DUS KAHAANIYAAN - an Indian Decalogues?

Seven Visionary Directors. Ten Spectacular Stories. One Cinematic Journey... so goes the tagline of this cinema production. That perhaps is what best qualifies this venture for this is no one single story movie or one thematically united episodic movie. No doubt, it is an impressive attempt in the Indian movie firmament, when run on the mill movies dominate with their old wine in new bottle formats. But, but...

What they did not tell you about DUS is this: the twist in the tale is the tail... and... it has probably one of the best line-up of actors since "LOC - Kargil". Nevertheless, it sadly fails to interest you. No aspersions on the actors or the quality of acting. When you have Shabana Azmi, Naseerudin Shah, Nana Patekar, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpai and Sanjay Dutt for acting as well as Mandira Bedi, Neha Dhupia, Dia Mirza etc to sizzle the screen... and several other impressive names and then some more, you expect a buffet of pyrotechnics and thespian thrills; but...!

It doesn't matter how good your players are, if the playing field is bad, you can't put up a good total on the board. DUS, thus, looks like the best batting line-up in the world - the Indian cricket team - that fails to deliver at the crunch. The title is the most impressive part of this Sanjay Gupta - Sanjay Dutt cohort. The 10 short films remind one of perhaps the greatest film-making attempt under a single title - The Decalogues of Krystof Kieslowski, the great Polish director; but there ends the parallel. Rambling, boring, cliched, predictable fare this one is.

Let me give you a sample. You go and judge for yourself. Or the other alternative is this, you can wait for Moserbaer or someone to bring out a 28 buck vcd or 34 buck dvd, buy a copy and see. There's no hurry here. After all, 10 stories in two sitting, if you count the interval after the first 5 tales, is a bit too much. Not every one is used to the film chamber or film association screening of two, three films in the same sitting. Or you can even borrow it from someone else who wants to add it to their collector's chest simply because it is allegedly different from other Indian films (if you discount the fact that Satyajit Ray has done it decades back!) So... let me get to the content of DUS.

We start with MATRIMONY - the first of the short flick. The flick starts very impressively. The camera does interesting things. Stays where it is or cuts and cuts back without ambiguity between Mandira Bedi's lips and her husband's glass of mango juice. He leaves, she smiles, they coo to each other sweet nothings... and then she leaves. Cut. Ms Mandira in the back seat of car, voice over: "I am Pooja Sarin, the bored and lonely wife of a multinational's vice-president". Overlooking the bad use of possessive pronoun, my mind starts thinking. A-ha! If I just replace Ms Bedi with Ms Sherawat (not much of a difference actually!), and accept neither Arbaaz nor Sudanshu Pandey are equals for Emraan Hashmi in the bilabial department, I think there is a Murder or other hot semi-porn flicks of its ilk. Only... I wonder and am piqued, how can they make a semi-porn flick that you can watch uncensored the next time you travel in a Lufthansa flight, in just 12 minutes. My fears get allayed. Soon Pooja Sarin is finished making love to her army-boy lover Adi (that's how! you skip the vital parts and like a bikini just show the bare minimum to excite the viewer!!) and he breaks the bow with a customary twang: the boy is going to the border, not before he has gifted her a nice necklace. Hey... wait a minute. Yeah, you got it figured. It's D-A-H-L, Roald Dahl all over. Yeah yeah yeah. No new year's gift for figuring it out. And do you need me to continue the story?

Well, for unwhetted viewers of populist bollywood movies, these shorts would come as whiffs of fresh breath. Each tale has the O'Henry twists in the tail. But the bottom line is... the pattern gets to you. The tail is too sun-burnt to look healthy. Movie after movie after movie of repetitions about marital discord and flings and betrayals in an urban scenario, as though the bourgeoisie and the emerging nouveau riche urban middle and upper middle class have only a metaphorical middle finger in their minds - whether it is in the back of the Mercedes or the backroom of a CEO's office or in between brunches and lunches! Mr. Sanjay Gupta must give a little more credibility to the urban livers and lovers, even if he shows only Mumbai-ites. Now the last straw... as though he and his other directors and 10+ story writers and 6 or 7 music directors as well as screenplay writers have no faith in the thespians of the movie, they push the children of bollywood's lesser gods in the first half. And what have we. Besides Manoj Bajpai and an older Amrita Singh, all the big names are kept in the back pack. Or the back pack contains inferior stories and had to be beefed up with bigger performers?

Now then! Coming to the object of my post: the movie bears no parallel to any work of art, leave alone The Decalogues by Kieslowski. There is no grace nor seeking Grace here like in the case of the Kieslowskian protagonists. Of course, both the TENs (DUS and Decalogues) have a lot of focus on female protagonists and both the lot try and grapple with human existence, but those of DUS grapple with stupid and unnecessarily glamorised sordidities of urban existence. Their daily lives have cultural myths and urban legends deflating their seeking something elusive, no doubt. Nevertheless, these concerns are absolutely trivial and would not even appeal to the majority of the urban Indians, not remotely in a broader context. Their concerns are several other things.

Only Bollywood can come up with a sold-by-the-soul belief that urban Indians have different concerns from non-urban Indians. Slickness in movie-making need not make one believe that it can happen only with slick decors, suave settings as well as suitings, silky locales and interiors aided by stylish lighting and svelte cars as well as clevage-popping heroines. Slickness is in the planning of frames and editing to aid a strong narrative. Film-making is no different from other forms of story-telling. And the telling is what is important. Not necessaril the how. There are better themes and issues to shoot flicks on. What a waste of meters and kilometers of film rolls, when there are so many struggling artists carrying dreams to emerge as mainstream directors and storytellers.

Having said that... there are three flicks that are the saving grace of this TEN TALES: Pooranmashi, Gubbar and Zahir. And the attempt to give the Jimmy Shergill starrer High on the Highway a touch of Natural Born Killers, though laughable is tenuously laudable.

Rain Rain Go Away...

Sounds silly to title a post thus after an old nursery rhyme, but... it's been one blerry frustrating long week, ever since the Met Dept actually predicted a low-pressure depression in the bay or thereabouts... and for the first day it looked pretty usual - situation normal and Met Dept mis-predicting - before day-before-night when it started getting windy in the middle of the night. After that... it's history! There hasn't been any let down in the downpour. It's pissing every blerry 10 mins. Can't go out, but can't stop panicking since tons of work is pending. On top of that... had to travel to Haddows Road at 10 in the morning on Tuesday to keep an appointment for a show slated for Friday at Oxford Bookstores. And then... after blowing about 250 smses about the show... had to cancel / shelve / postpone the show. And another 250 smses informing the postponement of the show.

Besides that... missing all the early morning Perumal kovil pongals of Margazhi since this rain ain't letting me go around the Mylapore Iyengar temples. Very depressing. The best that could be done was to stay home and savour mum's pongal on 1st day of Margazhi over Malola Kannan's rendition of Andal's Thiruppavai! Well... beggars can't be choosers.

And, unsuccessfully tried writing a post denigrating myself for sacrilegiously letting my mind even recognise that DUS KAHANIYAAN actually means THE DECALOGUES! How on earth can one even compare or dare to compare - even if at just the title level - the Sanjay Gupta-Sanjay Dutt crap with Kieslowski's gift to film world! Anyway... the movie is absolute crap. And for what it's worth, I shall try and post that ridiculous post of mine. Please try not to read it.

But but but... on the brighter side... I bought 3 books, read one and a half and ended doing another comparison (in mind of course) that shall presently take the shape of another post. Book 1 - POORVA by Lakshmi Devanath (and the book I contrasted and compared with - Poile Sengupta's VIKRAM & VETAL); Book 2 - Sri Ramanuja (in tamil). I wonder, if he were born in England, would they have knighted him and made an Anagram out of Sri? Silly PJ! Book 3 - ANDHA YUG - yes, that classic by Dharamvir Bharathi in an english translation by Alok Bhalla.

Also... re-editing and titling THUS SPAKE SHOORPANAKHA. I think I shall have it recast and performed in the near future; but not before I produced Mohan Narayan's new play - THE TRUTH ACCORDING TO DEMAS, GESTAS & OTHERS - that I've been working since January this year. That is a real record for me: actively working on one single production constantly and rigorously without a break for almost 12 months. And to think I haven't done any production in the meanwhile. Well, after about 355 days of research, 17 workshop days, 12 changes in casting and 4 re-edits besides having driven poor Mohan to the wall and wit's end, I guess we are well on the way to a good production. The cast that's been around for 12 months and the ones that got settled around last week are to be credited for their faith in me and the work. I think it is a very proud moment for me personally to have a cast-crew that stays with the process and not jumping from show to show. They really are process-oriented. We need more such in Chennai. Just this morning I was talking to another director and she felt we really need actors who would derive more pleasure from sheer work than doing roles on stage. So... the work is ready to roll out on to rehearsals. But 5 more workshop days remain.

Meanwhile, work has started happening simultaneously on 1) DOWN THE ROAD, intended for whenever in 2008. First reading for a re-cast Shoorpanakha-Shakuni show begins this weekend. And the Carol Ann Duffy show is postponed to January 14th most likely.

In the middle of all this, I still manage to steal a kutchery here and a dance recital there. I was at Pethachi this evening... a good Narmada violin recital. But, gates were worse than a Masquerade play... 20 people in the audience. Makes me wonder what is the point in pricing tix at Rs. 500 and Rs. 300. I really pity the Sabhas, but respect their patronage in keeping the spirit of Margazhi kutcheris alive. May there always be Sabhas and may Margazhi Kutchery Season be bestowed with more crowds!

Until the next post!

Anil's Last Stand... IMPOSSICANT!

Or is it BCCI's temporary stance?

The other day - a week or so back - my father and I were on another of our afternoon, post-lunch discussion about one of the three inevitables of our desh: cricket. And he did opine that if anyone must be made captain of Indian test team, it must be Anil Kumble. The logic: well, he's had a long, faithful and earnest career, the only blemishes being those overstays in the middle with his bat when team-thinktanks had delusions that he can bat in the slog overs and a lot of hot air capable of inflating zeppelins into high-altitude places flowed between his misses and the keeper's gloves. The only thing he hasn't had is captaincy. Inwardly I cursed my father: 'why do we need to heap that insult on Indian cricket's only true sportsman and on-field player?' Of course, BCCI must have heard my father's wish and not my un-wish. Anil today is the captain.

Now of course, when every dog has his day and unrequired comebacks or retentions in the team inspite of sustained and consistent non-performances, why not Anil! He has even scored that enviable comedy of a century that put the smiles back on a dressing room full of gloom in England recently. He has batted, bowled, fielded off fours and taken catches. As Kris Srikant recently told in his own inimitable idiotic way on Times Now late-night immediate reaction to Anil Kumble being made captain of Indian Test Team, he's a South Indian and even a qualified engineer (meaning he's got a degree...)!

And our - my father and mine - discussion proved meaningful in the aftermath. But... to what end? Being captain of Karnataka as well as now of India has only been by default. Has he deserved it? I mean, these days, being captain of a team in India is not earning accolades. It means an insult. The clowns who run the richest and most sinful organisation in the world pick someone only because someone else is not ready. Anil Kumble is the clown king till the crown prince gets ready. Anil deserved it much before. Of course, the stoic soldier he is, he will strive his best, without as much as a monosyllabic ayes or nahs.

But, my heart bleeds for him.

Crusade, Spiritual Counseling and being Born Again

Ruminations - 2

Am I I? Or who am I? What is my identity? Is Identity a requisite? Does identity matter? Why then are there so many questions on identity in the first part of any application form? One thing is certain. This is a short paragraph, relatively speaking.

======================================
Ruminations - 1

This is India. I mean, we are supposed to be Indians, from the country founded and raised originally on the banks of Sindh River and spread to occupy the sub-continent. May by the use of that word "occupy" is significant. May be not. I am not commenting. All is conjecture. Then again, Sindh, Inde, India, Hind all point to one thing: this is Hindu country. At least, twas! And yet, when I look around, what do I see. Three out of ten neighbours in every neighbourhood is likely to be a non-Hindu. Frequently there is bound to be a Muslim in this list and two out of every seven can be born-again Christians or within 500 meters there is bound to be an Islamic, if not, definitely a Christian worship place, a Fancy Goods Store or a Departmental or Provision store of the local variety run by a Muslim or Christian; to add to it, in certain localities, there may even be a Dhabba and some Tibetian or North-east student community presence indicating Sikh and/or Buddhist ilk. Yet, we are shouting about Hindu and anti-Hindu sentiments; and yet further, Hinduism is termed as a trampling religion that is non-secular. Parties are being accused of being fundamental and Hindu right-wing. The Prime Minister of this country is a Sikh. The person who ramrods the President and Prima Minsiter is a Christian. More unequivocally put, comes from the proximity of Vatican. The erst-while President was a Muslim gentleman. The current incumbent is a champion of underpriveleged; by which is meant the Dah-lits. Aren't they all? And yet this is called Hindu country and being Hindu has come to mean anti-secular... because, secularism aims at vernicht-ing that so-called Hindu identity in order to bring about a certain state of multi-religious, multi-sectarian society so that people are kept divided along religious, casteist, sectarian and yes, sexarian. I refuse to call it sexist, for often, again and unabashedly, in a very partisan and polarised way, that is equated to chauvinism, as though one can't be a female sexist. You see, you can't even say feminist as the antonym of chauvinist, like you can't call Christianity or Islam or Zorastrianism the antonym of Hinduism. Now of course, Sikhism or Buddhism are excluded conveniently because they are really the elite and ignorable minority. The antonym of Hinduism is the priveleged domain of Da-lits these days, like sexism equals chauvinism and feminism is a redemtive word for rallying for a noble cause. For: anything originally allegedly suppressed or underpriveleged or opportunity-denied has come to become elite, positive, inclusive, and hence minority. Very confusing? Imagine my confusion and visualise the lines of chaos running on my visage early in the morning (if you consider 6.30 a.m early enough!) when I pick my customary The Hindu and shake the inevitable supplementary sections and daily appendages of ink on sundry newsprint to shake off the trojans and backdoors that come stuffed like lettuce in a burger. What befalls? A handfull of 70gsm Christian literature falls out! Well, I always thought these sundry lettuce stuffings only take the form of fliers for furnitures and mosquito nettings and Reliance Fresh. But no! Conversion attempts begin at 4 a.m in the morning when they get lettuced into newspapers and fall out of the bread of commode-reading habit around 7 p.m at the latest. And yet this is Hindu country. And yet Da-lits are rallying for more and more minority status. And yet a Sikh is a Prime Minister of this country. You see, this is Congress country. Every party that can threaten their stay at top would be non-secularised, every society that can undermine their peaceful non-co-existence will be campaigned un-democratic or non-socialist friendly. The commies are the exception,being a law unto themselves. As useless and un-country-friendly. The commies don't know what they want. They neither can become majority, nor can reach consensus within themselves, or can successfully divide the bread between the monkeys. And yet, they rule the people who rule the man who rules the country. So who rules the country, what country are we in, what are our guiding principles, what is our religious or secular, democratic or fundamental status? Are we being secularised or vaticanised? Are we being made minority or majority? Is minority the majority or majority the minority? Are we being subverted or converted? Do people who talk of revolution or taking over of India by the military as the only purgative, laxative, whatever-ative realise it is not even working in the proverbial "hatti" called Pakistan, India itself being the Kabab of the sub-continental spread (after all, Pak-stan was a Pak-stance of Jinnah from pre-partition India). Is it better to be isolated from the main-land sub-continent, courtesy waters of Indian Ocean, like Sri Lanka? Is this blog about religion, politics or our country? Do we even have a single identity? Is it even possible to think of a physically undivided India since we are mentally so divided? Would anyone have the sanity to take the double-barrel and blow the heads of the dynastic party that rules this country who is in turn ruled by a 'woman' who is rank-outsider even in her country of origin? Would it really be the panacea for the common good of the people of this country if the figure-heads are wiped out? Or do we need to overhaul the nomenclatures of the political offices? Why are we even made aware of these differences? While we are going over this, hundreds of infants are dying, girls are being raped, boys are being kidnapped, women are being raped on the highways of Delhi, Noida or Gurgaon in the backseats of cars and SUVs. We remain indifferent because the 24 hour newschannels have benumbed our sensibilities to horrors by packaging them for their own TRPs. Gone are the days when newspapers use to carry news. There are only olds, thanks to live newschannels. Good news are no more news. Bollywood and ramps are the only celebrative affairs worth beaming as good news, else all news is blood, gore, or al-gore or bush. Only one thing is certain. This is a very very very long paragraph.

Rahul's Last Stand

While people unaware of the title's significance should not mistake this as Dravid's 'perhaps' final stand in the company of a quick scoring Ganguly in India's second innings at The Oval, others who are aware of the undertone reference to Gen James Custer's Last Stand must realise there is an inversion of application involved here. The historical Custer took a stand against the Indians and wiped them out in an American version of Jallianwallah Bagh. Rahul the Indian (East, though) took his brave stand to wipe out the Whites (represented by English) in the recently concluded Test Series, thus bridging a relative history apparent only to crazies like me! Another metaphorical post-colonial piece of sorts! But, let's to cricket...

A lot of hue and cry - as the cliche goes - went into the making of an Indian second innings declaration at The Oval recently during the 3rd n-Power Pataudi Trophy India-England Test Series. Dravid was severally accused uniformly about an erroneous declaration tactic: it came late; later than it must have been; in the first place, he must have had the English to follow-on; an act of cowardice, etc etc.

Chandu Borde - the naam ka waste Manager cum Coach of sorts - was quick to the cover up at the press conference at the end of day 4, where England went back to the Pavilion and to nightly hibernation at 56 for no loss of wicket, secure in the feeling, at the worst, they can't lose this series. The English perhaps believe in the dictum of saving the battle even if the war is lost. Ah! that English sense of Honour and Pyrrhic victory!! Anyway, Mr. Borde quickly refuted the criticisms and allegations and accusation levelled at Dravid's decision saying the team was only ensuring that absolute no-loss situation first before anything else.

I wondered for a moment! If the same decision had been taken by a Mark Taylor or Mike Atherton or Nasser Hussain or even Ricky Ponting, how the Western media and pundits of the game would have applied plaudits that defy all logic and common sense in the name of sportsmanship and in accordance of bravery in the confines of the laws and the spirit of the game once played by the several Sirs Play a Lots of English and Aussie shores. Bah! Humbug! Nonsense and Crap! If Taylor does it, it is sporting declaration. If Dravid does it, unanimous cudgelling. The shrinking hypocrisy of it. But what else to expect, it is an Englishman's game!

The point is this. Even the fecking Indian press, especially the Indian television news channels that shamelessly have been tirelessly working proudly as foreign channel tie-ups, were bent on blackening Dravid and squeezing every bit of public sentiment and hysteria to defame Dravid, not in the interests of the game they seek to preserve through the several well-intended (or so we must believe) debates and big fights they initiate in special 1 hour slots everytime India takes a bashing. (It is another matter that if India does not get a bashing elsewhere, they will concoct one). Actually, it was a very brilliant tactical work by Rahul Dravid. The backdrop is this: no-one has successfully chased large scores at The Oval; the fifth day is infamous for its spin assistance, according to the pundits as well as the retro-statisticians of the game. And there was the risk that England, after the realisation that if they applied themselves a bit more (and some timely assistance and bursary from the umpires), they can emulate India's first essay big score, thus bat for two full days and save the test. Now, looking at how they played and almost scored 400 runs without losing out wickets much, they could have, had Dravid taken the chance to impose follow-on. What if they had scored 600 playing out a whole lot and Panesar & Anderson came back (with assistance from umpires of course) to bundle India out in the second innings. We have crumbled before. The chances of India crumbling on the 5th day to the swing and life of Anderson and Tremlett as well as spin of Panesar must have come into Rahul Dravid and the other think-tanks' calculation. And thus, it is a very wise decision to let India bat inspite of the temptation of imposing follow-on to attempt an innings win... or a 100+ target chase in the fourth innings. Also, with Zaheer nursing a leg-strain and Sreesanth not being able to find his rhythm, it was the best decision a captain would have taken. So stop taking about it, whiners and whingers of Indian cricket.

It was an absolutely wise Last Stand the Indian took against the Whites and ensured an Indian victory.