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Kaminey has some catchy, funny original dialogues for sure. An example

इस दुनिया में कुत्ते का एक ही जवाब होता है – कमीने

It is unfair to not like the movie because it is not an “Omkara” or a “Maqbool”. Its not the same genre. And the genre it is from, it is a well executed movie. Pretty tight. I am not too much into the crime-comedy genre. So, I don’t have elaborate observations.

But acting is fantastic. And it feels great to observe that Shahid Kapoor is arriving as an actor. He is not just good as the rich or upper-middle class lover boy, he is equally at ease as a Mumbai gangster. And he has played the twin brothers – very different from each other – effortlessly. Unlike Saif Ali Khan as young sardar in Love Aaj Kal, neither of Shahid Kapoor’s roles look like it is forced on him. If he continues to choose wisely and experiments enough, we are looking at the next great actor probably. Priyanka Chopra and other actors have done well too.

So, definitely worth a watch.

There are two things about IITK which keep cropping up every once in a while and I had been meaning to write something about them for a long time. First one is the issue of frequent suicide[attempts] by the students and the second one is the whole male-female interaction issues in the campus. First one gets a lot of media and alumni attention. The second one keeps circulating between the students and a select few alumni who, in their student days at the institute, were active on this issue.

Let’s take up the controversial matter of suicide first. Every time a suicide happens, there is a quick media coverage and there is an uproar on all the alumni groups worldwide as soon as one of these news items get forwarded. Why does institute not do something? For how long will it continue and the institute will be a silent spectator?

Let me be candid here. We are being harsh towards institute here and are overlooking the real reason which leads a young student, full of potential, to the desperate step of taking away his life.

The first thing to realize is that its not just IITs. Let’s think of the 10th and 12th standard exam results. Every year just after the results are announced, the number of suicides by disappointed students easily goes in double digit immediately. Probably many, many more do not come in media limelight. And wait! According to this report [PDF file, opens in new window] by National Crimes Records Bureau, in years 2005, 2006 and 2007, a total of 2283, 2378 and 1976 suicides respectively were done due to failure in examinations! Only the reported, official numbers. Actual could be much higher. Why? Yes, there are flaws in our education system at every level. There are a thousand things that need to be fixed. But you know what? The basic reasons behind these suicides can not be fixed by correcting the education system. What will you do? There is a race for marks and every extra 1%. So? Change it to a grading system? There will still be the race to get that next higher grade. Change it to a pass/fail system. Those who fail will still commit suicide. Have no concept of fail or marks or grades? You just go through the education and that’s it? The higher education system and the economic system will have to find ways to decide who is fit to go where. That will still not be a perfect system and those who do not get into what society values will still commit suicide. We can improve our education system, but it will never be perfect. Do we even know what a perfect education system is? And even if at some point of time in future, we will be able to devise a system that is perfect, that will magically eliminate the tendency to commit suicide, we can not wait until then to save young lives.

The problem is not the education system really. It is the mindset of the society that does not accept failures and helps in rebounding, that does not give a healthy, optimistic outlook for future to young minds, that only gives them a do-or-die option for all these “important” examinations. The family being the biggest criminal of all.

“How can my son/daughter be such a failure?”

Grow up moms and dads. Your child is an individual. He has his own strengths and weaknesses. And excelling in the exams you deem important may not be his strength. Heck yes. He can even fail. Don’t bring him up with the fear that his life and future and career ends if he does not get through those examinations. Don’t link his examination performance to your and entire family’s respect or disgrace in the society. And no – he does not have to be like this uncle and that cousin to prove his worth in the family. Come on. Somebody’s child will be at 90%, somebody’s at 60% and somebody’s will fail! Any of these could be yours. There is nothing like “how can it be”. Just like it could have been your neighbour’s child, it can be your child. Let’s give lives second and third chances.

And when it comes to IITs and ‘premier institutes’ in India, we are face to face with even more difficult set of parents. They have basked in the reflected glory of their child making it to IIT. In some cases with never-before-rank in their family/neighbourhood. Oh! Aren’t they on cloud-9? They don’t want to come down. There can be no looking back.

Sorry, once again moms and dads. All those who were at 60% and those who failed have been left behind your child now. Everybody at IIT is a topper here and a stud there. There will be those at 90% and those at 60% and those who fail! Oops! IITs have a relative grading system to normalize performance. Some will be 10 pointers, some 8, some 5 point someone and some will get Fs. Yes – in some cases it is an eccentric professor who causes this ‘F’. But that’s not the case all the time and even when that is the case, your child and his life are more important than the eccentric professor and the imperfect system. Its not worthwhile for him to lose his life to correct an eccentric professor. One is corrected today, the other will be born tomorrow. In some cases, your child has been neglecting his studies. But its absolutely not such a big crime that she should not get another chance.

“How can it be my child?” Just the way it was your neighbour’s child who did not make it to IITs in flying colors. It was not an end for him. He did his B. Com and an MBA and is a successful professional now. Its not an end for your child either. There is always that second chance. Don’t bother about the uncles and aunts and grapndpas and the neighbour giving that revengeful smile! If you have boasted too much about your child in past, it has been a mistake. Don’t let your child pay for it. Forget about the others, who would laugh at you. Concentrate on your child.

You know what the problem is? The society does not accept looking back; it does not accept that the the most glorious path need not be one suitable for an individual; it does not accept that you may falter but come back. If it started doing that, the results could be amazing. I have witnessed some amazing cases of ‘recovery’ [in want of a better word] in hopeless cases. Students with ‘F’s lined up semester after semester – they get their acts together and pass out decently.

As far as the system is concerned, it offers flexibility like hardly any Indian systems do. You don’t have to repeat a full year, if you fail in one subject or two or three or even all but one. You repeat only those courses you have failed in. There is nothing like repeating the whole year. If theses have been elective courses, you can choose a different elective while repeating. There are systems of warnings and academic probation and other things. These give ample time to the student to get their act together. What happens in most such cases is that the student can hardly talk to anyone in the family. The institute does a lot to create a support system. There is a counseling service. Faculty members get directly involved in some cases. And as mentioned earlier, I have personally witnessed some hopeless looking cases ending amazingly well. Not just getting through the system, but actually doing well at the end.

Only if it worked for more people. Only if it wasn’t just the institute’s responsibility and parents cared enough about their children beyond thinking of them as a ‘glory’ tool. Only if all these people could actually talk to their parents without feeling guilty and get an acceptance of their situation. Only if parents were there to support more extreme steps when needed (like leaving IIT and find a more suitable career elsewhere- what can institute do if that is indeed the best option?).

There is a system of branch change at the end of first year. Earlier there was a high CPI limit to allow branch change. The idea was to give students doing well a chance to change their department. I remember that during our times a change was brought in to lower the CPI limit and allow a branch change at the end of second year too. So, if you feel you can’t handle your department and are not performing well, change it. Despite the political incorrectness of the idea that someone performing badly in one department should be accepted in another department, keeping in mind the practical situation of students (the branches closing at higher JEE ranks create more pressure than those closing at lower ones), the system did introduce the change. I don’t remember there were any takers. The only thing it did was that more people with lower CPI applied for branch change to a “better” branch. Who will go back and tell their moms and dads that I want to switch from Computer Science to Physics! Sigh… I don’t know if the system still exists despite having no takers.

Let’s face it. Blaming education system, and academic pressure, and institute is not just unfair, its pointless and even harmful. These young lives are important and its high time parents and society creating all the pressure on them face some tough questions and stop looking the other way. The solution to students committing suicides after 10th and 12th board examination results can not be to allow them to cheat in the exams, can it be?

And now the less life threatening issue of Male-Female interaction on the campus. IIT Kanpur has historically been ahead of its time and society in dealing with this issue. Although I can see some “how-can-this-be-allowed” faces around, initially there were no restrictions on male and female students visiting the hostels of opposite sex at any point of time. It worked. Those used to a typical girls hostel should not think that girls lived in a constant terror of their privacy being violated. Just like you live at your home, you lived in the hostel – used to seeing male visitors around. At some point of time, after some untoward incident or something, a restriction was imposed between 12 midnight and 6 am on the entry of the ‘person of opposite sex’ (to quote the official documents). Practically, that too was only for the girls’ hostel and not for the boys’ hostels. That was still the practice when we had entered the institute. And then, after 40 or so years of the institute’s existence, after the world has come into 21st century, there came people in the administration who started seeing problems. At one point of time it seemed like even twin tower crashing would somehow be related to boys being allowed in girls’ hostel at IIT Kanpur! It has been downward hill since then. We had resisted then and it at least halted the idea of complete ban… But the slow damage continues to happen. I-card showing and signing in and having an escort and what not. In the name of security, a lot of restrictions are in place now.

The problem is that most of the society will not see what is wrong with this. The parents of new students will not see what is wrong with this. They are used to jail-like girls’ hostels and that’s what their notion of keeping their girls safe is. When we had entered IIT Kanpur, parents had questions about the ’strange’ arrangement. The wardens and senior students had made them understand. The institute was leading the rest of the society. The society will not be able to lead the institute if it decides to go regressive. Which is what it has decided to do unfortunately.

Advantages of the open system? Purely from a girl’s point for view – you do not have boys putting sick bets for entering Girls’ Hostel. You don’t have an untoward curiosity about what the rooms of girls look like. It makes girls less of an exotic object, and more of a human for boys, who live like them only [although it is hampered a lot simply due to the male-female ratio in the campus, but it at least saves some lives!].

What do we worry about? Girls and boys having sex? Whether we should worry about that and to what extent can itself be a subject of debate. But even if we have to worry about it, is restricting entry into hostels a way of stopping it? You really believe it? What percentage of unmarried, young people do you think get into sexual acts in a hostel room? The percentage will be tiny. If this has to happen, it will happen. Restrictions or no restrictions on hostel can not do much to curb or encourage it.

Would somebody powerful enough in the administration get their head cleared about it and stop this irreversible damage? When I am stopped at the gate of each and every hostel on visiting the campus in the name of security, it stops looking like the campus I am so proud of! The sense of freedom I always felt there vanishes. Please don’t take away that wonderful experience from the new generation of students. What more can I say. I sort of feel hopeless about it now!

People are wondering if microblogging (read twittering) is threatening the use of blogs. I certainly seem to be a case in point Even when I am twittering, I am unable to find time for blogging. Its sad! Microblogging has its merit in conciseness, but some things are enjoyed best when you are not worried about character limits. Anyway!

More than one person (read ‘two’ – both living outside India) told me recently that they like to follow my blogs to decide on which bollywood movies to watch! Not bad for a sketchy and non-professional reviewer like me And this year has not be very good in terms of recommendable movies to watch. So, here is my short take on Love Aaj Kal.

To begin with, Love Aaj Kal’s director is Imtiaz Ali. The same person who directed “Jab We Met”. Long time readers of this blog would be able to recall my fascination with “Jab We Met“. And I was waiting for this movie only because it was by Imtiaz Ali. Compare to Jab We Met

• +ve of Love Aaj Kal: Much meatier story idea
• -ve of Love Aaj Kal: Not that directorial and acting magic that made “Jab We Met” so addictive despite a predictable, flat story.

So, unlike Gulaal or 99, I won’t strongly say “Go watch it”. But not much harm in watching for some entertainment.

Now, generic pluses and minuses (can have spoilers)

• Story wise, the juxtaposition of yesterday’s and today’s stories are good. Differences are accepted, and the point is made that some universal things have not changed. So, the stories are parallel, but not the same. That’s the good part. Narration of the story, however, seems forced. Rishi Kapoor’s character would have done better if he had watched and waited for the story to be repeated rather than being instrumental in the repetition. That was a cliched approach (the ‘expert’ mentoring the ‘novice’) and probably the main cause of the narration appearing forced.
• Missed opportunities on acting front: Saif Ali Khan, in his double role (not the judwa bhai kind, not ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’ kind either, and definitely not ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ kind), had an opportunity to give a memorable, though not lifetime, performance. As if to compensate for the silent hero of “Jab We Met”, he even had all the lines, while the heroines looked on. But he does not really hit you with his acting! Too much of production burden, was it?
  The relatively silent character of Deepika Padukone had the opportunity of expressing silence as well as occasional outbursts to give a wonderful performance. In the beginning I thought her expressionlessness was deliberate – a part of acting. But slowly it just started looking like an inadequate performance. The other female lead, Giselle Monteiro, did much better.
• Dialogs were not natural: I think dialogs played a major part in making “Jab We Met” what it became. They flew naturally. One thing seemed to flow from the other. They never sounded like someone is reading from a book, which is what the dialogs in “Love Aaj Kal” often sound like.
• Couple of good sequences
• • The picturization of one song that shows Saif Ali Khan’s journey from the time he joins his dream job, the excitement of every moment to when it all starts becoming routine and not-so-exciting to when he lands up in outright depression! Wonderfully done. With or without the love story, that’s a part that is so easy to identify with and which can be generalized for so many of our dreams. You dream and you work hard to achieve it. Once you are there, then what? So many other people are there too. And soon its all routine and life has lost the purpose!
  • Music listeners would have known it, but I hadn’t noticed from the promos that the background music in “The Twist” was the बीन (been – the Hindi word) sound of yesteryears (Nageena!). The “yesterday” and “today” juxtaposition comes out really well when Saif Ali Khan starts playing music in his car, the been sound starts (and you wonder what the hell!) and it turns into “The twist” song! Don’t know if that’s what the intention was, but it does feel like a nice musical tribute to the title and concept!

If you have read all this anyway, you can make your decision!

I didn’t even realize just how long I had been away until I consciously saw the date of my last post!

A few press coverages, a wedding (our own!), changing the place, setting up the home as well as office at the new place, crazy search of people to hire and finally the hirings (we are 2 employee and an intern strong right now!) made the days crazy.

Let’s see if I can be more regular from now on.

This piece comes after watching No Smoking and needs some further background on how I came to watch the movie in the first place.

So, I watched Gulaal and was fascinated. And as it happens every time I am fascinated with a movie these day, I came back and started researching on the director. I knew Dev-D was also from the same director, but it did not give me the same kind of high that Gulaal gave. So, the research started after Gulaal. And I landed on PFC (Passion for Cinema) website. The director Anurag Kashyap is an active blogger there and also responds to the comments quite frequently. I was hooked on to the site his blog over the weekend and read through several entries. His writing has a “this is my opinion and if you don’t like it, you have a clear option – don’t read it” attitude and resulting honesty, which I appreciate. So, I read up most of his posts.

It is during this reading and research that I figured that we, average movie goers, would not have noticed it, but apparently in their world, the movie had sparked strong reactions. The critics had given bad to insulting reviews and the director had reacted strongly to them too. From there on, there is huge debate over the movie as well as whether the director should have reacted so. I will leave the latter part out for this post (and probably write another post on this). Instead concentrate on the movie.

Having read through the comments, reviews and bunch of director’s posts, I was curious enough to watch No Smoking. Found the VCD in Sapna Book Store (and not in newly opened Odyssey on 100 feet road, Indiranagar) and watched it as soon as I got back.

With some help from author’s article, Abhaya’s discussions and my understanding – here is my interpretation of the movie and where the story comes from:

• We have a writer-director with two of his movies, made after years of hard work, facing many obstacles in absence of producer backing, not cleared by censors. He is angry and depressed. For him the system is powerful and hell bent upon changing him, if he wants to survive. And why change him? Because he is not what the powerful folks in the system think is ‘right’. So, he must change; else he has no rights to survive. But changing him is not easy. He has his soul – going strong despite his problems. The only way to change him is to rid him of his soul. But he wants revenge on the system. He wants to get back at the system. He still can not destroy the system, but he wants to laugh at them. It is in this context that this particular movie is written.
• Before getting into the actual story of movie, let’s think of a slightly revised story. Suppose that Baba Bangali was not trying to rid K of his smoking habit. Instead he was trying to rid him of his art (yeah – suppose he was an artist). And the rest of the story was same. Does it now become easier to decipher some things in the movie? Here is a powerful system, who for some reason thinks that an artist is not the right kind of person for the society. So, the system will go any extent to ensure that artist no longer remains an artist. But art is his soul. The only way he could stop being an artist is by getting rid of his soul. His soul has to be snatched away from him. And that is what has happened in the movie. The soul is snatched away.
• It actually becomes a rather simple story here. Because the relatively ‘liberal’ world we live in, we’d obviously be sympathetic towards the artist. We, the audience, can not get in the frame of mind of the powerful people of the system, who strongly feel that the artist needs to change, for whatever reason.
• So to engage the audience with the conflict, the director could choose a more gray concept – say homosexuality. If the system is trying to rid somebody of homosexuality, is it fair or not? The debate is on the today’s world. It’d have brought some conflict into the mind of the audience. But even here, the impact is mild. You may not absolutely believe that system is right. Our homosexual character still remains more of a helpless victim, than an arrogant man of choice, who is up against the system.
• Now that is not the motive of the writer. He is projecting himself in the character. He does not want to project a meek, helpless victim of system. He is trying to project an arrogant character – ‘Nobody tells me what to do’. Plus this arrogant characters needs to laugh at the system. And where is the system? Just a few characters in the movie is not enough to laugh at. So, he converts the entire audience into the system who thinks that K should change. How does he achieve that? Not by posing art or homosexuality as the problem. But smoking as the problem. Now, the entire audience is there in the skin of the system against K/writer. K should change. Of course, smoking is bad.
• But K is arrogant and so is writer. Its about the soul. The same soul that we could have easily visualized as something that incorporates K’s artistic tendencies is now shown to be incorporating K’s smoking habit. For the arrogant writer, soul is essentially the person – with his pluses and minus – not something distinct, universal, not something always ‘right’. We find is easy to see that art is in his soul, but find it difficult to comprehend that smoking is in his soul. Because the soul to us is something right and pure – that’s how we popularly use the word. But whose right, what purity? The writer has made the soul individual. You find all this bizarre. Fine. The writer of the story does not care. He has achieved what he wanted to achieve. He has made you the part of the system who wants to change K. You are suddenly guilty of taking away the man’s soul and probably forced to feel bad. And if you are uncomfortable with where you are, he is laughing. He has taken his revenge.

Now, that I have written it, I am wondering if my interpretation (or rather its expression here) has not become more incomprehensible than the movie itself.

But if the above makes any sense, I guess as the audience you can only say ‘what the hell’. How can he do that to me? Well – he has done it. That’s why it is an arrogant, self-indulging piece of work, as the director and the critics both agree. Someone may say that this is not fair to the audience, but that’s not reason enough not to create such work.

Finally few disclaimers:

• This is purely mine (and Abhaya’s) interpretation. There is no claim that this is what the movie means
• This interpretation does not mean that the movie says that smoking is good or harmless. This aspect is immaterial in this interpretation actually.
• The thought process outlined here is something that helped me understand it. This most certainly was not director’s/writer’s thought process.
• The movie is also supposed to have borrowed concepts from some movie and/or book, which I haven’t seen/read. So, my interpretation remains solely based on the sources cited earlier.
• I am an average movie-goer, who likes to see good and different cinema, but does not appreciation for all possible kinds of genres, experiments and techniques involved in movie making. So, the interpretation could be limited by that.

It shows promise at times and then takes a track which make you go – “Oh! Why this?”

So, here are some selected odd stuff from Delhi-6:

WARNING: May have spoilers

• The born-and-brought-up-in-America grand son is in India with his grand-ma, fights with a policeman, barges into a neighbour’s house when he is trying to fix his daughter marriage to tell him and his guests that the girl does not want to get married, meets the girl at the dusk and gets accused of trying to run away with her and the dadi does not have a word of advice to give. Okay, she has lived with his son’s family in the US for five years and has probably learnt not to interfere in their lives. But for God’s sake. Her grandson knows nothing about the ways in India and can get into trouble. Not a single word of advice anywhere?
• The whole scene concluding “India works” is so, so, so artificial. Would have looked good between people discussing business. Not there. Not to ultimately confess that he is in love!
• The “talking-to-dead-grand-pa” scene was another awkward one…
• Finally I just did not get how the crowd suddenly changed its attitude towards our hero. How did the realization dawn on them that he was not the Kala Bandar, but became so for “their” love!

A disappointment after Rang De Basanti.

I spent almost 20 minutes thinking of an interesting title for this post. But each one seemed like doing injustice to one aspect or the other. So, I went for the plain one – the name of the movie.

Anurag Kashyap rocks. There were some aspects of Dev D that felt odd, out of place, not quite reasoned out like rest of the movie. Like I just did not get the enlightenment of Dev there. How he realizes that he should abandon the path of self-destruction and how he manages to come back and find Chanda living happily ever after… But it was still wonderful for all the other things. For the brashness of its characters, for its take on the old story in current times, for its dialogs, actions and actings!

Then comes Gulaal… As usual, a full review is not my cup of tea. So, here are a few observations <potential of spoilers>

• Its not just the brashness of the characters, but also a brashness in the way story is written and told. It is like “This is how things are. You feel uncomfortable? You find it coarse? You’d rather have it slightly different? So be it. We aren’t going to change things due to that. Take it or leave it.”
• You need some sense of history and appreciation of Hindi poetry to be able to fully enjoy the movie.
• All the time the use of poetry and music gives a street-playish effort. After coming back, I found that the lyricist cum composer indeed has that kind of background.
• “जैसे दूर देश के टावर में घुस जाए रे एरोप्लेन” – It is a wonderfully folklorish expression. In this world of direct information, being able to think of such expression that gives you the information and yet has a feel of it being distant is not easy. I am hooked on to it.
• Acting is brilliant for everyone.
• Too bad it won’t do well You know it while watching and enjoying it.
• This is one of those movies which make bollywood come of age! Not Slumdog Millionaires of the world.
• I am going to watch this movie again, and also the older movies of Anurag Kashyap which I have missed out on.

May the good entertainers flourish in bollywood.

मन क्यों ना तू खुश होता रे?

जब थीं दिल में उमंगें जागी,
जब सपने नए मिले थे सारे,
कितनी मन्नतें तब माँगी,
कितने देखे टूटते तारे।

अब जब झोली में हैं आए,
क्यों है तू यों थका-थका रे।
रस्ते का क्यों दर्द सताए,
सामने मंज़िल बाँह पसारे।

मन क्यों ना तू खुश होता रे?

–

खुशी न जाने क्यों नहीं आती!

मंज़िल क्यों वैसी नहीं लगती,
जैसी थी सपनों में भाती,
जो भी पीछे छोड़ आया हूँ,
अलग ये उससे नहीं ज़रा सी।

प्रश्न है खुद से जिसको ढूँढ़ा
क्या वो कोई मरीचिका थी?
और उसे सब कुछ दे डाला
बची है बस ये राख चिता की।

खुशी न जाने क्यों नहीं आती!

It is becoming funny. The moment you say something against “Slumdog Millionaire”, you are being an elite, hypocrite, who does not want to look at the darker side (read slums, poverty) of a city like Mumbai and country like India.

No – for God’s sake! I have absolutely nothing against someone showing poverty in a movie. I am not offended by it. I know it is a reality and let them show all they want.

I don’t like it because it simply was not a good movie. The entertainment aspect was a dud. The “real India” aspect unimpressive.

Let me elaborate.

The entertainment aspect of the movie was based on a very interesting concept. One person with an extremely humble background comes to a game show and knows all the answers. How? There is a story connected to each of them. I am not looking for whether the premise is realistic. I have some expectations from it because it is interesting and intriguing. A good story can come out it. But…

• This “slumdog” knows that the picture on the the dollar bill is that of Benjamin Franklin. How? From another blind “slumdog” who is a beggar and has lived even less privileged life than himself. It did not answer the “How” for first “slumdog”. Instead it created a “How” for the second one. Pray, what is the answer to the second “How”. Nowhere to be located in the movie. A mind expecting something interesting becomes frustrated instead of becoming entertained or satisfied.
• Why on earth did our hero need to jump into a pit of shit to know that Amitabh Bachchan was the lead actor in Zanzeer! For God’s sake. Was it a subtle depiction of unhygienic conditions on slums? No, it was a gross depiction of something which I will call “sensationalization of unhygienic conditions and sensibilities of slum dwellers”. Really, there was no need to have a story behind knowing that Amitabh Bachchan was the lead actor in Zanzeer. After all as our “slumdog” himself says – He is the most famous man in India. And unhygienic conditions were depicted very well without this scene.
• Why would the host of a show take it so personally that a person from a humble background is winning the money. If anything, he should be happy. If the “slumdog” wins all the money, it will be great for the TRP of the show and the host should love it. It is not his money anyway. Let the producers and sponsors worry. Mind you, the host was not just being suspicious (which would have been a genuine concern since if later it was revealed that the guy cheated, it’d be bad for the show). He seemed to be taking it as a personal offense that this guy is winning the money. Funny. And no host whose mind is in the right place would so overtly insult the participant on the show. Whatever might be his personal feelings, if he is worth hosting the show and has any professionalism to speak of, he would be cordial and respectful to the participants while the show is being recorded. We have seen enough of these shows, haven’t we? I am not surprised that Amitabh Bachchan felt bad about this movie – his character has been so absurdly villainized. Of course he never spoke of this aspect
• Half the characters speak English with Indian accent, one fourth with American accent and all these American English speakers speak Hindi in their childhood. Now, what are we trying to do here? Are we trying to make a movie where everything, including language, is authentic. Then let’s keep it Bombay Hindi/Hinglish all through and give subtitles in English. Are we trying to keep the language as English, so that the intended American audience gets something; but we also want to give an Indian flavour to it? Then let’s have everyone speak English with Indian accent (and still give subtitles). Or are we trying to abstract out the language, since we are making it for American audience anyway. Then let’s leave the language out of the way and have everyone speak American English. What on earth is that mixture doing there? That mixture of language (American English, Indian English, Sophisticated Hinglish and Hindi) looks relevant in the new economy corporate circles, not in the situation the movie is trying to depict.

The realistic poverty aspect is unimpressive. “So, you don’t like the fact that it shows poors in an attitude of ‘I am poor, but I am happy’. Right?” The fans would immediately ask. Wrong. All I am saying is that the depiction was mediocre. All the claims of Indian Film making can take a leaf out of it is non-sense. Don’t know what I am talking about? See a bunch of wonderful Bollywood movies in last decade or so, if you want to see the underworld nexus. And you don’t need to go that far for “I am poor, but I am happy” either. Just take out some time to watch “Traffic Signal” by Madhur Bhandarkar. Or are we talking about the situation of girls in prostitution and dance bars. Check out “Chameli” and “Chandni Bar”.

In short, let’s stop getting overwhelmed just because an American British (pardon my not checking the nationality of the director) of the stature of Danny Boyle cared to make a movie on India. It is a great movie for Americans (and others with fancy notions about India). Fine. Let it be. We don’t need to fall head over heals on that. “Pardes” (remember Mahima Chaudhary? She is hosting a show “Salaam-e-Ishq” on Star one these days by the way.) was a great film for India. But it wasn’t a great film to depict American society to Indians. Americans won’t fall for that movie, right? We have seen much better ones on India in India and will continue to see them in future. It is not a Indian Film. It is an American Film and great for them. Let the buck stop there. With due respect to all the awards, both Gulzar and Rahman have done much better work in past. And let’s hope they continue to do so in future.

इति-श्री।