some unheard of practices too. Like how some doctors offer packaged deals comprising Ultra-Sonic Sex-Determination and Abortion. And how detecting a male foetus goes against their profit motive which then leads to them actually lying that what’s detected is a female foetus and hence should be aborted using their combo-pack service. Shudder. The more one dwells upon this the more the news-feeds about the discarded foetus in a garbage can near Yamuna seem closer to home. 

Nothing presented in the show can be called new. More than an ‘Expose’ this show’s a ‘Refocus.’ What is surely new, though, is the packaging. By that I mean that there is none. The production value of the show is sleek yet unassuming. The sets of the show are not steel and glass with sharp edges and glitzy mirrors, but round, thick, soft and comfortable. The camera work, too, is non obtrusive - no racing trolleys, clean shots, subtle frame transitions, no deliberate visual cues in the form of forced close-ups...the whole ambience is like taking a safe ride back home to 1990s. Ah. If you too are from the same clan as mine whose members stopped watching – nay, owing – television because of the glam shtick induced noise, you’ll appreciate the worth of the balmy affect which the aforementioned production value brings along. 

The show does a great job in walking up close straight to your heart and holding it in a warm garb until your tear glands yield and wash away with it a certain degree of cynicism and indifference and apathy. Yes, I call it ‘a certain degree of’ because in speaking for everyone (which I don’t do much) i have to factor in the undercurrent suspicion which raises its head up every time you see ‘Marketing’. And when it’s marketing of this measure, then one surely begins to feel that there is something from which his/her person needs to be protected and safeguarded. This is a part of that thick-skinned-ness which we have acquired as extra adipose layers after being cheated and being under delivered after being over-promised for so many times over. Trashing this show only because this show is being hosted by a marketing wizard with a hoard of Multi National Corporations backing it, questions our rationality more than it does his and their credibility.   

At this point, it must be pointed out that the makers of the show have taken all the care possible to address even this aforementioned issue. Various brand managers have been asked to not buy any advertising slots or screen any of Khan’s advertisements during the show, fearing the dilution of the show's impact. Airtel, the title sponsor of the show, has reduced the tariff of the viewers’ participation messaging service from INR 3 to INR 1. With a promise that even this generated revenue will be donated to an organisation – Snehalaya (http://www.snehalaya.org, at time of writing this, even this website’s server was down with traffic.) And Reliance Foundation has joined in as a 'Philanthropy partner.' (This won’t make Ms. Arundhati Roy much happy, though. Ah, cynisim.) 

But what should, I feel, ride over this myopic musing is that this show has managed to put the 'real' back in 'Reality shows.' Right from the time-slot it is scheduled to air on to its no-nonsense programming content. Everything whiffs of some major behind-the-stage genuine affair. You can’t help but imagine about the amount of research the team would have done to present the show in this garb. And, especially, at this time slot. Oh, the time-slot - 1100 hrs on a Sunday? When did we last hear about something like that? 

News channels have termed the show as ‘Soul stirring’ and akin to a ‘Movement’. And rightly so. The understated touch with which the show has had Aamir deliver the opening credit monologue, the fierce yet restrained words of Prasoon Joshi, set to Ram Sampat’s tunes crooned by Keerthi Sagathia, which sees the nation as one’s lover in an apt Sufi-esque dualistic concoction, the end credit ditty in Swanand Kirkire’s poetry... all so minimalistic-ly present there, just hanging subtly in airy suspension...it rightly can be termed ‘soul stirring’ and, if possible, many more such things. 

Above all this, what strikes the most golden chord is the way in which the show asks you and me to rethink, un-pressume, un-learn, and re-focus our own moral compasses and adjust it pointing towards the correct ideals of the proverbial 'Truth.' And, at that, with beautiful lines as: 

"Jaisa bhi hoon, apna mujhe" mujhe yeh nahin hai bolna

Kabil tere mein ban sakoon mujhe dvar aisa tu kholna.

Mujhe khud ko bhi hai tatolna,

Kahi hai kami toh hai bholna.

Kahi dhag hai to chupayein kyun?

Hum sach se nazrein hataye kyun?

Saanson ki iss raftaar ko,

Dhadkan ke iss thyohar ko,

Har jeet ko, har haar ko,

Khud apne iss sansaar ko

Badloonga main tere… liye.

Tere zulf suljhane chala,

Tere aur pass aane chala.

Jahan koi sur na ho besura,

Wo geet mein gaane chala.

Hai junoon hai,

Hai junoon hai,

Tere ishq ka yeh junoon hai.

Rag rag mein ishq tera daudta,

Ye bawra sa khoon hai.

Tune hi sikhaya sachayion ka matlab,

Tere pass aake jana meine zindagi ka maksad.

Satyamev, Satyamev, Satyamev Jayate.

Saccha hai pyaar mera...

As one of my friends said, “Sunday mornings will never be the same again.” She’s right, they won’t be.

Paan Singh Tomar – A ‘My World’ Perspective Review

“The idea of ‘Crime’,” once said P. D. Ouspensky, “in existing criminology is artificial, for what is called crime is really an infringement of ‘existing laws’.” These ‘existing laws’, he went on to argue, are often manifestation of barbarism and violence themselves. This idea gets handsomely captured when Irrfan Khan - while embodying the namesake character of the film under discussion - obdurately maintains throughout its length, that he is not a ‘dacoit’ but a ‘rebel’ and if one must find and call someone a ‘dacoit’, they better scan the parliament for better results. The film, based on a true story, tries to adopt this theme as its primary undercurrent as it takes its course.

Way back in the 1950s, a certain Paan Singh Tomar who hailed from Morena and who was enrolled with the Indian Army, was discovered by the Major of his regiment as someone who held within his slender frame the stamina to keep his feet moving and how. Gauging from his Shatabdi Express-esque swiftness which he put on display as he ferried a family pack ice-cream for the Major’s wife and also from his insatiable appetite with which he could demolish a set of chapattis made for an entire unit all by himself, he was aptly transferred to the Sports division of the Army. Once there, he quickly aced the 5000 M category and later when transferred to 3000 M Steeplechase, due to some reservations on the part of his coach, he took his skill to the next level and broke his own set records as he went around doing rounds of the National Games, the Asian Games and later The International Military Gamesmany times over. What he couldn’t do for the nation by being on the proverbial front in ‘62 and ‘65 war, he more than made up for it on the sports field.  So far so good.

A twist on the home front makes him turn-about and quit the Military to tend to domestic issues. His Cousin from the paternal side, Bhanwar Signh, had illegally acquired his share of the land and was being a sort of a thick-head about with a set of licensed riffles at his disposal.  When a reasonable common-ground isn’t reached between the two, Paan Singh gets in touch with the District Collector and the Police. Both of these visits, if only anything, help in aggravating his existing pandemonium. With his trust in the system shattered – which he so believed in being an Army athlete who brought laurels to his unit and the nation – his insides go crestfallen. The required stoke to the fire is dealt when in a cowardice-esque face-off, Paan Singh’s mother is killed by the hands of Bhanwar Singh. This is when he a turns a feared dacoit of the Chambal Valley, or as he would say: a “rebel.’ To stop from further spoiling the story for you, let’s just deem it sufficient to say that what happens then on is what the film tries dwell upon.

Sitting atop the Director’s chair, Tigmanshu Dhulia renders a most realistic texture to the movie. The script, marvelously written, sprouts out plots which are crispy and poignant. Like the scene where Paan Singh Tomar expresses his passion to his outwardly-shy but inwardly-dominating wife Indra, played by earth-ily sensual Mahie Gill – there’s something about her… something. Or the scene where when he opens the Pandora’s box when he is just about let go off his catch to his father upon receiving the required ransom when he begins kidnapping people to fund his future plans. There is a pinch of wise-crackery in every dialogue that is spoken and in every glance that is hurled. The tensest moments of the film are marked invariably with light comical banter which makes you take note of the directorial finesse with which the entire film is conceived. The cinematography is an art in itself, so is the apt background score. The film gives off a feel of being made with threadbare frugality in terms of production value, but still, this aspect, in a way, sort of seem to be working for the advantage of the narrative. The negatives are earned by the editing department with Aarti Bajaj at the helm, though. The film jumps wide time-gaps without being sympathetic of the ensuing cluelessness of a viewer way too many times. And some very powerful scenes are made to fizzle out without a required pause which they should offer for the effect which they so beautifully created to be allowed to properly sink in. But of course, these propositions just get thrown out of the window when the product is looked at as a whole. Irrfan khan’s eyes just reach out to you in a most tragic sense. He has made every scene his own. Whether it be the innocent Paan Singh of the first-half with a knack for jumping-the-gun or it be the stoic ‘Robin hood’ one of the later half. One gets no points for guessing that all the points he could grab with this one, he sure would and, actually, already has grabbed. This film epitomizes the idea that is ‘Honest Cinema’. Not one extra frill is played ever, not an inch of fluorescent colored gift-wrap is draped around it ever. The content stands for itself and takes the movie forward. 

And that’s what it all is about at the end of the day, isn’t it? The ‘content’. The plight of Indian athletes who were left to perish without medical support or pecuniary assistance in time of need and owing to which they had to turn either to a life of calm extinguishment or, as in this case, fierce extremities,  is portrayed in a very sensible, touching and emotive manner. This is the kind of brave cinema which is slowly entering the green patches of Bollywood. A set of movies which no one would, at the onset, believe in, but ends up ruling the charts and garnering deafening applauses. To borrow a leaf from Director Anuraag Khashyap’s recent tweet in praise of Paan Singh Tomar: “Go watch it, and make it what no one thought it would be…a hit.”

Thank you.

Agneepath: A ‘my-world’ perspective review.

The year – 1977. 

The place – Mandwa. 

The premise – Red hot, unadulterated vengeance. 

With these factoids tucked at the turf, the story opens an array of opportunities impregnating the 3 hour-ed future with possibilities of knives slashing the skin when they aren’t stabbing them, blood faucets spewing it out in fountains uncountable and betrayals abound, featuring a certain creed of quality which has the capacity of invoking the dragon of disgust lurking within the outward covers of each soul. 

They say you shouldn’t redo a role that Amitabh Bachchan has done before. And if the role is the character of Vijay Deenanath Chauhan in Agneepath, then the only thing you should be redoing is mulling over your decision to replay it. But cockblocking all such ideas, Director Karan Malhotra -  taking a tip off an idea shared on the sets on My Name is Khan (where he filled in the shoes of Asst. Director) shared by Dharma Production’s Karan Johar - went on anyway to reconstruct the old and present in a , well, ‘reconstructed’ new. The idea could have found its genesis in the a try to redeem the lost box-office success which was meted out to the 1990 version which Johar Senior’s project. The reasons as to why that had happened ranges from theories stating that it was the improperly conducted audiography to the rather straight-forward one: No one was ready to receive an anti-hero film then. All said and done about whatever the reason might be, we all have at hand a movie which typifies a mainstream Bollywood paisa vasool flick as it brings along a technical finesse which is for sure entering the realm of Indian film industry and is making everyone gape at the perfection with which each shot getting captured. Hello, new world! 

The story opens with establishing the poetry-induced strength of Master Deenanath Chauhan (Chetan Pandit). His oceanic wisdom takes him from interpreting the Bhagwad Gita the way Mahatma Gandhi did it to devoting himself in the task of uplifting a stashed away island by relentless efforts. 

Enter at this frame: Kancha China. If this character is what Sanjay Dutt meant by when he said ‘Nayak nahi Khalnayak hoon mein’ some 20 years ago, then hear! Hear! Absolutely revolting, mind numbingly disgusting, horrendously nauseating. This huge, muscular blob of flesh with a bald top, moves around hanging people on a certain exquisitely placed, coast-hugging tree at his whim. Bullied in his childhood for his repulsive features, he hates mirrors and pretty much the entire spectrum of human emotions along with it. He is dedicated to his idea of ‘karma’. And is a wantless, needless man who is but an agent of the defined evil and his designs. He, at one hand, has the capacity of throwing people down rocky stairways as he sniffs and trades cocaine and, on the other hand, the conviction to justify his perpetrated ill under the veil of his realisations on the matter of immortality of the Soul. The sheer genius of such apt casting with such apt character curve makes you make a big note in your mental notebook. 

And thence, lies are flurried, plots are contrived and Master ji gets hung up in full view of his then 12 year old kid – Vijay. Who then transports himself along with his family to Mumbai where his mother (Zarina Wahab) brings in the world his sibling sister, Sikhsha (Kanika Tiwari – selected against the other 7000 odd girls who auditioned for this role.). And then a ‘Fifteen Years Later’ frame appears to give us the anti-hero protagonist, Hrithik Roshan. 

Roshan’s a character with hidden pain which occasionally comes up in his determined eye. He brings to fore something which is very different from what Amitabh Bachchan is said to have brought. His wider that wide, beefed up shoulders bear the weight of rage, pain and revenge. His sensitive side is explored by the presence of Kali (Priyanka Chopra) in the movie. She is there solely to brighten up the brief windows of general merriment this film offers. In the process of working his way up the drug-mafia ladder to ascertain his invincibility by the virtue of his gained stature, Vijay uses and de-uses many a pawns along the journey. One such heavy-weight pawn which stands aside is Rishi Kapoor as Rauf Lala. 

Think of Santa Claus doing a Voldemort and then add an surma-esque eye-liner to his makeup kit; the kind of cultural shock this setup image would send is not even a flickering flame in front of the surprise that is Rauf Lala. Too explicit, too cruel, too vindictive. Lala deals drug powder, is a butcher by profession, indulges in human-trafficking, and generally speaks of women in tone and content from atop a display-pod to a bunch of lustfully leering blokes that would make your insides crumble and go foetal. 

Om Puri as Comissioner Gaitonde does what he does best: Act awesome. 

With such an ensemble ready to be exploited, the story ticks fluidly with myriad drums blasting every second of the entire duration. Each scene is a declaration with an overdose of melodrama. Some scenes are, though, right fully understated and that makes you grip onto to it even more. As the curve progresses, we see huge number of people getting send to the astral plane and brutally so. And just when you can take no more of the intense bomblastic images coupled with sound that is about to throb your brain out, you are treated to larger-than-life showdown between two almost-ends of the Evil-Good spectrum. Stabbed and battered Roshan derives required strength from the poem recited by his father to him and offers divine justice to the entire premise. And then, lets his soul evaporate in the lap of his mother as he views his father and a little him walk away offering smiles of conformation with his act. The climax that this is, is a hands-down marvellous treat to watch. 

The background score by Ajay-Atul duo almost tells you to think in the direction in which they want you to think. The Soundtrack of the movie won’t offer any chart busters, save for Chikni Chameli chiefly due to innumerable innuendos, but are nevertheless so in sync with the narrative that they actually feel like a part of the fabric.   

The Art direction by Sabu Cryil deserves all the mentions it can get and more. The colors, the settings, the ambiance, the robust imagery, captured handsomely by Kiran Deohans and Ravi K. Chandran’s lens makes the view twice as real and convincing. Editing by Akiv Ali is seamless and fitting as although it seems a bit long, you can’t point a finger to section which could have been left out. 

The movie brings back many things from the yore: The despicable baddie, the unrelenting avenger, the Maa-ka-tough-love and the rest. It also infuses in the ‘new’ by portraying a group of eunuchs as warriors, always ready to help Vijay in time of danger and there by vindicating this section of the society from the caricature-esque bull we have seen in most of our past movies. 

There are many reasons why people will walk out of the theatre midway after putting an ear-muffin on. But there more reasons as to why this movie will tick, as it has. And one as an audience is free to make either choice. For me, the movie has proven to be a fitting tribute to the brand that it tried to reconstruct. It has given us a new villain to hate as it has made hate a Khalnayak even more. It has also topped up Hrithik Roshan’s credit-balance in the industry. Here one will again unfailingly say “He has surpassed himself yet again” yet again. Harivansharai Bachchan’s lines have, surely, in a way, given us a more-than-gripping cinema.