As it turns out, I have nothing to say today. I turn to Allen Ginsberg for inspiration. I read Howl! And life's mysteries unfold.....
Howl
For Carl Solomon
I
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping towards poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
a lost batallion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the railway yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the universe instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving nothing behind but the shadow of dungarees and the larva and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman's loom,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but were prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,
who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses' rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hungover with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open full of steamheat and opium,
who created great suicidal dramas on the appartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of the Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts, who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for an Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other's salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturerson Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with the shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,
and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,
with mother finally *****, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger on the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time—
and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipse the catalog the meter & the vibrating plane,
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soulbetween 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,
and rose incarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America's naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.
II
What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgement! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovas! Moloch whose factories dream and choke in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisable suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstacies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!
III
Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland
where you're madder than I am
I'm with you in Rockland
where you must feel strange
I'm with you in Rockland
where you imitate the shade of my mother
I'm with you in Rockland
where you've murdered your twelve secretaries
I'm with you in Rockland
where you laugh at this invisible humour
I'm with you in Rockland
where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter
I'm with you in Rockland
where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio
I'm with you in Rockland
where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses
I'm with you in Rockland
where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
I'm with you in Rockland
where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx
I'm with you in Rockland
where you scream in a straightjacket that you're losing the game of actual pingpong of the abyss
I'm with you in Rockland
where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse
I'm with you in Rockland
where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void
I'm with you in Rockland
where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha
I'm with you in Rockland
where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb
I'm with you in Rockland
where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale
I'm with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won't let us sleep
I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Career Women in Hindi Cinema
Hindi cinema has come a long way but how far has it reached in terms of depicting Indian women professionals on celluloid remains a question. The earlier films from the 1950s portrayed the Hindi film heroine as either an urban, college going daddy's girl or as the poor, underprivileged single woman battling it out in the big, bad world until rescued by the hero. In the 1960s, we saw the emergence of an urbane, fashonable, independent woman travelling the world with friends or family and falling in love (Love in Tokyo, An Evening in Paris).
It was not until the 1970s that the woman with a career (career women, as they are suggestively called) or those who simply earned their living was portrayed on-screen. There were women from lower and middle class backgrounds working as housekeepers, office secretaries and nurses and then, there were doctors, businesswomen and lawyers. With more and more women becoming financially independent in India and with the increased reportage of crimes against women, the mid to late1980s saw the emergence of the angry young woman often portrayed as agents of justice such as police inspectors or lawyers who took on the system head on and did not hesitate to give the men a piece of their mind.
Incidentally, this was also the time when the age old Bollywood theme of 'revenge' began to be articulated by these very powerful female characters. These women had to 'become' like men to fight the injustices that they or their families had been subjected to- so, rage and revenge it was. And the fact that they were dressed in masculine clothing also helped them play these parts in male ways.
Most of the 1990s, the decade I grew up in, was a regression in terms of portrayal of women in Hindi cinema. The rise of candy floss cinema and the Hollywood rom-com rehashes relegated the heroine to the background. She remained auxiliary and not essential to the plot of the film, mostly providing emotional support to the hero as a wife or girlfriend. But a trend that I noted in a few films during this time is the emergence of the 'other' woman. Both on television and film, extramarital relationships gained a lot of prominence. However, the 'other' woman was always a career woman, ambitious and thus, uncaring and responsible for the breakup of a marriage. I remember this movie called Biwi No. 1 where Sushmita Sen was a successful model, a woman with questionable morals who came in between a happily married couple, that of Salman Khan and Karishma Kapoor, a docile homemaker, and their two kids. Salman Khan’s wife and friends embarked on a mission to rescue him from the clutches of the career woman. What remained unquestioned was Salman Khan’s character’s own role in this affair (he had lied about his wife and kids and when his girlfriend does find out about his marital status, he informs her that his wife is his widowed sister-in-law and the kids are not his own).
Even in a 'different' movie like Dil Chahta Hain, the only seemingly strong female character played by Dimple Kapadia dies unhappy and soon after, her almost beau meets a PYT just like his other two friends.
This trend continued well into the 2000s when Hindi cinema continued to portray women as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Those women who had successful relationships had either no career or had sacrificed her career it at the altar of a happy marriage and those who had successful careers failed in the love department. Aitraaz, the Bollywood remake of a Hollywood film, Disclosure, had Priyanka Chopra play the role of a successful model who had sacrificed her relationship to focus on her career wanting to win back her lost love (Akshay Kumar) who is now married (to Kareena Kapoor). In a tale of seduction and revenge, Akshay Kumar’s character is accused of sexually molesting Priyanka Chopra’s character. In a display of great wifely devotion, Kareena Kapoor’s character who had long given up her career as a lawyer returns to the court of law (one last time, I think) to fight the case to prove her husband’s innocence. In order to do so, she, of course, maligns the ‘other’ woman as being cold and heartless as she is rich and ambitious who is trying to phasao her poor husband.
The ‘vamping’ of the career woman in Hindi film continues unabated. The plot punishes them by depriving them of love, marriage and children, all in an effort to reward and glorify the more 'traditional' woman. Then, of course, there is the fallen woman, the prostitute, with the sad back story and a heart of gold who, by virtue of her position in society, can love but never really be loved in return.
Despite recent attempts at redeeming the career woman in Bollywoodland, scriptwriters, directors and actors are trapped in the same trajectory. No One Killed Jessica is one such film that immediately pops to mind. Along side terribly botched up court room scenes, this film kills it for the career woman while actually intending to uplift her from the dark margins of Hindi filmdom (Not to say that this movie is entirely a bad one). Rani Mukherjee who plays the Barkha Dutt-esque cold blooded journalist always hounding for the story that sells does not initially find that spark in the Jessica Lal murder case because it seemed to be an ‘open and shut’ case. Throughout the movie, she refers to herself as chudail or bitch. As she has such a high opinion of her own self, it is not unnatural that others, from the hapless male boss to the foul mouthed and fiery female house help, address her in those very terms. It can be inferred from her characterization that in her ambition to succeed, she will go to any lengths, which begins with her rant ‘You know I am a bitch/ I am a bitch and I don’t care” then, reflects in her dissing a lover in a moment of passion to chase the big story and also, in her use of ‘dubious’ (if there is any such thing as that in journalism today) means to achieve her journalistic ends. Whether this is self-deprecation or self-endorsement is hard to say.
In other words, to portray an independent woman, Bollywood will construct a career woman in Bollywood as a ‘bitch’, both by her own admission as well as by others. She is self-centred, arrogant and will happily trample over others without care or concern to reach her ‘career’ and ‘personal’ goals (which is almost always related to being romantically involved with a married man). Her personal life, however, will be empty where she will either be abandoned by her parents/husband/lover or she will remain without love until she reforms herself (does a good deed like help a fallen colleague in Fashion or start being nice to boyfriend’s kids in We Are Family or completely or partially abandon her career.). Please note, that the ‘real’ heroine (first lead) in such films will almost always be a 'modern' Indian girl with 'traditional' values…the one who can be the good wife with/without a career.
I remember the time when hours were spent discussing the objectification of women in Hindi cinema. Today, they are subjects in Hindi films but their subjectivity is of a different kind. The ‘vamp’s has been revamped and this time around, it is the 'career woman'.
P.S- I use several words in quotes to point to the fluidity of all these concepts.
It was not until the 1970s that the woman with a career (career women, as they are suggestively called) or those who simply earned their living was portrayed on-screen. There were women from lower and middle class backgrounds working as housekeepers, office secretaries and nurses and then, there were doctors, businesswomen and lawyers. With more and more women becoming financially independent in India and with the increased reportage of crimes against women, the mid to late1980s saw the emergence of the angry young woman often portrayed as agents of justice such as police inspectors or lawyers who took on the system head on and did not hesitate to give the men a piece of their mind.
Incidentally, this was also the time when the age old Bollywood theme of 'revenge' began to be articulated by these very powerful female characters. These women had to 'become' like men to fight the injustices that they or their families had been subjected to- so, rage and revenge it was. And the fact that they were dressed in masculine clothing also helped them play these parts in male ways.
Most of the 1990s, the decade I grew up in, was a regression in terms of portrayal of women in Hindi cinema. The rise of candy floss cinema and the Hollywood rom-com rehashes relegated the heroine to the background. She remained auxiliary and not essential to the plot of the film, mostly providing emotional support to the hero as a wife or girlfriend. But a trend that I noted in a few films during this time is the emergence of the 'other' woman. Both on television and film, extramarital relationships gained a lot of prominence. However, the 'other' woman was always a career woman, ambitious and thus, uncaring and responsible for the breakup of a marriage. I remember this movie called Biwi No. 1 where Sushmita Sen was a successful model, a woman with questionable morals who came in between a happily married couple, that of Salman Khan and Karishma Kapoor, a docile homemaker, and their two kids. Salman Khan’s wife and friends embarked on a mission to rescue him from the clutches of the career woman. What remained unquestioned was Salman Khan’s character’s own role in this affair (he had lied about his wife and kids and when his girlfriend does find out about his marital status, he informs her that his wife is his widowed sister-in-law and the kids are not his own).
Even in a 'different' movie like Dil Chahta Hain, the only seemingly strong female character played by Dimple Kapadia dies unhappy and soon after, her almost beau meets a PYT just like his other two friends.
This trend continued well into the 2000s when Hindi cinema continued to portray women as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Those women who had successful relationships had either no career or had sacrificed her career it at the altar of a happy marriage and those who had successful careers failed in the love department. Aitraaz, the Bollywood remake of a Hollywood film, Disclosure, had Priyanka Chopra play the role of a successful model who had sacrificed her relationship to focus on her career wanting to win back her lost love (Akshay Kumar) who is now married (to Kareena Kapoor). In a tale of seduction and revenge, Akshay Kumar’s character is accused of sexually molesting Priyanka Chopra’s character. In a display of great wifely devotion, Kareena Kapoor’s character who had long given up her career as a lawyer returns to the court of law (one last time, I think) to fight the case to prove her husband’s innocence. In order to do so, she, of course, maligns the ‘other’ woman as being cold and heartless as she is rich and ambitious who is trying to phasao her poor husband.
The ‘vamping’ of the career woman in Hindi film continues unabated. The plot punishes them by depriving them of love, marriage and children, all in an effort to reward and glorify the more 'traditional' woman. Then, of course, there is the fallen woman, the prostitute, with the sad back story and a heart of gold who, by virtue of her position in society, can love but never really be loved in return.
Despite recent attempts at redeeming the career woman in Bollywoodland, scriptwriters, directors and actors are trapped in the same trajectory. No One Killed Jessica is one such film that immediately pops to mind. Along side terribly botched up court room scenes, this film kills it for the career woman while actually intending to uplift her from the dark margins of Hindi filmdom (Not to say that this movie is entirely a bad one). Rani Mukherjee who plays the Barkha Dutt-esque cold blooded journalist always hounding for the story that sells does not initially find that spark in the Jessica Lal murder case because it seemed to be an ‘open and shut’ case. Throughout the movie, she refers to herself as chudail or bitch. As she has such a high opinion of her own self, it is not unnatural that others, from the hapless male boss to the foul mouthed and fiery female house help, address her in those very terms. It can be inferred from her characterization that in her ambition to succeed, she will go to any lengths, which begins with her rant ‘You know I am a bitch/ I am a bitch and I don’t care” then, reflects in her dissing a lover in a moment of passion to chase the big story and also, in her use of ‘dubious’ (if there is any such thing as that in journalism today) means to achieve her journalistic ends. Whether this is self-deprecation or self-endorsement is hard to say.
In other words, to portray an independent woman, Bollywood will construct a career woman in Bollywood as a ‘bitch’, both by her own admission as well as by others. She is self-centred, arrogant and will happily trample over others without care or concern to reach her ‘career’ and ‘personal’ goals (which is almost always related to being romantically involved with a married man). Her personal life, however, will be empty where she will either be abandoned by her parents/husband/lover or she will remain without love until she reforms herself (does a good deed like help a fallen colleague in Fashion or start being nice to boyfriend’s kids in We Are Family or completely or partially abandon her career.). Please note, that the ‘real’ heroine (first lead) in such films will almost always be a 'modern' Indian girl with 'traditional' values…the one who can be the good wife with/without a career.
I remember the time when hours were spent discussing the objectification of women in Hindi cinema. Today, they are subjects in Hindi films but their subjectivity is of a different kind. The ‘vamp’s has been revamped and this time around, it is the 'career woman'.
P.S- I use several words in quotes to point to the fluidity of all these concepts.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Academic Actors
There is something extremely sexy about actors with an education or (earned) academic degrees.
James Franco (who, in my eyes, arrived way before 127 hours) completed his undergraduate studies from UCLA and his graduate degrees from NYU (film making) and Columbia (fina arts). Now, he has been accepted as a doctoral student in English Literature at Yale. All this, while continuing to make quality movies, write books and screenplays, paint etc. ( I am quite sure I am missing out some things here)
David Duchovny, on the other hand, has not enjoyed the kind of success and adulation that Franco has which has mostly to do with his disastrous movie choices!!! He studied at Princeton, got a Masters in English Literature at Yale and then, enrolled but did not completed his PhD from the same University on the topic " Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose". Despite his continuing struggle to find his feet as an actor, I find his role as Hank Moody in the otherwise extreme, explicit television series CALIFORNICATION as one of his finest and most 'real' to date. This is not to discount his performance as the wry but lovable Fox Mulder in The X-Files.
Duchovny has expressed his interest in completing his PhD some day.
The fact that Franco and Duchovny look the way they do cannot possibly hurt in the 'charm' department!!
Back home, we have a host of our very own Bollywood celebrities who have been showered with honorary doctoral degrees by 'phoren' Universities. Leading the pack are Preity Zinta, Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Shilpa Shetty for their extraordinary contribution to Indian cinema. I believe Katrina Kaif and Imran Khan are due to receive it anytime soon!! :-)
I, of course, choose not to mention some truly 'eligible' actor/honorary doctorate holders like Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah.
This post is not meant to undermine the host of intellectually leaning actors/creative persons who decided to quit higher education as they deemed it pointless at some stage. But, in a traditional society where merit is still judged by academic achievement, a handful of actors with degrees are refreshingly attractive as compared to a sea of dopey drop outs!!
James Franco (who, in my eyes, arrived way before 127 hours) completed his undergraduate studies from UCLA and his graduate degrees from NYU (film making) and Columbia (fina arts). Now, he has been accepted as a doctoral student in English Literature at Yale. All this, while continuing to make quality movies, write books and screenplays, paint etc. ( I am quite sure I am missing out some things here)
David Duchovny, on the other hand, has not enjoyed the kind of success and adulation that Franco has which has mostly to do with his disastrous movie choices!!! He studied at Princeton, got a Masters in English Literature at Yale and then, enrolled but did not completed his PhD from the same University on the topic " Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose". Despite his continuing struggle to find his feet as an actor, I find his role as Hank Moody in the otherwise extreme, explicit television series CALIFORNICATION as one of his finest and most 'real' to date. This is not to discount his performance as the wry but lovable Fox Mulder in The X-Files.
Duchovny has expressed his interest in completing his PhD some day.
The fact that Franco and Duchovny look the way they do cannot possibly hurt in the 'charm' department!!
Back home, we have a host of our very own Bollywood celebrities who have been showered with honorary doctoral degrees by 'phoren' Universities. Leading the pack are Preity Zinta, Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Shilpa Shetty for their extraordinary contribution to Indian cinema. I believe Katrina Kaif and Imran Khan are due to receive it anytime soon!! :-)
I, of course, choose not to mention some truly 'eligible' actor/honorary doctorate holders like Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah.
This post is not meant to undermine the host of intellectually leaning actors/creative persons who decided to quit higher education as they deemed it pointless at some stage. But, in a traditional society where merit is still judged by academic achievement, a handful of actors with degrees are refreshingly attractive as compared to a sea of dopey drop outs!!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Law, Like Love: W.H. Auden
Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.
Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,
No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.
Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.
Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,
No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.
Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.
Friday, December 3, 2010
On Media Ethics (no, Barkha Dutt)
What can I, as a layperson, say about media ethics or the lack of it that has not already been said before? That the triangular bonding between the media-corporations-politicians is deeply dubious; that the daily news manufacture and manipulation at the television news channel factories is unacceptable and that Rakhi Sawant’s gradual siliconisation is not exactly ‘breaking news’. Suffice to say that the Fourth Estate is crumbling, collapsing and how.
A lot has been written about the devastating blow that the Radia tapes have proved to be on the Indian public’s faith in the media. Media darlings such as the fiery Ms. Barkha Dutt and the suave Mr. Vir Sanghvi ( I thought he had quit non-serious political reporting to become a serious food/restaurant critic hosting custom-made eponymous television shows but hey, what do I know and who am I to say?) have been gamed, named and shamed-all in one go.
Dutt and Sanghvi’s equally glorious media buddies after maintaining uncharacteristic silence for several days on the pretext of upholding highest journalistic standards ( hat they were waiting for the verification of the authenticity of the tapes etc) were finally pressured to speak but they only squealed. Mostly, they argued that the larger issue of business- politician nexus (most important) and media ethics (less important as it exists in abundance) should not be diverted by targeting individual journalists/small fries such as Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi ( who are only the editorial bigwigs in the country’s most watched English news channel and most widely circulated English daily).
I will not talk about Vir Sanghvi as I think he has long moved on to reporting on food, luxury brands and other fancy-shmancy stuff and post the tapes, has severed his last tie to serious journalism by suspending his newspaper column but has promised to be back when this controversy is resolved.
But I wish to talk about Barkha Dutt who is really the ‘face’ of news in India. In the past, her journalistic style has raised a lot of questions but never her journalistic standards. For several days, she did not think it fit to speak on this issue citing legal reasons and deep personal hurt and outrage. Yet, she happily tweeted away in her distinctive self righteous, moralistic and catty style that SHE COULD DO NO WRONG!!
As an afterthought after a few weeks of the expose, (which could only be explained in terms of thousands of I hate Barkha Dutt emails and facebook pages of Take Barkha Dutt Off the Air), NDTV decided to host a dialogue between four senior journallsts, including Manu Joseph, Editor, Open Magazine which published the taped conversations and Barkha Dutt which was hopelessly mediated by Sonia Singh. It turned out to be what it was always supposed to be- a slanging match between Dutt and Joseph (some internet news stories have amusingly titled this debate as a due between BARCA and Man U).
Many commentators have commended NDTV’s largesse in this regard for hosting this discussion but cynics like me believe that this was the least that they could do. In fact, what startled me was the complete absence of Prannoy Roy in this discussion (which would have added a lot more credibility to this debate). I was outraged when I saw Barkha Dutt continuing to report and discuss the whole 2G scam and the Radia tapes as if she were not involved (even if, in a small way). And of course, no sanctions (however, minor) were issued against her by the channel.
On this NDTV mediated dialogue, Barkha Dutt, as expected, showed scanty regard for other people’s views by systematically attacking and interrupting them, completely sidelined the mediator proving once and for all who’s the real boss at NDTV and also, played (rather unsuccessfully) the gender card which seemed to be the last resort of this otherwise verbose and vociferous journo.
She tried in vain to appeal to public sentiments by quoting her long, illustrious and immaculate career in the media. She launched a verbal assault on Manu Joseph as he had not consulted her before publishing the raw tapes in his magazine as if she has, in her investigations always sought the views of her subjects before she telecast a news story on her channel. Manu Joseph’s question as to why she did not break open the story about corporate collusions in cabinet formation/s in 2009 and also in 2010, when there was clear evidence of corruption in the Telecom Ministry and Swapan Dasgupta’s question as to why Radia chose her to plug a request to play mediator between Congress and DMK and endorse Raja as Telecom Minister-was it because of her closeness to the Congress party and the pro-Congress slant in her reportage) remained unanswered.
Barkha’s dull and uninspiring response to these questions will put even an aspiring school magazine reporter to shame. Like a five year old, she mumbled and grumbled that she was a victim of a conspiracy and the poster girl for a smear campaign that helps Open magazine to sell copies. She said that she was naïve and gullible and as a political journalist, did not understand the workings of the brutal corporate underworld. Isn’t gullibility and naive ness the lamest possible excuse for someone of her stature and experience?
When one of the panelists asked her to end this debate by admitting and apologising to her viewers for a mistake that she had made, she doggedly refused, reiterating that the only mistake that she had made was in relation to the alleged casualness of her conversation to Radia and her promise to speak to the Congress on Raja’s ministerial berth was just to humour her source (because words like ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ were too hard to find in her vast vocabulary).
Anyhow, the point of this tirade is that those who have the power and influence over the spoken and written word owe no responsibility to their readers/viewers. Barkha Dutt’s continued screeching on television grossly overvaluing her own importance and undermining the viewer’s intelligence does not annoy but amuses me, the viewer –because it does not matter, SHE does not matter!
A lot has been written about the devastating blow that the Radia tapes have proved to be on the Indian public’s faith in the media. Media darlings such as the fiery Ms. Barkha Dutt and the suave Mr. Vir Sanghvi ( I thought he had quit non-serious political reporting to become a serious food/restaurant critic hosting custom-made eponymous television shows but hey, what do I know and who am I to say?) have been gamed, named and shamed-all in one go.
Dutt and Sanghvi’s equally glorious media buddies after maintaining uncharacteristic silence for several days on the pretext of upholding highest journalistic standards ( hat they were waiting for the verification of the authenticity of the tapes etc) were finally pressured to speak but they only squealed. Mostly, they argued that the larger issue of business- politician nexus (most important) and media ethics (less important as it exists in abundance) should not be diverted by targeting individual journalists/small fries such as Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi ( who are only the editorial bigwigs in the country’s most watched English news channel and most widely circulated English daily).
I will not talk about Vir Sanghvi as I think he has long moved on to reporting on food, luxury brands and other fancy-shmancy stuff and post the tapes, has severed his last tie to serious journalism by suspending his newspaper column but has promised to be back when this controversy is resolved.
But I wish to talk about Barkha Dutt who is really the ‘face’ of news in India. In the past, her journalistic style has raised a lot of questions but never her journalistic standards. For several days, she did not think it fit to speak on this issue citing legal reasons and deep personal hurt and outrage. Yet, she happily tweeted away in her distinctive self righteous, moralistic and catty style that SHE COULD DO NO WRONG!!
As an afterthought after a few weeks of the expose, (which could only be explained in terms of thousands of I hate Barkha Dutt emails and facebook pages of Take Barkha Dutt Off the Air), NDTV decided to host a dialogue between four senior journallsts, including Manu Joseph, Editor, Open Magazine which published the taped conversations and Barkha Dutt which was hopelessly mediated by Sonia Singh. It turned out to be what it was always supposed to be- a slanging match between Dutt and Joseph (some internet news stories have amusingly titled this debate as a due between BARCA and Man U).
Many commentators have commended NDTV’s largesse in this regard for hosting this discussion but cynics like me believe that this was the least that they could do. In fact, what startled me was the complete absence of Prannoy Roy in this discussion (which would have added a lot more credibility to this debate). I was outraged when I saw Barkha Dutt continuing to report and discuss the whole 2G scam and the Radia tapes as if she were not involved (even if, in a small way). And of course, no sanctions (however, minor) were issued against her by the channel.
On this NDTV mediated dialogue, Barkha Dutt, as expected, showed scanty regard for other people’s views by systematically attacking and interrupting them, completely sidelined the mediator proving once and for all who’s the real boss at NDTV and also, played (rather unsuccessfully) the gender card which seemed to be the last resort of this otherwise verbose and vociferous journo.
She tried in vain to appeal to public sentiments by quoting her long, illustrious and immaculate career in the media. She launched a verbal assault on Manu Joseph as he had not consulted her before publishing the raw tapes in his magazine as if she has, in her investigations always sought the views of her subjects before she telecast a news story on her channel. Manu Joseph’s question as to why she did not break open the story about corporate collusions in cabinet formation/s in 2009 and also in 2010, when there was clear evidence of corruption in the Telecom Ministry and Swapan Dasgupta’s question as to why Radia chose her to plug a request to play mediator between Congress and DMK and endorse Raja as Telecom Minister-was it because of her closeness to the Congress party and the pro-Congress slant in her reportage) remained unanswered.
Barkha’s dull and uninspiring response to these questions will put even an aspiring school magazine reporter to shame. Like a five year old, she mumbled and grumbled that she was a victim of a conspiracy and the poster girl for a smear campaign that helps Open magazine to sell copies. She said that she was naïve and gullible and as a political journalist, did not understand the workings of the brutal corporate underworld. Isn’t gullibility and naive ness the lamest possible excuse for someone of her stature and experience?
When one of the panelists asked her to end this debate by admitting and apologising to her viewers for a mistake that she had made, she doggedly refused, reiterating that the only mistake that she had made was in relation to the alleged casualness of her conversation to Radia and her promise to speak to the Congress on Raja’s ministerial berth was just to humour her source (because words like ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ were too hard to find in her vast vocabulary).
Anyhow, the point of this tirade is that those who have the power and influence over the spoken and written word owe no responsibility to their readers/viewers. Barkha Dutt’s continued screeching on television grossly overvaluing her own importance and undermining the viewer’s intelligence does not annoy but amuses me, the viewer –because it does not matter, SHE does not matter!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Five Reasons why Aamir Khan is becoming unbearable.
1. He is living in denial about his age. He is fast approaching his 50s and has kids who are now rushing into their 20s. He has a relatively new wife (who is way cooler than he is ) but he is no spring chicken!! He is more and more prone to play a college student/college passout/recently graduated business professional or someone who just refuses to leave college. He has unnecesarily pumped up, wears a hairstyle unsuitable for someone his age and is sometimes, seen wearing outrageous costumes. Basically, he is Shekhar Suman but talented and succesful.
2. He is an extremely capable actor but way too overrated as far as his movie choices go. His repertoire consists of rare gems like Mela, Aatank Hi Aatank, Awwal Number etc. In fact, after QSQT, Aamir Khan spent the entire 1990s engaged in mostly making crappy cinema (barring Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, Andaz Apna Apna and Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander). I have to admit here that as a child, I thoroughly enjoyed a movie named Dil (and to think, I have never been accused of good cinematic taste)
It was only post-Dil Chahta Hain that Aamir showed some class in selection of his movies and roles reflected in Lagaan and Rang De Basanti. As an avid movie watcher, I would like to remind Aamir that 'quality' is not defined by 'quantity' and vice versa. Therefore, just by virtue of doing less films, he cannot claim to have produced quality work. Besides, even after establishing this false sense of being a 'quality' actor and a perfectionist, his participation in historically inaccurate biopics like Mangal Pandey, which he spent years researching and growing a moustache (not even a beard) for, the horror of a tormented love story like Fanaa and not to mention, the very, very original Ghajini, is unforgivable.
3. His rejection of popular film awards is obviously pretentious. While many might view it as an expression of his political will, I see it as a covert attempt to insult a fraternity that he has 'fed' of but won't 'feed' into. In fact, I support every taunt and joke made at his behest at the innumerable awards functions year after year even by the extremely unfunny bags of recycled humour that are Sajid Khan and his protege, Riteish Deshmukh.
What surprises me even more is that Aamir will graciously accept the National Awards (notorious for its alleged botch ups....the winners from the last few years will prove it) as it comes for the Government of India (the most reliable awards authority in the country where merit is always preferred over petty favouritism). Needless to say, Aamir would never say NO to the Oscars where he can hobnob with Hollywood royalty and may be, breakthrough with a studio deal or two. Officially, he will gush at interviews that the Oscar experience is much bigger than the award itself...ya right!!
At least, he is not as shameless as Anil Kapoor whose behaviour at the Oscars and related international red carpet events left the makers of Slumdog Millionaire (including the demanding parents of the child actors) red faced!!
4. He is well on his way towards becoming the Mahesh Bhatt of our generation. Wherever there is a cause, Mr. Khan has an opinion, not necessarily a well-informed one. The quality of Indian education remains one of his pet subjects on which he has made a number of films, will continue to and cast himself as a college student in each one of them.
He is at once, an educationist, legal expert, social activist and a 'lecturer' in the truest sense of the term. He has allegedly argued that the new copyright law should not protect lyricists and musicians as it is the actors who make the song popular (deep thinking) and of course, all this has nothing to do with the fact that he has recently turned producer and music is an important part of his films. He has, in a unique example of balance of interests, managed to defend both the Narmada Bachao Andolan and Coca Cola, on complete;y contradictory grounds. Again, his support for Coca Cola arises out of social concern and not out of pure self-interest. He has also very succesfully managed to pass on the Coca Cola ambassadorial baton to his much younger, less than talented, eyebrow shaping nephew, Imran Khan.
5. While he argues in favour of persons being able to express themselves freely; he himself will take a great idea conceived by someone else and will pass it on as his own and hog the credits (Taare Zameen Par and Amol Gupte). Then, when the movie garners all the awards and appreciation, he will consciously stay away from this and still be talked about. He will appear in ample number of media (non-movie related promotional) events and blog and tweet about every day/event of his life, yet claim to be reclusive, reserved and media shy. Displaying immense emotional maturity, he will also name pet dogs after his greatest competitor because he does not believe in the rat race or care for popularity in filmdom.
AND as you can possibly tell, I am not at all petty and judgmental.
I just hope Aamir Khan the person was as simple, believable and lovable as some of his movie characters!!
2. He is an extremely capable actor but way too overrated as far as his movie choices go. His repertoire consists of rare gems like Mela, Aatank Hi Aatank, Awwal Number etc. In fact, after QSQT, Aamir Khan spent the entire 1990s engaged in mostly making crappy cinema (barring Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, Andaz Apna Apna and Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander). I have to admit here that as a child, I thoroughly enjoyed a movie named Dil (and to think, I have never been accused of good cinematic taste)
It was only post-Dil Chahta Hain that Aamir showed some class in selection of his movies and roles reflected in Lagaan and Rang De Basanti. As an avid movie watcher, I would like to remind Aamir that 'quality' is not defined by 'quantity' and vice versa. Therefore, just by virtue of doing less films, he cannot claim to have produced quality work. Besides, even after establishing this false sense of being a 'quality' actor and a perfectionist, his participation in historically inaccurate biopics like Mangal Pandey, which he spent years researching and growing a moustache (not even a beard) for, the horror of a tormented love story like Fanaa and not to mention, the very, very original Ghajini, is unforgivable.
3. His rejection of popular film awards is obviously pretentious. While many might view it as an expression of his political will, I see it as a covert attempt to insult a fraternity that he has 'fed' of but won't 'feed' into. In fact, I support every taunt and joke made at his behest at the innumerable awards functions year after year even by the extremely unfunny bags of recycled humour that are Sajid Khan and his protege, Riteish Deshmukh.
What surprises me even more is that Aamir will graciously accept the National Awards (notorious for its alleged botch ups....the winners from the last few years will prove it) as it comes for the Government of India (the most reliable awards authority in the country where merit is always preferred over petty favouritism). Needless to say, Aamir would never say NO to the Oscars where he can hobnob with Hollywood royalty and may be, breakthrough with a studio deal or two. Officially, he will gush at interviews that the Oscar experience is much bigger than the award itself...ya right!!
At least, he is not as shameless as Anil Kapoor whose behaviour at the Oscars and related international red carpet events left the makers of Slumdog Millionaire (including the demanding parents of the child actors) red faced!!
4. He is well on his way towards becoming the Mahesh Bhatt of our generation. Wherever there is a cause, Mr. Khan has an opinion, not necessarily a well-informed one. The quality of Indian education remains one of his pet subjects on which he has made a number of films, will continue to and cast himself as a college student in each one of them.
He is at once, an educationist, legal expert, social activist and a 'lecturer' in the truest sense of the term. He has allegedly argued that the new copyright law should not protect lyricists and musicians as it is the actors who make the song popular (deep thinking) and of course, all this has nothing to do with the fact that he has recently turned producer and music is an important part of his films. He has, in a unique example of balance of interests, managed to defend both the Narmada Bachao Andolan and Coca Cola, on complete;y contradictory grounds. Again, his support for Coca Cola arises out of social concern and not out of pure self-interest. He has also very succesfully managed to pass on the Coca Cola ambassadorial baton to his much younger, less than talented, eyebrow shaping nephew, Imran Khan.
5. While he argues in favour of persons being able to express themselves freely; he himself will take a great idea conceived by someone else and will pass it on as his own and hog the credits (Taare Zameen Par and Amol Gupte). Then, when the movie garners all the awards and appreciation, he will consciously stay away from this and still be talked about. He will appear in ample number of media (non-movie related promotional) events and blog and tweet about every day/event of his life, yet claim to be reclusive, reserved and media shy. Displaying immense emotional maturity, he will also name pet dogs after his greatest competitor because he does not believe in the rat race or care for popularity in filmdom.
AND as you can possibly tell, I am not at all petty and judgmental.
I just hope Aamir Khan the person was as simple, believable and lovable as some of his movie characters!!
Monday, March 22, 2010
OD'ed on LSD
Honesty is hard to find in mainstream Hindi movies and for it to succeed as a concept is almost unthinkable. The scope for pretence and falsehood, however, is ample.
LSD comes at a time when Karan Johar is 'allegedly' coming of age as a film-maker, Shyam Benegal is going mainstream, the literary giant, Chetan Bhagat is horrified that Bollywood copies without due credit (not only from mediocre movies but also from classic fiction), SRK and Aamir Khan are gradually moving away from films....more and more into sports ventures and social causes and the Bachchans have decided to counter public scrutiny by clarifying every single detail about their personal lives through regular press meets, blogs and of course, twitter, because as fans, we have a right to know it all.
The timing for LSD could not be more appropriate as the country overdoses on reality on television. Couples break up/make up/make out on facebook and spy on their spouses on prime time television; ministers tweet their frustrations with the government they represent; blood brothers fight over property at press conferences and arranged marriages find a whole new meaning on television where women queue up to marry Rahul Mahajan and if we can still believe what we see, they actually do!!
LSD explores and exposes the voyeur in all of us. Is it true? Of course, it is. Do we like to hear about it? Of course, not. And it is this shock value attached to something that all of us practice or partakes of, in our own lives is what makes us such hypocrites and such attempts, laudable.
Won't rant. Will just mention a few things that caught my attention and captured my imagination:
1. The three elements of Love, Sex and Dhokha run as a thread through all the inter-related storylines instead of taking the commonly tread path of all stories going their different ways until they converge..usually at an airport or as a result of some tragic accident or simply because the director decides to connect the dots at some point in the movie. But as is expected in this age of spy cams and live footage, there is more of 'S' and 'D' and less of 'L'.
2. The storylines are not unique, so to speak, but that is not a lack of originality on the part of the makers and is attributable to how 'real' these situations are and could be. To me, that is a great achievement.
3. The use of the camera/s as if if were a real character in the film was amazing. The use of digital cameras and spy cameras adds to the rawness of the sub-text and the drama lies in the situations that these characters gets entangled in over the course of the film.
4. The cast was well-picked and yes, all of them could act fairly well. May be they were NSD graduates..may be not (I just find it very funny when pseuds talk about theatre actors as a blanket category...Oh...he is awesome..he does theatre or he graduated from NSD...he should not be wasting time on that daily soap and my favourite...he is so underrated as an actor... he comes from a theatre background, yaar!!)
They looked believable in their parts and comfortable in their so-called (to use Bollywood lingo)..bold skins.
5. What is commendable about Dibakar Banerjee is his fearlessness. He is three films old...all three on completely different themes....the Indian urban middle class, the charming conman swindled by a doctor, and then this...the dark world of technology and titillation. Having picked up national awards for both his films (not that it means anything anymore....Arjun Rampal..the 'handsome piece of wood' has also won one), he seems strangely relaxed and unconcerned. His kind of nonchalance is rare yet not arrogant.
I just hope these honours do not corrupt the simplicity and satire; honesty and humour in his work that many of us have come to love. I also hope that LSD-the movie about voyeurism attracts more than just a voyeuristic audience.
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