The Bong Connection OR why Bengali music is still the best

WARNING: WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF BENGALI ESSENTIAL. 
NON-BONGS, PLEASE ACCEPT THE HYPOTHESIS AND WAIT FOR MY NEXT POST ON  HRISHIKESH MUKHERJEE!

A few months back, I wrote a post on my favourite music videos. The songs were mostly Indipop and I consciously tried to avoid remixes (though one crept in).
In the intervening period, I ended up listening to a lot of Bengali music - right from the 1950s till recent times. My aunt and cousins kept me reasonably up-to-date on the latest albums and some of the better films. I visited Calcutta more frequently than I would have liked. I spent more time on YouTube than what my wife would have liked. Net result, I managed to refresh most of my memories and felt a lot better.

Revisiting my favourite videos list (most of which have music I just adore), I realised how uni-dimensional the topics are.
Except for Mile sur, which was a patriotic number and Bulla ki jaana, which was a philo-Sufi-cal (ha ha!) number, ALL the remaining songs were in the broad romantic domain. There is a lot of experimentation around musical style, orchestration and voice but essentially, non-film Hindi music (even without the limitations of having to adhere to a film's structure) is predominantly - dare I say, exclusively - romantic.

On the other hand, Bengali music of recent times (by which I mean about two decades - from around the time I started college) has explored such a wealth of topics that it takes your breath away. Musicians and bands - almost without exception - have taken up issues, poked fun, got naughty, paid tributes, evoked nostalgia and yes, written love songs as well. And in the process, they made Bengali music far richer.
For a very long time, Bengali music was totally dependent on one man's output. While that output still remains the touchstone of versatility and style, it is quite heartening to see that people have dared to go beyond. Way beyond.

So while Hindi music today is still drowning in the blue lakes of the lover's eyes or drinking the ambrosia of her lips, Bengali music is thinking about tomorrow.
To prove my point, I have taken five of the most popular artistes / bands and a few of their songs.   The list below is neither exhaustive nor representative. They are a random selection of songs around a variety of themes (and ones which I could dig out videos for).
With that disclaimer, let me step back and present the collection. 

Nachiketa
I never quite liked Nachiketa when he was at his peak, probably because he had to play second fiddle to more talented contemporaries. One complaint against him was that he was too changra (loosely, immature!) but the hummability of his songs were never in doubt. And after so many years, neither is his durability.  
But to present how different even love songs can be, I choose three out-and-out romantic songs from his list.
His first major hit (probably from his first album) was a song called Neelanjana (ignore the silly slideshow) which was dedicated to his first love - a schoolgirl in red ribbons, white socks and blue skirt. The romance is understated and details of the various meeting scenes are very well-etched.
The second is a song called Tumi ashbey bolei (Because you'll come), which would have been yet another love song if not for the two lines - Tumi ashbey bolei amar dwidhara uttor khnuje paeni / Tumi ashbey bolei deshta ekhono Gujarat hoye jaeni.
The third one is not merely a song but a wonderful story. It is called Pacemaker and about a 36-year old man in love with a 19-year old college girl. I think it would make a very cool film, if it hasn't been made already.  

Chandrabindoo
This is a band - one of the many who came up in a bumper crop - I have a soft corner for because the individual members were growing, jamming, smoking in & around my college when I was there.  
And hence, their huge hit - Sweetheart - is one I like for more reasons than one. For starters, this song was first performed in our college fest. And, I have seen so many stories like this happen! By the way, this is a 'romantic' song as well. Except one which ends with - E amaar keu noi, pishtuto bhai hoi... (Oh - he is nobody, probably a second cousin.)
Their speciality is satire.
On crazy beauty tips - Twaker jotno nin (Take care of your skin).
On modern love stories - Geetgovindam (which opens with Tomakey dekhabo Niagra, tomakey shekhabo Viagra - I will show you Niagra, I will teach you Viagra).
On things we fear - Juju.
And on disciplinarian English-medium schools (which maybe a prescient take on La Martiniere) - Bathroom.

Mohiner Ghoraguli
A group which formed in the mid-1970s, disbanded and was then revived by some of its original and some new members in the 1990s, deserves a post of its own.
Instead of giving their Twitterified history, I will - for the benefit of the non-Bongs - link their song on increasing personal distances. Prithibi ta aaj chhoto hotey hotey, satellite aar cable-er haatey drawing room-ey rakha boka baksho-tey bandi / Bhebe dekhecho ki tararao joto alokborsho durey, tumi aar aami jai kromey kromey shorey. (As the world is shrinking to get trapped in the box in the drawing room, you and I are growing light-years apart like the stars in the sky)
But why is it so familiar? Because Mahesh Bhatt is better at marketing than Gautam Chatterjee.



Anjan Dutta
Anjan Dutta's best known number is a love song - in which the girl never speaks. She sobs on the phone when her lover asks if she will marry him. The only explanation of this sob was that she had reneged on her promise and married a better-settled alternative. When I heard it now, I wondered why? Because she may well have cried out of relief, now that her lover has a job! But then, happy endings are so un-cool!
One of my favourites is Raja Ray - the handsome & confident struggler in the Tollygunge film industry (affectionately - and aptly - called Tollywood). The harassment of the junior artiste is brilliantly sketched in two lines - Keu boley gnof rakho, keu shudhu boley dyakho, keu boley achha dnarao / Jonmodiner sceney hero-r pechhoney, out of focus-ey kothao. (Keep a mouche, the assistant says. Look here, says the other. Okay, let me see - says yet another - if I can fit you in the birthday scene, behind the hero somewhere in the crowd.)
His other songs include Haripada - about aliens.  
Darjeeling - on hill station nostalgia.
Calcium - on the pressures of growing up, predating Taare Zameen Par by 15 years.
And yes, a love story - about the Bengali boy who likes Elvis Presley and loves an Anglo-Indian girl, Mary Ann. 

Suman Chatterjee
As I had written before, Suman will be the last named in this list since he was the pioneer of this movement that brought a new variety to Bengali music. An extremely political singer, Suman is now a Trinamool Congress MP (though he threatens to resign every now and then).
And without getting into his biggest hit, I can pick the time he did a fantastic reprise of Blowin' in the wind.
When he evoked nostalgia for all the first things we did in our beloved city.
Sometimes he based his songs on true stories of government apathy (punctuated with commentary).
And almost always, he touched a chord. Like this song, Haal chherona bondhu (Don't give up, my friend), which I did not like when I heard it in college. But now - nearing 40 - I find a resonance with the lines which go, "Amaro toh boyosh holo, raat biretey kashi / Kashir domok thamley kintu bnachtey bhalobashi."
Brilliant!

To end, I will put forward a song which is a wonderful mix of Bengali and Hindi - composed by Neel Dutt, Anjan Dutt's son and performed by Shantanu Mukherjee.
Sujan majhi re is yet another wonderful addition to the long list of boat songs composed by those two geniuses with Bong connections.   
And yes, it is from a film called The Bong Connection.

Phoolon Ka, Taaron Ka: Brothers and Sisters of Bollywood

Brother and sisters in Hindi cinema should be easiest to write about since they appeared in every second film (till the 1990s) and a sister's marriage or her brutal murder was the chief reason for docile, village bumpkins to become vigilantes.
Incidentally, it is always bhai ki padhaai and behen ki shaadi. Never the other way round!

But in order to keep my Raksha Bandhan post to acceptable limits, I have decided that I will write only about siblings who remain alive till the end of the movie (or nearly, till the end). No sacrificial deaths allowed midway.
I have also cheated a couple of times but then its my rule and my blog. Hmmph!

The most high-powered brother-sister duo in Bollywood has to be the Aishwarya Rai - Shahrukh Khan pairing in Josh. As Max and Shelley leading the Eagle gang in Goa, Ash and SRK were not only siblings but supposedly twins as well! Despite putting up a decent show as siblings with typical over-protectiveness, rivalry and affection in equal measure, they could not save the film from sinking and thus, putting an end to casting to top stars as siblings.

Talking of top stars as siblings, Andhaa Kanoon paired Hema Malini as Rajinikanth's elder sister - putting a distaff twist to the usual Bolly formula of a righteous outlaw and his dutiful blood-relative. However, what son Amitabh did to the father in Aakhri Raasta and Shashi Kapoor did to his brother Amitabh in Deewaar was not replicated in this film. Hema Malini did everything to catch her brother killing their father's killer (including wearing a havaldar's cap at a jaunty angle) but the now-red-eyed-now-white-eyed Rajini escaped to the accompaniment of tossed cigarettes and flaring nostrils.

All people remember of Trishul are the Three Faces of Man - Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor - and all they speculate is if the rivalry between two construction tycoons is inspired by real life. What they forget is that Poonam Dhillon - fresh from the success of Noorie - was Shashi Kapoor's sister (and Amitabh's step-sister). She was the archetypal spoilt kid sister - who sang inane songs (Gapoochi gapoochi gum gum), drove Merc convertibles recklessly and fell in love with short men in yellow pullovers! Her marriage - or whatever was left of it - ultimately formed the climax of the film.

I have written some 3000 words on the film and I will not dwell more on it.
All those who are jumping up to point out that Smita Patil died midway through Dance Dance, I would request them to show me a film that has a more rocking bro-sis dance sequence and I will replace it.

Okay, might as well take the bull by the horns, bite the bullet and slip in the second deviation from my rule.
In Fiza, Hrithik Roshan died. BUT, in the last scene. And not in a sacrifical my-sister-will-avenge-my-rapists kind of way. The film had to be included because a sister's quest for a missing brother is an unusual enough storyline. Add to that the complexities of a Muslim youth's alienation post the Bombay riots of 1993, his allegiance to terror networks and Sushmita Sen's item song while his sister is looking for him - you have Fiza (which was spoofed by Cyrus Broacha as Pizza)!

While we are on the tragic track, I might as well slip in Shahenshah - where Amitabh Bachchan sang silly songs to annoy his sister (Supriya Pathak).
Incidentally, the song (which I cannot locate) was sort of a male-version of this hit number from Rekha's Khubsoorat.    
In Shahenshah, Vijayendra played an important (though minuscule, but this was an Amitabh film) piece before he was bumped off by Jay Kay's henchmen. Apart from being Supriya's love interest, he was the 'investigative reporter' (who solved the crime and hid the clues in railway station lockers so the hero could come in to recover it). In this case, he helpfully died from a knife which had his blood and Jay Kay's (Amrish Puri, if you didn't guess!) fingerprint. Talk about brother-in-lawly love!


To inject a vial of humour in the usual despondency of unmarried sisters, allow me to bring in 3 Idiots!
All the cliches of bimaar baap, lachaar maa aur kunwari behen were brought together in a triveni sangam of spoofs as Raju Rastogi's unwed sister popped up every now and then, threatening to be married off to Farhan Qureishi.
What could have been an insignificant track in the film turned out to be as laugh-worthy as any of the others.
IMDb helpfully informs us that Ms Rastogi's role was played by one Ms Chaitali Bose.

There is a general custom in India of tying a rakhi to neighbourhood goons, to ward their clumsy (and potentially dangerous) romantic advances. In fact - right now - we have a Lafangey Parindey contest running on radio channels in which Deepika Padukone is threatening to call all the losers bhaiyya! Basically, brothers of bombshells have thankless jobs.
And leading the list are Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar, who had the unenviable task of shepherding Katrina Kaif in Welcome. Apart from running the underworld and warding off international dons called RDX (Feroze Khan, quite naturally), that is.

In recent times, one of the funniest - and most natural - sibling relationships has been portrayed by Genelia D'Souza and Prateik Babbar in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. There were no maudlin moments, no promises to protect honours and no rakhis either. Instead, there was the beautiful wistfulness of a brother who saw his sister make other friends and a sister's quiet pride at her brother's talent.
And several kick-ass sibling banters. One of which stands out:
Genelia: Main thodi der ke liye baith jayoon?
Prateik: Tera sofa, tera bum - baith.

Which brings us to the film from the title. The one with The Brother-Sister Song, even though the filmi brother was old enough to be the sister's father in real life!
And the story was the mirror image of Fiza as the brother went looking for his sister, Jasbir, in the opium dens of hippy-infested Kathmandu. In between, there were at least four more hit songs (including the grown-up version of PKTK), estranged parents, a stolen deity, heroine Mumtaz and a girl called Janice who urged us to take a puff... Hare Rama Hare Krishna.

Have a great Rakhi, everyone!

The Day I Discovered I Was Illegitimate

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 21 August, 2010)

“Do you know we’re illegitimate?”



It was one of the times I’d loved to have had glasses I could adjust before I looked up at my little brother and asked the obvious question.


However, he was too thrilled at this scandalous twist to the boring inception of his hitherto mundane life to get annoyed.


“It’s like this, Akka,” he said, calmly, “Ma says she is not legally married.” He suddenly looked past me, mumbled “aiyo” and scuttled off to his room, looking much smaller than his eight inch height advantage over my father warranted.


“What’s all that nonsense?” my father demanded, “what have you been telling the children?”


“Is it true?” I looked at my mother severely, and she shrugged rather sheepishly. I sighed, “Ma, did you lose your marriage certificate or what? In the termite attack?”


“What marriage certificate?” she laughed.


“What’s all this nonsense? What are you telling her?” my father repeated, in a louder voice, “you know she’s going to go write about this somewhere.”


“Our marriage has been sanctified by agni sakshi,” my mother grinned, “and so many witnesses that my mouth began to ache with all the smiling and thanking. What are we going to do with a marriage certificate?”


“Ma, that idiot says we’re illegitimate,” my older younger brother walked in, and stopped when he saw my father, “oh, damn.” Then he decided the damage had been done anyway, and went on, “so if you get divorced, you’re not entitled to anything?” Then he paused. "Can you get divorced if you're not married?"


“Can you get me coffee first, please?” my father had sat down by now.


“Deepu, they’re so cool,” my little brother popped in again, sufficiently emboldened by the three-pronged attack, “we can tell everyone our parents are in a live-in relationship.”


“You come here, mister,” our father stood up, sending the boy running to my mother, who stands a foot shorter than he.


“Dei, you’ll spill the coffee!” my mother shouted out, her priorities right on track, as always, “a marriage certificate was unheard of in those days, unless you needed a visa to go abroad. It’s like your prenup.”


“Prenup?”my father asked, bewildered.


My mother made an impatient noise, “prenuptial agreement, pa.”


“That’s what they call it in your Desperate House, is it?”my father growled.


My little brother giggled. “They’re two different things. House is a doctor-based drama. Desperate Housewives is a…milf-based soap.” He high-fived my other brother.


“There’s a new milk-based soap?” my grandmother’s voice was always the first indication of her presence, “can you buy it? This Yardley really dries my skin.”


“The kizhams in our family are way too progressive,” the older of my brothers muttered, as the other one groaned.


“Whom are you calling old?” my grandmother demanded, “you know, our tenant thought your mother and I are sisters!”


“That’s an insult to Amma, not a compliment to you,” my brother said.


“Did you say milk-based or milf-based?”my grandmother asked, “what is ‘milf’?”


“I’ll look it up,” my father took out his BlackBerry.


“Aiyo. If you trusted each other enough to get married illegally, why can’t you trust us at all?” my younger brother mumbled.


“Who got married illegally?” my grandmother demanded, “go read the Hindu Marriage Act. I’m a lawyer, aren’t I? Do you know, I can get you married to someone before you turn eighteen and the police can’t touch me unless you register a complaint! It is still recognised as a marriage until annulment.”


Between blushes, he sulked, “I’m nineteen, Paatti.”

Of spirited maniacs, porn-addicts and hot detectives

(Published in I-Witness, The New Indian Express, dated 15 August, 2010)

Book title: Blaft’s Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction Volume II
Publisher: Blaft
Price: Rs. 495/-

If you, like me, judge a book by its cover, you’d own this one by now. A woman with long, curly hair decorated with jhumkis and jasmine flowers, draped in a white translucent sari and staring out at you with long-lashed eyes on either side of a black pottu, calmly sips blood from a skull.


However, if your leanings are more intellectual than impulsive, you’d look at three parameters while rating a translated work – the quality of the original story, the smoothness of the translation and the production value of the book.


From a samasthanam on the outskirts of Madurai where a family of maharajas rules and loses its heirs mysteriously, to hideous monsters raised by scientists, to women addicted to ‘blue films’, to bloodthirsty ghosts, the collection has enough pulp to keep you turning the pages, half-curious and half-amused.


Pritham K. Chakravarthy excels as a translator. She is fastidious in her selection of which words to retain in the original Tamil, which to replace with equivalents and which to translate literally. Translation is successful when you either find it hard to imagine the book was not originally written in English, or when you feel the texture of the original and forget it is a translated work. Pritham’s technique is the latter.


While she prunes out the crudeness and vulgarity of the vernacular, one can still hear the dialogues as if they were spoken in Tamil. Except for a letter from M K Narayanan, one of the writers featured in the anthology, the translation is near-flawless. The best thing about it is that the stories don’t lose their flavour, albeit a rather pungent one.


Yes, pungent – because, while we feel the thrill of pacy narration, sadly, Indian pulp writing is way below par. It’s acceptable for one to take liberties with reality; but artistic licence does not cover amateur writing. We can laugh at them, but never with them. And little wonder, if vernacular pulp writers are churning out works at the rate they are.


For instance, a writer featured in this collection, Rajesh Kumar, has a bid under review by the Guinness World Records for writing nearly 1500 crime novels. Even over a period of fifty years, that’s thirty novels a year! How much time can one spend on writing and editing in ten days? That probably explains why he believes women can get so addicted to pornography and so turned on by it that they will seduce mechanics who land up at their homes to fix the air-conditioner.


Indumathi’s ‘Hold on a minute, I’m in the middle of a murder’ is gripping, but disappoints with its clichés. The imagination involved has the promise of potential, but it hasn’t been honed, perhaps for lack of time. The result is a story that would make you go “aww!” if a child in Class 6 came running up to show you his or her first piece of detective fiction/ horror writing, but you’re left wondering why it merited publication in its present form.


Lines like “As an old man who had seen the world, he realised that Padma and Kadiravan must be under the influence of some evil spirit” (from M K Narayanan’s ‘The Bungalow by the River’) and “She was drawn to him by his competency in computers and other electronics. He in turn was attracted by her beauty and her sharp brain” (from Resakee’s ‘Sacrilege to Love’) cannot hope for empathy from a reader whose IQ is not in single digits.


Pulp need not mean trash. But a story where a brother, who brings up his sister and beats up wastrels who hound her, is rewarded by his sister falling in love with someone who plans to kill him with the sister’s approval really doesn’t qualify as good writing.


The woman-power trip in Tamil fiction is good fun, but again, women who go “if I don’t solve this, my name is not Archana!” or insist on riding a motorbike (instead of a scooter) because “I am Karate Kavitha, aren’t I?” are comical rather than inspiring (at least, one would hope so). The dialogue is reminiscent of old box office hits we like to snigger at, and the predictability is straight off the ‘megaserials’ manufactured for the entertainment of bored housewives.


Most of these writers fall into the bracket of the self-appointed guardians of Tamil culture, who take digs at women wearing ‘tight jeans’ and T-shirts that show off their curves, but will, nevertheless, devote six pages of a graphic novella to a heroine running around with an…ahem…wardrobe malfunction (as in ‘Highway 117’ by Pushpa Thangadorai.)


The book is important not so much for the quality of the stories as to start a debate on whether popular entertainment can’t be more refined. Resakee makes a start, by writing an alternative ending ‘for die-hard romantics’.


Two-year-old Blaft’s efforts to stir up interest in unlikely genres are commendable. And the production value of their books is excellent, while their daring innovations have been hugely successful. The publishers have laboriously dug up hilarious book covers and advertisements, which provoke a touch of nostalgia for a long-gone childhood even as you double up laughing over them.


Reasons to pick up this book: the three-hour long Subramaniyapuram is summarised in six lines; the tone of the stories reminds you of why Rajkumar’s ‘Eef you come today’ and ‘Lowe me or leawe me’ (which features Mees Mawlothy) are such huge hits on YouTube; the archived material used is invaluable; you’re guaranteed at least a hundred pages of laughs.


Reasons not to pick up this book: pulp horror scares you; you’d like to think modern writing in Tamil ended with Bharathiyar and Kalki.

Random Movies I Like: Chaalbaaz

The words ‘heroine-oriented’ and ‘issue-based’ to describe films are often used interchangeably in Bollywood. And both often mean box-office disaster. Sometimes, the heroine-orientation is the result of the director’s fixation with a leading lady – resulting into footage disproportionate of talent (already described in some detail, here).

Sridevi broke this mould.

In several films of the late 1980s and early 1990s, she not only took on the mantle of being the Chief Crowd-Puller but converted many of them into one-woman shows as well. No better example of that than Mr India where all people remember are Mogambo and Miss Hawa Hawaii!

And Chaalbaaz is probably the best example of her stardom – in which she had two top heroes doing all the things they normally do very well but nobody remembers any of them.

What did Chaalbaaz have? For starters, no originality. 

It rehashed the ancient Bollywood formula of long-lost twins – one of whom grow up to be a wimp and the other a firecracker. Dilip Kumar did the male version in Ram aur Shyam. Subsequently, Hema Malini did the distaff version – Seeta aur Geeta. And while Anil Kapoor was dreamily going about Kishen Kanhaiya, Sridevi exploded Chaalbaaz. You have to see the film how original one can get within the strait-jacketed boundaries of the story. Every single set-piece was borrowed from Seeta aur Geeta and yet, each one of them had a fresh gag!

It also had a maverick director called Pankaj Parashar – who directed hit detective serials with evergreen sleuths (Karamchand), a completely crazy debut vehicle for Archana Puran Singh AND Cyrus Broacha (Jalwa), a medieval fantasy modeled on Robin Hood AND Dharam Veer (Rajkumar) and the funniest film no one watched (Peechha Karo). Before he degenerated into making existentialist crap like Banaras, Pankaj Parashar made seriously demented stuff. 

And Chaalbaaz was made like he was on an acid trip!

I was quite surprised – and disappointed – that nobody mentioned Peechha Karo in Ravi Baswani’s obituaries because he and Satish Shah nearly rivaled the Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron craziness in that film! Seriously – no kidding.  

Chaalbaaz also had Rajinikanth. 

Maybe, the believers would want me to say that Rajinikanth had Chaalbaaz but probably, this is the one film where the Goddess overshadowed the God. As Jaggu the alcoholic taxi-driver with a heart-of-gold (is there any other kind of heart in Bollywood?), he was the perfect foil to Sridevi’s schizophrenic act. His drinking sessions with Sunny Deol, the mandatory fight sequence in his basti and even his Tamil-accented advice to Sridevi  (“Jaldi se koi achha ladka dhoondke shaadi kar le. Nahin toh kisi kothe mein tabla bajana padega. Ya phir kisi baniye ka rakhail banke reh jayegi!”) were all priceless.

There was the Trio of Villainy. 

Anupam Kher as the evil Mamaji, Rohini Hattangadi as Mamaji’s Moll and Shakti Kapoor as Mamaji’s Moll-pani. Sorry, Malpani. Actually, Shakti Kapoor was Batuknath Lalanprasad Malpani (abbreviated as BaLMa)!

Shakti Kapoor always excelled at being lecherous slimes. Anupam Kher – by this time – could have sleepwalked through a role like this but managed to become a buck-toothed villain for some unknown reason. And Rohini Hattangadi went ballistic as Amba, who started off with being excessively made up by Sridevi and ended up being thrashed by her.

There was also the illogicality of the name, which is – now – an extinct Bollywood tradition. 

Nowadays, a film set in a village which gets round-the-clock media coverage is called Peepli Live. A film about a fashionable Delhi girl is eponymously called Aisha. In the good old days, they would have been called Allah ke Bande and Gal Mitthi Mitthi Bol respectively. Because films have been named after a song (Yaadon ki Baaraat), a dialogue (Deewaar), an abstract concept somewhat relevant to the film (Insaaf ka Tarazu) or without any connection whatsoever (Chaalbaaz).  

You could argue that Sridevi is the Chaalbaaz but why the film was not called Anju aur Manju, Patakha or something more flattering to her – nobody knows! And even better, nobody cares!!

And obviously, there was Sridevi.

From her super-nyaka assertion of being a teetotaler (“Main madira nahin peeti, ji”) to the ballsy whipping of Anupam Kher, from the drug-induced twitches to the jhatkas of Na jaane kahan se aayi hain, from the sneering pouts to the slithering shyness – Sridevi was total paisa vasool. In fact, this is one of those movies where you want to tip the usher at the end because you feel almost guilty that so much enjoyment was had only for twenty-five rupees.   

Quirkily enough, I was reminded of Chaalbaaz when I came across a tweet from @mojorojo – “Dear North-South fighters. I suggest a deathmatch. Sunny Deol versus Rajnikanth. Whoever wins, we lose.” And I wondered – actually, Sridevi won.

UPDATED TO ADD: A YouTube link with a medley of scenes with both the Sridevis and Rajinikanth. And another one! Enssoi.

What can I tell you about Sholay that you don't already know?

On the 35th anniversary of India's favourite experience, there is precious little one can say about it that has not been said already.
But I will do it nevertheless. More so, because it is an attempt to bring together a few of my favourite pieces on the film. This post is more like a link-dump for me to come back to.


Everybody always talks to Javed Akhtar - and ends up giving credit as well - for the films that were written along with Salim Khan. For a change, Open magazine reaches out to the man before the hyphen and asks him about the Greatest Story Ever Written.
And we are reminded of the scene in Andaz Apna Apna where Salman Khan's character says, "Maine Sholay pachchees baar dekha hain..." and Aamir Khan's character retorts, "Haan, tere baap ne jo likkha hain..."

It is said that Amitabh Bachchan badly wanted to play Gabbar Singh when he heard the script. His ambition was fulfilled nearly thirty years later. And the entire country wished that it hadn't!
Ramgopal Verma managed to create the perfect Anti-Sholay with a film that has gone on to become the benchmark of Bad Films just as the original was a millstone around Ramesh Sippy's neck. But Ramu being Ramu, manages to pontificate on how his failure is better than many people's successes. And writes on how Sholay will never Aage.

The village 40 kilometers outside of Bangalore was made so famous by the film that it became the focus of media attention (as much possible without OB vans and portable cameras) and tourist visits.
This piece is a mix of both as a fan visits Ramgarh - and the ending is a killer.

A neat quiz from the people who have - well - a passion for cinema. The quality of questions is a bit uneven but hey, you get perfection only once.
Strangely, it has no reference to FACT manure.

And to end, I will slyly add two of my old posts. 
One - about the endless spoofs of the film.
And two - a favourite post of mine written exactly 10 years ago and uploaded on this blog when I started. Very badly written but still...

Of Floral Palanquins and Old Wood Hulks

(Published in i-Witness, The New Indian Express, dated 25 July, 2010)



When I myself am in want, it seems my sister-in-law is asking me for a floral palanquin!


It’s the sort of sentence that makes you go “huh?”, rack your brain for the corresponding Tamil proverb, and burst out laughing. Translation is tricky. Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, the author of Hundred Tamil Folk and Tribal Tales, a translation of selected stories from Naattuppura Kadhai Kalanjiyam, says she was keen to retain the original flavour of the language, and speaks of ‘deliberate interlingual transfer’. But there is a fine line between charming linguistic exchange and jarring misusage, and when one writes in a language while thinking in another, figures of speech are bound to transgress this boundary.


Hundred Tamil Folk and Tribal Tales is a well-intentioned book. It attempts to bridge the gap between the inhabitants of the villages that dot this state and the city-bred elite. The author’s note is lyrical in its empathy with the people who make their living from temple festivals (Thiruvizha), which have been whittled down from lasting forty-eight days to eleven days over the years. Unfortunately, the flow of language doesn’t carry over to the actual translation.


The stories themselves make for interesting reading, and the manner in which ghosts, animals, humans and Gods interact with each other allows the reader an insight into the myths that have forged the identities, aspirations, fears and beliefs of the Peoples who are part of Tamil Nadu. For instance, the story Look Before and Behind You has a monkey bribing Lord Ganesha (who plays the Judge of the Forest) and is chillingly practical even while being humorous. The tales of wit are engaging, and some transcend cultural barriers. The story of a washerman and potter trying to get each other executed finds echoes in a Birbal tale. The story of a boy who kills flies and brands himself ‘He Who Killed Nine in One Stroke’ has a parallel in the Jataka Tales, and was retold by the Brothers Grimm way before the world shrank into a web village. There are pleasant surprises in the collection too – like a story-teller who claims Chekaspiyar (Shakespeare) was given stories by Shiva and Parvathi.


But one does feel the selection could have been better. Sujatha Vijayaraghavan had seven hundred and eight stories to choose from in the fifteen-volume Tamil version. Some stories, such as How Did You Get Here Before Me? strike one as pointless. The translator speaks of the difficulties of putting into print the dynamics of an impromptu performance, but doesn’t avoid the pitfalls she warns of. Humour that depends on timing loses its appeal in print. The same goes for the story Kuttiaandavar, which rambles on about magic ‘ponds’ (temple tanks), rather like an extended footnote. There is no element of fiction or interest that keeps the reader’s attention, and the story ends even while one is searching for its peg.


Sujatha Vijayaraghavan’s preface does acknowledge that the stories have only been translated, and not refined. But this is rather self-defeating. The book sets out to be an ambassador for Tamil folklore, but could scare people into thinking these tales belong to a bloodthirsty, barbaric culture. I wonder what feminists would have to say about a Goddess who only needs to be prayed to and appeased with food to forgive a man who has beaten his wife to death. Or about the story Upbringing, in which a man ‘tames’ his spirited wife by killing harmless animals that happen to cross their path, as if that were an act of supreme intelligence. He converts her into someone who is scared to open the door to her own father without her husband’s permission, and Daddy Dear is actually grateful to his son-in-law for this feat. Then, there’s the story of a woman who carries her sadistic, leprosy-afflicted husband to the brothel, and waits in the rain while he...umm...spreads his seed. Interspersed with stories of daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law who’re waiting for each other to die and wives who push their husbands into chasms so they can run away with lovers, the perception of women sticks to the Goddess-or-Whore stereotype.


Without temporal and social context, sayings like ‘A thousand lies can be told to conduct a marriage’and ‘If women laugh, it is the beginning of woe’ are potentially dangerous. Many of the stories are anti-rich, anti-Brahmin and anti-modern. While these earmark crucial points in the collective conscious, they need annotations to be interpreted correctly.


The literal translation of names is another area that could do with annotation. Names like ‘A Thousand Measures of Wealth’, ‘Two Thousand Measures of Wealth’, ‘Catch the Tuft’ and ‘Old Wood Hulk’ make the Tamil culture seem like an offshoot of the Native American one. While Anandavalli seems a perfectly ordinary name, ‘Happy Creeper’ doesn’t quite have the same connotations, does it?!


The original Tamil work, for which researchers travelled to various parts of the state, is certainly a laudable effort. The translation is a necessary piece of work too. But while it’s useful for Tamil speakers who want to know more about their folk-culture, it needs footnotes to be understood clearly by those who are not familiar with Tamil. The stories need to be explained, even if that means ‘refining’, to be acceptable to an audience that can’t relate to the people who own these stories.

At a Gathering of the Roundabout Write Wing

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 7th August, 2010)

The horrific truth that there is a book in each of us struck me at a reading-and-launch in the city, whose audience didn’t comprise the celebrated breed of ‘voracious readers’ so much as the dreaded genum of ‘aspiring writers’.



Against her better judgment, the publisher decided to humour the organisers and join the author and moderator on the dais. When the floor was thrown open to questions, the first few went:


“Madam, do you read all the manuscripts you get?”


“Sir, what technique you are following to write book? Myself, writing humorous short stories.”


“Madam, how do you select the books, and how do you promote them?”


“Sir, do you think you are a better writer because you are published than someone who writes for joy and is unpublished?”


After ten roundabout questions, of which the only one pertaining to the book was asked by a gentleman who is notorious for his presence at free events, his unkempt looks, and his penchant to microanalyse off-the-cuff remarks, the author turned to the publisher and asked: “So, how does one go about getting published?”


She gaped at him, and he added, “I’m sure they all want to know.”


A sigh of “yes” fluttered through the room, and the publisher, after a panicked look at the hundred eager eyes boring into hers, said, hoarsely, “uh…when I read this book…what struck me was…one particular incident. Maybe you want to read out this part?”


Over tea-and-snacks after the book launch, the prospective authors mentally wrote their magnum opuses.


“See, in my seventy-two years of life, I have seen so much,” one gentleman said to me, “I am masticating…” – I confess the word left me shaken as I tried to recall what it meant, and succeeded, with some relief, in remembering that it has no sexual connotations – “…masticating over the idea of writing about the events in my life and some pearls of wisdom for the younger generation like yourself.”


“Excellent idea,” said a lady, whose grand chignon, artistic strand of flowers and fifty-paise-coin-sized bindi declared her principles stood at the confluence of socialite-ism and avant garde, “I myself am going to write about a woman who is trapped in a marriage…an arranged marriage, and she realises suddenly, after twenty years, that she is nothing more than a wife and mother. Who is she? She needs to know herself. She walks out of her home. Then she meets a younger man. Through him, she discovers new dimensions to love, sex and life.”


Leaving the old man to masticate his pearls of wisdom as his interlocutor dreamily related the rest of what she considered her hitherto-unheard-of plot, I wandered over to the coffee counter, wishing a stronger brew were available.


“I think fiction is overrated,” a blonde man in a dhoti was saying to the author, “in India, we should look at spirituality. Maybe backpack through the country and scribble down these little things, which carry so much meaning.”


Just then, rather symbolically, a familiar sound made everyone jump. A woman sheepishly exhibited a piece of her sari that had caught in her chair, anxious to prove the noise was not quite what they had thought.


“You understand Tamil, right?” an NRI whom I’d met twice before asked, as I stuffed my mouth with bread to stop laughing, “well, I’m thinking of writing a book on the folklore of Tamil Nadu. You think we could do a tour of these villages, and get a book out of it? You could translate the tales of the bards.”


“And what will you do?” I coughed.


“What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.


The mystery of what happens to these writers and their books after they force a hapless publisher to yield to their demands was solved when I visited Om Book Shop in Delhi.


"Madam," a man sitting on a reading stool boomed, and brushed away my apologies for stamping on his foot, "I am the author of a self-help book which you will find useful. Here it is. I can autograph it for you if you want."

Indian Culture and the Prostration Racket

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 24th July, 2010)

“Vizhu, vizhu,” she says, in rapture, signalling me to rush to the booty – the leathery feet of a lecherous professor from Salem, complete with gold watch and black shirt to advertise his political affiliations, “you might not get an opportunity again.”



Despite the ominous prediction, the octogenarian professor is beaming with goodwill, and the dancer I am waiting to interview is glowing with the fine fortune she has brought me.


“Back problem,” I mutter, putting a hand to my spine as I bend as far as his knee.


After cursing me with sixteen children, he moves on to better pursuits, while I thank my stars for the brainwave. A full prostration just might have merited thirty-two.


“They’re like vultures,” my grandmother grumbles, to a cousin who is six months older than she is, “at least those wait till a few hours before your death. These creatures have spent years queuing up to get our blessings before packing us off!”


She spends most festival days trying to outrun ten grandchildren chasing after her under the command of her children-in-law. With remarkable alacrity, the eighty-year-old matriarch of the family usually manages to jump into bed before the nimblest of us can grab her feet.


“Not anymore!” she screams out in warning, “if you touch the feet of someone who’s lying down, that means you’re equating that person to a corpse!”


All of us spring back, while she leans back with the triumphant smile of the proverbial cat.


My own turn comes during Pongal, as a shuffle of brothers and cousins line up, with grimaces and money, to fall at my feet. I habitually count the cash before blessing them with academic proficiency and abundant progeny.


“It’s unfair, ma,” my little brother whinges to my mother, “why do we have to give her money, and fall at her feet? I don’t mind falling at people’s feet for money!”


“Your sister is like a Goddess,” my father silences him, as I swear at the table for being in the way of my foot, “there’s nothing wrong with praying to the Lakshmi of the house.”


“Even if she’s more like Kali?” my brother murmurs resentfully, watching me put his pocket money into my purse.


“Duh,” I say, as he pouts, “Lakshmi gives money, Kali temples make money. Who do you think I’d rather be?”


“You should fall at Vimala Chiththi’s feet,” my littler cousin advises him, “she always gives me money to. And the thatha in her house is even more generous.”


I hear the below-waist-level population of my house has been running quite a successful prostration racket, using their respective distant relatives to nourish a common kitty. My cousin proudly tells me they have made enough to buy a Nintendo Wii.


They’re yet to squeeze a donation out of me, though.


“How can you be so comfortable with this?” my mother asks me, “it’s so humiliating. I had to fall at everyone’s feet; no one fell at mine! And thank God for that!”


However, her record was to break at a wedding reception.


As my father pronounced, “my wife”, the groom – who reports to my father at work – doubled up in deference. She tried to protest, but he persisted, moving the folds of her sari so that he could find the bottom of her feet.


I for one have no objection to embracing the dust at someone’s rear paws, as long as it is for the greater good of oneself.


A timely touch of my landlady’s feet was instrumental in sealing the deal for my tenure and rent in Noida.