freebird

My friend who was lost in Bangkok has returned home, at least to Bombay that is. We had dissuaded one of our friends from going to Bangkok to find him. We were thinking of more conventional ways of searching him….hiring a detective etc but she she did the bravest act…headed for an alien country all on her own and accomplished what she set out to do. She found him. Bravo.

The battle though is not yet over. News likes scandal and it salivates when the person involved is from the film industry…the realm of the dissolute and the corrupt. That’s the world’s pov. Friends are are all aghast, the reporter did his job and the reader got a 3 minute story, captivating the moment ready to be forgotten the 4^th minute.

RGV’s Aag has hit the screens today in India. People are debating – is it sensible to remake Sholay etc which is a useless debate. I, me, myself had written a blog wondering why RGV would attempt it. Two words, Artistic Freedom gives all the relevant answers. But the moot point was not if RGV could or couldn’t because anyways he did. The point was ‘why’?

To better it? No. Because you can’t. What is the reason then? The reason is that RGV has exhausted himself. The Factory lived up to its reputation and gobbled up the custom-made, intimate films that only happen once in an artist’s lifetime. The Factory was RGV’s Frankenstein. We all are interested in knowing how bad Aag could be. Is that a fall, both for the maker and the audience?

Now RGV has a new formula for success. Get hold of Superstars. Pair the most happening people. Create controversies. Market the concept. He has over the years learnt the fine art of not making films but selling them. He has done quite a pathetic job at it, but brand RGV is still going strong. When was the last half-decent film he made. His next, called Darling in his own words is a comic-horror-musical. What’s that? Brain Damage/Avant Garde? Anyone?

Met an old friend via mail. Works for Greenpeace in Holland. Another close friend left Mumbai for Delhi today. Coming and going. Going and coming. Till next.

People become sane or mad in love. I am in love. Was I out of it for so long? That’s sad. What have I become? I can’t tell. The others can. For starters, we try to impress the person you are in love with. You be nice, you be courteous, you open doors, you smell good, you generally follow Jack Nicholson’s confession from As Good As It Gets that ‘I want to be a better man’. All that talk and feeling is good. Very good in fact.

Impress you can in numerous ways. Yesterday I went to a mall here in Mumbai. Bought tickets for Chak De, ate at a pretty good Rajasthani joint and then was saddled with 2 hours to kill. So Landmark beckoned. If you don’t have money and you love books or music then it’s better to avoid such destinations.

For a change I had some money. I browsed. That’s a pleasure. Smell of papyrus of all kinds, normal, recycled, hemp, old paper, new paper and what not. Now what to choose. I got suddenly reminded of libraries. Lines, rows, stacks and trays of books all with their peculiar smell, texture and taste. Brown, yellow, red, pages dogeared or torn, the spine broken, marked in pencil and ink, notes on the side, old letters, notes and sometimes flowers sandwiched, remnants of history.

So back to Landmark. I read the jackets, the blurbs, the inside pages. Poetry is best. A page can be read, imbibed and enjoyed. Not the same with novels alas.

The first book that caught my fancy was the new collection of poems by Namdeo Dhasal. Strangely it looked like a coffee table book but the price was right and the content great. I had read his poems on and off, in a magazine and some journal. But I moved on.

Other books and more books. Then I chanced upon my old favourite – Emily Dickinson. Have been reading her poems from an age when I could not understand what she was saying. I fell in love with how she was saying what she was saying. Brevity, lateral, tangent, obtuse, simple, transcendental, tactile are some words that come to one’s mind. I have read her time and again. Like Blake.

I moved on. More wandering. What shall take my fancy now?

Gibberish. The 10^th Rasa. The Indian Book of Nonsense. Very interesting I thought. They were translations. Imagine original gibberish or nonsense..that would make more sense.

So I dilly – dallied. Up and down I bargained. What to pick and what to leave behind. Arduous, very tiring process. Wish there was more money in my bank. But then resolve got the better of timidity and Emily Dickinson, Namdeo Dhasal and The 10^th Rasa…the Book of Nonsense emerged victorious.

‘The Mystic’, ‘The Rebel’ and ‘The Madman / Woman’ - can anybody else speak the truth. Love.

Another attack. This time in Hyderabad. 40 + people dead, many more injured. India is immune to terrorism or what? We get routinely bombed and killed. There are a thousand and one suspects. People are arrested. Human Rights organizations will protest as most of them normally are innocents from minority populations. Kafkaesque trials are held, some custodial deaths just happen, magisterial inquiries are initiated, cops get exonerated and by then we have forgotten the blast courtesy the Great Indian Spirit and move on or try to before bam…another blast rocks us. Pretty cycle this of death, justice, compensation and revenge.

We hear Europe and America whenever they are under attack. Entire continents are quarantined to look for the suspects. Back home in India it is the cursory checks by pot-bellied constables with archaic profiling skills and dogs that seem more interested in sniffing out their next meal. Am I being too critical? Spare a thought for the beleaguered force. They have not been home in 3 days and are paid a pittance, stay in about to collapse buildings with a family the god of the joint family will be ecstatic about.

We all have our reasons.

Terror terror on the wall, who is the weakest of them all

I am not them, they are not me, I will…

I dread to complete the rhyme, but

We will run out of time

0n the 31^st of August a Hindi film is about to hit the marquee that is being most eagerly awaited by different people for different reasons.

It is Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘adaptation’ or ‘re-interpretation’ of the 1975 classic ‘Sholay’. If you are Indian and you don’t know ‘Sholay’ then probably you don’t have a mind, memory etc. That is the veneration that the film generates. It was Ramesh Sippy’s tribute to the spaghetti western.

During the days of the cassette tape one of the most prominent displays was enjoyed by the double tape of Sholay. With the two heroes Jai and Veeru on the sidecar – scooter and Garam Dharam trying to strangle Gabbar with a half-log as the two sides of the cassette jacket.

The nation remembered most of the dialogues of the film and they still do, 30 years after the film. Speaks volumes about a film, book, music or a relationship. It’s an enduring affinity between the film Sholay and the film-goer.

And Mr. Varma is trying to re-interpret it. Gabbar is now being played by Bachchan himself. The groovy ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’ has been ravaged twice, first in Aap Ka Suroor and now by Mr. Varma. We all have to wait how the film fares. It can’t match up to the original we all know. Some or most of us are waiting ‘how bad can it get’? Will Mr. Varma be able to recreate the old magic. Why answer the question?

What has happened to the guy who gave us Raat, Shiva, Satya and 1^st half of Company. Others would have more names but anyways…Satya will be his Sholay. Is anybody trying to remake Satya?

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Do all of us have motivation? What if the lack of motivation is the springboard of all action? Is that possible. Some 5 of us sat and made each other crazy in the ideation meeting today. Action is character as Hardy said. Do we need to weave an appealing, understandable, simplistic backstory that justifies ‘everything’ that a character does or doesn’t?

Too many questions in that paragraph I think. ‘I do what I do’, says my character. Each action is independent. It has no baggage, history of knowledge and experience. Then what? Is my character unreal? What does he / she become psychologically? Can we analyze that character? Will the audience be able to relate to that character, able to understand, sympathize and empathize.

Police in India is feared. They are an extra-constitutional authority. They are not autonomous. They are affiliated to the people in power and their ideologies. It doesn’t matter who is governing…the Right or the Left, the Police are with people who are in power. End of story. They help each other. When the legislators commit a crime or a misdemeanor the cops bail them out. And they return the favour when the cops do the unthinkable.

This mutually beneficial affair has been going on for long. Most governments are scared of giving autonomy to the police force. There will be a semblance of interference even when the force is autonomous, but imagine an entire Army that is at the disposal of the State…an Army that is armed, dangerous and motivated to be on the side of Power and Influence!

On Monday morning, 20th of August 2007, 11 tribal women in Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India were raped by local policemen. After a routine search operation to flush out Naxals did not yield any results, the cops took their ire on women who were alone in their huts. The few men folk were threatened with the armory at their disposal.

After the rape they went about their official duties. Now the illiterate and traumatized tribals have to undergo medical tests and o\interrogation by the very machinery that has raped them. Can we expect justice? NO. Not when the perpetrators are the appointed guardians of justice.

The rebels have another reason to feel alienated, angry and to seek retribution and justice and they will do it by taking the extreme step. By ambushing and killing more policemen. So we have a cycle of violence. The oppressor and the oppressed. Meanwhile the mandarins of the State and the Nation are busy selling the state and the nation as the hottest travel, technology and religious destination in the world.

Never mind these aberrations. After all there is going to be collateral damage in this circus of evolution.

There has still been no sign of my friend who is lost in Bangkok. Some friends and a relative are in Bangkok. Others like us who are in Mumbai want to go, but there are various problems. Money, career, and other obligations. We do feel guilty I think. We have spent so many days and nights together. Have laughed and fought together. Ate and drank together. We are feeling sad and guilty.

Then we justify our inability by giving various excuses. Will our presence actually help? What good will come of it other than giving emotional support and individual brownie points? Don’t know what to do.

Various conspiracy theories have cropped up. What happened we ask and then stay mute – we don’t have an answer, any answer. He had given up the last 4 months of his life for the film. Rarely met his friends or partied or did late nights. The film was everything, like it is for all of us. Then what made our friend leave all and disappear just 3 days before the final wrap?

Has he been kidnapped? Fallen in bad company? What? WHAT?

We wait for your return Shetty. And we won’t ask any questions.

all and everyone back home

I was called at 9 in the morning of the 15^th of August by a dear friend of mine to convey a sad news – a very close friend of mine had apparently disappeared in Bangkok. He is a cameraman and had gone to shoot the last 4 days of a Hindi feature film. His passport size photo was on the 2^nd page of a tabloid.

We, a close bunch of 12 people freaked out. All through the day we called each other, called the director in Bangkok (salute), he called us and evening came and there was hope and by night everything got confusing beyond redemption. We had nothing to hold on to. We didn’t know a thing other than the fact that he had withdrawn money on 2 different occasions.

By night I had begun to hate ZEE NEWS. Zee like so many of their ilk decided to spice up our friend’s disappearance. Painted him in various shades of evil and debauchery so that it makes for 3 and a half minutes of interesting viewing. In the process they indulged in character assassination, speculated no end and gave untold grief to family and friends. A BIG THANK YOU. Hope you have got the salary raise that your life depended on?

Today is the 16^th and my friend has still not been found. Zee News probably and hopefully has got bored of my friend. We are scared and although some of us are atheists are praying…

And the 60^th Independence day celebrations of India are over. What took place that day other than raising the flag, beating of chests, announcements of aid relief and vows to instill integrity in the future generations of the country?

Good Luck

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Tomorrow is the 60^th year of India’s independence. 15^th August 1947-2007. Every year the ritual begins in earnest…where is India? What is India? Is it the end of India? Is this India’s best year? More often than not the strain of such journalistic exercises reek of the stench of obituaries. More often than not one sensed a sense of despondency about India. As if it’s a country on its last legs, about to collapse.

What were the landmarks that made us think like that almost believe in the imminent death of a nation that we all loved and sometimes…

I remember 1983 the epochal cricket world cup; 1984 operation Blue Star and the killing of Indira Gandhi; 1987 the IPKF; Kashmir, 1989 killing of Rajiv Gandhi and Mandal Commission; 1992 Babri Masjid; 1993 Bombay Bomb Blasts not to forget religious, ethnic and other parochial strifes that perpetually kept the nation on its toes.

Everybody fought. The North East, Kashmir, Hindus and Muslims, upper and lower castes…a nation torn apart at its seams. The nation tried to come to terms with this by immersing itself in two passions – cricket and films (Hindi and regional) but that was not enough. Liberalization brought in its attendant evils – proliferating money, the speculative stock market barons who run roughshod over small investors and corrupt regulators who had patrons in the government.

There were minor victories for sure. V. Anand, semi – finals at the cricket cups, a defeat over Pakistan, Arundhati Roy, Indian or Hindi films, the Indian technological foot soldiers who left their country, made their mark in the US or Britain and became a part of its national mainstream without forgetting their country…eating pickles, wearing saris and watching garish Hindi films. But our national sadness had more avenues to escape. It was not limited to cricket and films. We had more icons. Wipro, Infosys, IIT graduates, Bangalore, Sania (she is back), still some Hindi films, Medha Patkar, Sunita Narayan of CSE, the Mass Media inspite of its shameful tabloidisation, new power structures, equal opportunities and coalition governments.

We still have farmers committing suicide and the agriculture minister chairing BCCI battles. Infanticide in the richest states and the non-implementation of the RTI. We still don’t have the right to reject out candidates who rule on the district, state and national levels.

So are we more confident as a nation now as we enter the 61^st year? Have we been able to project a united front to the world outside or importantly have we been able to make sense of all the diverse elements that we celebrate but have not been honest to its differences and inherent wish to be autonomous. Are we only in love with the idea of India as an ancient civilization, home to different faiths and blah blah?

Or is their a greater destiny that waits India, only its instruments are not ready and able to write it, too busy in their past hurts, recent upswing and future prospects to think of the nation…too busy surviving to nurture the GREAT IDEA.

Antonioni and Bergman died on the same day. It was not co-incidence of course, but a great era came to an end. Quietly and peacefully. Two film makers from Europe who saw the great war, the great crime and the great appetite.

I haven’t seen all of their films. L’Aventurra, Blow up, L’Ecclipse and The Passenger of Antonioni.

L’Aventurra was a revelation. I had seen the film on VHS during one of the many film festivals that we friends used to organise. 30 films in 5 days kind of thing. We could keep our eyelids from betraying us and we watched some great cineme.

It was during one of those film binges that I had discovered Aventurra. I found it slow, ponderous and beautiful. I slept in the morning after a surfeit of film. At around 11 that morning a friend of ours visited and wanted to watch a film. Aventurra got played again. I was awake by then and then started watching it again. The small boat with the lovers on it sailed and then the girl gets lost and then something happened. I left the room and felt elation.

I had understood Aventurra. Through and through would be a presumptuous statement but Antonioni’s lifelong obsession to delineate the ‘architecture of relationships’ suddenly was made visible and accessible. Love, guilt, sin, loss, reconciliation and redemption of the characters became my own love, guilt…redemption.

Similarly with Blow-Up. Vast desolate colorful sexy lost loathsome playful grim gray murderous London. Where is the ball? Ah the mime shadow play of a herd painted and Dionysian. I watched it a second and a third time and had to give up and say that this onion is for an eternity. There is still The Passenger…another shocker. Antonioni’s films for me are as ferociously intelligent and condemnatory ultimately holding a speck of redemption as the aphorisms of Nietzsche.

Bergman, the playwrite from Faro who went on to make films that is as potent as any literature of the world. I was scared watching my 1^st Bergman – obtuse, religious, symbolist, theatrical…came across too much like a pedant.

Wild Strawberries was cinema and much more. So were the others that I have watched. Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Autumn Sonata, Persona and Fanny and Alexander. There are more to be studied and fallen in love with.

Regards

Thank You