pen, paper and graffiti

Whose English is it Anyway?

2010-11-07T19:23:00.004+05:30

LIFE IS A constant battle where we are mere warriors. The one who can overcome all the hurdles and come out victorious is the real winner. So keep fighting, because you can’t afford to loose the...

Hey, hold on a second! Was it actually what I read or did my vision dip suddenly? Okay, let’s rewind.

...because you can’t afford to loose the war.

There goes another brick in the wall of English slip-ups. Phew!

Facebook statuses provide an interesting glimpse into an individual’s life, his thoughts and musings (this isn’t applicable to every one of course; some just do Ctrl C + Ctrl V). So I frequently keep on checking and commenting on my friends’ status updates, and that’s how I came across this catastrophic quote. We definitely want to win every battle in life, but if we don’t win we lose, we don’t loose! Urghh! It’s really annoying to find people repeating this mistake of adding an extra ‘O’ to the word. I’ve noticed bunches of examples of people (including my friends all of whom are gonna kill me after reading this), mostly on the internet, writing the word ‘loose’ when what they really mean is ‘lose’. Is it just an innocent typo, or do they need a quick recap of their long forgotten Wren & Martin lessons? Silly!

So guys, when your girlfriend dumps you, you lose her, not loose her (just try and imagine the situation of loosing someone’s girlfriend!). Similarly, when it comes to my weight, I would like to lose it as much as I can, not loose weight. You can’t afford to be a looser all the time!

Such goofs are commonplace in our everyday life. We might take pride in claiming that we walk English, talk English and eat English, but many a times what we end up doing is talk shitty English. So what if there’s an extra ‘O’? The point is to communicate and that’s what we all do, you might argue. That’s precisely the commonest — and the lamest — excuse I always confront. I mean, what’s so cool about speaking wrong English?

Reading so far, if you are wondering who the hell am I to give so much gyaan on English speaking or whether you’ve by mistake logged in to a ‘learn proper English’ site, please stop wondering and read on.

I, by no means, assert myself as Shakespeare’s godson or the next-in-line editor of Oxford’s dictionary. Nor do I proclaim that I speak impeccable English. However I try to stay away from committing such faux pas, though not quite successfully always. A few days back I had a similar foot-in-your-mouth situation when my friend asked me whether I was leaving for home early. I replied, “No dude, I’m here only.”

Here only! How on earth could I say that! Not that it’s incorrect, but perhaps we Indians will never be able to get rid of the habit of using an unnecessary only at the end of the sentence. Need more proof? Sample this: once while travelling with a friend I asked him to take a particular route, to which he replied, “Dude, that will be a long cut. Let’s take the other way.” Here’s another one: “The outing has been preponed to next Sunday,” I heard a friend of mine saying. I could never make them understand that there are no English words as long cut and prepone, and they ain’t in any way opposites of ‘short cut’ or ‘postpone’.

That’s Indianised English, goes the popular defence. And it’s true in a way. After all, these words have blended so profusely in our lingo that we hardly get amazed when someone asks us, “What’s your goodname, Sir?” Ask this question to any gora and all you’ll get in reply is protruding eyes! Then there’s the vernacular practice of saying ‘Mention not’ in response to ‘Sorry’, which ideally and grammatically should be banned from our vocab. So next time, you hear the word ‘Sorry’, you know what you ought not to mention!

Use of plurals is our forte, anywhere and everywhere. That’s why the bus conductor shouts ‘Aaste, ladies’ (Stop, the ladies is getting down!) even when there’s a single woman getting down from the bus. That’s why we unhesitatingly say ‘this toffee costs just one rupees’ without noticing that there exists a fine difference between Rupee and Rupees. That’s why we use the word ‘anyways’ so confidently that we’ve forgotten it actually doesn’t need an ‘S’ for support. That’s why we pop up in the middle of a conversation ‘yaar, ek jokes sunata hoon’ and everybody ends up LOLing (at the jokes, not the goof) Anyways, who cares?

Finally comes the googly — stressing words. We are so fond of emphasising whatever we are saying that we don’t shy away from putting two dispensable (and at times contradictory) words in the same bracket, giving some of the funniest combinations. Sample these: real fact, clearly misunderstood, exact estimate, act naturally, found missing, fully empty. I bet you must’ve heard the backbencher guy in the college saying, “Sir, can you please repeat the last line again?” Or one of your friends asking you angrily, “When will you return my Step Up DVD back?”

If you are still wondering what’s wrong with the above sentences or words, may your soul rest in peace.

P.S. – This is something is googled the other day. Remember we used to chant the numerical tables in our childhood? Two one za two, two two za four blah blah blah. Ever wondered what does the word ‘za’ stands for? The multiplication sign of course, would be the unanimous answer. Boy, here lies the catch. It’s actually supposed to be read as ‘two ones are two’, ‘two twos are four’. Now before you decide to guillotine me for this pakau post, think over it (the za theory I mean, not the guillotine thingy)!

Those were the Best Days of My Life

2010-09-14T18:17:00.004+05:30

IT WAS A lazy Saturday afternoon when I first stepped into the Jadavpur University campus. Board exams over, I had come to my pishi bari, when my cousin offered me a campus tour. ‘You will surely fall in love with it,’ he asserted confidently.

My cousin doesn’t really have the reputation of being a future-predictor, but that day miracles were bound to happen. As we strolled along pitch black asphalted lanes of the campus shaded with lush green trees (it had rained the previous night making the trees look paintinesque) whizzing past the lofty departmental buildings, Science More, AC Canteen, Central Library, Jheel paar, Engineering ground and Aurobindo Bhavan, I experienced the miracle. I was in love. With JU. Standing right there amidst the descending twilight I promised to myself, ‘I am gonna study at this university, no matter whatever happens.’

I did. I still can’t describe the happiness I felt when I got the news of my selection in JU. It was ethereal. Even at the risk of being labelled a ‘certified nut’ (I cancelled my admission from the prestigious Presidency College ignoring the constant glares from my parents) I enrolled in JU. And thus began the fairy tale. From that rain-soaked day of August when I walked into the Orientation room battling with my nervousness and excitement to that December morning when we strutted about the campus in our saffron robes waiting to be convocated — every single moment in these three years has been worth a lifetime.

However all those 1,095 days of ecstasy would have been completely meaningless had I not met ‘them’. It was on the second day that ‘we’ got introduced. At that moment I didn’t have the faintest idea that these five crazyheads — Ani, Pri, Ups, Mou and Drone — would for the coming three years make my JU experience something to boast about for my entire life. Unlike my schooldays, I didn’t skip a single college day during graduation. It was not because I loved attending the boring lectures, but because I hated missing the chitchat with my friends and the tomfoolery we used to do throughout the day. Drone didn’t accompany us beyond the classes, but the rest of us used to stick together like an inseparable quintet. Be it in classroom, canteen, library, photocopy centre or leisurely walk around the campus — ‘we’ were everywhere.

Adda spots in a college generally constitute the canteen or the common room. But JU provided myriad options. We mostly used to hang out in departmental classrooms during the lunch breaks. Milan da's canteen did not have much space to sit. So I would bring food — dalpuri-tarkari, alur chop, iced tea — from there and share it with the tiffin brought by Ups and Pri (they religiously used to carry tiffin boxes everyday stuffed with homemade goodies). Our other hang out zones (during off periods or class bunks) included the bench in the corridor near the front stairs of the department, the back staircases at the rear end of the corridor, the long wooden bench beside the window in the Film Studies department, Jheel paar and at times AC Canteen.

We had even discovered another weird adda spot — a small shop named ‘Mazumdar Xerox’ in a blind lane near Jadavpur 8B bus stand where we used to photocopy tons of pages everyday from various reference books. Quite naturally, we spent a great deal of time in the shop chatting away (that gave everyone the impression we have no work to do than idling our time sitting there) and munching on the nearby Monginis, Bawarchi and Hindustan Sweets delights. We had nicknamed the shop as Machhimara Xerox owing to the large number of flies parading from the opposite sweet workshop to give us company. The name became so popular that everyone from our class actually forgot the original name and started calling it by Machhimara (fortunately the owner wasn’t aware of this ‘name-calling’!).

The Film Studies department has a distinct charm of its own. We felt more cosy spending some lazy lamhe in that wooden bench of Film Studies than in any of our International Relations classrooms. The window right beside overlooked a considerable stretch of JU (the department being on the top floor of UG Science building), particularly the famous Hanging Bridge. Standing there and witnessing dusk setting in all over the campus was absolutely outworldly. I still get goosebumps imagining those moments.

Jheel paar — we called it Vrindavan at times — is basically the lovers’ den of JU frequented by couples of various ages (you might find a cautious First year couple sitting right beside a desperate Ph.D couple) and departments. We had no such purpose to visit there, except throwing comments on a few adventurous couple on the verge of ‘making’ love rather than ‘feeling’ it!

It’s been almost three years since I had hurriedly got down at Gate No. 4 from auto to attend the 10.20 morning class, stepped into the classroom, taken down notes of SC or PPB, eaten dalpuri at Milan da at 1.40, walked along the Jheel paar, rushed to CL to find a book that Partho da had declared wasn’t available in DL, waited at Machhimara for photocopies or chatted all the way from Jadavpur 8B to Garia in the auto with Pri and Ups. But surprisingly I remember all these as if it were yesterday. This, I suppose, is one of the many symptoms of you-can-leave-JU-but-JU-won’t-leave-you syndrome.

The past few months have been a real roller coaster. I left Kolkata, came to Noida, got enrolled in a film school, started staying alone and a series of things happening all at the same time. And still I went to the first class hoping it would be a déjà vu of the JU orientation. Everytime I chat with my friends over here, I can’t help but miss my university all the more. I miss TC’s blatant dictation of Gandhism notes, the cold looks of SS, KS’s awful diction and our sudden laughter imagining his face with that of a pig, DC’s perfect lullaby tone in her sleepathon classes, Ani’s rendering of boka boka, his ceaseless bickering with Drone on Bangal-Ghoti, Pri’s mimicry, her obsession with Shahid Afridi to the extent of declaring Karachi as her sasurbari, Ups’s repitition of other’s words in a way as if she’s saying it for the first time, Mou’s grandmotherly attitude and our constant comparison of her with gomata.

I miss the Friday film screenings at Film Studies, Mainak Sir’s Indian cinema classes, the evening Spanish classes with Tarun and Mahijit, Abhijit Gupta’s swinging ponytail, English department balcony, the mashi-pishi book store at UG Arts, xerox mall, chicken chowmein at Mani da’s, dhoper chop at Milan da’s, coffee at AC Canteen, running at a marathon speed to the department from almost anywhere after knowing that the result is out, waiting in a long queue at Aurobindo Bhavan for paying fees, the hanging bridge, the phuchka seller outside Gate No. 2, OAT, Fests, Freshers’ Welcome that stopped midway due to announcing of mid-sem results, university elections, Holi celebrations, our late night study sessions before mid-sem or end-sem, my innumerable phone conversations with Pri before exam discussing how many topics to skip.

I visited JU once before shifting to Noida. It was kinda relive-the-good-ol’-days exercise. I took a walk round the campus, visited the places we used to spent hours at. Everything was the same, but inside I could feel the difference. The pitch black lanes criss-crossing the campus remained the same, only I had moved ahead. I’m no longer a part of the buildings, classrooms, roads, canteens or the jheel. I know I can still come back and experience it, but the feeling wouldn’t just be the same.

Last night after finishing the article, I called up Pri and narrated a portion of it to her. ‘Why are you making it so personal? Those who haven’t studied in JU — or more specifically IR department — won’t be able to comprehend your write-up. Make it more fluid. Let the non-JUites too get a feeling of what the place is like,’ she said. But how can you not be personal when you’re writing about your love affair? Whenever I think of my university now, all I see is a collage of images that I’ve attempted to pen down as accurately as possible. And that, I suppose, quite explains the significance of the title. This is what I say if someone asks me about my college days. Those were the best days of my life. Period.

Image courtesy: Jayita Sarkar

To Ma'am, With Love

2010-07-24T18:19:00.002+05:30

THE PHONE CALL came at 9.15 in the morning. It was Aditi. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ talking to an old friend is always a mood-uplifting experience. But my excitement was short-lived, for her voice appeared gloomy and distressed. ‘There’s a bad news. J. Roy Ma’am has passed away last night,’ was all she could say.

Silence. An intense painful silence. Words didn’t occur to me. Instead, images flashed through my mind. I toddled back in time. Year 2001. Class X. That’s me, sitting on the third bench. It’s the Maths period, but Ma’am hasn’t yet come to the class. Everyone is busy chatting, giggling and playing pranks on one another. Suddenly J. Roy Ma’am enters. Within a split of a second the atmosphere transforms. There’s now a pin-drop silence in the classroom. Everyone takes out his exercise copy like an obedient student and starts noting down the sums that Ma’am has written on the blackboard. Any attempt at whispering or looking at each other’s copies is met with a stern glance from Ma’am. Always.

That was our J. Roy Ma’am. Strict, disciplined, uncompromising, yet at the same time lovable and endearing. She knew how to take the best out of any student. In school, we had a habit of calling the teachers as ‘Miss’. So invariably Mrs. Jhara Roy ended up being called J. Roy Miss!

Ma’am used to take our Maths and Chemistry classes. But that wasn’t all. She had an amazing grasp on every other subject and whenever she took substitution classes for History, Bengali or English, we used to listen more attentively than we did in the regular classes. In every event and activity of the school, it was J. Roy Ma’am who took the lead. Be it the Sports Day, Annual Function or even smaller occasions like Children’s Day and Teacher’s Day, her involvement in every part of the programme was outstanding. From deciding which dance recital would be performed to selecting the costumes of the drama characters, J. Roy Ma’am was our Man Friday. The Principal too was quite fond of her. No other teacher (yes, I dare say that) commanded the kind of respect, admiration and love from the students that Ma’am did.

I was quite weak in Maths during my schooldays and managed to get pretty average marks in exams. That’s why in the year of my Boards, I decided to take private tuitions from Ma’am like many other students of my class. It was there that I discovered a different J. Roy Ma’am — not the angry lady I used to be so afraid of in school, but the motherly woman who chats and shares a joke with her students as we do with friends. Not just studies, Ma’am was concerned about our likes and dislikes too. Our Saturday tuitions used to stretch for almost four hours in the morning. So before leaving, we all used to munch on the shingara, labangalatika and jilipi ordered by Ma’am for us. Every week.

During the final months before Boards, Ma’am used to call two students everyday to her house for special Maths classes. They came in the morning, stayed the entire day practising sums and left in the evening. When my turn came, the day turned out to be more memorable than I had expected. I had so much fun at her place. We studied, chatted, had lunch together, took a little rest and then studied again. At lunch, she served us chicken but didn’t take it herself. When we asked about her share, she replied, ‘Kal Sunday chilo. Tai chicken korechilam. I knew you two would be coming today. So I had kept aside some of it for you.’

We must get up at 6 in the morning and study late in the night — was her strict order. In fact, Ma’am used to call up at everyone’s house early in the morning as well as late at night to ensure that we follow her instructions. I don’t know any other teacher to have done that. She even made us a routine as to what subject we should study and when. I still remember Ma’am told me one day, ‘Abhijit, you’ve the potential to score good in Maths. If others can, why can’t you? Try and I know you’ll succeed. Prove others that you can do it.’ I did, and the 84 percent that I got in the Boards, I owe it completely to that woman named Jhara Roy. After passing out, my visits to her house became infrequent. But whenever we used to meet, she was very inquisitive of knowing how well her students are doing in their lives.

Ma’am wasn’t keeping well for quite some time. Before leaving Kolkata, I visited her and gave her the news of my admission in a film school and my shifting to Noida. She looked pale, washed out and skeletal. She could barely speak and had lost all hopes of recovery. Yet she smiled. She was happy — for me, for my success, for those countless students she had devoted her life to.

Today morning when I got the news, I wish I was there in Kolkata. I wanted to see her for one last time. I couldn’t. But then deep down in my heart, I felt proud. Proud to be a student of Mrs. J. Roy. Of all the teachers I’ve come across so far, she’s the one I’ve respected and loved the most, and will continue to do so forever. J. Roy Ma’am wasn’t just my Maths teacher, but a lot more than that. She taught me to be a better person — a better human being.

So this post comes as a tribute to the finest teacher I’ve ever seen. Thank you Ma’am for being there, for guiding me... for everything. I’ll forever cherish those memories I had in your class. Love you a lot. May your soul rest in peace.

The Difficulty of Being a Fatso

2010-06-23T14:40:00.002+05:30

I AM FAT. Huge. Elephantine.

No, this isn’t a tell-all memoir. Nor am I in a confess-all mood. I had a realisation. And it happened at the men’s casuals section of Pantaloons in South City mall.

I went to the store recently with my friends looking for t-shirts. As I was rummaging through the UMM collection, a store attendant came along.

‘What’s your size, sir?’ he asked, smiling.

‘Eh... XL,’ I whispered and took a quick look around. Thank God, no one heard me.

‘XL? Are you sure?’ he asked doubtfully, his gaze fixated on my ever-protruding paunch.

I threw him a scowl and stomped towards the trial room, trying hard to push in my tummy by chocking my breath.

I was wrong. And embarrassingly cocky. The t-shirt didn’t fit me. Nor the next half a dozens (yes, you read it correctly) that I tried out. Each of them got obstructed at my misshapen potbelly. I thought I wouldn’t grow larger than the ‘extra-large’ tag. But then I forgot that nothing is constant in the world. Not even my paunch. As I kept gorging on ice creams, chocolates, biriyani and KFC chicken buckets, my body kept on expanding in all directions turning me into a fat ki factory.

Coming out of the trial room I spotted the attendant again, still smiling — though his smile now looked more like a ‘see-I-told-you-it-will-not-fit’ smirk.

Finally I had to give up, and give in. I bought an XXL t-shirt, quite ashamed at my burgeoning size. My friends ‘advised’ me to have a look at the ALL section — specially designed clothes for oversized people (a sweetened way to say ‘you are fat, so stay away from the fashionable stuff’). They even consoled me by calling me a ‘size zero’ figure. ‘After all, you look like a perfect zero — round from all angles. Puro football!’ chuckled one of them.

Round is also a shape, I want to protest. But it’s not easy for my feeble voice to cut across the layers of fat treasured over the years and still be heard. I’ve been christened by my friends quite a few times — fatso, mota, haathi, paunch potato, ‘sumo wrestler in the making’, chhoto-khato monster and a host of other names.

Girls believe I personify nerdiness. I once went to a model-hunt competition (as a spectator, of course). Watching the hour-glass girls and trapezoid-shaped guys walk the ramp, I understood why I was such a turn-off for girls. Whenever I try to hit on a girl, it’s my peeping paunch that catches her attention first. After all, why settle for a Saurabh Shukla when you have lots of John Abrahams and Ranbir Kapoors roaming around?

My mom religiously believes I’m just a little ‘healthy’, and not ‘fat’ per se. ‘It shows you’re well fed and not like those anexoric hungry-looking guys on the streets,’ she argues. But then you know moms are always your worst critic. Desperate to lose weight, I immersed myself in such pain-inflicting activities as doing yoga regularly, following a strict diet chart, avoiding all sorts of carbs, and the most painful of all, saying ‘no’ to mutton biriyani, chocolates, pizzas and other junk foods. I even started hitting the gym. But all these sacrifices failed to reduce my waistline from 38 inches to 36. Whenever I go for shopping jeans, I get to listen to the same apologetic statement: ‘Sorry Sir, but this jeans doesn’t come in your size.’ Phew!

I know my image doesn’t fit in the mirror often. I know I incur my fellow passengers’ wrath whenever I share an auto seat and almost make them fall off. I know I might very soon score a century when it comes to my body weight. And I know I’ve by now crushed out all chances of getting a girlfriend. But I’ve also realised that I simply can’t stay away from all those things that make your weight shoot up faster than the country’s population. Being fat and being a foodie after all go hand in hand. So no matter how hard I try to achieve the ‘sexy hunk’ persona, I end up being the one I always am. Fatso.

Image courtesy: Anindya Kundu

Love or Something Like It

2010-06-03T14:34:00.004+05:30

ROMANTIC COMEDIES ARE infectious. They get to you, stay there and turn you into an addict. It has happened with me. And now I’ve been turned into a RCA (Rom-Com Addict, silly). Most people, however, have a disregard for the rom-com genre. It’s shallow, unrealistic, pretentious and celebrates an ‘oh-so-perfect’ notion of life and love, they argue (as if I care!). Given a choice, I would any day prefer a rom-com than sit through some high brow art house stuff and pretend to ‘love’ the movie in the end. Rom-coms are girly stuff. Boys love action and sci-fi flicks, some of my friends believe. But would they have said such a thing had they watched Pretty Woman or When Harry Met Sally, I wonder.

Of the innumerable rom-coms that I’ve watched, here’s a list of half a dozen of them. These lesser-known films figure nowhere in the ‘10 best romantic comedies of all time’ or ‘20 rom-coms to watch before you die’ lists. They aren’t box office bumpers nor are critically acclaimed. But then as Sajid Khan says ‘damn the critics’, I extend my unflinching loyalty towards these superb six. I would love to watch them over and over again.

Love Actually (Dir: Richard Curtis)

‘I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, Love is all around me, and so the feeling grows’ — these opening lines of The Troggs’ classic hit quite sum up the mood and spirit of this uplifting love story. Set in London five weeks before Christmas, the spot on directorial debut of Curtis (he’s penned some of the most endearing romantic comedies — Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary) follows the interrelated stories of a dozen or so individuals as they embark on the journey called love. Billy Mack, Joe, David, Natalie, Juliet, Peter, Mark, Jamie, Aurélia, Harry, Karen, Sam, Joanna, Sarah, Karl, John, Judy — the way they fall in and out of love, sometimes with the right person, sometimes with the wrong one, makes this ‘love British style’ rom-com irresistibly enchanting. Curtis’s deft screenplay laced with humour, wit, warmth, romance and most importantly a pitch-perfect ensemble cast (Rowan ‘Mr. Bean’ Atkinson in his miniscule role gives a glimpse about the acting prowess of the other major players) will ‘actually’ make you fall in love with the film. So much so that you might end up having a ‘sneaky feeling’ that love actually is all around!

Runaway Bride (Dir: Garry Marshall)

A wedding-phobic small-town girl who has a habit of leaving her grooms-to-be at the altar, a fired-from-job big-city journalist who after writing an offensive column about her now seeks ‘vindication’ and the quaint little town of Hale, Maryland — that’s what Runaway Bride is all about, and much more. On first viewing, the bride-on-the-run couldn’t steal my heart the way a certain Pretty Woman did years ago. Even the Marshall-Roberts-Gere troika didn’t seem to work too well. But then love doesn’t always happen at first sight, isn’t it? The enticing storyline, the Julia-Richard star romance, a first rate supporting cast, the small-town atmosphere, tongue-in-cheek humour, witty one liners — all these make Runaway Bride an amusing tale of love and fun. Wow moment: when Julia ‘Maggie’ Roberts, while proposing to Richard ‘Ike’ Gere, gets down on her knees and says some of the most romantic lines I’ve ever heard, “I guarantee that we’ll have tough times. And I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don’t ask you to be mine, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. Because I know in my heart, you’re the only one for me.”

A Lot Like Love (Dir: Nigel Cole)

Ashton Kutcher is no Billy Crystal. Amanda Peet isn’t Meg Ryan either. Nor is A Lot Like Love anywhere close to the cult classic When Harry Met Sally. But there’s something captivating about this rom-com that keeps me glued to the TV screen whenever it’s shown on Zee Studio (and that’s quite often). Two ‘poles apart’ individuals — Oliver and Emily — keep on coming together and drifting away over the course of seven years as their relationship evolves from lust to friendship to love, until they finally realise that they are, indeed, made for each other. Ashton Kutcher is dumb as ever (he’s the perfect choice for such dumbass roles these days, since he doesn’t need to act). But it is Amanda Peet who overshadowed Kutcher all the way and even made his histrionics look lovable. She exudes such a rare charm every time she comes on screen that you can’t help but get smitten by her. Thanks to a witty script, refreshing direction and Amanda-magic, the film stops short of degenerating into a run-of-the-mill bland love story.

10 Items or Less (Dir: Brad Silberling)

This small independent film defies rom-com rules in many ways. It doesn’t preach ‘happily ever after’ nor does it have the saccharine sweetness and melodrama of love stories that at times make you feel diabetic. The lead players (Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega) are far from being conventional ‘teen heart-throb’ romantic leads, and the film doesn’t boast of magnificent locations or Hollywood glitz. 10 Items or Less isn’t a love story per se. There’s no hint of a traditional romantic affair between Freeman and Vega. But there are strong undercurrents of love, longing, friendship and passion running throughout. A movie star (Freeman), while researching for the role of a supermarket manager arrives at a small supermarket in a poor Latin neighbourhood. There he befriends the store cashier (Vega) and the initially mismatched pair ends up driving around Los Angeles. As the conversations open up, they begin to share and explore each other’s worlds. The refreshing narrative, witty humour, crackling chemistry between the leads (Vega’s Spanglish gives a déjà vu of Penélope Cruz) and smart direction make this film a rare cinematic experience.

Wimbledon (Dir: Richard Loncraine)

The critics called Wimbledon a ‘crowd-pleaser.’ Surely, it isn’t helluva great film. But what matters most is that the film has its heart at the right place. Its warmth, intimacy and good-heartedness strikes a chord with the viewers and you can’t help but like this mint-fresh sports rom-com. Washed-out tennis player Peter (Paul Bettany) whose rank has dropped to 119th in the world gets a wild card entry to his final Wimbledon tournament. There he falls for young, hot-shot American tennis pro Lizzie (Kirsten Dunst). As love grows between the two, Peter gets the inspiration and reason to win. But as Lizzie has given a new lease of life to Peter’s dying tennis career, he too must see her continue to win. Wimbledon has the charm, subtlety, wit and good humour of British rom-coms that rejuvenates the otherwise predictable storyline. Bettany’s good looks and ‘offbeat charm’ is a welcome departure from his negative acts (à la The Da Vinci Code) and establishes him as a lovable lead actor. Dunst is sparkling and makes the tennis matches all the more watchable.

Elizabethtown (Dir: Cameron Crowe)

Did Imtiaz Ali watch Elizabethtown while scripting Jab We Met? The similarities between the two movies can't be ignored. Shoe designer Drew (Orlando Bloom), fired from his job and dumped by his girlfriend, decides to commit suicide, when he is interrupted by a phone call informing him of the death of his father. So he postpones his suicide plan and leaves for Elizabethtown to bring back his father’s body. On the flight he meets a talkative, warm hearted flight attendant Claire (Kirsten Dunst) who changes his perspective of life, relationships and love (ring any bells?) and helps him discover the possibilities of his own destiny. Now a completely transformed person, Drew embarks on a journey in search of the girl who had brought his life back on track. Bloom gives an amazingly restrained performance, balancing between pensiveness and his desire to let go. Dunst is the ‘zing’ factor. She brightens up the screen every time she comes in and the magic lingers even after she’s off the screen. The road trip that Bloom sets out in the end elevates this bittersweet romantic comedy-cum-celebration of life-cum-road movie into something more poignant. And we realize, as the makers say, the best things in life happen when you least expect them.

Wedding Blues

2010-04-28T15:58:00.006+05:30

MARRIAGE AND I share a pernicious relationship, thanks to the numerous weddings I’ve been a part of all these years. (Before you start giving those ‘what-the-crap-this-guy-is-talking-about’ looks, let me clarify I’m only talking about attending marriage ceremonies, not actually getting married.) When I was young I used to be tagged along with my family to whichever wedding ceremony they attended, and everyone — quite expectedly — gave an air of insouciance to my repeated protest against accompanying them. Why would I go to somewhere I don’t know anyone, not even the bride or groom? It feels so awkward, I used to argue. But all I got in return were a few ‘you-are-a-kid-so-you-shouldn’t-have-any-say-in-this’ looks from everyone around forcing me to shut up.

So I attended the shaadis, over the years. And the saga still continues. In fact, the relations are so distant at times that I’ve to memorise them well in advance. Otherwise how do I explain others that I’m attending the ceremony of my aunt’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s daughter’s marriage? Or, for that matter, my father’s colleague’s elder brother’s son’s bou-bhaat. Once there I retreat to a lonesome corner, stuffing my mouth with some really awful vegetable — and occasionally chicken — pakoras (in order to prevent myself from getting bored) and hiding away from my over-enthusiastic (and over-grinning) relatives and acquaintances. But as luck would have it, they invariably spot me out and thereafter triggers a volley of pissing-off questions — what are you doing these days, why don’t you come to our place nowadays... blah, blah, blah... why are you standing alone here, why did you leave your job all of a sudden. Phew!

More often than not I manage to escape with a disinterested toothy grin, desperately waiting for the dinner to start. However the freakiest moments are those when some super-emotional aunty tugs my cheeks hard exclaiming, ‘O maa, koto boro hoye gechhis re tui!’ How cheeky!

Marriage ceremonies are queer. There’s a distinct air of superficiality running through them. Most of the biye bari that I’ve attended, all I could find under the guise of ‘heavenly bliss’ and merrymaking were pomp and splendour, ‘I-spent-more-money-than-you’-type grandeur, unabashed display of wealth, show off, tall talks, fake smiles, phoney conversations, sugar-coated bitching, flashy sarees and flashier jewellery.

However, marriage ceremonies can be fun as well. Apart from the food, I keep myself entertained by eavesdropping on the sensational gossip... err, conversations (‘gossip is a bad word — people ‘converse’, they never ‘gossip’) floating around. Now, for this write-up I did a little research (eavesdropping, to be precise) and came up with the following conversations. Though not letter-perfect, but you’ll surely get a glimpse of what everyone talks about at weddings.

Conversation One

Women, with their ‘hey-I-know-it-better-than-you’ attitude, are usually preoccupied with what seems to be making a detailed and thorough critical appraisal (they call it ‘fair comment’) of a number of earth-shattering issues — how tacky the bride’s saree looks, whether her jewellery is actually gold or mere gold-plated, is the groom really a mamma’s boy or just appears to be so or, why the bride’s mother didn’t personally come to welcome them.

‘Look at the bride’s saree. Isshhh... shocking red! Who wears that colour of Benarasi these days? How hideous!’

‘Absolutely. And have you seen her make-up? Looks like she’s applied pots of powder on her face! Must have done it at home. Couldn’t she even go to a parlour?’

‘Are all those jewels pure gold? The girl’s father has taken loan for the wedding. How come they can afford such extravagance?’

‘Arrey, bor ta ke dekh. I’ve heard he works in IBM. But see, how kyabla he looks!’

‘Hmm... and his mom is just the opposite. What a kharoos lady she is!’

‘Then it’s good, na? That girl is such a snob... doesn’t talk to anyone properly in the colony. You know, she even rejected Dolly boudi’s son. Ebar bujhbe moja.’

Conversation Two

Among the men, on the other hand, the subject of discussion generally pendulates between the present socio-political situation of the country and bragging about their sons and daughters, where the latter takes precedence. Occasionally they also throw sneer at others in a manifestation of ‘look-at-me-I-am-so-rich’ syndrome.

‘What’s your son doing now, Ghosh babu?’

‘He’s studying Mass Communication. Journalist hobe bolchhe.’

‘Tai naki? My elder son, Dipu, is in States now. Works in an MNC there... earns more than a lakh every month!’

‘Oh that’s very...’

‘And the younger, Riju, is studying Engineering in Bangalore. He’s thinking about doing MBA like his Dada after passing out... wants to shift abroad, actually.’

‘I think...’

‘But I didn’t object. Arrey, why should I? They’re grown ups now. And in any case, Engineering and MBA chhara aar achhe ta ki? All other courses are just a waste of time.’

Silence.

‘And if you talk of settling abroad, what’s wrong in it? Kolkata shohorer aar kissu hobe na moshai! It’s a dying city. Look at the climate. Ki gorom! Dipu doesn’t want to come here at all. You know, he can’t adjust to this heat and pollution.’

Silence. Silence.

‘Oh, by the way, Dipu’s getting married in June. We’re throwing a party at ITC Sonar. And it will be far more lavish than this wedding, I promise you! Eta to kichhui na.’

Conversation Three

Food is something I absolutely die for, and when it comes to ‘wedding reception food’, that’s a distinct cuisine altogether. However, it is also at weddings that you come across a rare and priceless breed of ‘food critic’ who can give the professionals a run for their money. Despite the fact that they stuff their plates with every item possible like it’s their last meal on this planet, these food critics have the miraculous ability to identify even the smallest flaw in cooking. Sample this.

‘The food was good. But the mutton was too spicy. Tai na?’

‘Yeah, and a bit chewy as well.’

‘The chingri malaikari was okay, although the prawns weren’t fresh. They stank.’

‘Chingri r kothay pelam? The waiters didn’t offer it twice.’

‘And the fish fry? It was so cold I had to tell them to heat it up before serving.’

‘I wanted to taste the paneer makhani. But they refused to serve me, saying it was only for vegetarians and I’ve already eaten non-veg items. Odbhut!’

Conversation Four

This one is a bonus item — a conversation between the over-zealous video recording guy and the groom.

‘Arrey Dada, stop! Don’t put the sindoor on boudi now.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘Give us a good pose na! Hold your hand over the bride’s forehead... yeah, that’s good. Keep it like that! Okay... now do it.’

‘Thank God!’

‘No, no... don’t look at her. Look at me. I mean... towards the camera. Dada, now give a smile to boudi. No... don’t tilt your head! Sit straight. Yeah... perfect!’

I know I might be guillotined for saying this, but here’s the golden rule: next time you’re in a biye bari, keep your ears to the ground and eyes in the back of your head. You’ll find amusement galore. Hail marriage.

Image courtesy: Sourish Mitra

A Horrifying Resolution

2010-03-15T16:13:00.002+05:30

THIS NEW YEAR I made a resolution. It wasn’t any of those just-like-that promises I make in January every year, invariably botching them up by the end of the month. No ‘will exercise regularly’, ‘will stop eating carbs’, ‘will read more books and watch less porn’ vows this year, I thought. It was time to do something hatke.

I’ll watch a lot of horror films, I pledged (I can see that smirk on your face, but I’d rather ignore it) after much musing. For a movie buff like me this was a resolution I’d love to abide by throughout the year. And what proved to be the icing on the cake was the phrase ‘horror films’. Watching horror flicks in a dark empty room, getting goose bumps even at the slightest squeak of the door — voilà!

So I watched. Films after films — ranging from terrific to terrible. Some scared the hell out of me, others way too bland. Of them, here’s a quick look at the frightening five.

The Orphanage (Dir: Juan Antonio Bayona / Spanish)

Guillermo Del Toro opened the peephole, but it was Bayona who sucked me into the world of Spanish horror cinema, thanks to his spine-chilling horror thriller. The story revolves around Laura (Belén Rueda) who returns to her childhood home — an orphanage — with the plan of renovating the now-dilapidated house into a home for disabled children. But reaching there her son Simón starts making imaginary friends. Things turn worse when Simón mysteriously disappears one day. Determined to bring her son back, Laura now enters her son’s eerie world, unravelling haunting secrets of the past. No ghastly monsters, no digital tricks, the film convincingly creates a sinister atmosphere without descending to cheap horror. Watch out for the pre-climax scene where Laura initiates a game she used to play in her childhood in order to contact the ghost children. It’s bloody scary! The Orphanage is what a critic has rightly said, ‘a movie about children made very much for adults.’

The Others (Dir: Alejandro Amenábar / English)

A horror masterpiece, The Others treads a rather difficult path between supernatural and psychological. Living in a darkened old country mansion with her two photosensitive children, Grace (Nicole Kidman) waits for her husband to return from war. Everything seems peaceful, until she hires three mysterious servants at the house. Soon strange events start occurring and Grace becomes convinced that her home is haunted. Grace begins to wonder if there’s something much more in the house that’s beyond the realm of human understanding. Relying entirely on psychological horror, the film gets creepier as it goes along and finally comes to what I call ‘the baap of twist-ending’ climax. It completely takes you by surprise, making you question who to believe and who to fear. Kudos to Amenábar for dissolving the boundaries between real and surreal.

A Tale of Two Sisters (Dir: Kim Ji-woon / Korean)

Asian horror films have a distinct charm of their own, often more horrifying than their western counterparts. From the very first frame they create a sense of dread and slowly build up tension, thereby luring the viewer into their dark and gruesome world. There’s always the fear of evil lurking behind, making its ‘presence’ felt even in the movement of the curtains, which is psychologically more disturbing, sinister and hair-raising than the western zombies and monsters. A Tale of Two Sisters is one such gem. Su-Mi, getting released from a mental institution, returns home with her timid sister Su-Yeong to stay with their emotionally-absent father and cruel stepmother. But once there, terrifying events start happening in the house. The plot is a complex one, but doesn’t get tedious even once, thanks to the taut screenplay. The riveting climax where the actual ‘monster’ is revealed comes across as a jolt, making you gasp for breath.

Audition (Dir: Takashi Miike / Japanese)

What if your dream date turns out to be your worst nightmare? Watch Audition and I bet you’ll give up dating altogether! Lonely widower Aoyama, encouraged by his son and a producer-friend, decides to hold a fake audition for a non-existent film in order to find himself a bride. He becomes fascinated by a sweet, charming young woman Asami who seems to be the perfect choice. But as Aoyama delves deeper into Asami’s world, we discover that there’s just something not right about his ‘dream girl’. Notorious for his depictions of graphic violence, Miike starts building up the tension right from the beginning, culminating in a blood-curdling finale that’s one of the scariest climaxes I’ve ever seen. He successfully shatters the stereotypical notion that horror films must contain supernatural elements. Like many other Asian Horrors, this one too explores the psychological facet of horror. A warning for those who haven’t watched Audition yet: if you are a faint-hearted, watch the film at your own risk. You’re sure to get goose bumps when you hear Asami saying, ‘Kiri, kiri, kiri, kiri, kiri...’

Dark Water (Dir: Walter Salles / English)

I was disappointed with Dark Water initially. The film, almost devoid of any ‘close-your-eyes-in-fear-and-scream’ moment, scored pretty low on my scare-meter. It just wasn’t that spooky. But on second thoughts I realised Dark Water goes much beyond than just a ‘horror film’ in the traditional sense of the term. It’s actually more of a drama set in a haunted house. Salles stresses as much on the fear, anguish and paranoia of the characters as he does on the horror quotient. Separated from her husband, Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) move into a rundown apartment with her daughter Cecilia. Soon after, mysterious occurrences start taking place. There’s a constant drip of dark water from the ceiling of her daughter’s bedroom. There are noises coming from the apartment above hers, although it appears to be vacant. Cecilia makes an imaginary friend called Natasha. As Dahlia decides to investigate further dark secrets from the past are unravelled. Laced with brilliant performance by Connelly, the film turns out to be — as critics say — a ghost story with an emotionally haunting echo.

Red Fort, Biryani and a Chandni Chowk Story

2010-02-28T22:19:00.006+05:30

ARE YOU NUTS? You are going to Delhi in winter! Do you have any idea how cold it is out there? You’ll be frozen to death!' — was my friend’s astounded reaction on knowing about my plan to visit Delhi last month. I didn’t take his caution seriously. I had been to Darjeeling before in the month of January. Surely Delhi’s winter will be a lot more bearable, I thought.

As the first gush of chilly wind greeted me the moment I stepped out of the train, I realized my folly. It was around 7 in the evening and even with my pullovers on, I could hear my teeth chattering. Coupled with the cold wave, was a thick mantle of fog hanging over the entire city, making it look like one of those blurred photographs.

I was a kid (8 years, precisely) when I first visited Delhi. That’s when the love story kicked off, and every time I made a trip to Delhi I could sense the strengthening of the bond. There’s something irresistibly magical about the place — the more you delve into it, the more enticing it becomes — although I could never really figure out what it is.

Delhi is a lot like Kolkata. The city isn’t a single homogenous entity, but a multitude of existence closely intertwined. Conflicting and coexisting at the same time, you’ll find in Delhi paradoxes galore. And this dichotomy of the city’s character is what attracts me the most. Take a stroll through the bustling streets of Old Delhi, the labyrinthine lanes of Chandni Chowk and Chawri Bazaar, peep into Ghantewala halwai for a mouthful of sweets, or gorge on piping hot paranthas at Gali Paranthewali — you can’t help but fall in love with the place, almost instantly. However there’s more to the city than what exists within the walls of Shahjahanabad. The wide tree-lined boulevards, trendy cars, imposing buildings of Raisina Hill, the Georgian architecture of CP — the Delhi of Lutyens stands in stark contrast to the narrow lanes congested with cycle-rickshaws, dilapidated buildings still boasting of Mughal flavour and the old-age charm of Purani Dilli. Then there’s the new modern Delhi that resides in South Extension, GK, Malviya Nagar, Vasant Vihar — chic, upmarket and moneyed. It’s amazing to find a city having such a rich tapestry of history, heritage and modernity.

The Red Fort debacle

After reaching the hotel, I started making a plan for the next day’s sightseeing. The over-enthusiastic manager handed me a travel brochure containing a list of the most popular places of interest in Delhi. But since we had been to these places quite a few times before, this time we opted for the little known, lesser visited tourist spots. Tughlakabad Fort, Safdarjung Tomb, Khirki Masjid, Khuni Darwaza, Balban’s Tomb, Qila Rai Pithora, Majnu-ka-Tila, Razia Sultana’s Tomb, Haveli of Mirza Ghalib and Zeenat Mahal — the manager’s enthusiasm started wearing off before I could even complete the list.

'These places don’t fall within the regular tourist circuit, it’ll cost you more money,' he tried hard to deter us.

'We’ll see the Red Fort as well. That was left out last time,' I was adamant.

'But woh road toh abhi bandh hain! The Republic Day parade rehearsals are going on there,' he smiled (in relief, of course).

'I know, still...' I was losing ground.

Then came the knockdown.

'What will you do seeing the Red Fort? You’ve visited Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri na? Imagine those two monuments and combine them in your mind. Bas, ban gaya Red Fort!'

Phew.

Biryani like never before

After visiting Jama Masjid I instructed our driver Irfan to take us to Karim’s for lunch. This is perhaps the most legendary and immensely popular Mughlai restaurant in Delhi that even we, Kolkatans are well aware of. The location of the eatery is a little obscure although. It required quite a bit ‘asking people’ and ‘mazing through the lanes’ before we finally spotted it. A word of caution here: those expecting a magnificent building with stylish interiors will surely be disappointed. However, the food makes it up for everything else. For foodies like me it’s a gastronomic delight. Once seated, we ordered for Mutton Biryani, Shami Kebab, Chicken Noor Jehan and Kheer Benazir as dessert. I wanted to taste the hugely famous Badam Pasanda (boneless mutton cooked with yoghurt, almonds and spices. Yum!) but we were already so filled up that I had to sacrifice the mutton.

Despite running short of superlatives, the food was sheer heaven. Never before had I tasted Mughlai khana as khandani as this. The Biryani cooked in Awadhi style was a welcome shift from the Calcutta Biryani I’ve grown up on. Potatoes, an indispensible part of the latter is absent in the former. The chicken too was divine, so was the kheer. For all food-lovers visiting Delhi, here’s a must-do: eat at Karim’s. It’s a lifetime experience.

Telling tales of Chandni Chowk

On our way back, Irfan narrated some bizarre tales of conning people (outsiders, mostly) at Chandni Chowk — the ‘con heaven’, according to him. The shopkeepers here find some way or the other to fool customers, and sometimes in quite unique ways as well. Once he was standing outside his car while keeping his mobile on the dashboard. Suddenly a boy appearing from nowhere asked him to pick up a 10-rupee note that was lying near his feet. 'It wasn’t mine; still I picked it up,' said Irfan. But as he stood up, he realised his foolishness. The boy had disappeared, and so had his mobile!

Shopkeepers in Chandni Chowk have a freakish way of selling things. They will cry ‘ten bucks for a T-shirt’ as you walk past the shops. Curious, you might halt to get a closer look. That’s the bull’s eye moment. Within no time you’ll find a T-shirt landing on your shoulder and the shopkeeper demanding that you’ll have to buy it since you have already tried it out! Pissed off, you might even agree to buy it for 10 bucks. And here comes the double whammy. The shopkeeper will invariably charge you 100 bucks, arguing that you hadn’t heard him correctly! 'Banda bargain karega bhi toh kitna?' chuckled Irfan.

That’s Delhi. Love it. Hate it. You can’t help but get captivated by it.

One Photo Please!

2010-01-31T11:00:00.008+05:30

PHOTOGRAPHY IS OUR national passion. It’s in our genes, actually. Every single memory — happy or sad — is expressed in terms of photos. Hey, have you been to Agra? Haan yaar, went there for my honeymoon. Wait, I’ll show you the photos — right away comes a picture of the husband and wife standing in front of the Taj Mahal, holding hands and grinning. Pati, patni aur woh!

Now that’s what you call a photographic memory (no pun intended), don’t you?

‘Person’ and not the ‘place’ is all that matters while taking pictures — the golden rule of great Indian photography. You may visit anywhere — Delhi or Dubai, Varanasi or Vancouver — but do remember to take pictures with you in the frame. Always. The background is immaterial. You might be standing in front of the Taj, but more than the monument it’s you who is important. Shah Jahan’s creation might get out of focus, but not you. Never. Else you are in deep trouble — Arrey, you visited the Taj Mahal? Then how come you aren’t there in any of the photos? What’s the point in taking pictures of the monument only?

The logic is quite simple. Your photos act as a proof that you actually visited the place (yes, you read it correctly). Few weeks back a Facebook friend of mine uploaded some pictures of his trip to Delhi, and as expected he was present in each of them. No Red Fort, Qutab Minar, nothing. It was him everywhere. Looked as if the guy had done an entire photo shoot over there. In fact, had it not been for the lone India Gate in the background of one of his photos, I would have had enough reason to believe that the pictures were taken in the backyard of his house.

I wonder why people can’t concentrate on the beauty of the place (instead of their own) while taking snaps. Is it so important to make ‘human’ presence visible in each and every frame? Let your camera capture the splendour and picturesqueness of the place, the way it actually is. Why tamper it with artificiality? Good travel photography should attempt to capture the essence of the place, not mar its serenity with mindless look-at-me poses. I would any day prefer a snap of the Taj Mahal alone than that of an oh-so-romantic couple standing in front of the monument in an oh-so-appalling manner. The latter takes away the elegance of the subject (the Taj, that is) overcrowding it with unnecessary objects. However, this doesn’t mean that I’m against so-called ‘family vacation pictures’. They do conjure up fond memories of holidays. But can’t they be kept natural?

Unfortunately, in most of such pictures you’ll notice three distinct features: people standing in awkward ‘attention commandos’ posture, their eyes fixated on the camera lens and a stupid smile on their otherwise stiff faces — Everyone come closer... Dolly don’t move beta!... Pinku look at the camera and don’t blink... now all of you say cheese! Urghhh.

Posing for photograph — that’s something everyone (there’s no diversity in this unity) is quite fond of. And therefore you will find some of the most bizarre poses ever seen. I still remember a photo taken at the Taj Mahal where the husband and wife were facing each other with the Taj in between and — here comes the surprise — both their hands raised above in a gesture of touching the tip of the monument! A little trick photography can do such ‘monumental’ wonders (and you thought one needs to be a Raghu Rai to take mind-boggling snaps). Dumb.

I’ve long been labelled as a high-brow aantel by my family and friends since I refuse to take their pictures during our vacations. Ki shudhu rasta-ghat gaach-palar chhobi tule beras? Take our pictures too! — laments my mom often. But I’m glad there are still some people who think otherwise. During my recent trip to Delhi I met two elderly Iranian women, who asked me to take their photo with the Qutab Minar in the background. As I asked them to come closer in the frame, one of the women said, ‘Keep it like that. We are not important, the place is.’ Her statement said it all.

Blame it on the Name Anyway

2009-12-21T16:55:00.011+05:30

HOW DO YOU spell 'Kolkata'? Or pronounce it?

No, this isn't a test of your English spelling and pronunciation skills (and nor have I gone crazy). It's actually one of those just-like-that random questions, having an amazing ability to freak people out. Sounds bullshit? Well, throw this question at anyone you like (or dislike), and you're sure to get back a lot of zany answers.

I did just that. Over the past few days I did what Desmond Morris often does — people watching (stop bulging your eyes silly!). I noticed the way people say 'Kolkata'. or write it. And boy, the results were mind-boggling! I never knew this city had such a great degree of flexibility of its name.

You might argue, what's the big deal in the name Kolkata? Why make an issue out of it? It's as simply spelt as K-o-l-k-a-t-a, and pronounced as Coal-kata. Right?

Wrong. One the contrary, the name gets distorted so often that I doubt whether there's really a consensus on what should be the actual spelling or pronunciation of it. The most common spelling of Kolkata is Kolkatta — embellished(!) with an extra 'T'. I recently saw a TV channel using that spelling in one of their telecasted shows. I even found the same spelling on the admission form of an educational institution. But why overburden the word with unnecessary alphabets? Is it a result of colonial hangover (of making Kolkatta sound almost a namesake of Calcutta), or an overdose of Ekta Kapoor soap operas? If latter is the case, then someday the city might end up as Kkolkatta! And coming to verbal expression, sample these — Call-kata, Call-kota, Call-katta, Kal-kata. Phew!

Do I sound Raj Thackeray-ish? Well, that's the last thing I would intend to, because the name gets messed up by everyone — Bengalis and non-Bengalis alike. No hard feelings for that. Kolkata, being essentially a Bengali word, it's difficult for those who don't know the language to get the right accent (after all, how many of us say Pa-ri instead of Paris?). So it's not out of anger or vengeance that I'm writing this post (did you think.... urghh!). It's actually quite amusing to find so many renditions of my city's name. And then, most importantly, pissing people off by mindless questions has a charm of its own! Like I said, it's one of those freaky just-like-that random questions.

So, how do you pronounce Kolkata? Or spell it?

Our Story, Our Way

2009-11-01T11:21:00.014+05:30

I’M IN A trance. Its one of those rare ‘the-world’s-such-a-beautiful-place-to-live-in’ ecstasies, when you fall in love with almost everything you stumble upon — from the hideous Sweety next door who appears to be India’s best contender for Miss World to the grumpy uncle downstairs who resembles Father Christmas. But what’s most surprising, I suddenly find Punjabis and Tamilians the two most lovable communities like never before.

No, I haven’t snorted coke. Nor have I experienced any spiritual awakening. I’ve just finished reading a novel. A Chetan Bhagat novel, to be more precise. Four hours at a stretch, and Bhagat’s latest book has once again left me spellbound. Aptly titled 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, Bhagat’s humorous take on the institution of marriage in India makes an immensely enjoyable read. Smart, funny, pacy and refreshing, 2 States makes you break into peals of laughter while at the same time keep your fingers crossed to see Krish and Ananya finally getting married. This man surely knows how to strike a chord with his readers!
2 States, based on Bhagat’s own inter-caste romance and marriage, is about a Punjabi boy getting married to a Tamilian Brahmin (yes, you read it right). As expected, there are a lot of jokes thrown in about these two at-loggerheads communities, which keeps you captivated till page 269 (that’s the last page, silly!). But at the same time Bhagat has authentically portrayed the Punjabis and Tamilians, never letting them look caricaturish. My visits to Chennai and Delhi have given me a glimpse of both their worlds and it’s amazing to find how detailed Bhagat has been in his observations.

After Five Point Someone Bhagat is back to what he do best — unadulterated humour, and this time his pen is more mature. I’m a huge fan of his writing although I felt Bhagat’s last two offerings failed to reach the high benchmark set by his debut novel. One Night @ the Call Center was engrossing but the ‘call from God’ stuff gave it a far-fetched feel. The 3 Mistakes of My Life turned out to be grimmer than I had expected. However the greatest shock came with the Salman Khan-starrer Hello that was the film adaptation (!) of One Night @ the Call Center. Honestly, it’s one of the shittiest films I’ve ever seen. But what saddened me the most was Bhagat’s name as one of the screenplay writers. Why on earth did he let his star novel be filmed by an obscure Atul Agnihotri?

Thankfully 2 States is nothing of that sort. It’s vintage Bhagat. Krish and Ananya stays with you long after you have kept the book back on the shelf, just like Hari, Ryan, Alok and Neha. Even the other Punjabi and Tamilian characters are so endearing that you fall in love with them almost instantaneously. However, I longed for some more ‘IIM moments’ in Krish and Ananya’s life. They seemed too brief! Also, as a friend of mine rightly pointed out, the transformation of Krish’s father was too abrupt to be believable. His sudden visit to Chennai and convincing Ananya’s parents for the marriage looked irksomely filmy. But then the heart of the book is so much in the right place that you don’t take the flaws to heart.

Ever since this former investment banker forayed into the world of Indian books, he seems to have transformed the country’s literary landscape. People often complain about Bhagat’s bad English, hackneyed plots, filmy endings, but buy him in enormous numbers. He is panned by the critics as merely a ‘popular fiction’ writer — someone who doesn’t deserve to be placed in the Ivy League of literature. His books are for entertainment not for the intellect, they claim. I agree. But what’s wrong with that? I enjoy reading Bhagat for the simple reason that I can identify myself with his characters. His simplistic writing makes you crave for more. In fact, I would prefer a 2 States anyday than some pseudo-intellectual stuff that would piss me off halfway.

Bhagat is called the ‘youth icon’ of today. Is it because he tells our stories in our language? Or is it because he makes everyone — right from the rich Mumbai college kid to the gawky teenager of Bastar — get absorbed in his books? Whatever may be the answer, Bhagat’s stories have succeeded in doing something that many highbrow novels fail to achieve — bring a smile on your face. Is that too trivial an achievement?

Image courtesy: http://www.chetanbhagat.com/

Waking Up from a 3-hour Sleep

2009-10-09T20:26:00.022+05:30

IT SEEMED LIKE an eternity since I had entered the multiplex. Three hours into the film and my senses were almost numb. Suddenly a man snoozing beside me woke up. ‘The movie isn’t over yet? My God, I’ve been sleeping here for the past 3 hours and it’s still continuing! Aar para jachche na!’ said the man to his wife. The frustration in his voice touched my heart. After all, I too shared the same feeling! On my way back home I kept on thinking who my worst enemy is, so that I can avenge myself on him by sending him a free ticket for WHAT'S YOUR RAASHEE?

Surprised? Don’t be. I’m a big fan of Ashutosh Gowariker gharana of filmmaking. But unlike his previous ventures What’s Your Raashee? falls flat on its face. A new player in the genre, Gowariker tried to make a breezy rom-com, but the film turned out to be neither rom nor com.

Harman Baweja trying to find the ‘perfect bride’ from each of the 12 sun signs within 10 days made an interesting premise. Priyanka Chopra in 12 different avatars added to the interest. But Gowariker the writer fails miserably to captivate the viewers. The stories involving each of the girls get monotonous, tiresome and way too long. A majority of the 12 Priyanka Chopras turn out to be clichéd and sketchy. In giving too much importance to the initial girls, the latter ones are reduced to ‘blink-and-you-miss’ mannequins. There are too many loopholes in the screenplay to ignore. The climax is unconvincing and filmy. Even the funny one-liners look forced upon, and the romance is nowhere to be seen.

However, the villain of the piece emerges to be the editor — Ballu Saluja. I don’t have any problem with a 3.5 hour long film, provided the story is an absorbing one (sample: Jodhaa Akbar). But since that’s not the case with What’s Your Raashee?, the length of the film should have been trimmed down. Gowariker needs a new editor, immediately!

The saving grace in this bore-drama is Priyanka Chopra. The way she enacts the 12 girls is pure magic. I particularly liked the intense Cancerian, the downmarket and heavily Gujju-accented Aries, the bossy Libra, the Swades-hangover Virgo doctor and the innocent little Capricorn girl. Harman Baweja looks nice and acts well, but he couldn’t add any zing to Yogesh Patel. Unlike what many have said, I quite liked Sohail Sen’s music (of course, you can’t expect a Lagaan or Jodhaa Akbar from Sen). Jao na, Bikhri bikhri, Su chhe, Koi jaane na, Chehre jo dekhe hain — some of the songs stay with you even after you have left the theatre.

From a master storyteller like Gowariker I expected something more than this staid contemporary love story. Perhaps the man should better stick to his forte — Mughal family dramas. Experiments are not meant for everyone.

A few days after the What’s Your Raashee?-debacle, I went back to the same plex for yet another rom-com, Ayan Mukerji’s WAKE UP SID. Not another bore-flick, I prayed as I entered the theatre apprehensively. But boy, I got more than I asked for! No OTT Karan Johar melodrama (there were high chances of it since KJo is the producer of the film), no preachy messages — Wake Up Sid is a beautiful love story woven into refreshing coming-of-age tale.

The film is all about Sid, a lazy unmotivated slacker from Mumbai whose carefree world undergoes a series of changes after Aisha walks into his life. She acts as a catalyst in transforming Sid from an irresponsible boy to a responsible man. Coupled with this is a mint-fresh love story between two very different individuals which touches your heart deep within.

But then you might ask, what’s so new about it? Okay, I agree the story is predictable. Right from the beginning you know that Sid will, by the end, wake up to his responsibilities and he and Aisha will live happily ever after. But the difference lies in Ayan’s smart screenplay. The characters appear so realistic and endearing. Midway through the film my friend exclaimed, ‘Sid in the first half resembles me! It’s actually my life story dude!’ That’s exactly where the film succeeds. We can relate to it. There’s a Sid in all of us. We’ve all been in that phase where life is floating by and we are aimless. Kudos to Ayan for gifting us a slice of our own life.

The director once said that he’s a great fan of Farhan Akhtar. True, Wake Up Sid has moments that are inspired from Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hain and Lakshya. But nevertheless, the film’s earthly flavour and its close-to-life essence make Wake Up Sid an engaging watch.

The lead players, Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sensharma, give stellar performances. Every time they come together they exude infectious warmth that gets on you, and you keep on longing for more of Sid and Aisha. It’s the duo’s chemistry that’s a high point of Wake Up Sid. I wonder, how Konkona manage to look so good with all her leading men (of all age groups), be it Rahul, Kunal, Irrfan or Ranbir! But there’s one thing that irked me. Aisha is born and brought up in Kolkata, why then she reads Tagore in English and talks to her mother in accented Bengali?

Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy try hard to give a lilting score and they manage to do it as well, but it’s Amit Trivedi’s soulful Iktara that steals the show all along. What the trio couldn’t achieve with almost half a dozen songs, Trivedi did just that with a single blow. Thanks to Javed Akhtar for penning such wonderful lyrics, although he sounded a bit Gulzar-ish in the song!

Even if Wake Up Sid was a crap film, I would have loved to watch it again and again. Not because of Ranbir-Koko, but because it uses something to unite the lovers that’s closest to my heart — monsoon.

Shaktirupena Sansthita

2009-09-22T21:17:00.011+05:30

THE COUNTDOWN HAS begun. The wait is in its final lap. The end of pitripaksha has ushered a new dawn — the dawn of devipaksha. With preparations almost over, there’s hardly a few days left. One more year, and its time again for homecoming — for Durga, as well as for millions of Bengalis, for whom the festival isn’t just another religious ceremony. It’s much more than that. So everywhere you go now, there’s just one emotion — aha ki anando akashe batashe. After all, Maa aschhe!

Durga puja — the grandest of all Bengali celebration. This is one occasion every Bengali — be in Kolkata or Kolhapur, New Delhi or New York — look forward to throughout the year. As soon as we get the year calendar, the first thing we notice is the schedule for Durga Puja, undoubtedly!

Recently I went to my para pandal to get a glimpse of the puja preparations. What I saw over there was amusing. The entire area looked like a scene of frenetic activity. Be it the panic-stricken club officials pacing up and down the field restlessly or the poker-faced labourers busy giving finishing touch to the pandal — I seemed to be amidst a whirlpool of frenzied activity. If this is how a puja pandal looks like, what would be the situation in the potters’ colony, I wondered. Curious to get a first hand experience, I visited Kumortuli a few days back (for toddlers, Kumortuli is the potters’ den of Kolkata — the place where the clay Durga idols are made). Well, Kumortuli wasn’t any different either. It’s the same hysteric hullabaloo, resembling the backstage minutes before the start of a fashion-show.

Nevertheless I got some snaps there that, when developed, turned out to be quite interesting. A slice of life at Kumortuli, these pictures give you a sneak peek inside the factory of idol-making. Though unfinished, these Durga idols appeared far more appealing to me than the ones in pandals. So as they say, pictures speak a thousand words than written alphabets, its time for me to shut up! Let the images do the rest of the talk. And hey, while checking out the pictures don’t forget to hum the best anthem of Durga puja ever made — Bajlo tomar aalor benu...

Here comes the Devi...

...And the city awakens

Waiting for the finishing touch

Durgatinashini

The goddesses' battalion

The journey begins... again

Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya

It's his puja too

Chestnutted Love for the ‘Mango People’

2009-08-31T16:28:00.008+05:30

I KNOW I’LL be damned forever for saying this, but Imtiaz Ali has lost his magic wand. However blasphemous it may sound like, Love Aaj Kal appeared to me as a soulless film. What was touted as the year’s best romantic comedy fell quite short of my expectations.

But wait! Aren’t we talking about a romantic film here? A soulless love story... does that make any sense? No, it doesn’t. And that’s precisely the irony with Love Aaj Kal. It has all the ingredients of a good romantic film, but it fails miserably in satisfying the most important criterion. Love Aaj Kal doesn’t make you fall hopelessly in love with it. Jab We Met did. Socha Na Tha did it too. So then what went wrong with Love Aaj Kal?

Imtiaz Ali is one of my favourite directors. He’s the man who redefined ‘love’ on Indian screen, stripping it of all the filminess we have endured over the years. Ali makes all his love stories look so believable — the plot, the situation, the characters, the way they behave, talk, react, fall in or fall out of love. Add to it a pinch of innocence and you can’t help but fall head over heels in love with them — be it Viren, Aditi, Aditya or Geet.

This confused me even more. Love Aaj Kal isn’t a crap film. Its Ali’s most ambitious and complex take on love till date, spanning two generations and three continents. But still there’s something that’s missing in the film. What is it? I don’t know. It may be the merging of the two love stories that was jarring at times. It may also be the post-interval portions that slipped into high-voltage melodrama, spoiling all the freshness Ali had built up so long. Or may be its the OTT depiction of Veer Singh's ‘pure love’ versus Jai's ‘practical love’ that was too preachy to handle.

Or is it Aditya and Geet whom I missed so badly that I tried in vain to find them in Jai and Meera in every frame of the movie?

I usually refrain from comparing one film with another. Every film is distinct in itself and there’s no point in making ‘oh-I-wish-Ghajini-was-as-good-as-Taare Zameen Par!’-type comments. But then when you have set a benchmark for yourself, you cannot afford to slump down! Imtiaz Ali did just that. He tried to make a smart, cool, fast-paced rom-com and so like all typical Hollywood rom-coms, Love Aaj Kal too boasts of some really witty one-liners, glossy shots, rich sets, loveable music and fine acting by its lead players. But somewhere in its swanky smartness it lost its innocence... its soul. Unlike Ali’s previous two films, Love Aaj Kal is more brain, less heart. Everything in the film looked too forced upon, the natural feeling of Jab We Met was surprisingly absent. You feel happy to see Jai and Meera getting reunited in the end, but forget it as soon as you step out of the theatre. They don’t linger in your memory like Aditya-Geet or Viren-Aditi.

Deepika was a revelation. With her vivacity, elegance and a smile that’s highly infectious, she was the perfect choice for Meera. However I missed Aditya. Saif tried too hard to bring back the Karan-effect of Hum Tum, but the déjà vu was too strong to ignore. Besides he looked pretty old as compared to Deepika (sorry, I couldn’t find any sugar-coated word). Giselle was stunning until she spoke (thankfully Ali had given her a handful of lines to deliver). Rishi and Neetu Kapoor were sweet as ever.

Imtiaz Ali once said that when he looks back today he finds a lot of loopholes in Jab We Met. He simply went with the flow while writing the script. I wish he had done just the same this time too. Some love stories aren’t meant to be logical.

Rediscovering My Lost Self

2009-07-06T10:32:00.012+05:30

A FEW DAYS back I bought the DVD of Delhi-6. As most of my friends had already seen the movie I thought they would urge me to watch it asap. Surprisingly, most of them rebuked me for buying the DVD, calling the film as ‘utter disappointment’!

(If you are wondering why I’m writing a post on Delhi-6 four months after the film has released, well, my hectic schedule didn’t allow me the catch the film at the theatres. So I had to wait for the DVD release.)

However, after watching the film, I can’t help but contradict. I’m not a film critic. Nor do I understand the nitty-gritty of filmmaking. As a movie buff I can only differentiate between outstanding and appalling films. And that’s exactly why I wonder how my friends could discard a cinematic treat like Delhi-6!
Zarre zarre mein usika noor hain, jhank khud mein woh na tujhse door hain, ishq hain usse toh sabse ishq kar, is ibadat ka yehi dastoor hain... As the screen opened to a shot of Delhi skyline with these mellifluous words flowing in, I knew I didn’t make any mistake. A lot of people have said a lot of things about Delhi-6 — the film is too preachy, the story moves at a snail’s pace, the climax is frustrating, enough justice hasn’t been done to the characters, the kala bandar episode is too clichéd... blah, blah, blah. My request to all of them: please watch the film once again. Not through your eyes, but your heart. Feel. Don’t expect another Rang De Basanti, you’ll be disappointed. Go in with an open mind, you’ll come out a lot more enriched.

Honestly, Delhi-6 is one of the most thought-provoking films I’ve watched in a long time. Very rarely comes a film that’s so subtly metaphorical, and every frame of Delhi-6 is a proof to that, right from the kala bandar to Masakali. The way kala bandar has been translated into a representation of the inner demons within us or the interspersing of events of Ramayana in the story through the Ramleela play... man, a lot of thought must have gone in writing the screenplay! Remember the sequence when seeing his son lying unconscious on the floor, a brick from Jaigopal’s hand falls down on his father’s old transistor and suddenly the defunct transistor starts playing the song, Sajan re jhooth mat bolo...? Or the scene where Roshan, beaten up by everyone, lies on the street when his cellphone falls out and in the background starts the song, Darare darare hain maathe pe maula.... Or even the burning of the kala bandar mask with the Ravana effigy at the end. How ironically poetic! Kudos to Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra for coming up with such an awe-inspiring script.

Yeh shehar nahin, mehfil hain... that’s Delhi. Basti hain mastanon ki... galli hain deewanon ki... that’s Delhi. Despite the dingy lanes, shabby buildings, maddening crowd, hustle-bustle, chaos, there is something endearing about Purani Dilli that makes you fall in love with it, à la Roshan. It’s not ‘love at first sight’. It evolves with time, until one day you suddenly realize the place means a lot more to you than just being a postal code: Delhi-110006. And that’s exactly what the film conveys. Thanks to Mehra's deft craftsmanship, Delhi is never relegated to a mere prop in the film. On the contrary, it is the protagonist. All the other characters — be it Roshan, Bittu, Dadi, Madangopal, Jaigopal, Vimla, Rama Bua, Ali Baig, Mamdu, Gobar, Jalebi, Suresh, Ranvijay or Lala Bhairam — are the various facets of the city, personifying it’s countless emotions. Everyone has a story to tell, and all their stories run parallel to each other, strung together by a common thread — kala bandar.

The film is a visual treat for Delhites. Boy, the way Mehra and Binod Pradhan (DOP) have shown Delhi deserves a standing ovation! They have amazingly captured the true essence of the city. Mehra once said that Delhi-6 is his tribute to the place he spent his growing up years in. If that’s true, then this is probably the best gift Delhi could ever get from Bollywood, and I regret why Mehra didn’t spent his childhood in Kolkata!
A R Rahman has done it, once again. The music of Delhi-6 is undoubtedly one of his finest works, miles better than the overrated Slumdog Millionaire. There actually lies the magic of Rahman’s music. He creates new benchmarks with every new song he composes. Just when one would wonder how high Rahman can raise the bar, the man raises the bar even higher! Talking about the cast, everyone — Waheeda Rahman, Rishi Kapoor, Om Puri, Pavan Malhotra, Supriya Pathak, Divya Dutta, Atul Kulkarni, Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz, Aditi Rao Hydari — did a fabulous job. But it was Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor who stole the show. The duo was simply outstanding! It’s not easy for an Indian actor to maintain a consistent American accent throughout the film, but Abhishek did it with élan. Sonam as Bittu was a revelation. It seems the roles were tailor-made for both of them.

The picturization of Dil gira dafatan was innovative. It’s wonderful to find a slice of Delhi on the streets of New York! The Rehna tu track was a pleasant surprise. What appeared as a run-of-the-mill romantic track actually turned out to be a beautiful dedication to Delhi (and you thought it was a love song featuring Abhishek-Sonam! Silly!). However, the ‘wow’ moment of the film is the Masakali song. Just before the intro music stops and Mohit Chauhan starts crooning, there’s a shot of the pigeon Masakali taking a stroll on the fountain, and as it flutters its wings a few drops of water falls around. Boy, what a matka! That too with so much poise and attitude! Wow!

Does that mean Delhi-6 is flawless? Certainly not. But the heart of the film is so much in the right place that you don’t take the flaws to heart. Delhi-6 isn’t a Billu Barber or Kambakkht Ishq. It’s much more than mere entertainment. A soul-searching experience in the truest sense of the term. Watch Delhi-6. Rediscover yourself.

An Afternoon with Aila

2009-06-14T20:54:00.008+05:30

THERE I WAS — dripping wet and stranded in the middle of a rain-drenched C R Avenue desperately looking for a cab, clutching the soggy office bag and a wind-ravaged umbrella in my hands. But as luck would have it, the hunt for one of those yellow cars was increasingly proving elusive. Finding no other option, I started walking towards the metro station. The rain, bucketing down incessantly since morning, showed no signs of retreat. In fact, with every passing second it poured with renewed vigour. Along with the shower came strong gusty wind, shaking the roots of the city. The sky, masked in thick grey clouds added even more to the doomsday feeling. The mighty skyscrapers suddenly seemed so weak and frail, petrified of the approaching disaster. The rain-bathed streets too looked unusually deserted.

Nevertheless I walked along, ignoring the rain and the wind. The metro station was a ten-minute walk from there and I was barely twenty paces away. That was the moment ‘it’ happened! The rain stopped falling, clouds forgot to rumble, the streets gasped in astonishment, cars didn’t move, people stopped walking — everything came to a standstill. That was the moment I saw her. I saw Aila!

May 25, 2009 — a day every Kolkatan will remember for a long time to come. It was the day our vocabulary got enriched by a new word. It was the day we understood how it feels like being struck by catastrophe... It was the day Aila happened. A relatively unknown cyclone originating from the Bay of Bengal stormed our city and left it completely ravaged. The consequence: Kolkata was AILAshed (another new word, thanks to TOI). And I, like many other Kolkatans, was a spectator to the devastation.

The moment I ‘saw’ Aila — or to be precise, the moment I felt the intensity of the cyclone — was a to-hell-and-back experience for me, literally. Although the downpour coupled with chaotic wind continued throughout the day, there were times when the wind seemed to vent its centuries-old fury on the city. I, unfortunately, was caught in such a moment. As I was approaching the metro station, a gust of wind came and blew almost everything off the ground. So monstrous was its strength that I stood there absolutely motionless, not being able to move forward. I teetered, my legs started trembling. Unable to resist the thrust of the storm, I almost fell down on the road (had I been a little leaner, I would surely have blown over by the wind!). I held the umbrella as a shield, but that poor little thing was no match against the might of the wind. Seconds later, my umbrella was reduced to a mesh of black cloth and entangled metal rods. The trees in front of me swayed vehemently like a possessed soul. It was as if someone was shaking them violently in a fit of rage. The advertisement billboards that adorned the skyline could nowhere be seen. Only the iron frames remained, crushed into folds. The huge vinyl sheets, now tattered and uprooted from the frames, rolled in the streets.

My heart began to pound. I panicked! And strangely enough, for the first time in my life, I felt the strongest urge to get back to the place where I’ll be the safest person in the world — my home.

Three weeks have passed. Aila is now history. But the Kolkata I had seen on that day was a nightmare. The images of uprooted trees, mashed tin roof of shops, snapped electric wires embracing the fallen trees, shredded billboards and crashed cars will remain etched on my memory forever. The way my beloved city was rampaged, I pray we never have to relive those moments again. However today when I look back, the Aila-experience doesn’t send shivers down my spine. Instead, it appears to be quite thrilling a journey — fighting my way through the storm! But then that’s how life is. With time, the horror of even the worst disaster gradually fades away. What remains is the resonance.

Don’t believe me? Well, the very next day after Aila as I tuned in the radio, an FM station was playing a special Aila-song for its listeners:

Aila re, ladki mast mast tu, Aila re...

Inked Toast, Toasted Ink and Namelessness

2009-05-17T18:49:00.022+05:30

WELCOME TO MY blog Inktoast!

"Ink... what? Come again!"

"Inktoast! What sort of a name is that?"

"Hey that's quite a weird name! Why did you select it?"

"Inktoast... hmmm... are you trying to be a pseudo-intellectual?"

"What's the meaning of ink toast? Does it mean toasted ink?"

"Why 'toast'? Are you writing a blog on food and dining?"

And Shakespeare said what's in a name! Phew!

For the past few days this has become a part and parcel of my life. Whenever I tell people the name of my new blog, I invariably get the same reaction from them — raised eyebrows, sarcastic smirk and a sneering 'what-the-hell-does-that-mean' expression on their faces. So far the ratio has been pretty consistent — 8 out of 10 people have given me that utterly confused look, as if I have proposed Newton's fourth law of motion! Before I can describe the content of the blog, all their inquisitiveness (and comments) get stuck to its name — inktoast. And that kicks off the volley of probing questions!

But now it's getting on my nerves. Pissed off with the countless interpretations and paraphrases of 'inktoast', I have finally decided to give a written clarification of the name (does that make any sense? Anyway, who cares!).

Warning: the remaining part of the post might appear to be inane and pointless to you, so read on at your own risk.

When Aniruddha, a friend of mine (he insists that I mention his name as a gesture of recognizing his contribution towards the blog) suggested the name, I initially found it rather incomprehensible. However, on second thoughts, I felt 'inktoast' has a certain kind of funkiness to it, and that's resonating at the same time. In fact, my idea was to create a blog for leisure-reading and not to burden it with serious stuff. So while 'ink' stands for the power of expression (quite a weighty phrase, isn't it?), the word 'toast' adds to the zaniness of the blog (it's more on the lines of 'raising a toast', not 'eating it'!). I hope now you realize that the blog is more of a coffee-table book than a research paper!

Contrary to the popular notion, my blog isn't about grave socio-political issues or profound philosophical concepts. Nor has it got to do anything with food and dining. Instead, it's all about memories frozen in time — some recent, some not so recent and some embedded in the past. There have been so many events, experiences, ideas, images, sounds and occurrences that have moved me, amused me, disturbed me, enraged me or left me speechless — all clustered together during the wonderful journey called life. Finally, here they are, framed into words and visuals. Graffiti on walls might appear to be ramblings for many, but they too have a story to tell.

So guys, let's raise a toast to the power of ink! Happy Blogging!

Image courtesy: Sourish Mitra

Meghdootam

2009-05-12T19:38:00.028+05:30

Pehli pehli baarish ki chheetein, pehli baarish bheege ho ho...

HAVE YOU EVER danced to this lilting Saathiya track? I’m sure you have. But then every song has a distinct mood and atmosphere associated with it. Just like you can’t play a Jai Santoshi Ma at the disc or a Beedi jalaile during the Republic Day celebration, this song too needs the right ambience to evoke its passionate charm.

Wondering what that picture-perfect setting would be? Well, let’s visualize a shot of the first monsoon day of the season. It’s raining cats and dogs outside accompanied by strong gusty winds. Venue: the roof terrace of a multi-storeyed. Enter hero and heroine, or more specifically, you and your girlfriend (for girls reading this, please change the gender). There’s no one else to be seen — just the two of you getting drenched in the sudden shower. In the background lies the rain-soaked skyline. Then lights, camera, music... and voila! Aye udi udi udi, aye khwabon ki buri... you’ll be amazed to find that you have already started grooving to the music — your feet following the rhythm and your heart humming the tune (those who are single, try out this song in the bathroom while taking a shower. It works. Trust me.)!

That’s the beauty of monsoon. It can turn the most insipid situation into a memorable one. May be I’m a bit exaggerating, but what else can I possibly do? I’m a die-hard rain-lover after all (I was perhaps a peacock in my previous birth)! Recently I had an hour-long rain bath in the year’s first kalbaisakhi that drenched Kolkata to a T. A few days later when I went to Delhi, lo and behold, the rains chased me there as well. This time it was a hailstorm!

The Kolkata kalbaisakhi has truly been an unforgettable experience. As soon as the storm broke, I went straight to the terrace, my camera in hand. Ignoring the high velocity of winds, I managed to get a few photographs that have turned out to be quite fascinating. Naturally, I had an overwhelming desire to share them! So here they are, categorized under the series Meghdootam (the name was too tempting to resist. Any resemblance to Kalidas's epic is entirely intentional and not coincidental!). Out of the five, the first three have been shot from my terrace during the kalbaisakhi and the other two were taken during my last trip to Ooty. As the monsoon is just round the corner, here’s a precursor to the celebration of the beautiful season ahead. Enjoy!

When darkness falls

Swept away

Blowing in the wind

The sliver lining

Barso re...

Golden Knight and a Severe Case of Myopia

2009-05-05T15:23:00.012+05:30

WATCHING HINDI FILMS can be a gruelling exercise at times. Sitting through more than two hours of an out-an-out commercial Bollywood potboiler requires a great deal of patience, endurance, some strong headache pills and most importantly, a willing suspension of your disbelief!

However, having grown up watching loads of Hindi films (the good, bad and ugly); I thought I was naturally immune to the dizzying effect of Bollywood masala flicks.

I didn’t know I was wrong.

It happened just a few weeks back. I had got the DVD of Shahrukh Khan’s much-hyped recent offering: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. I knew it wasn’t an outstanding movie as the makers claimed it to be. Still expecting a decent watch, I thought of giving it a try. Little did I know that the consequences of my decision would turn out to be so fatal.

Fifteen minutes into the film and I started having those dizzy spells. I ignored. Another half an hour, and I was desperately looking for migraine pills! Nevertheless, I decided to watch the film till the end. By the time the torture... err... the film was over, I was almost in a state of coma! Losing control of my mind and senses, I vowed never to watch a film again without knowing about it in detail beforehand.

One of the major flaws of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi was that it lacked logic. Throughout the film I failed to understand how on earth a wife can be so dumb as to not recognize her husband if he shaves off his moustache, throws away his glasses and gets a new wardrobe! But then I suppose that's the disease which plagues almost every commercial Hindi film. We may have sensible films like Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par, A Wednesday, Dev D, Firaaq, but for every Firaaq or Taare Zameen Par Bollywood churns out a dozen Singh is Kinng or Rab Ne Bana Di Jodis. Still we brag about the fact that Bollywood comes next only to Hollywood in terms of the number of films made every year (quantity is all that matters, quality can take a backseat) or even dare to think of sending these trashy masala flicks to the Oscars! So don’t be surprised if you find Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi being selected as India's official entry to the Oscars next year!

Sounds like a bad joke? Actually not. Remember Sooraj Barjatya’s emotional atyachar Hum Saath Saath Hain? Or Aditya Chopra’s three-hour-plus gurukul melodrama Mohabbatein? Both these films were considered by the Indian film selection committee as contenders for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar in 2000 (stop bulging your eyes, silly!). After much deliberation, Kamal Haasan’s Hey Ram got the ‘honour’. The film failed to make it even to the nomination stage. However, it would be wrong to say that the decision was a unanimous one. Some of the committee members preferred HSSH or Mohabbatein, since they felt these films represent Indian tradition and culture in a much better light! Think that’s ridiculous? Well, think again. I recently googled for the films that have, over the years, been sent to the Academy as India's official entries and what I found was mind-boggling. Saagar, Henna, Indian,... hold your breath... Jeans, Devdas, Paheli, Eklavya — all these films were selected as India's official contenders for the Oscar-race! Quite predictably (and thankfully), none of them could reach the Kodak Theatre.

India's tryst with the Oscars began in the 1950s. Since then we have managed to get nominated thrice — for Mother India (1956), Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Lagaan (2001) — without winning even once. Meanwhile nations like Japan, Hungary, and Netherlands have fetched 11, 8 and 7 nominations respectively. France has 34 nominations including 10 wins, while Italy has been nominated 27 times. Even a small nation like Bosnia-Herzegovina has managed to hit the bull's-eye (it clinched the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for No Man's Land in 2001)! So why the world's most prolific film producing nation is virtually ignored at the world's most prestigious film awards?

The fault lies within us — let’s state that very clearly without scapegoating anyone. Today Hindi films may compete with Hollywood in terms of technical wizardry or financial opulence, but when it comes to content, we still lag miles behind. By and large, Bollywood has failed to produce films of international quality. Apart from a handful, most Hindi films are not at par with the international standard. Infantile concepts, done-to-death storylines, stereotypical characters, shoddy treatment, hackneyed song-and-dance sequences — problems with mainstream commercial Hindi films are countless. So every time we fail to achieve the golden statuette we invariably come up with the same apologetic words: ‘It’s after all an Indian film!’ That’s utter bullshit! Can’t we simply be honest in admitting our flaws, at least for once?

There’s fallacy in the selection procedure as well. With a panel consisting of mostly incompetent (and obscure) judges and their myopic attitude, it isn’t surprising that mediocrity — and not cinematic excellence — would get prominence in choosing films. As a result most of the films selected by the panel over the years have been unflinchingly clichéd and Bollywoodish. Their argument: we should send films that represent our culture to the Western audience, and who else can epitomize it better than Bollywood! It seems the judges have little or absolutely no idea of what might appeal to the international audience. The reality is: India’s song-and-dance narrative is largely seen as an exotic kitsch by the West. It might be three-hour-wholesome entertainment for us, but not a memorable cinematic experience. That’s why a Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi would have been a better choice than Paheli, because that's the kind of film Oscar judges and the viewers worldwide can better identify with.

However, for some strange reasons, mainstream Hindi films have always found patronage from the selection committee. Regional cinema and offbeat films still remain ugly ducklings and given the step-motherly treatment towards them, they will continue to remain so. I don’t intend to be parochial, but there is no reason to believe that Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam or Kannada films are inferior to their Hindi counterpart. Regional cinema may not be as flourishing and pompous as Bollywood, still when it comes to craft, storytelling and treatment, they can be deserving competitors for the golden knight.

Unfortunately, that's a utopian dream! Indian cinema has gradually become synonymous with Bollywood, thanks to the judges' not-so-blissful ignorance. The consequence: whenever we think of sending a film to the Oscars, we can not look beyond the run-of-the-mill star-studded Bollywood stuff — this is what diagnose a perfect case of myopia. Those living on the fringes continues to be unrecognized, alien to the mainstream. Satyajit Ray, whom the Academy conferred with the Lifetime Achievement award, never managed to get a film-specific Oscar nomination, except for once (for Shatranj Ke Khiladi). His Pather Panchali won 11 international awards, but no Oscar. Jalsaghar, Gupi Gayne Bagha Bayne, Mahanagar, Seemabaddha, Devi, Charulata, Nayak, Agantuk — none of these films were considered by the committee as worthy enough for the Oscars (and Kurosawa said that not to have seen Ray’s cinema means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon!). Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Buddhadev Dasgupta, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, G Aravindan, Shaji N Karun — we are well acquainted with their kind of cinema. Their films have won accolades and plaudits in numerous film festivals and award ceremonies all over the world. The critics too have raved about their work. But how many of their films have been selected for the Oscars? None (no prizes for guessing)! Ajantrik, Meghe Dhaka Tara, Bhuvan Shome, Akaler Sandhane, Tahader Katha, Swayamvaram, Mukha Mukham, Ghattashraddha, Tabarna Kathe, Piravi — the selectors have remained amnesiac to these highly-acclaimed films that have re-defined Indian cinema, making way for Saagar, Indian, Devdas or Eklavya to reign.

The dizzying spells are coming back.

Then comes politicking, an inescapable menace on the film selection board. Since the country’s various filmmaking centres are represented, everyone wants their kind of film to get selected. Naturally, lobbying and power politics become inevitable. The result is that the best film doesn’t always make it, rather the one with the most clout does (and you wondered why films like Henna, Jeans or Eklavya got selected in the past!).

It’s time we get a reality check (honourable selectors, wake up please!). Making our Bollywood superstars prance around trees lip-syncing some forgettable songs doesn’t guarantee an Oscar. The Academy recognizes cinematic fineness. It won’t award a film that doesn’t understand its craft. That’s precisely the reason why Indian films have never fitted the Oscar bill. The Oscars may not be the most authentic accolade in the world of cinema, nor are they benchmark for cinematic brilliance. But then one can not completely overlook their importance either. An Oscar-winning film garners a lot of respect and attraction from the audience worldwide. So the crying need of the hour is, effective reforms in the selection procedure for nominating India’s official entry. Unless our filmmakers take the selection process more seriously, India will continue its losing streak. And the golden knight, like Godot, will never come.

Image courtesy: Sourish Mitra