Poverty Sells!

It rained Oscars for Slum Dog. Eight Awards from the apostile of International but predominantly American, commercial Cinema. A Great feeling indeed for indians, as its a long time after Bhanu Athaia bagged hers for the 1982 Attenborough classic Gandhi's brillant costumes, two other indians bagged Oscars. No complaints about Rahman's or Kutty's for their prowess in the music and sound,and at the least, I am no authority to talk about music. it was said, that Music is pure Mathematics.It's a magic what a specific propotion of notes produces.As I said in my previous post about the movie, Music was so much inside the movie and may be that definitely qualifies. I am no good in mathematics as well. So No talk about Maths and Music. Just one doubt. Did it deserve the award for the best film? Or is it just that the depiction of indian poverty still sells abroad, as it did at the time of Raj Kapoor's 1955 Cannes Nominee 'Boot Polish'(Directed by Prakash Arora) and Meera Nayir's 1988 Cannes Winner and Oscar Nominated 'Salaam Bombay'? I honestly feel, Slum dog wont stand a chance at Cannes. Lets wait and see. Would like to watch Salaam Bombay one more time, but I still remember, it was definitely a class apart from our very own slum dog. What about 'City of Joy'? The Om Puri flick in the background of a poor Kolkotha, based on Dominique Laperre's book with the same name ? Dont you think, its time to watch these movies once again at the time of Slum dogs?

"Anger Unbuttoned"

Interesting Caption. TOI got the self appointed guardian angels of our 'sexless', holy heritage posing with some panties. What a wonderful idea sirji? Very interesting. Very very Interesting. There was an old joke about moral policing. "If electricity comes from electrons, will morality from Morons?". We got some graphical evidence right here. Enjoy these pics. The Hindu extremist group 'Sri Rama Sene' received thousands of pink panties with naughty inscriptions, in protest of their anti valentine propaganda from the consortium of loose, pub going women as a Valentine gift. But I am sure, if you were in their shoes, you would nt dare to pose for a photograph like this. Would you?

May be its a decent try to do the reputation make over from the power of violence to the so called 'Gandhigiri'? Look at them. You need true guts to pose for media this way. Another expected development is the sene, dropping their plan for sending Sari's back to the senders of 'pink chaddis'. Good decision guys.
A couple of thousands of saris (Much more exposing attire than Jeans and Shirt) which your members contribute cannot substitute at least 30.0000 Panties sent by the group of 'Lose, Pub-going' women. Beware, they are everywhere. Then why to waste postage expenses? May be this would prompt the Sene to mind their own good business.

In one of his short stories,Maythil Radhakrishnan, a true genius among Malayalam laureates says, "those who are wounded in sex, would deny Casanova". It explains the pub violence a bit. In his comic sounding interviews, Mr. Mutalik, head of Rashtriya Hindu Sene talks about the heritage of india. Some one please take him to Khajuraho and show him our holy sculptures depicting various sexual acts. Some one, please ask him to read the Sanskrit book 'Arthashastra' of Koutilya(Chankya), arguably the first written book on public governance so that he can see that 'Prostitution' was legal in ancient india. Chanakya was the Prime Minister and Chief advisor to the Emperor Chandragupta Mourya of highly respected Mourya empire of about 350 BC. Men were encouraged to visit Ganika's (Commercial Sex worker ) often and there was even a special department and a minister to take care of prostitution. There were written codes of conduct by the state instructing how the 'Ganika' should take care of her 'Guest'. A punishment system was also designed for punishing a Ganika, if she breached such written conducts. For example, If a Ganika decided to leave the profession,all her Gold ornaments had to be surrendered to the state and if she denied her service to any guest whom she didn't like, she was beaten up in public mercilessly. Number of cane beatings she had to receive on such occasions were clearly specified in the rule book under the section called 'Danda Nyaya' .(hard to recollect precisely as it was long back I devoured the book). Daughters of Ganika's were naturally forced into this state sponsored prostitution, and if one of those mothers was not willing her daughter to take up the same career, she had to pay a huge fine to the state. There were in numerous instances of polygamy and polyandry in our history including the cases where one woman having five husbands and still respected in the society. Inviting some one else to the house by the husbands for inseminating their wives with the good intention of producing some quality offspring was a common practice. Sex was not a taboo for highly respected practitioners and preachers of the religion. Otherwise we would not have books like 'Kamasutra' or 'Kokkoka Shastra' both written by Hindu Saints. These facts very much explain how sex was treated in ancient India. Now lets come to the pub going part. Consider the celebrations like 'Rasaleela' where women and men would drink and dance the whole night.(Still practiced in north side of India) You have got reference to this even in our epics. If one can believe 'B.R.Ambedkar' the respected creator of Indian law, he even talks about how a highly worshiped Indian God celebrated such eventful nights, ensuring his wife too participated in it, quoting some epics. So does'nt it make sense for our Saffron brigade to take a small session on history before preaching in lengths about our 'heritage'?

But I still don't understand, how the photographers got the holy warriors of 'Sri Rama Sene' posing this way with the utmost undies of some loose, socially unfit women? Was it not smart denying to receive any such nasty couriers? Anyways, thanks for the entertainment guys. You really made the world laugh.Thank you.

Slum Dog??

A double question mark in an annotated chess game indicates a bad move. I used it here with a better Intention. I just don't understand why the movie 'slum dog millionaire' is hyped up so much. I just don't understand why its expected to sweep the Oscars? Its just any other egg-straw-ordinary movie with a regular happy ending, rag to rich story in the back ground of not-so-beautiful side of an over populated urban India. You keep searching for the reasons. And you find some points. Good technique of story telling. A slum dog scales his way up to a big fortune answering the questions shot at him from a 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' show. The difference here is, he finds the answers from his very life not from the books. Story unveils in the intervals of questions flashing back to the world he came from, and the bitter life he lived. Interesting? A near perfect cast who would suit the roles almost perfect and what else? A decent piece of music which is so much inside the movie. Anything else? Some hyper realistic (I am sorry, Cant use the word 'exaggerated') scenes from the poor, struggling and suffering side of India which would remind you of those neo-realistic Italian movies of the past. Movie has got some documentary styled perfection in the portrayal of bitter realities. But what else? Don't you feel the script looked more of a school drama? I felt so. Yes. Most of the actors have done the perfect 'behaving' . But still does it rise to the level of expecting 'Oscars' (Lets keep aside the topic 'whats so great about Oscars?'). I just compared this to 'Forrest Gump', a randomized sample from the Oscar winners from the past. And I did'nt find slum dog stands anywhere near by. Then what about this hype? You see Brad pitt, Angelina Jollie comes out of the theatre saying touching dialogues. You see Anil Kapoor dances around the streets of 'world Cinema' with an abundant joy of achieving something priceless?

Eminent historian Romila Thappar talks about historiography(the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted) the 'history of history' in one of her books on ancient Indian history. She says, there were lot of mistakes committed in 'Indology' of early 20th century because of the ignorance of the Western historians about the Indian way of life. They got confused and confused others by documenting their bad assumptions about India and its religious, social and political base which probably could be one of the reasons why some people abroad still think India is all about 'Maharajas','Magics' and 'Elephants'.
Same way, a foreign Critic who sees, slum dog would be very happy. Poverty, Corruption, music and a heavy doze of realism. But for an average Indian cine goer, Slum dog Millionaire is just like any other modern bollywood flick.

In a Free State

I was reading Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Confessions of a Xenophile’ the other day, and could see him equally confessing about his admiration towards the Noble Laureate V.S. Naipaul and his works. I felt like reading at least one of Naipaul's works. The office library had his booker winner of 1971, ‘In a Free State’. A Political, Socio-Economical (Existentialism? I’m no critic. I can’t say. But definitely looks like one) work of serious fiction, which talks thru narrating the woes of immigrants who lose themselves, or searching themselves in vein in another part of the world where they don’t belong to. It consists of three different novellas of similar theme with a prologue and epilogue. One of these characters is not exactly in a search of a fortune but rather for freedom, and naturally he has nothing much to grieve about what he leaves behind. But when he eventually gets dwelled into the new world without much of a massive effort, he still falls into a philosophically meaningless existence. (One out of Many). In another tale, the man sacrifices his own happiness for the selfless indianite protector feeling (which would not quite work in the foreign atmosphere) towards his irresponsible sibling, and gradually leads himself to astray(Tell me whom to Kill). The third tale talks about a man who loses himself in another continent, being thrown into the world of ethnic struggles and getting involved a bit too much into the violent after-effects of a forced power transition, in a self driven fashion towards devastation(In a Free State). These tales don’t talk about any special immigrant. It’s about all type of immigrants and their woes. It could be an Indian in a white’s world, or a white in a black’s world. I felt Naipaul uses strong narrations with a flavor of Black humor and dry sarcasm. But one thing is for sure; that once you start reading it, you can hardly put it down. Especially the first two tales will assure you the simplicity and readability and It gets so complicated and so dry but yet readable when you reach into the main story ‘In a Free Sate’. You get confused why it’s called a novel as it’s a collection of stories where the individual characters never meet each other. But when you observe it as a whole, it makes complete sense. It’s a single story. It’s a story of people, who don’t require a name or about the people whose name don’t make any difference.
This is how the story ‘One Out of Many’ ends;
“I was once part of the flow, never thinking of myself as a presence. Then I looked in the mirror and decided to be free. All that of my freedom has brought me is the knowledge that I have a face and have a body, that I must feed this body and clothe this body for a certain number of years. Then it will be over.”

Leon- the Professional

I was not sure when Leon was released(1994 ;-) Now I know) . I am not sure how many times this movie had been remade into Indian languages; bolly/tolly/molly/kolly-wood?? But I am sure; this is a little piece of classic action flick, one should not miss. Most of the stylish action movies tend to have that regular pick of romantic relationship with a spicy flavor of lust Interwoven to the main plot. But here you see an illiterate man who describes himself 'the Cleaner' moves around the city, cleaning the baddies with a little pretty girl child holding to his hand. The mysterious man may remind you of the classic 'Blondie' of GBU or the ‘Guitarist' of Desperado. He maintains a low profile to avoid the unwanted attention until she meets the girl which would give him a shocking transition from machine to a man. There is something mysterious about the relationship between these two characters. We see there's a father -child relationship as clear as a summer’s sky. But we still get a hilarious moment in the movie when the girl denies this fact to the world, with a little cute devilish grin of hers. I found Leon a superb work. Every single thing about the movie had flair of beauty in it. You see the beauty in the unexpected and often unwanted but still-not-ugly visit of Aphrodite in the adolescent child. You see an e element of tranquility in the act of calisthenics which our cleaner does time to time and there’s this serene beauty of relationship between man to the plant which in fact works as a perfect metaphor of all goodness our man carries with him. The absolute baddie played by Gary Oldman is better than the best, and i loved the way he confronts the girl in her quest of vengeance describing her to his compatriot as, the girl who had "good intentions to send me straight to the morgue" with an expressionless face.

The progression of the girl by learning the art of cleaning and the other tricks of the trade to survive was beautifully crafted. Remember the scene, where the girl whispers for Leon to open his door as she knew that her family was being massacred and it was the only chance for her survival and the art of emotional blackmailing she tries when Leon was not ready to adopt her. The same trick she repeats with the school principal shows how quickly she adapts to the massive changes in the path of her life. Was it not a perfect way to end a movie show Matilda planting the very best friend and soul of Leon in the school garden saying,’ I guess we would be happy here’ ? I just loved it. I even loved Danny ‘the keeper’ of Leon's fortune, who would boast all the time about himself as He’s like a bank. or even better than that. Leon’s a clean entertainer with an aesthetic sense of beauty. Natalie Portman, Jean Reno , Gary Oldman, Luc Besson ; a great team; and it worked so well.

The 'Tradition':: Fiddler on the Roof!

Good, beautiful Stuff!! And "On the Other hand" :-) , I just loved Topol in his amazing brilliance and flexibility in reflecting, rather subtle emotions. His character, "the Milkman" was so wonderful, so funny , so mystical and have got great philosophical depth with an interestingly compromising approach to the life and its unexpected changes.

He's so sarcastic, so hilarious especially in his conversations with God.

Chaim Topol was nominated for Oscar in 1972 for his performance in this movie and had also won golden globe for the same. Its so learned that he had to get special permissions to attend award functions as he was serving israel army in those years.

For people who enjoy musicals like 'Sound of Music', 'Fiddler on the Roof' wil be a treat. And those who love the art of acting, Topol would be great catch. And if you don't fall into both of these categories but enjoy a good bit of camera work, you have got a great deal to be happy about as the movie was shot in beautiful locations in yugoslavia to get the feel of Jewish life in the tsarist Pre-Revolutionary Russia of late 19th century!

Thanks to my late Night shifts and the privilege of 'Work from home' facility, I have just seen my first movie of the year,2009.

"Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
catch me a catch
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
Look through your book,
And make me a perfect match..."

And I would love to watch it another ten times just to see him talking about 'Tradition' and what the 'Good book' says.... :-)

(have a look at Topol from the movie and in his real life snaps. He still lives in Israel and leading quite successful and healthy life.)