Thought

A friend informed me today it was popular belief that Rock music was somehow better and 'higher" than pop.He quoted Paris Hilton to substantiate his claim.

Vote and a little Ghosh

Exhilarating is the word.There is no other I can think of which can describe the events of the last few days.It has been a whirlwind last week and a half,both in my personal life and of course,in the national scene.There has been a little fun,lots of heated discussions,a little more fun at the expense of the nation's future and the discovery of Omar Abdullah.

It does seem eons ago that I walked into the cinema to watch Rituparno Ghosh's latest,"Khela".I was disappointed.There was the trademark Ghosh style,the much-better-than-usual Manisha Koirala and a story which seemed unpredictable for the most part.However,I had gone in with much higher expectations which were not gratified.The little boy was adorable,the quaint manner of narration was sweet,the North Bengal scenery breathtaking and there was a discernable sense of intimacy,closeness which the director managed to weave throughout the film.The subtle underlying pain was most elegantly shown.The ending was beautiful.In any other director's hands,this would be hailed as great cinema.however,Ghosh has dazzled me with his brilliance so many times earlier that the perfect little intimate tale was inadequate.It lacked the genius,the "Oh my god!" moment,the one magic moment of divine brilliance.

Trouble is still brewing in college over my obstinate stand against ragging.I was accused of splintering the unity of the class.People are going mad,which must be a good sign for they don't tell you to shut up if your words aren't having an effect.I am on the verge of being accused of taking away a fundamental right...Things are hotting up.

The fun was of course provided by the sycophancy of the Left at the centre.Delhi seemed quite like a gladiatorial ring.I like it better than T-20.There are all the hourly updates and scores but the spice seems more here.Who wants Shoiab and Dhoni?Give me Mayavati and Sonia Gandhi any day!

And where was Omar Abdullah?Either he speaks very rarely or I have been completely stupid in missing his speeches.I had almost fallen asleep during the trust vote when Omar Abdullah's two-minute speech roused me.He not only spoke forcefully and made himself heard over the din but was coherent and witty.He is indeed a very good orator.He has got that one quality Rahul Gandhi lacks...intelligence.And he makes Somnath babu smile!


Another post about the trust vote in a couple of days....I am waiting for the second act."Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!"

P.S-Awful quote,I know!Apologies.

Saturday...Today

I usually devote my Saturdays to the pursuit of trivial amusements.It was in accordance with the general scheme then,that last Saturday I let my friend persuade me to watch the new teen-flick in town that everyone is talking about..."Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na".Most people in my college had loved it beyond words and nothing but watching it twice could satiate their appetite.It was then,with a great deal of expectation and a modicum of apprehension that I queued in front of the Cinema.The line had snaked its way into the main avenue which brought a smirk onto the lips of my friend.So many people could hardly be wrong in their judgement.It was an eclectic mix.There were college crowds,obnoxious love birds,middle aged gentlemen,ageing ladies...

It was almost a miracle that tickets weren't as scarce as it seemed.We rushed inside,I didn't even look at the popcorn or the french fry stands!And then the film started.
As I walked out of the hall two and a half hours later,my mind was a jumble of thoughts.People around me gushed about the film;about how great it was,how adorable Imran Khan was,how hot Genelia looked,how sublime Rehman's creations were,how it was the best film they had seen in quite some time.i couldn't agree.Nor could I disagree.

To be fair,"Jaane Tu..." isn't a bad film at all.Of course,a bad film isn't what is expected of the man who penned "Maqbool".The film is breezy,the characters aren't overtly melodramatic and the music is very very good.But somewhere there was a feeling of being let down.
Had the film been in the hands of a lesser director,there would have been no cause for complaint.Indeed,if it hadn't amassed such rave critical reviews,the follies would have been quite passable.But Abbas Tyrewala,the brilliant,imaginative scriptwriter,what sort of a story is this?
Sure,the handling of the sequences speaks volumes of the director's abilities but as the film rolled on,I couldn't help feeling a lot of that ability lay nascent.
The plot was a complete mess.College life and the depiction of a bonding which transgressed the realm of ordinary day to day "friendship"*(little more than a casual acquaintance,considering how often we abuse the term )were all fine but what happens when the film doesn't move forward?The depictions were all upper middle class,of people rolling in money,something which I am sure many aspire too,but how many identify?Comic relief is great again,but what happens when every other dialogue is a tongue-in-cheek attempt at inciting laughter?The whole story refused to move onward and instead there is a barrage of clever one liners from the end of the first half hour.
To be fair,the audience was in splits but does Tyrewala really need to resort to that?It was only Ratna Pathak Shah,the one and only,who could breeze through such a non-role and come off as charming and adorable and indeed she waltzed through her performance.Nasiruddin Shah's role,again was an out and out attempts at unconventional(in Bollywood)humour.In deference to Tyrewala,the comedy was intelligent,a welcome relief from the slapstick that Bollywood regularly dishes out and some of Pathak's lines were memorable,especially when her son's best friend asks her while sobbing,because college had ended,"Auntie,itne din kaha chale gaye?" and the smart Pathak retorts,"Phone pe,beta,phone pe"
Returning to the principal point of complaint,I couldn't help thinking the storyline perfectly absurd.The middle part of the film was absolutely indigestible;the hour spent in establishing Imran and Genelia's respective lovers;the lovers' only task to make the protagonists aware of their growing jealousy.The idea was fine,the flaw lay in the execution.The film became so intolerably boring once the "other partners" were introduced that I could scarcely keep my eyes open.It was all glossy clothes and smart talk and the film refused to move on....time seemed to stand still.The conclusion again,wasn't something I was prepared for.The three conditions to be ordained a rajput scion,the midnight horse chase through Bombay,the airport chase sequence...was it all from a weird fairy tale?I was particularly disappointed with the horse ride at one in the morning through the streets of Bombay...farce!The airport chase sequence was funny though...special mention for Paresh Rawal,good throughout in the role of a (you guessed it!)comic police officer.The ending again,was so tame.Tyrewala had taken an unusual concept,why not attempt an unconventional ending?Friends turned lovers who live happily ever after sounds so old,doesn't it?

This is what I felt on Saturday.Today,however,is another day and strangely the film grows on me.I had readily appreciated the four things that had enabled me to sit through the 3hours....Imran Khan,all vivacious charm,cute smiles,clever lines and intelligent looks,shined through the holes in the script and seemed well endowed in brains if only a little deficient in the brawn's department
(a relief!)Charming and endearing,he carried comedy with great ease and most importantly, was extremely believable.Believability was also the forte of Genelia,still nursing a small Hyderabadi accent in her hindi.Managing to hold her own against Imran and making a place for herself amongst the audience was no mean task.And I am also much pleased to say that she is much improved from her earlier performances in Telegu mainstream films.The chirpy college girl,the typical upper class spoilt brat and the endearingly faithful friend was what she accomplished with amazing grace.A mention also for Prateik Babbar,Smita Patil's son who turns in a jaw-dropping performance as Genelia's brother.His anguish and love and sorrow are all so meticulously and yet so humanely depicted that one cannot but applaud the debutante.
It would be extremely unfair here if I didn't add a whole standing ovation to Rehman's work; fresh and vivacious,the music managed to capture the young spirit perhaps more than the film.The songs were a heady mix of rhythm and melody and I simply,was enthralled.

But as I sit here,at two in the morning,thinking of all that I had seen,I finally realize that it wasn't what I had seen,it was what i felt which mattered more.Sure the film had its share of flaws but what it managed to do was to leave an impression.The first twenty minutes,the best part of the film where Imran and Genelia's beautiful bond is explored keeps coming back to me.And as I listen to "Aditi" on the headphone,I get the feeling that all criticism aside,the film managed to connect,not just with the college crowds but with everyone who ever loved and had a friend to die for.And that might just be Tyrewala's best work,the accomplishment of the most difficult task set to him;He manages to keep the film alive in each one of us and makes us identify with at least somebody.You will find yourself unable to control yourself from clapping at the climax, weird as it was!And every time you listen to a piece of music from the film or snatches of words from "aditi"..you will always,even if for a few seconds,transported into the magical world of Jai and Aditi,when the world was still beautiful and they could love each other without tags or conditions.

"Jaane Tu..." might have been a great film.It isn't.But that is quite beside the point.It isn't what you will remember.What you will remember is how it felt to be Jai and Aditi.

A long time ago,in a city....

I got up today.Dressed for college,cursed the college time table and got out of the house.I spend a regular day,trivial occurrences interwoven with mundane circumstances;pointless conversations concocted with petty tricks,emotions not quite genuine getting lost with mirthless smiles.
It was only on my way back,wallowing in self pity,that I chanced a glance at my watch and realized it to be the 11th of July,or the watch proclaimed,the infamous "7/11".It was on this day,two years ago,that Mumbai was ripped apart by seven horrendous blasts that changed the socio-political scenario of the nation forever.Though I never have lived in Bombay and in general have a very limited idea concerning the outline of the city or its people,than what Bollywood and its closest living relative,the news media affords us to have,I had and still have a considerable number of friends and people I love who reside in "the city of dreams".

I returned home and turned on the television.C.B.I''s magnificent success in an open and shut case after months of mud splashing and shadowy speculation in the media seemed to have caught the nation's imagination,gripped its psyche.People seemed ill-disposed to recall something so profoundly and evidently painful on a day of such revelling glory.A single news channel dared to air a story about a person who has been in a perpetual state of injury induced coma since the black day.Of course he was poor,he had no money to pay for his treatment hereafter and had,in short,no right to live.The channel promptly relegated the piece to the back benches.Not for him, the magnanimity of the nation witnessed in the outpouring of grief or the flooding of relief money.There was no resilient spirit that would help him stand back on his feet again.

"One of the nation's worst human tragedies,with over 200 people killed,The Mumbai massacre ranks internationally as one of the most gruesome acts of crime ever..."screamed one reporter stationed to cover the condolence meetings.I sincerely wish she meant the empathy,absent from her voice.A meeting "to remember the martyrs " culminated with the principal speaker concluding that "the central government was a complete failure and the Samajwadi Party was being opportunistic."He stood beside a lady who had lost her son and husband,both wage labourers,as he waxed eloquent how the government had no moral right to continue.

It is easy for me to don the critical eye.It is even convenient.After all,I was,in no way,affected me,snug as I was in front of the television,both then and now.No Concern of mine emanated from a genuine exigency,just plain curiosity and outrage.But it is indeed depressing that things haven't looked up for those whose lives were truly affected by the blasts.Who lost everything they had or perhaps still have a crippled brother at home,all to a unnamed Jehad,a war they were never a part of.Sadder still,perhaps,is the fact they look up towards us,the society,the people unscathed,rich,Outwardly sympathetic with hope in their eyes.Perhaps they think all the soundbite does mean something.perhaps the next C.M. visit might yield a hospital bed for their father.Or Barkha Dutt's riveting commentary might mean something other than a dozen mikes poking into their faces.
They hope that their tragedy will mean something else than general knowledge question in the years to come;a benchmark for future genocides.They hope that they will somehow get a slice of the amazing spirit of the "city that never stops".Maybe they hope us,people who see them but don't notice to sit up today and think.The sad thing is that it seems they are hoping in vain.

Today

I had planned to take a break from blogging for six months.Life had seemed too engrossing,too mundane,too regular for me to share.I didn't plan to break the vow today.But then something happened.
It is today that I realized how difficult it is to stop people from what they ardently wish to do,even if they themselves had admitted at one point in time,albeit in private,that it does show them in poor light and is WRONG.Perhaps greater trouble are those people who think what they do highlights their talents,veils their imperfections and spruces up their "cool" factor.People who wish to see can be lead onward.People who only think they can see cannot.

There was a concerted effort this year in my college to stop the menace otherwise known as Ragging;euphemised by the wishfully blind who like to call it "orientation"/"interaction.Students chose,in droves,not to undertake the stupid and horrifying "custom" of hazing the "juniors"(rather condescending !)They insisted that they wanted to get to know the students,for a change.
I was buoyed.With so many standing up for something their own petty interests,there was truly hope for betterment.It was truly difficult to comprehend why something so trivial wasn't getting rooted out,especially when so many were against it.All the first year students were greeted with toffees on their second day.A friend of mine messaged his girlfriend that they had decided to become "caring seniors".

The question was answered today.I was taught that just because people know something is wrong,they will never stand by it.They will waver on their pledge;they will instead do what is convenient.Most of the people who had pledged their support found it too difficult to honour their word.The ragging started in earnest today.I was told that if someone wants to rag,its his liberty to do.I was shown proofs of how the first year students were eager to get humiliated by their "seniors" and how I was being the wet blanket.The day drew to a close the same way it had every year.With massaged egos the seniors walked out triumphant;the juniors weren't vanquished either,holding,with pride,onto their solace that they would be the perpetrators of the humiliation the next year.Life went on.
Hindsight is perfect.And thus as the day draws to a close,I can say that I was sadly deceived in the character of man.A friend of mine today quoted Frederich Nietzsche....he said the force behind a man's life is "the will to power".And as I sat there and rued my loss,I suddenly realized that the win had been a hollow one after all.There was no collective desire to weed out ragging.There was simply an urge to look noble.There had been no change of heart.There simply was a change of tactic.
Sociologists say ragging is for those with an insecure persona.It is the perfect way to get your ego boosted...today,however,I saw that it was far more complex.There was a ego massage involved,yes,but far more pivotal was the power which the seniors were bestowed with.Making a guy marry another guy didn't emote as much fun as the reverential stares and the awe effused with fear which their eyes betrayed.They were in charge.

I was wrong.It perhaps cost me a few friends but the lesson is the better learnt for that.No one wants change.Because oppression always facilitates the privileged.The seniors rag because they can;it is "fun" and for a few weeks,the nobody-s get to become somebody-s.The juniors get ragged because it will be their turn next year.That is tradition.We all make pledges to make the world a better place.We all hope and pray and curse the previous generation.It is a pity though,that we don't act.Maybe because its too difficult.