Inglourious Basterds (Review)

Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic oeuvre, which includes Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill series, has made ritualistic, exuberant violence as much an American trademark as baseball and apple pie. The legendary Tarantino effect essentially consists of lulling viewers into passive complicity with the seemingly predictable, only to jolt them out of it with the unexpected and bizarre at the most crucial moment. Inglourious Basterds is no different. But what makes this movie really stand out is the audacious, madcap retelling of one of the most controversial periods of human history, the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, done with tongue firmly and consistently in cheek.

Set in 1941 German-occupied France, Tarantino’s self-proclaimed cinematic masterpiece is about two simultaneous plots to destroy the Nazi leadership, including Adolph Hitler himself, at a propaganda film premiere. One of the plots involves the French-Jewish cinema hall proprietress Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) with a dark past and a thirst for revenge. The other involves the Inglorious Basterds, a band of American soldiers led by 1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), whose thick Midwestern accent and a penchant for branding his victims with a bowie knife makes him a familiar Tarantinoesque caricature. It is also a throwback to Brad Pitt’s rendering of the lovable airhead criminal in Burn After Reading (Coen Brothers), proof that this gifted celebrity actor is becoming a popular and lucrative choice for Hollywood’s band of visionary filmmakers.

For those who enjoy under-the-surface interpretations, Inglourious Basterds offers a telling commentary on the arbitrariness of human brutality. Depictions are deliberately skewed - the top brass of the Nazi military is portrayed as a group of extremely courteous killing machines, who hunt down Jews and traitors without compromising on social niceties and dinner table etiquette. The Americans, on the other hand, fumble through the film, killing, maiming and inserting bare fingers into open wounds, a far too gory prospect for the refined Swastika-clad officer so brilliantly typified by Christoph Waltz as Standartenführer Hans Landa aka "The Jew Hunter”, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Hitler himself is comically portrayed as an absentminded neurotic, and even though the bullets rain down on him in the end for good measure, we are left feeling nothing except faint amusement at a surprising climax which defies all expectations, and yet is completely reasonable within the confines of this fantastic re-imagining.

Interestingly, the Holocaust barely finds mention in Inglourious Basterds. But then, moral complexities rarely find a steady place in Tarantino’s world. However, trust him to infuse suspense and terror through a generous visual use of dairy products. Be warned - you might never look at a glass of milk the same way again.

film review - Kaminey

As always, I've managed to defect far beyond the domain of relevance by posting a review of a movie that everyone's watched already. But then I've always liked writing popular film reviews after most people have decided what they think of it. I think it gives readers a certain pleasure in revisiting the familiar. It also helps me sidestep crowded movie halls by catching a lazy afternoon show after all the hype has died down.

Kaminey

Directed by: Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte, Deb Mukherjee

If you’ve yet to catch Kaminey and are expecting a cinematic masterpiece, then you’re probably in for a disappointment. Unfortunately, the media hype surrounding the film has robbed it of its gritty B-movie appeal. Bhardwaj is no Tarantino just yet, but Kaminey is a skillfully executed homage to pulp fiction on celluloid.

Estranged twin brothers brought together by twists of fate, crime and sex has been a Bollywood formula oft repeated. But Bhardwaj employs the inherent campiness of this genre to bring to life a set of truly menacing characters that inhabit the inner recesses of a dark, depraved world with uncomfortable ease. Madcap Bengali bookies with a penchant for automatic weapons, a power-hungry Marathi gangster stoking the flames of divisive politics for personal gain, a crooked cop and his faithful sidekick moonlighting as delivery boys for a ruthless drug lord are just some of the characters who, despite their limited screen time, bring a startling realism to the film as they momentarily crawl out of Bombay’s sordid underbelly to turn upside down the lives of our two protagonists.

The love track of the stuttering Guddu (Shahid Kapoor) and his fiesty lady love Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) seems at first inconsequential and thematically out of place in this story that finds its soul in the soulless. Guddu’s twin brother Charlie, with his bulging biceps and a lisp tailor-made ostensibly for comic relief, straddles the fine line between the two conflicting worlds. This comes to a head in the climax through a blood-spattered showdown, demonstrating Bhardwaj’s vision of a seemingly ordered world brimming underneath with unthinkable brutality and greed. It is against this threat of moral anarchy that the love story manages to bestow the film with that indispensible feel-good ending to which Bollywood audiences are so accustomed. We only wish Mr. Bhardwaj had sought to push the bravely crumpled creative envelope just a tiny bit further.

Regardless, Kaminey is an auteur film through and through. The terrific casting erases any trace of artifice in the film’s top-notch supporting performances, and is a major element of the film’s success. Shahid Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, on the other hand, don’t give especially commendable performances, but stand out as proof of a good writer-director’s ability to mould his actors into the characters he originally penned. By far, the greatest achievement of Kaminey is the reassuring feeling you get from the very first shot, submitting yourself willingly to the unfaltering vision of a filmmaker as he takes you on the fast-track to his inspired version of hell and back.

(published in You & I Magazine)

In defense of my soon to be erstwhile profession

I'll be leaving Hyderabad soon and my job. But before I left, I wanted to put in my two cents about the city's unique page-3 culture, a phenomenon the magazine I work for proudly represents in all its glory, albeit attempting to go beyond. But I find it ironic that we're made the automatic targets of the city's inherent laziness to change status quo.

Fortunately, Jyotirmaya Sharma's recent article in Outlook Magazine gave me the perfect opportunity to vent my ire. I'd like to point out that I'm not attacking Mr. Sharma personally -- his article is just a more eloquent version of a popular opinion adopted by those in the city who'd like to think they're above it all.

In response to Jyotirmaya Sharma's Hyderabad Diary, published in Outlook India, Aug 10

Being a member of the so-called page-3 press of Hyderabad, a position most of us hold with resignation not pride, I’d like to note that Mr. Sharma’s Hyderabad diary is not the first to perpetuate a popular notion being bandied about that we are somehow to blame for the city’s cultural decline. Forsaking for a moment Mr. Sharma’s charmingly droll prose for a dose of reality, maybe we have to accept the sad but unavoidable truth that a publication (newspaper or magazine) might just be as good as the city it seeks to represent.

Considering the all-photos-no-content mantra that we seem to have inundated the Hyderabad public with, one would think this city is ripe with potential for a serious, content-oriented magazine to sweep right in and establish its stronghold. The internationally acclaimed publication, Time Out, with its city-centric approach to culture and the arts, made its foray into South India with Time Out Bangalore. I have a feeling they wouldn’t touch Hyderabad with a barge pole, unless they would like to experiment with the 8-page newsletter format, which too would be difficult to fill with content, considering the amount of cultural activity this town sees in a regular fortnight.

Hyderabad’s page-3 culture unfortunately tell the truth about a city that is so clearly devoid of a vibrant cultural scene, that it requires a news-starved media to create a stir where there isn’t any. Hyderabad’s page-3-oriented print media, just as bored as the public of seeing the same 25 people at the same parties and the same events, is far from selective when it comes to covering anything remotely resembling culture that occurs in the city. But how often do we get a chance to do that?

Simply put, a serious, critical media cannot emerge in a city whose people don’t take themselves seriously enough to demand it. For a rich, all-inclusive cultural scene to emerge anywhere, efforts have to be made on all fronts, and they have to be democratic and unrelenting. While I’ve heard regional language theatre is still going strong, mainstream English theatre in Hyderabad today is a discouragingly closed arena, jealously protected by a handful of veterans (in every sense of the word) who put up plays with an appalling irregularity that is made up for by flagrant acts of self-promotion. While film clubs backed by big names get all the visibility, lesser known film associations struggle to procure suitable venues for screenings on their meager budgets. And the literary landscape of Hyderabad is mostly limited to the far-flung campuses of Osmania and HCU, which conduct seminars and talks with intimidating titles at odd times in the middle of the week, hardly convenient for anyone who isn't a student or blissfully unemployed.

The intellectual elite of the city (most of whom are another dubious self-titled set, much like the p3p group) need to step up and retrieve culture from the clutches of the power-hungry and the clueless. Give publications more to write about by organising more cultural events in the city with the intent of drawing in crowds, instead of alienating them with delusions of one’s own self-importance. The quality of writing in city-based publications will automatically improve, the photograph-content ratio will remedy itself and the p3p phenomenon, if it really is such a terrible, useless thing (a wholly different subject to ponder on), will see its own demise.

Funnily enough, as things stand now, every single person mentioned in Mr. Sharma’s article has been amply covered by at least one of the popular page-3 publications in the city, sometimes of their (or their PR agent’s) own asking, bordering I may add, on insistence. Because as much as they scoff at us, they know we’re the only hope they’ve got to be in the limelight, as bleak as its glow is. The very fact that a considerable part of Mr. Sharma’s Hyderabad diary can’t resist making reference to this page-3 phenomenon is in itself proof of the absence of anything else worth writing about in this town. And as much of a joke they’d like to make of us and our poorly worded captions, these comforting thoughts always permit us the last laugh.

Hyderabad - where theatre goes to die.

That's the original title of the first draft of a story I wrote recently. But I decided to paint a (deservedly) much brighter picture about how amateur theatre is basically the last refuge of the dramatically inclined in Hyderabad. The performances might still be crude in parts and lacking in finesse but they're the best bet this city has in developing an active theatre movement that will hopefully attract more talent to its doorstep.

Amateur Theatre – Key to the Future?

On a muggy evening in Hyderabad, members of the amateur theatre group Dramanon leave their respective workplaces and say goodbye to their mundane 9 to 5 existence, at least for the time being. They converge on an apartment whose living room furniture has been temporarily disrupted to make way for a makeshift stage. These people would have no reason to meet under ordinary circumstances – the director is an architect by profession, while the rest of the cast and team include mostly corporate employees, a software engineer, a financial consultant and a danseuse. However, at the moment, they are united by one common passion – a love for the stage.

The rehearsal that follows is often interrupted by casual banter, as everyone pitches in with their two cents. The atmosphere is clearly laidback, and while the performance is only a few days away, the focus of the evening is on just having fun. Director R.K. Shenoy confirms this impression, “For me, theatre is like therapy – there’s a certain release of energy. The aim is not just to entertain but also to know oneself. There is a certain sense of joy after a performance because it means I’ve communicated an idea. And if my actors are happy and get something out of the experience, that is the biggest incentive.”

Until recently, theatre in Hyderabad was limited to sporadic productions staged by a handful of local theatre groups. Or the occasional theatre festival which showcased plays imported from cities with a thriving theatre culture to their advantage. In Hyderabad, however, the theatre movement has been challenged by a certain degree of apathy as well as a lack of resources. In an effort to fill the void that local theatre enthusiasts sometimes lament, amateur groups have stepped in to reclaim theatre from the province of the few to the aspirations of far many. While some cynics tend to discount amateur theatre productions as sub-par and lacking in professional finesse, many have now begun to realise the immense potential that these groups carry in terms of sheer enthusiasm and a genuine desire to learn and showcase the art, especially in a city where theatre has not yet fully developed.

Comedy of Errors

As unfortunate as it sounds, most plays in this town simply need to follow a certain formula to get some attention. With the right venue, the right people in your cast, smart publicity and preferably an open bar, an audience and massive press coverage is just about guaranteed, sometimes irrespective of the true merit of the play. But with local media that is often less than theatre-savvy, a vicious cycle unfurls. As R.K. Shenoy puts it, “There is no newspaper, no magazine which covers a play and is truly critical about it. I’ve seen some of the worst plays and the next day, read great reviews on it. And when people go see it, they realise they’ve been duped. It’s no surprise that a play rarely ever has reruns in this city.”

If amateur groups anticipate an intelligent critique of their productions in an effort to improve their craft, they are typically disappointed. Recently, a local newspaper wrote about Dramanon’s performance of Neil Simon’s “The Good Doctor” but published photos of an altogether different play, in Gujarati no less, to go along with it! Firdous Shaikh of DFir Dramatics, a young theatre group that recently staged Mahesh Dattani’s “Bravely Fought The Queen” at the Hyderabad Theatre Festival relates a similar experience. “When all that a review does is report a play, newcomers lose interest. Actors I know say they don’t want publicity because it doesn’t help them build a serious portfolio,” she says.



Of course, the fact that local theatre is not yet fully appreciated is sometimes evident during the performances themselves. The incessant ringing of a cell phone in the back rows, the misplaced sniggers and murmurs as the actors take the stage or the juvenile laughter over slapstick gags – it’s evident that local performances are often not afforded the respect they deserve. Theatre groups too are often forced to succumb to their audiences’ rather generic tastes, which in turn keeps serious theatre lovers away. As one might expect, the situation discourages upcoming talent as well. Unappreciated and unnoticed, budding talent, amateur or otherwise, is bound to find greener pastures in television or film.

Creating New Avenues


Ratna Shekhar Reddy, a professional actor and acting instructor in Hyderabad, has been attempting to prevent just that. Hoping to sustain a growing theatre movement in the city, he has tapped into the enthusiasm of youngsters who are passionate about the art and see a future for themselves in theatre. As director of the recently concluded Samāhaara Hyderabad Theatre Festival, Ratna Shekhar offered five theatre groups in the city a visible platform to showcase their plays. As it turned out, four of the five plays shortlisted were by amateur theatre groups – Nishumbita, DFir, Dramanon and the Nasr Dramatic Society. “If only some professional outfits with money and pull in the media get visibility, other groups won’t be able to mobilise contacts or make money. We have to create our own audience.” he says.

Ratna first recognised the need to channel the energies of the youth when he began conducting theatre appreciation workshops in different schools. “In the last academic year, I did 20 theatre appreciation workshops in schools and colleges and got an overwhelming response. Except for NASR, most schools don’t have a theatre faculty. And yet there is all this energy and enthusiasm that needs an outlet.” Ratna Shekhar sees amateur groups as an excellent platform through which to discover one’s potential. “That’s because you’re not expected to deliver right away,” he says. “Over a period of time, it’s natural that you learn how to improve on the technical aspects and become better.” However, he insists that for amateur groups to hone their skills, professional assistance and an atmosphere of mentorship is a must.



Firdous who has directed two plays, besides assisting other amateur productions, paints a rather cynical view, “There are a lot of ego clashes between theatre groups – old and new – which is completely pointless. I want somebody who’ll guide me and not be patronising. If you’re a true theatre lover, then welcome young talent, don’t stifle it. What’s lacking in the city is people who know enough about theatre and have a genuine interest in making it better, instead of dividing themselves into groups.”

Although collaborations do happen, such as a recent reading of Woody Allen’s “God” which saw the established theatre group Torn Curtains collaborate with newer groups, such occasions are rare and often fly below the radar. R.K. believes that collaborations help artists on a more personal level. “I worked with Mala Pasha for one of her plays recently. Vaishali Bisht had worked for me. The idea is to explore the possibilities of being directed by someone else, to explore other avenues. Nobody should be bound by a certain group,” he reflects.

Theatre lovers also bemoan the absence of a committed venue for theatre in the city. “Bangalore has its Rangadhara, Mumbai has Prithvi. All theatre groups want to perform there because they know they will have an audience, no matter what day of the week.” says Ratna Shekhar, “Hyderabad still lacks that. Many theatre groups in the city have been trying to persuade the government to build an auditorium dedicated to theatre, apart from the Ravindra Bharathi where a wide variety of programmes often lead to theatre performances being sidelined.”

A Part to Play

For now, amateur theatre in the city is being kept alive by professionals and the younger college crowd. Firdous believes theatre has given many youngsters in the city a real sense of direction. “Kids here are really lost,” she reveals. “You’ll find 22 or 23-year-olds completely wasting away because college is not interesting enough, the economy is in a mess and there is literally nothing productive to do with our time, if you count out nightclubs and call centres. Theatre has given them something to do.”

Dramanon, which mostly works with young professionals, is actively seeking to change the way people in the city look at theatre. R.K. holds open auditions for his plays, selects 15-20 actors and then conducts a one-week workshop with them. “I’ve worked with people who’ve never even watched a play in their lives, let alone acted in one. At the end of the workshop, five to six actors get selected. But the rest are happy just having been initiated into the world of theatre. It’s a great way to spread awareness.”

Ratna Shekhar, who runs The Actor’s Studio in Banjara Hills, also conducts regular workshops and classes to train actors. “Theatre is losing great talent because it’s not viable. What we need to do is train actors, give them avenues to perform and help them make money. If theatre is to prosper, the artist has to earn. Many amateur groups consist of corporate employees who take out time to do plays. But imagine how much better the output would be if they dedicated themselves to it full-time.”

It’s apparent that the theatre scene in Hyderabad has a long way to go before potential theatre artists are motivated to pursue their passion as a financially viable career. It has certainly happened before, as Ratna Shekhar reminds us. Evam, the popular theatre group from Chennai, originally consisted of young professionals who started staging plays in their free time. Soon, however, they quit their day jobs, and their dedication over the past four years has today made them an over two-crore theatre company.

Hyderabad does have one unique cosmopolitan advantage - the constant influx of people arriving from cities that nurture a richer theatre culture will hopefully help theatre come into its own in this city as well. Spreading awareness, acknowledging talent and, most importantly, supporting their cause will ensure that amateur groups can shed the tag and help bring theatre in the city to a whole new level.

Originally published in You & I Magazine, Hyderabad

Kitchen Confidential - book review (old one but what the hey!)

Kitchen Confidential
Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
By Anthony Bourdain

“Food is pain.”

Kitchen Confidential sees noted chef and TV presenter Anthony Bourdain thoroughly in his element, minus the awkwardness which sticks to him like grease on the proverbial frying pan when he has to reluctantly socialise with strangers on his various TV shows. What we had suspected to be certain antisocial leanings in the man are proved true in this book. The narrative voice will be familiar to those who’ve seen No Reservations, but the subject here is much closer to the author’s heart than anything else and no, we’re not talking about food. As much as he tries to convey his passion for good food, such as his first experience with a raw oyster as a ten-year-old on a fishing boat in France, the book is ultimately about Bourdain himself. Fortunately, the man possesses an engaging and witty style that allows you to overlook what are, in parts, completely narcissistic tangents into Bourdain’s colourful culinary past; the often sensational subject matter also helps his cause.

The book charts the famous chef’s journey from dishwasher to the grill station of a run-down seafood joint in Provincetown, Rhode Island, to becoming executive chef of one of the trendiest restaurants in Manhattan. In between, there are numerous humiliating, entertaining or enlightening pit-stops. Bourdain takes pleasure in projecting New York’s culinary industry as being propped up by a motley crew of ex-convicts and schizophrenic potheads who direct their homicidal tendencies to the beef and poultry that make it to your table. Not that Bourdain cares, as long as the result is excellent. Sensible diners, however, would likely have reservations about their main course being whipped up by hands that not too long ago were carefully cutting lines of cocaine on the kitchen table where the dessert is being prepared.

It can be difficult to reconcile the man who suggests judging the thickness of the bottom of a saucepan by bringing it down on somebody’s skull with someone who uses the word ‘patois’ much too often and gets oh-so-reverent while narrating his interactions with the legends of New York’s gourmet culture.

The book has its advantages too –it will certainly enhance your culinary vocabulary, in addition to showing you how to cast aspersions on someone’s lineage in 15 different languages. Bourdain certainly takes pleasure in revealing the underbelly of the NY restaurant business – a world of corrupt purveyors, devoted busboys, neurotic pâtissiers, merciless upper management types and generous bartenders.

But what’s more interesting (and where it diverges from being the usual chef’s memoir) is that the book covers the long journey of a dead broke and recovering drug addict who picks himself up and reaches for that perfect tuna casserole in the sky (for in spite of his culinary expertise, Bourdain keeps returning to expound on the goodness of honest, home-cooked food) and succeeds in making his impossible dreams a very palatable reality.

Summing it Up

The Atlantic recently published an in-depth feature on George Vaillant, the chief psychiatrist behind the legendary Grant study which in 1937, picked 268 Harvard men to follow their lives in as much detail as possible - through marriages, careers, personal relationships and the onset of old age. The study was meant to uncover the secret to that elusive mental state we call happiness. Worth a read. But what struck me most were the beautifully written case studies (No. 158 is my favourite), each trying to capture a lifetime’s worth of contradictions, self-doubt, defiance and finally resignation with an unabashed literary flair which I discovered is strangely the norm for such scientific studies.

Obituaries too attempt something similar and obituary writing is considered by many to be an art form – transforming seemingly mundane lives into engaging narratives that can be inspiring, tragic, humourous or plain playful, depending on what the client desires. There’s even an online magazine called Obit which pays tribute to everything related to death. Or you can head to Relationship Obit if you wish to mourn a recent heartbreak or bitch about an ex.

This very human need to give a concrete form to life’s intangibles is a way of convincing ourselves that memories, if not people, are eternal (they’re not). It’s almost as if the obituary is what makes the experience/person real and not the other way around. It got me thinking about what my obituary would look like if I died today. I actually found the exercise to be quite therapeutic. I think obituaries are often written in third person but I liked the Grant study style a lot more. Here’s what I came up with -

From as way back as you can remember, you placed implicit faith in the force of your own uniqueness. Your relatively uneventful and happy childhood was distorted into a seemingly more difficult period through the prism of your fertile imagination. As you grew older, the dawning realization that you were only as special as the limited scope of your experiences granted you, threw you into a dizzying spate of approval-seeking childish transgressions that in later years, you successfully repressed with equal fervor. Professionally, you reaped only as much as you sowed, which wasn’t a lot. You attributed it to your rather optimistic view of life where opportunities are endless and time and chance will always be on your side. You were much loved by a few and liked to think you were misunderstood by many. Asked about the general opinion that people had of you, you observed indifferently, “I guess I’m not everybody’s cup of tea.”

Twitter alert!

I had taken a personal oath that I wouldn’t participate in the current media hype revolving around the social networking site Twitter – news channels are airing primetime stories about it, academes with serious delusions about their own coolness are writing papers on it and the entry of celebrity Twitterers (Oprah been the latest celebrity member) has just skyrocketed registrations even further. The funny thing is most people who first join Twitter, have no idea what to do with it. I still don’t. I find it nowhere close to Facebook in the vast potential it has for wasting my time. I’ve gotta say though that I have this freakish tendency to register on these sites just a few weeks before they’re propelled to uncontrollable fame and just about everybody I might have wanted to avoid jumps on the bandwagon. It happened with Facebook too. So much for exclusivity. I think I’m just way too behind on the technology curve. Either I’m too cool to be geeky or not geeky enough to be cool.

Twitter has even done some people a whole lot of good. On March 2, 2008 Greg Rewis created Twitter history when he asked his girlfriend Stephanie Sullivan to marry him in a tweet. Apparently, the couple claims that Twitter is an integral part of their long distance relationship, after Flickr, Skype and what now seems to be becoming an increasingly extinct mode of online communication - email. I think the most attractive feature of tweeting is the fact that you have to encapsulate everything you want to say in 140 characters. Imagine how uncomplicated all relationships would be if people had to communicate within a prescribed word limit. With both approaching middle age and certainly having had their share of failed relationships, Stephanie and Greg have evidently discovered the new mantra for a modern healthy relationship – if you can’t say it in 140 characters or less, it’s better not said. I wonder though whether anybody has ever broken up with somebody over a tweet. It got me thinking about some of the things I personally would NOT like to read about in a tweet and I came up with this list –

1) Death of a loved one
2) Bitching about exes
3) Posting photos of that giant wart on your back
4) A seriously bad case of diarrhea
5) Menstrual cycles
6) Suicidal thoughts
7) Kinky sexual fantasies (especially if the tweet is from a sibling)

And if I have any faith in the inherent narcissism cultivated by chronic social networkers, I’m sure each of the above has been tweeted about and discussed in painful detail already. And speaking of inappropriate tweets, read about how Twitter can get you fired if you're not careful!

Show Me the Money!

I was watching a documentary on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy today. Apparently, the entire project which spanned a period of eight years, cost a preposterous $280 million to make. A lot can be said, mostly positive, about the intrinsic power of cinema to transform one man’s vision into a reality more palpable than any art form has ever come close to achieving. It is a flattering tribute to human creativity to allow such ambitious projects to take off the ground, and when executed with skill and backed up by talent, astound us all with their ability to move us to the deepest reaches of our hearts.

Of course, $280 million isn’t exactly spare change either, not for those campaigning relentlessly to increase funding for AIDS research, or for those who’d like to see that money go into an effective system to combat cross-border terrorism. It certainly won’t eradicate world hunger or facilitate free universal medical care, but $280 million can always offer a helpful push in the right direction - just a little perhaps but to the relief of thousands, if not more. In such times, should filmmakers be held morally culpable for indulging in expensive flights of fancy in a world where many don’t even have the luxury of survival, let alone of imagination?

At the same time, it would be presumptuous on one’s part to support the complete abolition of cash-liberal film making, or any other art form for that matter, in trying times. History has had quite a few instances where a socio-political transformation has often been preceded by an artistic revolution encouraging people to look at the world differently, in a way that couldn’t have been imagined before. Although I’m not sure whether any artistic revolution has ever run up the kind of bill as this one has.

The question that needs to be asked in the first place is whether such lofty aspirations are even the true driving force behind the proliferation of big budget mainstream films that has quite fittingly earned it the stature of a global industry? With the ridiculous amounts that have been spent on films in the past few decades, it’s obvious that filmmaking is no longer an art – it’s a business. The commercialization of art doesn’t necessarily have to herald the death of art, but when a commercial product is strutted around under the guise of true art, is when we should pose the question – is it really worth it?

I have more respect for a businessman who directs formulaic big-budget films with the sole purpose to entertain and fill the coffers of his producers, than an ‘inspired’ filmmaker who will burn crores on an ‘artistic’ or ‘off-beat’ film that would be ripped apart in any Screenwriting 101 class. The colossal waste of resources on a film that bombs its first day at the box office IS morally wrong, and not just in today’s world. There will always be better ways to spend money and resources than to indulge the egos of inadequately talented men.

Then there are those films that can’t quite be termed bad or good, but just plain obsolete or simply a complete waste of everyone’s time. Revolutionary Road for example, revolved around a theme that has already been skillfully explored by Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. I’m not sure if anybody has anything left to depict about the silent oppression of stay-at-home wives in postwar ‘50s American suburbia without repeating themselves, in either theme or emotion. Then we have Watchmen (production cost of $120 million) which did so little of adapting and so much of merely copying the graphic novel panel by panel, it was no wonder that even Alan Moore didn’t want anything to do with it.

To put things in perspective – for every masterful stroke of characterization and special effects brilliance in The Dark Knight ($185 million), we also have films like the five-hour futuristic disaster Waterworld ($250 million) that didn’t have a single saving grace to rescue it from the clutches of box-office doom. If Pirates of the Caribbean (over $250 million) bowled you over with its refreshingly witty take on the fictional pirate archetype, you must have been just as disappointed by Spiderman-3 ($258 million) which evidently couldn’t match up the buzz generated by the previous two movies and drowned in a long list of supporting characters and an overdose of seeing Tobey Maguire hopping all over the place.

In reality, Spiderman-3 was not a film that needed to be made – it was just a lazy attempt to cash in on the interest generated by Spiderman 1 & 2, not to mention a multi-million dollar merchandising deal. Watchmen too hoped to capture an already established cult fan base and ride the bandwagon on the recent trend of adapting graphic novels into films that are more digestible fodder for an attention-deficient non-reading public.

In short, whether you agree with me on the above or not, you’ll surely agree that there will always be those films that you watch and wonder, why was this ever made? But to really let a bad film get your goat, you should instead ask yourself - what could that money have been used for otherwise?

Not all films need to admit a social responsibility, but every filmmaker must accept responsibility for a bad product and be willing to speak up for it. With misplaced notions of their own importance, certain big budget filmmakers dangerously believe themselves to be at the helm of an artistic revolution based purely on a conviction of their own supposed genius.

This is most definitely the case in Bollywood, where a director’s past three consecutive failures are graciously overlooked, keeping in mind the handful of hits he happened to churn out 15 years ago. While vast resources are constantly directed towards the same filmmakers who suffer from an outdated vision and limited scope, a systematic bias entrenched in the industry continues to shut out fresh talent from all the action. What ensues is the violent unleashing of terrible films made by the same filmmakers over and over again, on an unsuspecting yet always hopeful viewing public.

What if every big budget film proposal were to pass through a test for its viability, entertainment appeal, relevance and the skill sets of those involved in its production? Imagine an industry where every filmmaker must continue to prove his capabilities, regardless of the hits he’s delivered in the past; and if he cannot, then make a tasteful exit into retirement. Is this an impractical solution or a terrifying one for those in the business? I would really like to know.


Originally published on PassionForCinema.com

Rakhi Sawant's new reality show...

Rakhi Ka Swayamvara is soon going to be the next reality show everybody will watch religiously in the privacy of their homes and then feign ignorance of it the next day. A self-confessed pop culture omnivore (although not as much as I’d like to with some people I know always taking the remote control into their custody when I’m around), this is one show I’m not going to miss. Just the very premise augurs unlimited possibilities of displaying Rakhi Sawant at her most outrageous, hilariously uninhibited and bursting with that country bumpkin crassness of speech and demeanor that we’ve all come to know and tolerate to the point of passive acceptance, perhaps even a remote fondness. Because, just as easy it is to hate her, it’s easier to look through Rakhi Sawant and know that she’s almost uncontrollably herself to the point of embarrassment (not to her, but to others), a trait so rare in today’s world that it deserves it’s own peculiar admiration.

There have been several ‘personalities’ in the Indian two-bit celebrity scene who have stuck around long enough to amuse us but then gradually faded into anonymity, only to be replaced by the next preposterous sensation. Rakhi Sawant however, has become a cultural phenomenon in herself, refusing to be shut out or shut up. Although she officially exists on the sidelines of true stardom, a status that we so graciously bestow on film actors and sports personalities, she and others like her perfectly encapsulate the idea of the ‘celebritariat’, a term I came across in an article I was reading recently.

The celebritariat has been credited to the leveling of popular culture that has occurred globally in the past few decades. No longer do we draw a line between high and low culture and no longer is mass entertainment only for the masses. While social and economic inequality continues to rise unchecked, mass media such as advertising, film and television dangerously mislead people into believing that the lines that divide the rich and powerful from the rest are not that insurmountable. The celebritariat manifesto states that it’s not talent or earned merit, but your own unique individuality that can make you famous. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, all you need to do is believe in yourself, possess a certain amount of gumption and go for what you want, and success will be yours for the lapping up. The rags-to-riches story often resorted to by unimaginative storytellers in our movie-obsessed society are popular for this very reason. If he/she can make it, why can’t I?

Reality shows are the perfect example of this growing trend, where it’s not talent but the contestant’s likeability factor or just plain eccentricity that gets them to the top. A celebritariat in the making can be anybody from your next-door neighbour to your local dhobi or even your pet dog. Luck too is an overriding factor – 95% of leading ladies on saas-bahu TV shows have been ‘discovered’ on Mumbai streets (often by Ekta Kapoor), thus reinforcing the ‘the right place at the right time’ belief, an everyday miracle that can happen to anybody, even you.

Rakhi Sawant, who never shies away from recounting her rather modest beginnings and her subsequent rise to infamy, reinforces this very seductive ideology. So what’s the big deal anyway? Well, social theorists claim that the celebritariat class blinds the masses into believing that the world is a level playing field, a society where equality of opportunity prevails, leading them to endorse a system that is actually rife with inequality and prejudice and where success and power is only the privilege of a few.

On a slightly different note, it also makes me wonder about TV news channels these days, with their audience talk shows and citizen journalists, where common people are given a chance to wield a microphone and ‘participate’ in public discussion. How empowered does voicing their opinions really make them? Unfortunately, people today have begun to take their fifteen minutes of fame as a sign of a more democratic change in society, when the reality perhaps, is far different.

Time's Up!

Hyderabad’s tendency for mass procrastination in any public event seems to be an epidemic as wildly rampant as a plague in medieval England. It's like the entire city is functioning in a different time zone but nobody bothered to inform me. In Hyderabad, people treat arriving late as a birthright, like they treat the right to breathe or the right to put up really bad theatre productions. I can only imagine the utter chaos that would ensue if every single local train in Bombay was to be delayed by ten minutes or more. Disoriented and confused, train-goers would pour out into the streets and get run over by the next BEST bus hurtling down the road. But what if everything in Hyderabad started exactly on time? Would there be anarchy on the streets, as rioters went about smashing every clock they see? Is it really so terrible, they would yell, if we want to turn up whenever we feel like as long as it’s within 12 hours of the appointed time? Or maybe Hyderabadis are a highly evolved species who recognise time’s inherently illusory nature and have made an untimely resolution that something needs to be done right away… or maybe after ten minutes?


Of course, there are some who are aware that unpunctuality can be viewed as a social nuisance, often resulting in headaches, heightened blood pressure and just a general feeling of ill-will among those subject to this slow torture. A supposed quick fix solution found by some people is to set their watches ten minutes forward. The reasoning is, I presume, that if you have a tendency to be late, setting your watch ten minutes ahead will give you an adequate heads up to ensure that you get to the proposed destination miraculously on time. But how is that supposed to work for the habitually tardy? If you know you've set your watch ten minutes ahead, won't you naturally factor that into all your subsequent appointments? And if you were the one who set the time ahead, who are you trying to fool exactly? Unless of course these people have an added, equally annoying habit of being clinically forgetful, and don't remember that they’ve set their watches ahead of time, every single time. If so, how stupid must you feel when you realise that you just fooled yourself… again?

And why always ten minutes? Sometimes five but mostly ten and never more. Being irrepressibly punctual myself (I couldn't be late if I tried) and hence turning up at said place before everybody else, I'd just like you self-righteous chronotyrants to know that if you're late, you’ve in all likelihood crossed the ten minute barrier which supposedly makes your complete disrespect for other people’s time less criminal. So don't give me a frantic call and tell me you'll be five minutes late - I've been around in this world sipping coffees I don't want to drink and flipping through magazines I don’t particularly want to read long enough to know that if you say five minutes, I'd better settle in for some serious alone time with myself. In fact, I suggest if you ever want to indulge yourself in deep contemplation about yourself and the world, just fix a meet with your most sluggish friend.

Quite obviously, setting watches forward doesn’t seem to do much for those invariably left waiting but gives latecomers the false comfort of knowing that they're not as late as their watches says they are, which in turn, only makes them even more late! The only real solution to this is to give your watch to a friend, ask him to change the time by ten minutes, only not tell you whether it's ahead or behind.

Don't say it, show it!

The Deccan Chronicle, the largest English daily in Andhra Pradesh, yesterday published this headline in the bottom half of their front page –

Balayya Slaps Thigh at his Sister

As a fairly conservative editor and even moreso a cosmopolitan bigot, I find it amusing that this went to the press as a front page headline, especially if one takes seriously the editorial rule of comprehensibility for the greatest number. If that wasn’t enough, the article begins with,

Cine hero Balakrishna, the TD star campaigner, on Tuesday faced off with his sister and Congress Union minister, Ms D. Purandareswari.

Balakrishna set up a meeting right in front of her house at Karamchedu, twirled his moustache and slapped his thigh.

For the uninitiated, the moustache twirl accompanied by a thunderous thigh slap has been the visual epitome of valiant manliness in macho Tollywood since time immemorial. Balakrishna, a popular Tollywood hero who’s now making his mark in AP politics, can’t help but resort to time-tested methods for generating mass hysteria amongst his fans/ potential voters.

Ultimately, we are a nation that thrives on overstatement. We don’t just make a point, we often create an elaborate styrofoam set, weave a quick song and dance number and invoke our mothers on it. And maybe Tollywood actors, who are the uncontested stalwarts of histrionic display and also the emerging face of Indian politics, are a natural outcome in a country that now needs its ‘heroes’ more than ever before.

I however, find those traits more interesting which are so ingrained in us that we’re not even aware of them. Indians have an entire gamut of culture-specific mannerisms that goes to prove we are inherently a very expressive bunch of people. Some even allow us a certain ambiguity that can be useful in sticky situations. Give me a sideway head bob if you agree with me… or not… who’s to tell?

For more on the Tollywoodization of AP politics, read this.

Pet Peeve # 1 (of many to come!)

Drop that Cone!

I confess, I can't stand watching men eat from an ice-cream cone. I don't know whether it's the phallic undertones but the very thought of a man gingerly licking melting ice cream off a waffle cone is enough to make me lose all respect for him and more importantly, all interest in my ice-cream.

There are some men who try rather hard to make the entire act look a bit more manly by keeping the licking to a minimum (thank god!) and instead opting for large, teeth-hurting bites to avoid imminent meltdown and dumping the bottom half of the cone in the trash bin. A commendable attempt but at the end of the day, you're still a man eating from an ice-cream cone and looking like a little girl in pigtails.

Other offensive ice-cream eating behaviour for men, especially while on a date, include -

1) Candy Bars - By the end of it, you're just licking a stick.

2) Sundaes - Eating from a little plastic cup is much better than ordering a humongous sundae that you will then proceed to slurp from a little metal spoon. Not attractive and definitely a no-no if you're on a date.

3) Please for the love of god, stop yourself from asking for silly toppings such as marshmallows and chocolate sauce!

4) Choose your flavour quickly and without fuss. Opt for the basic flavours - chocolate, vanilla. Don't ask to taste a couple before you finally decide. Eating ice-cream should be incidental for you, you're just giving your date some company.

5) Never, ever admit you have a favourite ice-cream flavour until after the third date.

6) Don't relish the ice-cream. Just eat it matter-of-factly. Only indulge in conversation about the ice-cream if initiated by your date.

I think women find men who confess a distaste for sweets far more attractive... even if it just implies that there's more for them to eat!

Funny Business

Haven’t you come across a lot more funny men than you may have genuinely funny women? To me, an allegedly ‘funny’ woman is always extremely self-conscious of the fact that she’s about to crack a smart one. While some still develop a certain skill at witty repartee, they never quite match up to the men in their company. Most others stumble their way through, often giving themselves away in that crucial lapse of a second, which can sound a veritable death knell for a joke before it is even uttered. It’s a stereotype that women are always late but when it comes to comic timing, they miss the bus almost every time.

Read why Germaine Greer believes men are socially conditioned, or rather compelled, to be funny. According to her, men use humour as a competitive tool to gain acceptance, either from other men as a way of male bonding or from women so that they can get straight to third base on the first date.

According to Greer,

“Women famously cannot learn jokes. If they try, they invariably bugger up the punchline. The male teller of jokes is driving towards his reward, the laughter of his mates. The woman who messes up the same joke does so because her concentration is not sharpened by that need. She is not less intelligent, simply less concerned.”

Greer seems to imply that a woman, in her presumably superior state of being, needn’t resort to such petty tactics. And why should she? She’s probably much too busy trying to manipulate men with her body right from the time she hits puberty or spending the rest of her life too scared to express her true self, lest she pose any real threat to the men who dictate her life. As Greer herself points out, it’s not like women have any less a sense of the absurd but maybe this sense is more inward-directed than it is for men.

Perhaps it’s not that most women are less concerned about appearing funny, but the fact that they’re far too self-conscious to really be funny, at least in the uninhibited sort of way that true humour demands. We are raised to constantly look inwards, to pay attention to the inner workings of our minds and hearts, while men are taught to think out of the periphery of their own bodies, in terms of their selves in relation to the world. A simplistic example would be of little boys being given construction sets that allow them to build and create, while little girls spend hours playing with dolls which are often extensions of their own selves, in socially accepted gender roles. This is probably why self-derogatory humour is so difficult for women to hone, since it necessarily demands a certain stepping out, to look at oneself as a fallible entity and to make light of this fact. Of course we women know we’re fallible but the knowledge of what it is that makes us so is far too dangerous to admit, instead being viewed as a constant liability, better to be hidden away.

I do agree with Greer that there are hardly any female comedians out there who have been able to make a lasting impression, most of them limiting themselves to talking about men, menstruation, breasts and the pitfalls of being an easy lay. In other words, male comedians are just comedians but a woman comedian is first always a woman, and we can't help but look at it any other way.

Is humour really gendered? Are women actually raised to find men's jokes funnier? If men are funny (or try to be) so as to be able to propogate the species, do women have no evolutionary need for humour except to respond to it? Are funny women, then, a cultural anomaly?

Grey Matters!

Apparently, President Obama is having a challenging first month in office. After having had his foreign policy and skin colour subject to months of intense political scrutiny, the American public has now focussed its attention on the president's rapidly greying head of hair.

Well, at least they know he's been keeping busy. It's funny though how anybody in the public eye (who wishes to remain in the public eye) must submit himself/herself to a prying intimacy once reserved for trailer trash celebrities. Remember the 'Obama in a swimsuit' photo sensation, not to mention what I thought was a rather emotionally manipulative letter to his daughters after his win, which probably reached the editorial desk of Parade Magazine before it did the poor kids.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the President's massive PR entourage was behind this story. The New York Times, however, that published this stunning revelation is already getting a bad rap for their perplexing choice of putting it up as front page news!


Unfortunately, we have no such marker for our Indian Prime Ministers since the past five we've had, entered office looking like this:







I think we as a nation just heave a sigh of relief if our Prime Ministers are still alive by the time they've finished their time in office.

Freedom Limited

When Indian TV channels repeatedly aired the footage of girls outside a Mangalore pub being physically assaulted, dragged by the hair and pushed to the ground by men, we were both shocked and disturbed. These were typical urban Indian women – the kind of people we know at the kind of place we’d hang out. When feature writer Nisha Susan used the social networking website Facebook to launch the ‘Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women’ campaign as a reply to Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthalik’s tirade against ‘pub culture’ and Valentine’s Day, the response was enormous. The campaign was a tongue-in-cheek yet angry commentary against a form of oppression that targeted the most intimate aspects of a woman’s self – her body and her freedom to choose.

The group’s subsequent ‘Pink Chaddi Campaign’, in which Muthalik’s headquarters in Hubli was showered on Valentine’s Day with a torrent of pink chaddis, a presumably fitting symbol of feminine empowerment, got an even stronger response. In fact, Muthalik is now vowing to sue the activists behind this campaign, a minor victory perhaps for the thousands of impassioned chaddi donators across the country.

Nobody would defend the reprehensible behaviour of a bunch of right-wing fanatics on a testosterone rush. In retrospect, though, many have begun to wonder whether any change has been effected, except for the few perpetrators being put behind bars briefly, then released with a slap on the wrist and ample media attention. The Pink Chaddi Campaign, still a completely online initiative, will in all likelihood metamorphose into a more generic forum. It will continue to develop kitschy posters, document subsequent atrocities against women and solicit other symbolic acts (they are currently asking members to make personal ‘reclaim your culture’ videos which can be sent to the Ram Sena). The group will continue to voice its dissension, before inevitably fading into oblivion.

As the campaign’s blog revealed, only a few days later, in four separate incidents in Bangalore, urban women were once again attacked for wearing ‘western clothes’ and for walking alone on the street at night. And unlike the ‘modern’ urban woman (who is more likely to make front page news), assaults on other groups continues, largely unabated. Statistical data on female infanticide, domestic abuse, dowry deaths, rape and other forms of sexual assault in India paints a sordid picture of the condition of a large number of women in this country.

The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women are a self-defined minority population – urban women who’ve taken their freedom and equality for granted, and must now wake up to a painful and contradictory reality. This isn’t meant to imply that they should be grateful simply because they weren’t murdered at birth or have lived lives that have been free of abuse. Just because they enjoy a relative position of privilege, and are placed in a better social and economic position does not make their struggle any less significant. However, the markedly apolitical character of these groups is troubling to those who believe only a large-scale and cohesive feminist movement can effectively challenge sexism and create a more equal society. Filling up pubs for a night or speed-posting lingerie is an empty act of revolt, if it’s not backed by a clear political agenda that seeks to dislodge the status quo instead of making a temporary dent.

At the same time, the Pub Bharo and Pink Chaddi campaigns have been seen by others as an apt response to the equally absurd claims of Muthalik and his clan concerning the ill effects of Western influence on traditional Indian culture. To take the Ram Sena seriously would be to legitimize the group’s ideology. In a world driven by media hype, subversive yet sensational acts such as those initiated by these campaigns certainly did put things in a lighter perspective, undermining the rabble-rousing intent of certain right-wing groups.

Finally, no clear winner can emerge out of this debacle. But the events of the past month have reminded urban women of the difficult challenges they face in fighting for rights they had begun to (and should be able to) take for granted. However, the battle is not just that of women alone. Anyone who shares a commitment to the idea of a just and egalitarian society should see these incidents as a sign that a lot more remains to be achieved before we can don the mantle of a truly ‘liberal India’.



(published for You & I Magazine, Hyderabad, March, 2009)