Spare me the Schemes, Main Course Will Do

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 26th July, 2008)

It was one of those unfortunate times when one member of the party has had a setback in his or her love life, another suggests it would be a good idea to drink and a third would rather go to a fancy restaurant than drink at home.

Now, let me not say anything more about the restaurant than that part of its name refers to a precious stone and the other half to a day of the week. So we’re sitting there, and we’ve just about ordered and sat back to tear relationships as a concept apart, when the waiter grins,
“ma’am, do you know about the membership programme?”

“Yes, I do, but I’m not keen at the moment.”

“Ma’am, actually, we have some new schemes.”

“See, let me see how long I’m going to be in Delhi, and then I’ll decide.”

“Ma’am, actually, we have some short-term schemes also.”

“Yeah…can I think about them and let you know?”

A stiff smile, and off he goes. We’ve just taken up our pitchforks and are spreading butter on the concept of relationships, and are just about ready to light the fire, when the Smiling Waiter makes a reappearance.

“Ma’am, here.” A laminated, A-4 sized card is thrust into my hands. “These are all our schemes.”
I tiredly thank him, and after a few minutes of his hovering about, say, “okay, I’ve had a look at them. Let me think about it and get back to you.”

Relationships as a concept have now roasted to a golden-brown, and we’re pouring fuel into the fire, quite warmed up to the idea of charring them and stamping on the remains when the Smiling Waiter plays phoenix.

“Ma’am, have you thought about it?”

“We’d like to order the main course, please.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll certainly take your order, but before that, would you like to take up the
membership? Because then I can offer you free drinks?”

“No, just the main courses please.”

“Ma’am, would you like to hear the schemes, again?”

“No, see, I’ve read them. Could we order the main course?”

“Ma’am, certainly, ma’am.” He takes the order, and then, “ma’am, see, your bill will be approximately three thousand. Now, a membership is four thousand, and you’ll get vouchers worth three thousand, and free drinks and for three people, you’ll get thirty-three percent off.”

How does he even know this treat is not on me???

“I would really appreciate it if you could bring the main course, please.”

“Ma’am, shall I register you as a member?”

“Let me think about it. Could you bring the main courses, please?”

“Yes, ma’am. Will you be taking up the membership?

“Let me think about it. Could you bring the main courses, please?”

“Yes, ma’am. One last offer from my side. Pay me thousand for the bill, I’ll write it off against your vouchers, and also give you free drinks.”

“See, the math doesn’t add up. I’m still going to be paying a lot more than the bill. Now, just the main courses, please?”

The Smiling Waiter gives me the kind of look people at Manolo Blahnik and Versace give you when you notice there is no price tag, on your first visit there in your Pepe jeans and export-surplus shoes, and tell them you’ll be back later.

The episode repeats itself after the main courses are brought, when the dessert order is being taken, and after the dessert is brought.

“Can I have the cheque, please?” I ask.

“Ma’am, your bill is three thousand one hundred and five rupees. If you pay me thousand now, I will register you as a member, give you drinks on the house and write off the bill against your three thousand rupees’ worth of vouchers!”

“Just the cheque, thank you.”

At which point the manager comes up to the table and asks, “ma’am, do you not come here that often?!”

“Just…the…cheque…thank…you.”

“After this, we’re not!” my friend hisses to me.

The one thing that salvaged my mood that evening was that the only tip I left the waiter was an unspoken one – “do NOT harass your customers!”

When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object...Whom is the Joke On?

"Ha ha ha ahoo ahoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo"

Something is very wrong when a joker laughs. Jokers were not meant to laugh. They were meant to stand there, stone-faced or bewildered, and make you laugh. When the joker laughs, it's never good. Because that means the joke is on you. So what happens if one joker wants to be taken seriously…very seriously? When it was decided Heath Ledger would play the Joker in The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan is said to have given him a copy of The Killing Joke and told him that was the Joker he wanted. The film, too, draws heavily from that particular comic…the comic which Batman fans describe as the one which defines Joker's character. And all of a sudden, the Joker seems more interesting, more intriguing, than Batman himself. In April this year, DC Comics brought out Lovers and Madmen, which said it would trace the Joker's origins. The Killing Joke itself hints at his origins, but is the story real or was it a version the Joker had created?

When the confrontation between him and Batman takes place, he says "You had a bad day…and it drove you as crazy as everybody else! Something like that…something like that happened to me, you know. I…I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another…If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it multiple choice! Ha ha ha!" So did the Joker have a pregnant wife who died the day he was playing the Red Hood and committing a crime so he would have enough money to support her and his child? Did Batman chase him into a chemical tank which left him with ruby lips, a white face and green hair? Or was he making up versions of the bad day that drove him crazy? A version that would justify hating Batman? Does the Joker have a sense of justice and a compulsion to reason things out logically after all? But how amusing!

In The Dark Knight, the Joker has two versions of his past too. Both of them involve women leaving their men. In one, his mother wants to leave his father, but his father, his father didn't like that sort of thing, y'see, so he turned the knife on his mother. Then his father saw him, and he came up to his son and shoved the knife into his mouth, like this, and asked, "why so serious? Let's put a smile on that face!" and then the Joker, all grown up, tells the shivering man in his grip, "now, I ask you…why so serious? Let's put a smile on that face!" In another version, the Joker's wife, whom he says was a pretty girl, just like Rachel Dawes, would not smile after she had her cheeks cut, so he decided to make her laugh by cutting his own cheeks with a razor blade, and would you believe it, she left him?

Both The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight see a death from Smilex towards the beginning. The central theme is the same – "all it takes is one bad day to drive the sanest man alive to lunacy. That is how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day." And the procedure to prove the hypothesis is: pluck out the best, most law-abiding citizen of all, and drive him crazy by striking where it hurts. What does it do to you when you lose the person you love most, and know whom to blame for it? His experiment is successful in one case, where District Attorney Harvey Dent becomes Harvey Two-Face, and fails in the other, where Commissioner Gordon insists the Joker be brought in "by the book" despite the cruel mind game the Joker puts him through, laying him bare physically and emotionally.

But the key question both stories throw up is this – will Batman and the Joker kill each other, as Batman predicts, or do they need each other, like the Joker suggests? The end of the comic is ambiguous – it isn't clear whether the Batman is about to push the Joker off the roof or is laying a hand on his shoulder in the camaraderie of a shared joke. But the grin on Batman's face hints it is the latter. In the movie, the Joker challenges Batman to kill him by running him over…but Batman would rather skirt him and take a fall than run him over and do away with him. Does Batman desist because of his respect for the law? Or does he hold back because he knows he and the Joker are two sides of a coin? Not black and white, but with ambiguous shades complementing each other perfectly? Each gives, in fact is, the other's purpose in the world…his reason to live.

The film has two scenes which are very similar to the comic – one, where the Joker and Batman have a one-way conversation in jail, and the other, where the Joker reaches out to Batman. In the comic, Batman does the talking in the Joker's cell, trying to convince him they should negotiate a truce before they end up killing each other (a proposition he repeats towards the end) and in the movie, the Joker does the talking, while Batman watches, silent. The comic has the Joker trying to convince Batman that they both have a lot more in common…that they are not that different after all, because both of them turned crazy because of one bad day. "Why else would you dress up like a flying rat?" he asks. In the movie, Joker tells Batman in his cell that they are both outcasts, and the police force knows Batman is a freak, just like the Joker, that they will only keep him as long as they need him.

And the inevitable question is asked: "What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object?" There are several theories where the physics of this possibility are concerned – one is that it could never happen, because the victor would negate the foundation of the other. If a force is stopped by an object, it was not unstoppable to begin with, and an object moved by a force would not be immovable after all. Another is that the force could pass right through the object, because who said it was in solid state? Another is that while the object itself might not move relative to its surroundings, the entity, meaning the force, the object and the system the object is in, could move as a whole. But the real answer might be what Superman says when the question is posed to him in the parallel comic series. "They surrender," is his quiet answer. So far, neither the Joker nor the Batman has killed the other. The Joker's gun shoots out flowers or notes instead of bullets when he has the chance, and Batman simply doesn't take his chances. Is that surrender, then? Will they always surrender? Will it end when the Joker finds out Batman's true identity, and has no reason to keep him alive? Will it end when Batman decides Gotham City can do without him, if he can do without the Joker… if Bruce Wayne can do without Batman?

The answer, perhaps, lies in the Joker's metaphor: "See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum. And one night, they decide they don't like living in an asylum anymore. They decide they're going to escape! So, like, they get up onto the roof, and there they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across without any problem. But his friend, his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see…y'see, he's afraid of falling. So, then, the first guy has an idea…he says 'Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk across the beam and join me!' B-but the second guy just shakes his head. He suh-says…he says 'what do you think I am? Crazy? You'd turn it off when I was half way across!' Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaa…"

Maybe the reason the Batman series is so popular is that it gives us so many options. We could be either of these two guys, living in our own lunatic asylums. We could make the leap or we could stay behind. We could trust the flashlight or we could stay off the beam. We could be Commissioner Jim Gordon or we could be Harvey Two Face. One bad day could make atheists out of believers or believers out of atheists; it could make vigilantes out of business tycoons, or Jokers out of failed stand-up comedians; it could make madmen out of lovers or analysts out of madmen. Maybe that is why the Joker has made us more curious than Batman has made him. Because, when the cards are laid on the table, one can argue forever about whether the Ace is lower than Two or higher than King, but everyone knows the Joker could be anything – the Joker is unpredictable.

South of the Vindhyas, East of the Ganga

We don't exist.

Sometimes it hits you when people in a newsroom ask you whether you can understand "Kannadiga" - and shrug when you tell them (a) it is not a language (b) you are not from Karnataka. And that, leaving aside all the times your blood boils when people say "Kannad" and "Karnatak". At other times, it hits you when people ask you "what's the capital of Tripura?" At first, I looked incredulously at the person who asked me that question and went "are you playing Paanchvi Pass??" to which he replied, "no, yaar, I really don't know..." And this happened to be someone who was promoted recently.

I realised just how abysmal people's knowledge of these two regions of the country were, when a news anchor I know told me how a Punjabi she knew, living in Bangalore, could speak perfect Tamil. I asked her how he knew perfect Tamil, and she said, "oh, he's been in Bangalore..."

"Do you mean, Kannada?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, Kannadiga, whatever the language is," she replied.

Another colleague once said something was in a "Sauth Indian language", and could I please interpret it? Incidentally, it turned out to be Oriya. Yet another instance when my expertise in a "Sauth Indian language" was invoked got me fuming because it was Telugu and the colleague who had requested the translation looked at me, puzzled and said, "same thing, no? Tamil, Telugu..." There was this other time when someone told me a story could not be done because the bite was in Tamil. Since the bite was from Chandrababu Naidu, I asked whether it was Telugu. "Oh, one of those," he replied, brusquely.

The bond that we "Sauth Indians" have with the North Easterners is that we are not really considered part of our country, and the rest of the country has, on top of it all, made up its mind that we're "different" and don't want to be part of it after all. A Malayali, of all people, once explained to another colleague that Tamil Nadu would soon ask for its independence from India. He had grown up in Delhi, but even so...! Another colleague, whose byline yet another colleague ingeniously suggested would be "where crisis meets chaos", once asked me whether we Tamilians wanted Sri Lanka to be part of Tamil Nadu.

I grew up in a spirit of patriotic fervour handed down from the stories my grandmother told me of her father and his friend, the poet Subramaniya Bharathiyar and all the progressive ideas they tried to instil into society, the sacrifices they made in their struggle for freedom and the country they strove to build. And yet, completely ignoring the fact that C Rajagopalachari (whom he quite likely did not know was none other than "Rajaji") was Tamilian, an admittedly rather scatter-brained colleague remarked that South Indians had not fought for the freedom of the country. The fact that the first Indian who defied British law to sail a ship was Tamilian, is, of course, quite unknown outside Tamil Nadu.

It seems quite easy for the rest of the country to forget that the Gorkhas, celebrated as one of the bravest regiments of the army and known throughout India for their valour, are from the North East. They're "more a part of China than a part of India", someone I know once explained, referring to people from the North East.

We teach our children that India is an example of "Unity in Diversity". But when two huge sections of the country, each with their distinct and rich cultures, and their own contribution to the country, are largely ignored, almost abandoned as the dark reaches of a country that is much too large to begin with, where is the celebration of unity in diversity? When four different cultures, each of which views the other askance (not a lot of love lost over the Kaveri waterfight between Kannadigas and Tamilians, is there? And ask a Tamilian mother what she would think of her daughter marrying a Malayali and listen to the scream of horror), are bracketed together in one bolus, and a group of states with their own unique cultures and distinct languages are donated to China, when the city that has rather facetiously termed itself the commercial capital of the country is kicking out South Indians in one decade, and North Indians four decades later, isn't it about time we reexamined the borders in our heads?

My Blueberry Nightmare

It all began innocently enough. Having an off-day after a while, the morning of which I rather pathetically spent in office, I forced myself to venture into the city and Siri fort. It was quite a brave decision, given the combination of the three men on my bed at the moment - Rushdie, Wodehouse and Ray - and the thirty percent discount at Papa John's I've taken full advantage of, all thrown in together with rather handicapped communication skills in Hindi. The motivating factor was the screening of Wong Kar Wai's film My Blueberry Nights. The single largest influence on me and justification for all my amorous adventures had been a line from 2046:


"It's no good meeting the right person


...too soon or too late."


So quite naturally, I was keen to find out what he had in store. Yes, Norah Jones' presence in the movie was a detracting factor, given that my musical sensibilities will not allow me to dethrone her from her unparallelled distinction of being an example of the worst use of genes ever. But Wong Kar Wai and blueberry as a concept overruled that detracting factor. However, making my mind up was only the beginning of my adventure.



It can only happen in Delhi that three successive autorickshaws have no idea where or what Siri Fort is. It can also only happen in Delhi that three people you call up for directions will tell you "everyone knows where it is". So, I found myself about an hour later at a place that looked neither like a fort nor an auditorium. The signboards saying "Operations" and "Emergency" did rouse certain misgivings, but I soldiered on bravely, lured by a sign that said "book cafe". I also managed to convince myself (I'm rather good at that) that the emergency entrance might be for film fanatics trying to escape a stampede, or celebrated directors trying to escape the film fanatics. But even I could not convince myself that paediatric and maternity wards would find place at a film festival. I mean, ten days does not warrant procreation, however hardcore an aficionado one might be. So I went rather sheepishly to the reception desk, smiled the way I usually do when I need to ask an awkward question and asked the most friendly (and gullible) looking man at the counter how I should go to Siri Fort.



"Ma'am?" he looked at me, wondering if he had heard wrong, I'm sure.



"Si-ri Fort..." I trailed off.



Even a face that gullible and friendly could look decidedly hostile when it thought you were abandoning a dying relative for a film festival. But rather than disclose I had entered a hospital to ask for directions, I let the fiction prevail. I think most people would rather be thought of as callous than blonde. At least, I would.



"Ma'am, you can exit through the emergency gate, there you will find auto stand, it'll be costing you seventy to eighty rupees, and half an hour journey."



The security guard, whom I asked for directions to the emergency gate, almost panicked and indicated in the fastest Hindi I've managed to follow, where it was. Then, it probably struck him that a woman running about on heels was unlikely to be in need of emergency care, and he began to look contemplative. That was the mood I left him in as I hailed yet another auto, the driver of which did not know where Siri Fort was. I called up someone else for directions, and managed to guide him there.



It was all going well, and I had bought my tickets, eaten, fought my way through a lot of artistic smoke and ended up red-eyed and spluttering inside the auditorium. Three Palestinian films later, I was in line for My Blueberry Nights. And keeping in mind the most sensible lines I've ever heard on screen - this one is courtesy Bernardo Bertolucci - that the best way to watch films is up close, I wisely seated myself in the second row. I knew the enthusiastic first-benchers would be unseated to make way for the distinguished guests. So I found myself sitting right behind Rajit Kapoor and a few other Mumbai theatre glitterati.



And then...this woman comes up to give us an introduction to Wong Kar Wai. The fact that she said "Waang Kar Voy" for most of it was putting off enough. But then, she went on to give a synopsis of the film, which any true film freak would know is genocide when delivered to an audience of film freaks. Some people muttered and panicked. Others, like me, pretended there was water in their ears and began shaking their heads and poking around furiously, hoping not to hear anything more than a pleasant buzz.



When the old lady left, the projector room decided to take it from exactly where she'd left off. And so it happened that as soon as the first reel was through, the fourth came on. In a moment of panic, they moved on to the third, and then the fifth...and then, somewhere close to the end, which was predictable enough, to begin with. The highlight of the evening was a timid-looking woman of substantial proportions, who took up the mic. and said, "I apologise on behalf of the festival", at which the mastermind behind the festival, Neville Tuli, looked up with something like surprise. Then she said, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience...screening will begin shortly". The poor thing didn't even have the malicious note of the woman who says "The person you're trying to call...is busy" or the bored note of the woman who says "Your call is important to us...please stay on the line".


A few more screwups later, the lady made another appearance and looked ready to cry, and then went off, half-relieved, half-petrified after the Mumbai theatre glitterati in the first row warned, "don't say anything".

Finally, the movie done with, and the unintended trailer sequences having been viewed in context, it was time to go home. I crossed over and managed to park myself at the one place all autos seemed keen to avoid. I saw at least five people who had left the auditorium with me pack themselves into autos. Then, a moment came when an auto finally slowed down for me, and then I looked on, as, in slow motion, a remarkably chivalrous indivual intercepted it before I could get in.

So, an hour and a half later, drenched in the rain, I got out at my place, to find the landlords had given up on all prospects of my return and locked the gate. At that moment, I knew I could never think of anythig containing blueberry as comfort food ever again.

Beeti Na Beetai Raina: Forgotten Stars, Unforgettable Songs

Recently, Mad Momma came up with an uncharacteristic post on songs that became massive hits despite non-entity actors and/or flop movies. Needless to add, she got 711 comments on her post. So, taking the discussion forward, I thought of adding some favourite songs of mine - which meet the criteria defined above. However, knowing my tendency to ramble, there is fair possibility that this post might degenerate into a reminiscing post about songs I liked, but ones that did not become adequately successful…
Confession: I have not read the comments so there are bound to be many repeats. Anybody who has read all the comments are advised to stay away!

According to me, Neele neele ambar par (from the film, Kalakaar) is the biggest hit from a flop film. Kunal Goswami's turn as a guitar-toting singing sensation did not make any impact as he behaved like his father in Kranti (which I am told, was Kunal’s first movie as a child star). I vaguely recall the song being sung in a college-picnic / bonfire kind of setting in which Sridevi falls in love with Kishore Kumar's voice and had contend with Kunal's wooden looks.

Maula mere maula from the UFO called Anwar has suddenly emerged as a strong contender for the above title. A lovely song in the sufi style, it had taken over all the FM channels in the last few months while its film had a blue-faced Krishna-type character gracing some posters, which I saw in multiplexes. The film also apparently released but sank without such a lack of trace that it is ranked alongside Atlantis and Hoffa among the greatest disappearances in world history. On the other hand, Shootout at Lokhandwala with Ganpat did not vanish as cleanly.

Sili hawa chhoo gayee from Libaas made it to the top of every countdown show in town despite having two major disadvantages. One, it had no jhankaar beats. Two, the song was filmed on Shabana Azmi and Raj Babbar, who are not exactly teeny-bopper favourites. They are not quite pushovers either but in the context of Divya Bharti in the days of Superhit Muqabla, they were quite unknown. Come to think of it, the film never flopped because it never found a theatrical release! Probably the last film of the RD-Gulzar combine, the music had everything except for distribution.

Ajay Devgan and Sonali Bendre are not exactly flop stars though they have acted in innumerable flop films. One of their biggest flops is undoubtedly Diljale. Produced and directed by Harry Baweja (of Love Story 2050 fame), this came on the back of a reasonable hit called Dilwale, causing Nilendu and me to speculate if Mr Baweja is on a Dil**le series. Dilwale starred Ajay Devgan, Sunil Shetty and Raveena Tandon among others and is famous for a romance brewing between Ajay and Raveena on its sets because of which Raveena Tandon and Karisma Kapoor had a showdown in Bombay airport causing Ajay to dump them both and hook up with Kajol while Raveena Tandon went ahead with Akshay Kumar. Damn, my asides are longer than my main points! Anyway, Diljale had one song (a moderate hit, picturised on Ajay Devgan) which was played all over but I have forgotten by now. It had an even better song - Kisse poochhoo us ladki ka naam - picturised on Parmeet Sethi, which was never played on the music channels because he was a non-entity. Anu Malik redeemed himself of his early 90's crap with this one song, lovingly written by Javed Akhtar.

Another example of a hit song from a flop film needs unravelling of a very dark chapter from my past. In college, I hung around the fringes of the Calcutta quizzing circuit, which is unquestionably the toughest (and also, the most sarcastic!) circuit of the country. But in a strange snobbery, the Bollywood questions asked in Calcutta quizzes were terribly easy because it was still unfashionable for the Bangali bhadralok to admit that he derived pleasure from Govinda's pelvis... okay, that sounded a little odd but you know what I mean, right? In one such quiz, they played the music video (starring Anupama Verma) Boom Boom and asked us to name the original film the song was from. The other participants - who were used to questions like 'what is the full form of DDLJ' - froze. My team relaxed because they knew I would get it. Nilendu was in the audience and again wondered all is not well with the world. I, of course, forgot the name of the Kumar Gaurav starrer (of which Nilendu owned a LP record in a dog-eared cover). It was from a movie called Star and my inability to answer that caused me more embarrassment that my flunking Engineering Mechanics in the first semester! As a footnote, one may add that most (if not all) of Kumar Gaurav’s songs can feature in hit-gaana-flop-hero list. He acted in a reasonable large body of musically competent but cinematically crap films.

How many of you have heard / remembered a film called Don II? However, most of you would remember the Hawa Hawa (e hawa, khushboo luta de) song from the album, performed by one Mr Hassan Jehangir who was supposed to be a Pakistani star. The album had some eight or ten songs, all of which were quite good and some of them were runaway hits, despite the rather poor quality of recording. Enthused by the success of his album, Hassan landed up in India and made a film (which looked worse than a music video) to fit in all his songs and dreamt of having an affair with Raveen Tandon but all his fans vanished in a puff of smoke the moment they say his hennaed hair and pot-bellied figure! No, the film never released. In fact, I don’t even know if the full film ever got made.
But then, it is probably unfair to put Hassan Jahangir’s shoddy music video as a film. Nevertheless, in the same breath of music videos, one must fit in a quick nod to Altaf Raja – who sold a platinum disc of platinum discs with his song – Tum toh thehre pardesi, saath kya nibhaoge / Subah pehli gaaaaaaadi se, ghar ko laut jaogaaaayyyy. His success was so stupendously mind-blowing that it was Mithun Chakraborty – and not multiplex darlings like Karan Johar – who offered him a guest appearance in one of his films. I stand ashamed before GreatBong and his cohorts as I completely fail to remember the name of the film which has the landmark song – “Thoda intezar ka mazaa lijiye…”

At one point in the early 1990's, the most powerful man in Bollywood was not Amitabh Bachchan, it was not Yash Chopra, it was Gulshan Kumar. The T-Series baron - with a little bit of help from Nadeem-Shravan, Kumar Sanu and Anuradh Paudwal - churned out hit album after hit album, clocking massive sales of the tapes irrespective of the movie's box office fate. But as Hindi film villains keep on saying, "Har insaan ki koi kamzori hoti hain...", Gulshan had a brother called Krishan who had ambitions to become a film star. Among his assets was an ability to wear heavy leather jackets in summer (including beach scenes), extremely bushy & expressive eyebrows and of course, his brother's undying love. Armed with this, he acted in a series of devastating flops (which would have sunk many a lesser producer but not Gulshan!), almost all of which had decent soundtracks. Particularly nice is the title song from the film Aaja Meri Jaan (which was a teen-romance-murder-mystery on the lines of Khiladi), which also starred his eventual wife - Tanya Singh. The wound of the posters - "Starring Dashing Krishan Kumar and Cute Tanya" - on my memory is still raw. Another movie of his (with another hit-but-hated song Achha sila diya tune mere pyaar ka / yaar ne hi loot liya ghar yaar ka) was called Bewafa Sanam (not to be mistaken with Sanam Bewafa, starring Salman Khan and Roshni) - in which his best friend framed him, got him jailed and married his childhood sweetheart. Something like what Nadeem did to Gulshan Kumar.

At this point of time, it would be advisable to take a couple of steps backward and land in the 50-60’s. For example, Pradip Kumar Batabyal is a total non-entity as far as my wife and sister are concerned, his film Taj Mahal is a flop in their eyes but even they cannot deny the power of the brilliant Jo wada kiya wo toh nibhana padega. Just as people would be hard-pressed to remember the stars of Saraswati Chandra (which was a moderate success, at best) but Retro Café on Radio City (9 PM, weeknights) would have folded up long time back if they were not allowed to play Chandan sa badan, chanchal chitwan.
Does Joy Mukherjee qualify as a non-entity? A lot of youngsters would probably agree but I would join my mother in protesting very strongly as the 1960's scion of the Mukherjee family was a big star and a string of hits like Love in Tokyo, Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon and most importantly, Shagird.

So, I would leave the discussion here. Ever since I saw an Indian Idol contestant (incidentally, a Bengali) whose life’s ambition was to meet Aftab Shivdasani and Nauheed Cyrusi, I realized that it is futile to classify success and failure according to conventional wisdom.
After all, Pran singing Yaari hain imaan mera along with a non-entity hero in Zanjeer could well have been part of this list.

The Superstar of Many Faces

(Published in Matinee, The New Indian Express, dated 13th July, 2008)

"Ammaavum neeye, Appaavum neeye…"

The deep-set, sad eyes, the innocent upturned face and the resigned mouth of the little boy who sang the song in Kalaththoor Kannamma would have aroused the maternal instincts of the most masculine-minded women. Forty-eight years later, the same deep-set eyes have portrayed every emotion in the book, the tiny little body has gone through a series of transformations, the tuft of hair has seen every style from a tonsure to a waist-length Rasta, and the boy who warmed the hearts of mothers had grown into the man who stirs audiences across the globe. Seven of his films have been in the running for Oscar nomination, he has received civilian honours and doctorates, he is a singer, dancer, actor, director, writer…one would think he had done everything there was to do in film. And then he comes up with something new – a film that could have been a swansong if one were not so sure Kamal Haasan will not – because he cannot – leave cinema till his last breath. Kamal Haasan appeared in ten avathaarams in what could be described as Navaraathiri-meets-Sivaji. But his career has spanned much more than ten avathaarams – complete with a different consort for each one.

Some of Kamal's performances have stood out even amongst each other, and each one of those seems to have been the flagship of a phase in his career. The brooding intensity and inherent defiance in movies like Apoorva Raagangal and Unnaal Mudiyum Thambi went on to ripen to maturity in Naayagan. But these three performances were separated by close to a decade each. The Prasanna of Apoorva Raagangal gave way to the trusting, helpless characters he played in movies like Moondru Mudichu and Padhinaaru Vayadhiniley. He then moved on to comedy, as Mani in Meendum Kokila. Decades later, Kamal would revisit these two genres and bring them together beautifully, intertwining pathos and hilarity as the title character of Tenali and Pammal K Sambandam, as Avinashi in Mumbai Express and even in and as Vasool Raja, MBBS.

Then, Kamal went on to play the psychologically disturbed lead character of Sigappu Rojaakkal, where you couldn't decide whether you loved him, feared him or despised him. As he grew as an actor, he would weave together the dangerously disturbed and the endearingly innocent in Guna, and later, in Aalavandhaan – daring roles that most actors would have hesitated to take on in the hero-driven Indian film industries, for fear of what they might do to their "image". But be it the idealistic lone intellectual fighting society (to eventually lose) that he experimented with in Varumayin Niram Sigappu, Punnagai Mannan and Salangai Oli, the swashbuckling daredevil in Guru and Vikram, the steadfast, upright fiery know-it-all of Sattam, the sensitive, troubled character who swings between avuncular and amorous leanings in Moondram Pirai or the heartrendingly delicate visually impaired character of Raja Paarvai, Kamal Haasan barely ever allowed the wax to settle around his image before breaking out of it. He even temporarily turned into the Mithun Chakraborty of Tamil cinema, with a trail of movies like Simla Special and Sakalakalaa Vallaban ­– a phase he jokingly thanked Mohan of "Ilaya Nila…" fame for helping him out of. In a television interview, Kamal Haasan once said, "if Mohan had not gabbed the mic. I was holding in my hand, you probably would never have seen a Velunayakan or Nallasivam."

Nayagan was followed soon enough by a series of transformation stories like Devar Magan and Mahanadhi, which would be capped years later by what is arguably Kamal Haasan's best performance of all – Anbe Sivam. But even as the heaviness of these roles was beginning to weigh down his fans, he churned out the laugh-a-minute Sathileelaavathi, where the bumbling Dr. Sakthivel and his hysteria-prone wife Palani played the perfect foil to the three protagonists of a marriage on the verge of breakdown. And then, out of the blue, came Indian –a movie that made you laugh, cry and sit up straight.

What did Kamal Haasan have left to do? Why, the thing the man he describes as the person he relates most to – Dustin Hoffman – had done a while earlier…play a woman! And very few women could have brought the proverbial 'Mylapore Mami' to life the way Kamal in and as Avvai Shanmugi did…to the extent one felt rather embarrassed when he stripped off his saree. Then, as if to reassert his masculinity, came Hey Ram – the role of an individual at war with an institution – which he would reprise in and as Virumandi, as Rangaraja Nambi in Dasavatharam, and (hopefully) in and as Marudhanayagam.

The dexterity with which Kamal switches between the chaste Brahmin Tamil and the crude Madras Tamil, even while exploring the dialects of distinct corners of the state, are only matched by the variety of roles he can handle simultaneously. We've had glimpses of his penchant for playing multiple characters before. Movies like Yenakkul Oruvan, Kalyanaraman, Punnagai Mannan, Indrudu Chandrudu, Apoorva Sagodhirargal and – possibly the most successful of them all as far as individual character definition goes – Michael Madhana Kamarajan have left us in no doubt of this little indulgence. So when his latest offering was first announced, the hype began to build up. For years, fans, critics and sceptics wondered what they would see…and when they finally did see it, many were left disappointed. Some have shaken their heads at the makeup for certain roles, while others have found holes in the plot.

But Dasavatharam is not the typical Kamal Haasan movie – it is not meant to probe your mind and alter the way you think; it is not meant to carry a subversive atheistic argument; it is not meant to make you marvel at the subtle nuances of performance. It is a stage set for a theatrical act, stretched to gigantic scale. It is a display of what a man whose larger-than-life image has never superseded the characters he plays, can do when given the reins; it is an exhibition of talent without restraint; it is a first in Kamal Haasan's acting career in that he is openly bigger than the film. Dasavatharam is a hero's treat for his fans – for the ones who have secretly longed to see their man pulling off impossible stunts and claiming his share of the screen by scorching it with his presence; for the ones who have wondered what Brand Kamal Haasan will be. 

And Dasavatharam is perhaps the most definitive definition of Brand Kamal Haasan – a study in metamorphosis…a journey which began with the sturdy little steps of Kannamma's son, turning into the jaunty saunter of Prasanna, into the crippling limp of Chappaani, into the hesitant curiosity of Mani, into the bell-bottomed foot tapping of Sakalakalaa Vallaban, into the kurta-clad purist dancing fervour of Balakrishna, into the languid swagger of Vikram, into the splayed-footed walk of Chaplin Chellappa, into the determined march of Velunayagan, into the surefooted gambolling of Guna, into the demure grace of Avvai Shanmugi, into the stride of Saket Ram, into the dragging limp of Nallasivam, into the charge (one would hope) of Marudhanayagam.

It's Payback Time, and I'm Here to Collect

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, on 12th July, 2008)

Instinct tells me the man who came up with the adage "Neither a lender nor a borrower be" was either my soul mate or the real Nostradamus. I was once shocked to hear an acquaintance, who had fallen out with a friend because his friend expected him to return money, say, "dude, friends are not supposed to return money! It doesn't work that way! If he comes to Madras and is completely broke, I'll sponsor him and not expect him to pay back. That's how I work. I'm not going to return his money because friends don't return money. I get offended when friends offer to pay me back!"

I'm not too sure how many fans this particular Theory of Friendship has. But what I do know is that there are few things that can match the panic or embarrassment of asking for money back. And we always make excuses while asking if someone can return our money. Things like:

"Hey, I'm broke and I'm feeling too lazy to go to the ATM. Can you return my money today?"

"My ATM card got swallowed by the machine, and I really need to buy a microwave today because my cylinder is empty, so I can't heat things on the stove…"

"My salary's been held up, so I need money. Can you repay me now?"

"Hey, my wallet got flicked by some pickpocket…uhhh...you think you can pay me back that six grand you borrowed?"

"Uhh…hi…I need to go to the dentist and he doesn't accept cheques or cards."

"I'm planning to transfer my funds into an FD, so I really need some loose cash…"

"I got stopped by the police and I had to pay five grand, man! Now I'm totally broke…think you could repay me now? I'd really appreciate it coz…you know…I had to pay the police five grand…and uhh…now I'm broke…"

And the borrower always sounds a wee bit offended, or maintains a stoic silence that makes you repeat your see-through attempt at extortion. I've known this person who replied to one of my excuses from the above list, saying something like, "ey, today's my off, ya! I don't want to go to the ATM either!" This other guy, who was running an amateur theatre company with mainly volunteers, shrugged when I asked about being reimbursed for hiring costumes for a play, saying, "hey, the financial year is over…so I can't make reimbursements."

So sometimes, you resort to this habit of being "broke" whenever you hang out with that person, so you get your money back by cancelling off your debt to him or her against his or her debt to you. And you always end up feeling guilty, almost like you feel compelled to apologise when someone who owes you an apology doesn't, just so someone would have said the word "sorry".

My most memorable experience with trying to claim back money, though, was with an ex-boyfriend who arrived in Delhi completely broke. Not only did I have to pay for everything we ate or watched, but had to lend him enough to make it back home. And after not being repaid for three months or so, I had this brainwave. Every conversation for the next couple of weeks revolved around friends of mine who owed me money, and how I hated people who completely forgot they owed money…but this was no mean opponent. Up to the task, he chatted gloomily about how he went through exactly the same thing, and echoed my emotions and then swung the subject within the admittedly broad arena of friends.

So Plan B came in. Operation Reclaim was going rather well, as I staunchly refrained from offering to dutch for the next few weeks. I was close to cancelling out the money he owed me when, finally, at a restaurant, he pushed the bill towards me.

I looked at him enquiringly.

"For a woman who claims to be independent," he reasoned, with a smile, "don't you think it's about time you started repaying me?"

Return of the Prodigal: 20 Questions on Bollywood

It has been a really long time since I wrote a proper Bollywood post. Did take a few short singles but they were hardly anywhere near a decent innings. Elsewhere, Nilendu shut down his blog as well. It is rather ironic that with three top stars blogging, there’s nothing on Bollywood worth reading on the ‘net!

I should really be doing yet another 2000-word essay on a pet topic – which would be something like therapy. But that would take some time. Instead, this post is a quickie quiz on Bollywood. Digging into the cobwebbed recesses of my hard drive, I scrounged out 20 Questions. And I broke them up into two parts.
Part I needs a basic amount of Bolly gyan and you can work out the answers from common sense. Which means you should get all the answers (or come very close) if you have watched a reasonable clutch of movies and have a half-decent memory.
Part II, obviously, needs you to be a little more devoted.

Answers can be mailed to me (address on my profile page). You can even post them in the comments if you are the showing-off type. And if you are Udayan, you can just write a rude comment.
Did you ask ‘prizes’? Hell – people like you should be doing things for the challenge and not the money!

PART I
1. In the film Sholay, how many times was the coin tossed?
2. In the film Chashme Baddoor, what brand of detergent was Deepti Naval selling when she came to Farooq Shaikh’s flat?
3. Between which two stations did Amol Palekar and Tina Munim travel on a Mumbai local in the film Baaton Baaton Mein?
4. Which sibling duo sang the children’s version of the song ‘Kitni hain pyaari pyaari dosti hamaari’ from the film Parinda?
5. In the climactic cycle race of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, which school came third?
6. In the film Utsav, why was Amjad Khan’s character constantly peeping into rooms of prostitutes?
7. Which Assistant Director is common to the movies Swades, Saathiya, Lagaan and Monsoon Wedding?
8. Which film ends with the line – ‘Jai Dharmendra’?
9. Which star made his debut as a child artiste in the film Ek Baar Phir?
10. With what was the sound effect of fluttering pigeons’ wings created on screen for the film Parinda?

PART II
1. Which brand of biscuit did Gabbar Singh endorse after the success of Sholay?
2. What is common to Kabhi Kabhie, Anand, Manzil, Baghban – apart from being Amitabh Bachchan films?
3. In which landmark film was Anupam Kher supposed to debut before his part got edited out?
4. Who are Ashok Banjara, Gibreel Farishta and Akshay Arora?
5. In the song Ruk jaa o jaanewaali ruk jaa from the film Kanhaiya (starring Raj Kapoor), who is the jaanewaali?
6. In the film Yeh Vaada Raha, Jaya Bhaduri dubbed the voices of Poonam Dhillon and Tina Munim. Why was the dubbing required?
7. When the heroes enter the AIR Building in Rang De Basanti, what is the name of the on-air programme?
8. In which film does Amitabh Bachchan share his name with Javed Akhtar’s father?
9. Which is the only film till date in which Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan appear together?
10. Name two actors who have won the Booker Prize in Hindi films.

I thought its time I moved ahead a little. So, the first four paragraphs are 56 (!) words each. The questions add up to 336 (56 x 6) words, making a total of 560 words.

Overwhelming response – though I must admit I should have barred Nilendu from participating because not only did he give most of the answers away, he even sneered at some of the easy questions, deliberately did not answer some of the even easier ones and hijacked the quiz mid-way to explain answers. But then, I should have known better!

Anyways, here are the answers.

PART I
1. The easiest question did not get a single correct answer. All you had to do was to replay the film in your mind. The coin was tossed four times. One, for taking the injured Thakur to the hospital. Two, when the coin landed on its side (during the Yeh Dosti song). Three, for deciding to go to Ramgarh. Four, for deciding who fights the dacoits.
2. This turned out to be the easiest. Everybody remembered Deepti Naval was called Miss Chamko for some time during the film!
3. At no point is it mentioned in the film but the landmarks clearly indicate Bandra and Churchgate (not Marine Lines!).
4. Again, widely answered. I made it easy by mentioning that song was sung by siblings and everybody knows only Shan(tanu) and Sagarika Mukherjee.
5. Surprisingly, zero correct answers. Sanjaylal Sharma of Model School came first. Rajput came second. That leaves two other participating schools – yellow-jerseyed Xavier’s and black-jerseyed Lawrence. The guy behind the first two was wearing a black jersey.
6. This becomes a cake walk if you know the character played by Amjad Khan – Vatsyayana. Obviously, he was doing research for a book which he wanted to call Kama Sutra.
7. Again, everybody answered correctly with the most famous AD in Bollywood – Kiran Rao.
8. Which movie do you think projects Dharam as the biggest hero? Dharamveer, right? But in which film is he projected as a hero and his name is Dharmendra. The film is Guddi – where he plays the object of Jaya Bhaduri’s adulation and saves the day with a superstar-with-a-heart-of-gold act.
9. Ek Baar Phir had only one future star connection. The lead actor was one Suresh Oberoi, whose son Viveik was hanging around the sets. And he’s the one!
10. Fluttering of wings can be equated with only one thing. But you need to be RD Burman to think of that. He got a whole bunch of telephone directories and flipped through their pages to overwhelm the audience with pigeon flutterings. And this was long before Dolby and surround sound. And no – it’s NOT Nana Patekar’s anything.

PART II
1. I wanted the brand (which Roger Rabbit provided – Britannia Glucose). Actress Maya Alagh contacted Amjad on the behalf of her husband, Sunil – who later went on to become the CEO of the company. I have seen the actual ad (“Gabbar Singh ki asli pasand”) on the back cover of Indrajal Comics.
2. Surprisingly, nobody got this correct though people came close. These films are also names of books written by Amitabh in various films. The last 3 are from the eponymous films but Manzil was a book written by him in the film Ek Nazar (I think).
3. The film was Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. And the character’s name was supposed to be Disco Killer.
4. These are Bollywood characters (loosely based on Amitabh Bachchan) by created by Indo-Anglian authors – Shashi Tharoor (for Show Business), Salman Rushdie (for The Satanic Verses) and Shobha De (for Starry Nights). Everybody got the connection and also thought it to be too easy to name the novels they are from.
@ Wanderlust: If Mr Tharoor says that a Bollywood superstar who has an affair with a co-star, a fatal accident on the sets and a tryst with politics is not Amitabh Bachchan, then I would have to take it with a pinch of salt. And no, there are no fleeting references to Amitabh in the novel!
5. It is a bottle of liquor, which the drunkard Raj Kapoor follows down a slope.
6. In the film, Rishi Kapoor’s girlfriend Poonam has an accident and her disfigured face is restored by plastic surgery and she becomes Tina. So, both the heroines played the same character – who had to have the same voice! And the voice was that of Jaya Bhaduri. And why did either of them not dub for the other? Because it would have created ego clashes, which could have been resolved only by having a ‘senior’ doing the dubbing.
7. Real-life VJ Cyrus Sahukar was on air with the show – Raat Baaki Baat Baaki – when the gang hijacked the building.
8. Jaa Nissar Akhtar – Andha Kanoon
9. The operative word was together. SRK and Aamir appear in Pehla Nasha in different scenes. If you know Aamir Khan played one of the kid brothers in the film Yaadon Ki Baraat and remember that Shah Rukh was watching the same film in Swades, then you would have probably noticed the fleeting moment when both appear in the same frame. It is the only time. Yet. For obvious reasons, this is my favourite question.
10. Amitabh Bachchan in Baghban and Sanjay Dutt in Shabd are the lucky two! Though I must admit that I was stumped by the ‘Anon’ who came up with Vatsal Seth of Nanhe Jaisalmer.
As for Arundhati Roy, she acted in Massey Sahib and Annie – both of which were directed by her husband, Pradeep Kishen – now better known for writing a book on the trees of Delhi. She also wrote the screenplay for Annie (a genuinely funny script, though I have not seen the film) and Electric Moon, yet another Pradeep Kishen venture.

A business associate just came to wish me goodbye since she is leaving her job. Her future plans include "taking a break, travelling to Spain and Greece before joining a PE firm in Boston in October".

Waaaaahhhh - I want to be like her when I grow up!

Before this, my childhood ambition (apart from James Bond) was him. Because when I asked him what his exact job was, he said, "I run the prop credit trading book for the bank in India where I invest in liquid corporate debt paper and securitise illiquid corporate debt with a trading view based on interest rate movements and credit spreads." And to think, I sell newspapers!

Pappu-lar Culture!

Which is the most common Hindi first name? Vijay? Rahul? Akash? Rohit? Siddharth? Which is most common for girls? Pooja? Neha? Divya? And what about nicknames? Raju? Lallu? Happy? Lucky? Or is it...

Pappu: What do you call a suave, widely travelled, regally indolent, handsome (though with slightly thinning hair) young man? In college, we pondered this question as the aforementioned person was our classmate? The initial consensus was to nickname him Pop J, alluding to the fact he was Junior (J) version of the Jesuit fathers (Pops) in the institute. But that would have meant aggravating his already international demeanour. So, his moniker was Indianised and suitably down-marketed to PAPPU! This humble name found immediate and widespread acceptance among all and his real name is only used by his clients and (hopefully) his wife. A splinter group even calls him Faffu!

Pappu-Munni: This is the standard sibling name in Hindi cinema. Starting with Don, all nephews and nieces of heroes are traditionally called Pappu and Munni. Some offbeat filmmakers have also named sibling characters as Raju-Munni but they are clearly in a minority. For those who feel like scoffing at the over-simplification of names, let me ask if they would prefer to name siblings Pururava and Vastavikata. Yes, these are real names. And that's what Raj Kumar's children are called.

Pappu Pager: A dangerous kingpin of the Bombay underworld, Munnu Mobile's elder brother made an appearance in Deewana Mastana. Probably David Dhawan's funniest movie, this had Anil Kapoor and Govinda pitting their wits against the 'connected' dons as well as each other! In a fantastic cameo by Satish Kaushik, Pappu Pager remains one of the more durable cult characters in Hindi cinema. Aficionados fondly remember him along with other stalwarts like Gogo and Teja.

Pappu pass ho gaya: Probably the last ad line to move into popular lexicon, Cadbury's celebratory slogan preceded the more durable Kuch meetha ho jaaye but college campuses remember Pappu better. Amitabh Bachchan turned up in the first ad as a canteen-wallah, quite inexplicably in his Devraj 'Black' Sahai get-up. In the second, he was brokering a love story between a wimp and Raima Sen. The line was popular enough for someone to make a film with it as a title.

Pappu Can't Dance: The latest Pappu to hit the silver screen is (probably) Aamir Khan's nephew in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. I inserted the 'probably' because in an answer to the question - "Who is Pappu?", Aamir said, "Salman Khan!" And if you have heard the lyrics, it is unbelievably accurate. Pappu ki gaadi tez hain / Pappu kudiyon mein craze hain / Pappu ki aankhen light blue / Pappu dikhta angrez hain. Actually, if you ask me, the song describes my son also pretty well especially since the first lines of the song include the words - muscular, popular, spectacular and bachelor!

Abbe - aur koi Pappu hain kya?