‘Fashion’able still

Everything about Fashion is glitzy. Or is it? Madhur Bhandarkar tries it all. The failings of the fashion industry in India; supermodel-turned-drug addict-turned-streetwalker Gitanjali Nagpal, the malfunctioning wardrobes a-la Carol Gracias and pansy fashion designers, are all there for good measure. And there’s more. The swift rise of a small-town, beauty contest winner, Meghna Mathur, from ignominy to the face of Vogue and…hold your breath…the leading fashion house in India—Panache; the fall of the reigning queen of the ramp, falling prey to the lures of the glamour world—drugs, boyfriends, raves, romps, etc, etc; the rapid highs and lows of one of the fastest growing industries in India; Bhandarkar thought he got it all right! Well, almost! But not quite, I guess! He begins to tell us all, a tale of a super-successful supermodel. Girl lands in Mumbai with stars in her eyes, meets a aspiring fashion designer, gets to know the ‘real’ world of fashion, falls for another struggling male model, lives in with him, shows off her portfolio to every show choreographer in town, even does a lingerie add with much trepidation for some quick bucks. Somewhere, around the middle of the film, it gets murky. The girl is ambitious, she wants the upper crust; role model? Supermodel, showstopper—Shonali Gujral. Enter the owner of the fashion house, Abhijeet Sareen. He likes Meghna, promotes her, sacks Shonali, and lo and behold! Meghna is the face of Panache…she is all over; hoardings, TV ads, the ramp, the works. The fall too is mercurial. Late night parties, whirlwind shows, designers eating out of her hands, Sareen as a lover, an abortion, coke, a one-night stand with a male hooker…and the girl gets into the depths of depression, goes back to her immediate family and the psychiatrist. The pain is too much for her to bear. She is a wreck…again, almost. The stars in her eyes have not faded. Her father, who initially stopped her from getting into life in the fast lane, eggs her on to go back to the city of dreams. She does. Old friends help. She chances upon old rival Shonali Gujral on the streets…gets her home and treated, takes care. This is her final redemption. Meanwhile she succeeds in making her way back into the groove, gets work, also an offer from and old designer friend to be the showstopper for his next big show; low on confidence, she says no…this time Shonali eggs her on. The climax is disturbing. Just when the now-bundle-of-nerves, former supermodel is about to step out onto the ramp, the local policeman calls her to inform about Shonali’s death from drug overdose. The girl is shattered. But she must walk, walk for the dead former showstopper, walk to get over that one horrible night that she spent with the hooker…she does…and how! The graph zooms up again. End of story.

Priyanka Chopra is efficient. Kangna Ranaut is brilliant…in places. The ramp sequences shot with her in the lead shine through as some of the best in the film, she is pure energy on the ramp. Revelation of the film—ramp model Mugdha Godse. As a B-grade model who helps Meghna find work and then helps her through tough times in her life after marrying a gay fashion designer, she is quite magical for a first-timer. The men in the film, for once, are peripheral. Arbaaz Khan as the high flying fixer Sareen is understated and effective; Arjan Bajwa as Meghna’s former boyfriend remains just that, Meghna’s former boyfriend. The male designers, so typically, are all gay. Bhandarkar does not budge from the beaten track. But that’s what he’s known for. The film isn’t bad though. However, why is there so much depression and gloom? Can ambition not be clean?

A few good ones

I have been away from cyberspace for a while now…primarily because of the fact that the Internet connection at my place had collapsed leaving me with no option but to keep myself away from writing. Now, the Internet connection has been restored and so has my love for writing on something that is as part of my being as anything else—movies, cinema, films, the works! Not that I lost my love for the movies, or for writing for that matter, in this period of staying away from the Internet especially at home. What afflicted my inherent fondness for putting my thoughts on cyberspace was the lack of opportunity and, given the hectic work schedules, time. With Internet up at home, the going will be easier now…hopefully!

Meanwhile, a number of films have come…and some have gone…for good. Some stayed on, in memory. One such film that needs a mention here is A Wednesday, directed by debutant director and former ad-film maker, Neeraj Pandey. At a time when bombs had ripped the capital city apart and the secular edifice of India was coming apart with finders being pointed at communities and creeds, A Wednesday brought in sanity…to an extent. Though my perennial complaint remains the fact that the aggressors and terrorists in all Bollywood films are Muslim characters, the film takes an interesting detour in concealing the religious identity of the principal antagonist, The Common Man played effectively by the charismatic Naseeruddin Shah. A Wednesday displays great ingenuity in its depiction of a day in the life of Mumbai’s police commissioner, a day when the world came tumbling down for the man…well, nearly. A series of phone calls from a phantom bomber drives the police department into a tizzy while the man himself perches on top of a half-constructed building and plots what can be termed some of the best chase-find the bomb-diffuse it sequences in recent times. The film came very close to perfection in narrative, a must watch for the sheer guts of the plot. Gripping affair it was!

Another film, belonging to a completely different genre, took everyone by surprise around this time. Apart from launching Imran Khan, Aamir’s nephew on the silver screen, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na did much more. It taught a thing or two to the star-crossed industry about casting the right people for the right roles. Completely unknown faces aided by a whacky, wild plot and a cute musical score became national icons as everyone wanted to know why Pappu cannot dance! The film was a runaway success…made on a modest budget, it made everyone smile.

A little more recent is the success of Farhan Akhtar’s acting debut—Rock On. But the film works, at least for me, because of Arjun Rampal. He has finally proved the fact that models CAN act. Rampal delivers a powerhouse performance as Joe Mascarenhas, the brooding lead guitarist of a rock band that comes apart owing to clashing egos. The coming-of-age of the band proves to be what the members were looking for, caught in their dreary everyday lives. Akhtar plays the lead vocalist who quits a budding singing career to go through life as an ice-cold investment banker. Aditya Shroff lives in a designer apartment with his pretty wife while Joe strums his guitar at lowly parties and bars as his fiery wife manages the family’s fledgling fish business to make both ends meet. Other band members, Rob (Luke Kenny) and KD (Purb Kohli) have resigned to their fate as a small-time music director and the manger of a jewellery firm respectively. It is by chance that they come together once again to recreate the magic of Magik—that’s what the band’s called before Rob succumbs to advanced brain tumor. A touching tale of friendship, Rock On left everyone with tears in their eyes.

The last film that touched a chord…actually was Aamir. Played efficiently by Rajeev Khandelwal, TV’s favourite poster boy, Aamir was a searing take on terrorism. It gave new meaning to the word different. It truly was…different. It tells the story of a young Muslim doctor who returns to India only to get caught in a never-ending web of deceit, mind-games, and mass murder. The narrative does not meander, the plot is taut and takes the story to its logical end. The climax, mind you, is intelligent and at the same time diffident. It compels the viewer to think. Aamir, another small budget stunner, therefore, was the cause of a few firsts on the Bollywood scene apart from being director Ram Kumar Gupta’s cinematic debut.

A sadist's views

These are a few posts I wrote for Passion for Cinema...reproduced here for my own sadistic pleasure...

Considering that this is my first post on PFC, it might be a good idea to start with an opinion or a comment or whatever else you might like to call it. Audience reaction. Read AK’s introspective comments, spoke to Smriti and my sister, another movie maniac about it. I keep going back to the words said in the cinema hall. They haunt me still. The remind me of the horrors that might visit upon us if such fanatics are allowed to multiply and prosper in society. The Bombay riots of 1992 and the state-sponsored carnage in Gujarat (2002) seem like mere exhibits – precursors to a gruesome dream that might turn into reality anytime. Why are we allowing ourselves to be sucked into this vortex of hurt and vengeance?
Reminds me of a maxim that my friend Sucharita uses quite often…something that describes the vitriol that poured out of people watching Black Friday…’do not cast pearls before swines.’

We don’t like uncomfortable things. Black Friday is uncomfortable for many. It exposes them. it bares their soul. And what do you find in there? Hypocrisy, fundamentalism, fanaticism, sadism, cruelty, Us...and Them. The film has treated Us and Them quite beautifully. It turns the concept on its head and points fingers at the self. A brave act and a difficult one to follow. Also the reason why there has been no debate on communalism and secularism after the film was released. Come to think of it, we are ruled by media messages. We are crippled by the onslaught of values and judgements that mill about on the TV screens and then cloud our own take on matters and issues. Take KANK for instance. It generated a debate on infidelity! What is worse, NDTV carried a special on it. But NDTV or any other channel for that matter does not consider the issues raised in Black Friday important enough for a public discussion on TV. Strange! Or is there something that we are missing? I don’t know. Maybe Anurag or someone on PFC might want to answer me.

What all was wrong with the 52nd Filmfare Awards?
Kangana Ranaut getting the Face of the Year takes the cake for me. You know guys, we are a star-starved society, we crave for icons...and Hrithik Roshan with his gymn-toned body and chiselled looks is the perfect candidate for the title…at least for the unhappy millions for whom movies are a way of getting away from daily drudgery. So Hrithik did not get the award for his performance (or should I say non-performance) in Dhoom 2 (such a bad film, it was funny to see it getting nominated). The man got the award precisely because we are slaves of the star-system in Bollywood and will do everything to keep things the way they are. So year after year, the Roshans, the Bachchans and the Kapoors will keep getting undeserved awards.
Though Fanaa was a crappy film, Kajol’s performance was above-average, if not one of her best. Deserved the award? I don’t know…
Has anyone ever considered the fact that the awards only reinforce stereotypes about actors? How many average-looking actors have won awards in the past many years? It’s all about looks in Bollywood. Or so it seems. A Deepak Dobriyal would never be nominated for the Best Supporting Actor category, would he? Such a pity. Abhishek Bachchan for KANK. Well, that movie was so bad that it being on the nominations list is the saddest day for cinema and art. It does not deserve to be called a film. And so, anyone getting an ‘award’ for that bakwaas film has got to be a case of ‘aur koi nahin mila to isko de diya’. Then again it sepaks volumes for the value we attach to art and commerce in cinema. Karan Johar is the prince of moolah and lo and behold, his movie however pathetic will end up getting nominations if not awards.
And those who missed out on the Ash-wiping-her-tears act when would be mom-in-law Jaya Bachchan received some special award (yawn!), you missed the farce of the year. The fakeness of the whole act makes me cringe. It was disgustingly phony, so hypocritical that I was guffawing my guts out. I don’t know about you guys but that woman (Aish) is the epitome of pretence.

Ideology of the Hindi Film
Have been reading a bit on the ideology of Hindi films in the past few weeks. Preparing to write a PhD proposal on construction of Muslim identity in popular Hindi cinema and hence the necessity to read. Not to say that reading has everything to do with studies and academics. Absolutely not. Anyhow, one of the first things I learnt was that while Hollywood follows the organic style of film-making where the story forms the core of all other activities associated with the production of the film, the Bombay film industry has since the early days followed the heterogenous method i.e. the finished product is an amalgamation of various specialized arts such as dance, music, story writing, comedy, etc. This encompasses the ‘formula’ that most Hindi films thrive on. A rather linear differentiation. Don’t know if films like Ankur and Manthan earlier and some of the better films being made in Bombay would fit either way.

The other interesting classification is the typographical differentiation between genres. New wave cinema, middle-class cinema, darsanic socials, musicals, and so on. While the earliest films like Raja Harishchandra and Alam Ara (of the silent era) can be classified under the darsanic social category, others like Raj Kapoor’s Sangam fall primarily in the social mould. Bhuvan Shome by Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray’s master works all fall under the new wave cinema category. Shyam Benegal’s Manthan and Ankur are some other works in the new wave cinema category.

The rise of the subaltern hero is exemplified in the grand and prolonged success that Amitabh Bachchan enjoyed in a period of great churning for the India polity given the socialist leanings of the policies of the Indira Gandhi government. This, as I see it is the single biggest epoch making event in the history of Indian politics in conjunction with popular Hindi cinema. The tide was changing, the common man was the flavour. Zanjeer, Deewar and Sholay, the three Salim-Javed-Amitabh blockbusters made new ground where the new political class was being feted and celebrated.

Some questions that come to my mind straightaway. What genres can we classify films like Black Friday as? Noir perhaps? Is it organic film-making? Perhaps. Will need to do more reading to figure than one out…any help is welcome.

Riposte
My last post on PFC had a number of responders calling me everything from a copy-cat to a poseur who has ripped off portions of Madhava Prasad’s book and created a rather itsy-bitsy write-up for the heck of it. Thanks everyone. I only needed to be told all this. I know jackshit about films, I only blabber incoherently, rave and rant. Well…
I do not feel the need to justify my post, nor the fact that I had been reading Madhava Prasad’s book. Yes, I had been so what? I learnt from the book. I learnt and I wrote what I felt, is there a problem? Doesn’t each person’s creative expression involve her emotions, feelings, and learnings? Take Oz’s post on Black Friday, for instance. His anguish is palpable. He is angry and it shows. And why shouldn’t it? Isn’t the fact that only moolah matters to distributors and producers damn true?
So here’s my take on an incident I read about on one of the many news channels recently (I think it was CNN-IBN). The Big B, the superstar of the millennium, the greatest actor ever born, etc, etc, apparently threw a tantrum at a hotel in Kolkata over a suite that he preferred. The man wanted the best and he made it very very clear. Fair enough. After all he’s the Big B (more of a Bugger B), father of Junior B, Aby’s Baby, etc, etc, would-be father-in-law to the (former) most beautiful woman in the world, A-list Bollywood actress, best friends to Amar-Mulayam Singh, Anil Ambani and so on and so forth. So obviously, Bachchan would not listen to anyone, not even to the director of the film (it was probably Rituporno Ghosh). Great stuff! Kudos! Way to go! However, what is mind-boggling is the fact that a leading TV news channel decides to carry it as news on prime time television.
Here’s another gem. Same channel, around the same time. Priyanka Chopra’s kid brother wanted the Men in Blue to sign on his T-shirt. The doting good didi went out of her way to accomplish the good deed and go the cricketers to sign her bro’s T-shirt. Again bold, headline news.
India just loves its stars. Not only stars, we salivate on their sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, daughters-in-law, and would-be daughters-in-law. The whole act is so nonchalant, shameless and blatant that one could blanche at it.
What I would like the media to do? Give the Bachchans, their extended family, coterie, and friends a break. Rather we should be asking the Bachchans to give India a break. Come on, the man’s gone bonkers, he’s been issuing silly repartees to a man 20 years his junior. He’s been saying things like Aishwarya Rai is ‘domesticated’. As if she’s a cow, and not a mature, successful woman. Either he is a regressive antique or he needs to brush up his vocabulary. Then there is the whole farcical turn about their visits to God-knows-how-many temples. Is there anyone who’s interested in whether Bachchan wore his slippers on his way to Siddhivinayak or not? Or whether Abhishek would be in mortal danger if he marries the manglik Aishwarya?
I think we need a break. From the Bachchans.

Saas-bahu and us
Just following up on the ‘domesticated’ comment Amitabh Bachchan made…well not so recently. Reminds of the K serials! Those dreaded, dreadful, awful, disgusting, diatribes against the liberation of women and everything that comes with it. I sometimes wonder if Ekta Kapoor actually believes in whatever she makes. I hope not for if she does then hells nigh! Women of the world unite! Against this nauseating assault on womanhood, modernity, and the progression of thought that does not seem to end and trust me there’s more muck coming from the K stable.

Its good, in these days of the Parvatis and the Tulsis to rewind and go back to the era of Humlog and Buniyad, not to forget the delightfully hilarious Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi and of course Mr Yogi, a unique celebration of the common man and his uncommon dreams.

All we get to watch today are painfully slow and agonizing stories (or should I say profiles?) of ultra-rich, incredulous, pathetic families where women are made to dress in ruddy chiffons and lounge around the house indulging in the worst kinds of familial intrigues. The men have no jobs (or so it seems). Oh yeah! They happen to be business tycoons and own plush mahogany offices…but rarely seem to go to work. Tycoons too need to work, don’t they?

I am reminded of Shridhar Kshirsagar’s Khandaan broadcast on good old Doordarshan some twenty years back. A gripping story of two feuding business families, skillfully crafted. Just that my father did not allow me to watch it (said I was too young for a programme like that, etc). However, I vaguely remember Shekhar Kapur and Kitu Gidwani in pivotal roles. Later, I happened to read some commentaries on the serial. Mahesh Bhatt’s Swabhimaan too succeeded in holding my interest for a while but as in all things written by Shobha De, the serial too went the sex-and-sleaze way.

They no longer make the Byomkesh Bakshi’s and the Karamchand’s any more, do they? Even Tehkikat was not bad. Zee made an attempt some time back with Mohandas BA LLB, a nice amalgam of suspense and humour. The downfall has been rather dramatic what with Saat Phere..Saloni ka Safar being the highest TRP-earner on Zee (or is it across the board, I don’t know).

TV is rather unbearable to watch, what say? (Except if there is some cricket happening.)

Amar Singh-Shahrukh Khan
The Amar Singh-Shahrukh Khan controversy has been a talking point lately. My first reaction – Ha ha ha ha ha! Then the Samajwadi biggie shot himself in the foot and made disparaging lewd remarks against Gauri Khan. My reaction – what do you expect from a man like him? Further (and this, guys is the height of it all) some idiotic Samajwadi folks turned up outside Shahrukh’s house and started sloganeering against the Khan. In all of this, Khan’s kids got a real shock and started wailing. Now obviously, it did not go down well with Shahrukh. He came out all guns blazing saying that he was a ‘demented Pathan’ and was madly protective about his family, would do anything to protect then, etc.,etc.
This Amar Singh is a strange character. He is forever part of filmi gossip for all the worng reasons. When Amitabh Bachchan wants to save up on import duty, he gets Singh to explain (to the media and everyone who cares to lend an ear) that Abhishek Bachchan’s birthday gift was his car after all which (for whatever reason) remained parked in the Bachchan residence! And he expected everyone to believe that. Well…
He also gets into certain dangerous liaisons with lissome Bollywood beauties, has lovey-dovey talks with them over the telephone, and remarks ‘meri abhinetriyon se achchi jaan pehchaan hai’. Haan haan aapki baat hum samajhte hain.
But what attracts men like him to Bollywood? We have ample examples of politicians hobnobbing with industry biggies in both reel and real life. Amar Singh is the epitome of the wily politician on the prowl in Dreamland. And whom does he have for company? The Bachchans, no less. Being enveloped in controversy is routine for him. What makes me curious about the guy is his clout in the industry. It also makes me scared. If the industry is somehow controlled (maybe not directly) by people like him, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the way ahead for the industry. Why can’t the industry rid itself of someone like him and get on with making ‘good’ films? I seriously think we need to think beyond ‘certain fixities’ in Bollywood and move on. There’s simply too much talent lying around.

Pray for me, Brother
A R Rahman does not stop surprising me. ‘Pray for Me, Brother’ is an exceptional composition. The modulations, especially towards the middle of the song when Rahman reaches a vocal crescendo are out of this world. Gave me goose bumps. Brilliant vocals, mind blowing music, and the presence of the genius make it one in a million. Amazing!
One goes deeper and discovers that the song as been composed under the aegis of the UN and who better to lend voice and music to an idea that germinates at the end of the road for floundering humanity that A R Rahman, the epitome of cultural amalgamation and religious unity. One of India’s greatest exports to the world of international music, he deserves every accolade that he gets. The song serenades, cajoles and forces you to think. The world’s getting smaller, but every one’s having problems making the distance. There’s death, destruction and destitution. And no one’s willing to take the first step towards reconciliation. Rahman does it with this song. The song has the potential for bridging gaps wherever they exist – a great mascot of world peace and human co-existence.
The video is cutting-edge. Neat editing and cuts make it a stunning sequence. The last scene of an African-American man embracing a Caucasian white girl is symbolic of whatever the song stands for and advocates. Another still of famine-stricken children in Darfur is mind-numbing. There’s hunger and squalor. There’s pain and pity. And Rahman evokes emotions any which way. With new-found success with his immensely improved vocal strengths (with Tere Bina from Guru becoming a huge hit) the musical genius is on his way to the hall of fame. If he has not reached one already, that is.
And this, mind you is not the first time he has attempted something like this. But ‘Pray for Me, Brother’ is by far his best attempt at theme-based music. Written against poverty and hunger an in consonance with the UN Millennium Development Goals, the song is a brilliant portrayal of the urgent need for more food reaching the famine-affected people, aid reaching the war-ravaged million, and a change of heart in general.

Lage raho Gandhi

Just yesterday, I came across this very ill-informed critique of the cult movie, Lage Raho Munnabhai and its equally successful prequel, Munnabhai MBBS on a blog. If you ask me, the movie is probably the best thing to happen to the year 2006 after of course the trail-blazing Rang de Basanti. The fiery piece painstakingly argued that the reason why India has lagged behind all these years, politically, economically, and well, socially was precisely because of the very ideals that Gandhi propagated in his lifetime inspiring a whole generation. Gandhigiri, for the writer is a strict no-no in today's day and age of global progress, liberalization, cut-throat competition, and ritual communalization of the society. After all, India was surging ahead and there should not be place for complacency, slackness, and humility when the world was gazing at us with expectant eyes. A neo-liberal critique of a post-modern montage on screen? Perhaps!Why would anyone want to jeopardise India's bull run by making a retrogade film like Lage Raho...? Let me give you some answers. The film posits truth as a virtue. In a world where a behemoth goes to war with a rather tiny piece of territory on the basis of a heap of sheer lies, truth becomes a rare commodity. The only WMDs in Iraq were the ones dropped with impunity by the Great Devil and his associates. That Bush lied to the world to bomb Iraq is not a secret, nor is the fact that more deaths have occured in that battered country from malnutrition, disease, insurgent and enemy gunfire, and of course torture than all American military casualities ever. So ah, the Americans lied, went to war and killed thousands! So Lage Raho... says 'truth is God'. Gandhi also said the same. What is wrong with that? Could lives in Iraq have been saved if Bush had not lied? Maybe. Trust Bollywood to teach the Amrikans some lessons. Even though we never realise the potential of our own cinema, it could actually give good old Hollywood a run for its money. And in turn drill some sense into the brainless morons who run, or ruin, America.Back home, hundreds of murder cases pile up in courts. Even as the Jessica Lall and the Priyadarshini Mattoo cases capture eyeballs, the fact that eye-witnesses were bought over to lie in court stares everyone in the face. A recent Tehelka expose relates how Shayan Munshi, Karan Rajput and Shiv Das, all key witnesses to the gruesome murder, were paid hefty sums of money to either shut up or retract statements. In short, they were told to lie...or else! So there! Some semblance of truth could give justice to a dead young woman. But a bag full of untruth is all she has got. Even in death, truth has evaded Jessica. So is Gandhigiri relevant? I guess so.

Cinema at its best

I have spent the weekend watching the two most powerful films made by two men who belong to this very woebegone and insensitive society that we have become. Let me start writing about the films with some reactions from the theatres. Parzania. Catcalls, laughter, giggles, Accha..! Oh ho! Black Friday. Why don’t you go away to Pakistan? Jai Shri Ram, more catcalls, more laughter, jeers…the works. The discerning Indian audience that we keep gloating over is nothing short of a brute, incongruous, pathetic, jingoistic, fundamentalist, fascist group of individuals. At least that is what my experience of watching these films in a social melee has been. Not surprising then that while Parzania has not seen the light of day in the one state that needs to see the film more than anyone else, Black Friday has been released without a hitch in the same state. The reasons are not hard to find.IParzania not only indicts the Sangh Parivar for the 2002 genocide in Gujarat, it showcases the pain of one family to exemplify the scars of a society. What transpired in Gujarat was not only a blot on the face of Gujarat, the birthplace of Gandhi, an iconoclast of peace, it is a black chapter in the history of contemporary India. A human failing of monolithic proportions, the society in Gujarat is polarized beyond compare. Parzania says it all and much more. The film begins, and rightly so with a paen to the Almighty in the background that can be translated loosely as ‘What happened to the land of Gandhi?’ What really happened in the land of Gandhi? Parzania shows us what exactly.The neighbourhood banter, the gruesome bloodletting, the pain, the anguish, the agony of living in relief camps, the inept, corrupt, and communalized police force, the spiritual quest for answers when all else fails is captured in vivid detail. The rioting mobs prepared with saffron bands, tridents, swords and petrol bombs converging on the Mohammadi Mansion, Muslim men calling up the police to be told ‘We have no orders to save you!’, the young Parsi mother screaming ‘I am a Parsi’ to avoid being attacked, the Hindu neighbour refusing to open the door to take the Parsi children in only because they were not Hindus pose a few vehement questions. That the VHP went door to door flagging Hindu houses and businesses leaving out the Muslim establishments to make things easier for their foot soldiers, listing out families by name, religion and caste a few days before the Godhra train burning incident, stockpiling LPG cylinders and other inflammable items for quick combustion with the active participation of women is common knowledge which is trumpeted as an attempt by whiny secularists to inflict insult upon Gujarat’s wounds by the right wing zealots in power in the state.The film is woven together by the enraged renditions of an alchoholic American research scholar, in Ahmedabad to discover Gandhi. His dilapidated typewriter becomes the slate on which Gujarat’s bloodiest month get etched for posterity. The facts are there for everyone to see. Parzania does not make any illegitimate claims, it does not digress from the moot point, finding the lost boy Azhar Mody (Parzan Peethawala in the film), it does not tells us anything we don’t already know. Rahul Dholakia has only brought it all together to tell a story that needs to be told today to avoid perpetuating hate in future. The story of the Mody’s needs to be told because they represent the Gujarat of today, a silent tinderbox. One can only guess when the next riot will break out. A genocide of the kind that took place in 2002 can happen again. Cities and towns in Gujarat are strewn with markers of hate and mistrust. ‘Welcome to Hindurashtra’ say hoardings and placards along the railway line that runs through the state. The Bajrang Dal has succeeded in keeping Parzania out of theatres in the state. Can the next genocide be far away?

II

Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday, based on S Hussain Zaidi’s book by the same name is an audio-visual documentation of the meticulous planning that went into the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai that ripped the city apart, searing the metropolis to its soul. However, this is not what makes Black Friday an example of good film-making. Black Friday is one of the finest films to hit the marquee in the history of Indian cinema because of the following reasons:It does not shy away from taking names. No names have been changed. The characters are flesh and blood. And more importantly, they are true to the story.The film makes no bones about what actually led to the blasts. The Babri Masjid demolition, the riots of January 1992 in which a disproportionate number of Muslims were butchered, the inability of the police to punish those responsible for the Bombay riots, the collective angst of a battered and bruised community are all there. The fact that Tiger Memon vowed to avenge the burning down of his office by bringing the city down to its knees is startlingly captured by what the director has called the hidden camera – a particularly effective style of film-making. Black Friday stands testimony to that.The film makes no attempt to gloss over the real provocation for Memon, his aides, and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The Masjid demolition footage is brilliantly interwoven into the screenplay. Kashyap’s film is candid, as candid as Badshah Khan who rattles away his reasons for participating in the conspiracy. Khan becomes the epitome of Muslim anger.The police is not glorified. The fact that third degree torture methods were used to gather information and crack the case is established and known. The film only reiterates it. The fact that hundreds of innocent Muslims were detained without reason, beaten up, the women humiliated and molested to make the men sing is portrayed vividly. Just so that the viewer knows that ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’The actors are brilliant. I for one thank Anurag Kashyap for not inflicting stars and their starry airs on the audience in a story that would have lost steam. It has been noticed that a film derails weighed down by the million dollar stars that have made Bollywood their haven. Underrated and underpaid, character actors often carry a film on their shoulders. Kay Kay Menon, Pawan Malhotra, and Aditya Shrivastava (Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika in Parzania) just did. They are so real, one can almost feel the raging anger, the fear, the trauma.Everything works for the film. Despite two particularly long chase sequences, Black Friday succeeds in its mission. The director is telling a story here. A story that jolted the nation out of deep slumber. The seething fury in the voice of Tiger Memon is infectious. The understated silhouette of a brooding Dawood Ibrahim is used to good effect. One cannot just miss the striking resemblance the actor bears to one of the most feared men in Bombay.Black Friday remains till the end true to most details of the case and the book with humour, though dark thrown in for good measure. Kashyap thus has made a film that other film-makers would find hard to replicate. If you think Madhur Bhandarkar is the king of reality cinema, go watch Black Friday. It will shock and shake you. If this is what the cinematic medium can do, it is a pity that its potential has been underutilized for so many decades in an industry crowded by a surfeit of fake and artificial icons, their families, and offspring.

Why did Mani Ratnam make Guru?

Why did Mani Ratnam make Guru? From a glowing tribute to the spirit of human enterprise to the grittiest film ever made, the film has received accolades from all over. Genuine or generated..I don’t know. The media savvy of the people associated with the film could be one reason why the film has made it with four and five stars in newspapers and magazines across the board except Outlook. I admire Namrata Joshi for her scathing comments.Guru is a bad film. Period. The brilliant camera-work by Rajiv Menon, artistic editing and great music notwithstanding. The film falls flat. It lacks character. It is easy to go on to the Reliance website, access the history section and get a lowdown on the rise of the company, the way in which shareholders multiplied…and so on. Why would anyone want to see it on celluloid? The propagandist nature of the film is particularly uncomfortable. Guru is blatant, in places it is even shameless. It is preachy. One does not need Abhishek Bachchan (aka Gurukant Desai) to pontificate on how Gandhi had broken the law 40 years ago only to be matched by an industrialist who flouts custom duties and all the rules, regulations, and laws of the land to end up as a tycoon. The comparison with Gandhi is where the film falters. It can only elicit guffaws and not cheers. Ratnam also does a U-turn from his heady Yuva days and indulges in visual and verbal left-bashing. (Comrades, do we need any more bashing? Hasn’t enough been done already?) Manik Dasgupta and his crusading reporter Shyan Saxena played by Mithun Chakraborty and R Madhavan respectively are somehow in a rather sinister and cruel manner portrayed as villains who are out to get the man of the moment. We can surely do without gutless films like Guru. If the mantra is ‘play safe’ then I am afraid, we are only running against time…not with it!

Bal Thackeray vs. Black Friday

So Bal Thackeray wants to ban Black Friday. Says the film portrays Dawood ibrahim and the perpetrators of the 1993 Bombay blasts as heroes. Not surprising at all. Doesn’t Thackeray belong to the same gang that brought down the mosque at Ayodhya and slaughtered Muslims by the dozen in Gujarat? he is the skewed yet a living breathing manifestation of the rot that has set into the society we live in. he symbolizes the beliefs and prejudices of millions of Indians across the board. He is the epitome of the mythical entity Golwalkar called the Hindu Rashtra, triumphantly bandied about by his footsoldiers in the RSS, VHP, and Bajrang Dal. Thackeray stands for the political project that has been the cause of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Can he let a film go?Defaming and demeaning Black Friday would give him his lost teeth. He is raring to go after the victory at the BMC hustings. Is it a surprise that he makes an unqualified statement like that? The rightist fringe has been making anti-Black Friday noises for long saying that the film ‘de-demonizes’ the (so-called) terrorists, almost ‘humanizes’ them. While they are engaged in a project that does just the opposite – demonizing the Muslims as a community. Black Friday goes against the grain, or so it would seem to those gaping out of the loony bin.But can he ban the film? He does not hold a constitutional position, a solace to those who make up the ‘progressives’ in India, a horribly miniscule minority. But he wields immense clout with the badshahs of badmashi, the goons who can be called upon to destroy property and even lives within minutes. Therefore, if Thackeray calls for a ban, theatre owners would end up shuddering. What if their bread and butter is burnt down or broken or something? And the law enforcement agencies don’t give a damn. So a ban call might just end up working. And no one will raise a voice. Because India is already a Hindu Rashtra for many, in thought and practice. And Hindu Rashtra does not tolerate truth.

Attending a script writing workshop with Anurag Kashyap

Writing for me is catharsis. There is nothing else in the world that gives me as much pleasure than string a motley group of words together to create a sentence. The feeling of being a creator of anything, even if it is a mere sentence is too great and immense. It is for the same reason that I watch films. To fathom at the creative ability of anyone and everyone associated with it. A film is a grandiose exposition of one’s innate desires.Thus, when I started writing my first ever script in life (thanks to Smriti), I found voice for all the distress that has pulled me in all directions possible. My protagonist is all that I can never say in public or write formally..even in a PhD thesis that I plan to write sometime in future. He fights the system but is warped in his communal consciousness. Not because he is a fanatic or a fundamentalist but because all he was always looked at with suspicion, humiliated and systematically destroyed by the society. A society that is slowly breaking down…ruthlessness and fear gnawing at its entrails. I write because I want to. It’s all that I ever have wanted to do. And yes, as Leo Rosten once said…’the only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.’Are there any guidelines for writing a script? How long should it be? What are the essential elements of a script? These are some of the questions that came up at a workshop on script writing conducted by Anurag Kashyap in Delhi recently. I happened to be a participant there. ‘A story is each his own. There cannot be a style sheet for writing a story. It’s entirely up to you. It’s your story. Just write,’ was Anurag’s dictum for aspiring script-writers and filmmakers. ‘You need to go out there and try to make your life.’ More often than not the discussion shifted to Satya and more recently Black Friday. At one point, Anurag quipped, ‘Can we get beck to story writing? The Black Friday compliments can happen outside…’Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window followed by a reading of the original story by Cornell Woolrich of the same name on which it was based was good fun. It was fascinating to watch how a story is altered in order to adapt it for the silver screen. Anurag then told us about the way Hollywood functioned at the time of the making of Rear Window, pretty much the same way as our very own Bollywood functions today. There are certain elements that are a must for any and every screenplay, for instance a female lover, a romantic angle, and so on. It was amazing to learn the inner nuances of movie making. Anurag’s description of how Satya came about was enriching though I thought that only a Ram Gopal Varma could afford an exercise like that. There were instances that he narrated of the compromises film-makers and screen writers have to make to do their own thing.I was however humbled by the immense insight Anurag has into world cinema. The man’s an encyclopaedia on world cinema, its origins and current trends. And I am not saying this for saying sake. He truly is. And it was great to have met him. Finally!

My take on Shootout at Lokhandwala

This has been a busy week particularly with regard to my film viewing schedules. Started with Life in a Metro which should have been named Sexual Life in a Metro as all Anurag Basu did was dwell on sleazy underbelly of corporate culture and human relationships. Fair enough, to each his own. The other film I watched was Shootout at Lokhandwala. Given a choice between romance and guns, I’d go for guns any day. The film comes hot on the heels of the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case grabbing headlines and eyeballs in the media. Less importantly are the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case and another fake encounter case in Gujarat that of Javed Sheikh who was gunned down in cold blood by the Rajasthan and Gujarat police in 2004. All three cases are preceded by a long and sordid history of fake encounter killings and the people with blood on their hands are the usual suspects – the police and the armed forces. Kashmir has seen the worst encounters over the past many years. Some of them find publicity and media coverage and become iconic while the rest (and the numbers are staggering) remain stacked in the dusty alleys of the establishment.Was the Maya Dolas encounter in 1991 a real one? The Bombay High Court ruled in favour of the Anti-Terrorism squad being led by Aftab Ahmad Khan, which planned and executed the whole operation. Human rights activists and citizen’s group thought on the contrary. The encounter they said was a set-up. Khan had been on the D-gang payroll and had been sounded off after Dolas got too big for his boots. The families of the five men who were killed (and according to Shootout…quite brutally at that) petitioned the court saying that their children were killed for a crime they did not commit. However, all records (I have done some research on this) state that Dolas was indeed an extortionist who fell on the wrong side of Big Bhai in Dubai and was killed in a police encounter which involved loads 327 policemen and sophisticated weaponry and put the lives of close to 102 men, women and children living in the heavily populated Lokhandwala area on 16 November 1991 in danger.The film does not provide answers to this vexing question. But is it supposed to? I don’t know. It is a film-director’s take on an incident, which has long been lauded as the longest encounter ever in the annals of the Mumbai Police. In portions, the screenplays veers towards hero-worship of the police officers involved in the operation, there are other sequences where the film-maker makes an attempt to provide a humane face to otherwise ruthless gangsters. It is much like a see-saw. The film begins with three large blood stains on the lane in front of Swati Building, the residential block which had housed the Maya and his boys for weeks and ends with the bloodied faces of the slain criminals. Was it correct to hound the men in the fashion that the Mumbai police chose to follow? The question is raised over and over again by a television reporter (played by Diya Mirza) fuelling an ideological and ethical debate.My only problem with the film is the unnecessary and useless song and dance sequences and characters like the bar dancer (Aarti Chhabria) and Bua (Tusshar Kapoor). Kapoor not only failed to portray the sharpshooter to any devastating effect, his command over dialogues was grotesque. He should probably only stick to comic roles and leave the gangsta flicks to Vivek Oberoi. It was nice to see him come back into his own after the searing role in Company. He is superb as Mayabhai, the young extortionist who rebels against the D-Company. Rohit Roy is decent enough in a small role while Shabbir Ahluwalia, Ekta Kapoor’s blue-eyed boy makes a foray into Bollywood as RC, the young associate who cannot get over the fact that he murdered a family in cold blood.Scenes to die for? Quite a few. ACP Shamsher Khan kills one of Maya’s cohorts (played by Aditya Lakhia) in front of the media, police, and Lokhandwala residents. It is effective, gory, and sets the pace for the rest of the sequence. But again it is difficult to judge the tenor of the filmmaker’s ideological leanings (whether in favour of the police or ethics in general) from this one scene; however it does raise a few questions about the methods the police uses to bring criminals to its knees. At one level the film propagates the infallibility of the police’s patriotism while on the other it raises a few uncomfortable queries about the fact that criminals too need to be treated like human beings and have rightful access to the institutions of law and justice. The verbal duel between Maya and ACP Khan too is well-shot and modulated. Dutt is a model cop – uncorrupted, patriotic, and dedicated and he does a brilliant job of his role (as usual).Yes, one more thing. The presence of just too many stars from the commercial pantheon pulled the film back a bit. But who could have played Maya better than Vivek Oberoi?

Whatever in Jodhaa Akbar warranted protests

Let me understand. Did saffron wielding mobs protest against Jodhaa Akbar because there is a historical debate over the name of the Rajput princess who married Akbar? Or did they pull posters down and force theatre owners to stop screening the film because it is perhaps the first mainstream, commercial, popular Hindi film which portrays a Muslim man marrying a Hindu woman? The second reason is much likely why there was such an outcry against Ashutosh Gowarikar’s magnum opus. Remember Mahesh Bhatt’s Zakhm or Mani Ratnam’s Bombay? Both films that applauded the union of religions – one monotheistic, the other polytheistic – through marriage. However, both films portrayed the woman as a Muslim, never the man. The notion of intermingling of the bloodline was clearly sidestepped. Jodhaa Akbar did just the opposite. Firstly, Gowarikar picked a story that had a Muslim emperor marrying a Hindu princess. Their co-mingling produced the heir to the Mughal throne. The period of Mughal rule, mind you, is regarded by the Sangh Parivar and its affiliates to be the most ruinous period of Indian history. For the saffron flag-bearers, they are the outsiders who sacked the land of the Hindus. That the Mughals were the only race that made Hindustan its home, that Jalaluddin Mohammad, heir-apparent to Mughal Emperor Humayun was born in the house of a Rajput noble, that he saw friendly alliances, including those of marriage as possible conciliatory ways to overcome the need for wars and bloodshed, that he was the greatest ever ruler to govern Hindustan and was conferred the title of Akbar (Great) by predominantly Hindu subjects does not matter to those who have come the view the world in terms of those who support the so-called Hindu cause and those who do not. The marriage of a Muslim man to a Hindu woman is thus sacrilege of an unpardonable degree. These are tumultuous times, the society at large is moving towards intolerance and bigotry. Gowarikar attempted something that did give him a resounding success at the box office; at the same time, protests for no rhyme or reason marred the release and run of the film.

The narrative per se is flawless, at least historically. References to all events depicted in the film can be traced back to texts. The taming of the wild elephant, Akbar’s spiritual experience during the Sufi song sequence, the rebellion of Sharifuddin and Adham Khan’s killing can be traced back to any authoritative writing on Akbar and his times. In fact, those who know Delhi also know of Adham Khan’s tomb at the entrance to the Mehrauli area. The film, in a subtle manner, dwelt on the secular and syncretic aspects of Akbar’s relationship with his wife Jodhaa whom he had married not out of choice but in order to put an end to the communal strife that had broken out between the Hindus and the Muslims in the Rajputana and Gujarat regions. He viewed the marriage as a gesture of friendship towards his Hindu subjects. Those who watch the film carefully would note that the first offer of marriage is brought to the emperor’s court by Raja Bharmal of Amer, Jodhaa’s father. Akbar did not, in any way, force the princess to enter into this alliance. On the contrary, the princess was free to express her fears and concerns and in doing so she places two conditions that the emperor must fulfil before tying the knot. Her first condition was to do with conversion and the second, unheard of in Mughal courts till then, the construction of a temple in her quarters where she could install her family deity. Akbar nonchalantly agrees to both the conditions, marries the princess, and does not insist on the consummation of the marriage with a non-consenting Jodhaa. He, on the other hand, explains to his new wife, that under the laws of Islam, she is free to annul the marriage if she deems fit. Therefore, those who protest clearly did not even make an attempt to watch the film before falling prey to beguiling rumours.

The Mughal emperor, a practicing Muslim, is also credited with having abolished the pilgrimage tax or the tirth yatra mehsul that had been levied on Hindu pilgrims from time immemorial. Despite flak from court clergy and the nobles, Akbar not only abolished the tax but also refused to accept an argument that claimed that taking the tax off would damage the exchequer. He clearly placed a high degree of importance on the confidence of his subjects, majority Hindu. Further, Akbar put an end to the practice of beheading defeated local kings and allowed them to live as loyal subjects of the Mughal empire—a rather humane gesture in times when bloody wars were commonplace. These instances go to show the extent to which the film adhered to the basic tenets of history. It would not be wrong to say that Jodhaa Akbar is perhaps the most historically accurate film to roll out of the Bollywood assembly line. Mughal-e-Azam, I dare to say, could be termed as a cinematic classic, but it was by all means a historical disaster. The film depicted the saga of love between Prince Salim (later Jahangir) and the exquisitely beautiful courtesan Anarkali. Historians of great repute and authority have recorded that Anarkali was part of Akbar’s harem and even bore him a child. According to them, there was no relationship between Salim and Anarkali. Despite this deep-rooted historical flaw, the film was allowed a safe run across India. It, in fact went on to become one of the biggest blockbusters ever. Why then, this objection to Jodhaa Akbar? The reason, as explained earlier, is the deepening saffronization of the Indian society that has created a rather wide chasm of hatred and mistrust. Pogroms like that in Gujarat have only contributed to deepening this cleavage between communities. There is a hardening of stands on both sides. In times like these, Jodhaa Akbar breaks new ground. It rocks the foundations of the Sangh dictum that Hindus can never co-exist with Muslims. Parallely, it also deconstructs and completely destroys the theory postulated at the time of Partition—that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations. We have borne the burden of that flawed theory ever since.

A Perfect Balance of Black and White

First things first, it is hard to believe that this is Subhash Ghai. Quite literally, Black and White (hereafter B&W) is the very antithesis of anything that Ghai has ever stood for. Grand commercial successes, ornate melodrama, opulent set design, stylized imagery and costumes—he is Bollywood’s modern day showman! B&W is, in one word, minimalist. Not in scope or reference. For the film, for perhaps another first in mainstream Hindi film lore, examines the trans-territorial nature of Islamic extremism. The narrative moves from the bombed-out badlands of Afghanistan to the narrow bylanes of Old Delhi. The reflection of minimalism becomes apparent in the latent landscape of the film. The major part of the story is set in Delhi’s historic Chandni Chowk overlooked by the majestic Red Fort, the object of the terrorist’s gameplan. The thronging crowds at the Red Fort commemorating India’s independence must be blown apart in one diabolical suicide mission—the protagonist/antagonist, Numair Qazi, an Afghan posing as a victim of the Gujarat pogrom is the man on a mission, a mission to give up life for the ONE above. It is after all, Allah’s wish that he blew himself up to attain jannat. Once in India, he meets Prof Rajan Mathur, a Hindu teacher of Urdu at the Zakir Hussain College, reminiscent of the strange case of Prof SAR Gilani, the man accused of sheltering terrorists and aiding the suicide attack on the Parliament. Prof Mathur mouths verses of the Holy Quran with a never-seen-before flair, a rather piquant anomaly for the young man on a mission. As the narrative moves ahead, his mentor in India – a well-known businessman who had promised Numair an entry pass to the Red Fort, shoots himself dead when faced with arrest, a crucial turning point in the film. It is after this incident that Numair discovers that he will have to make drastic changes in the original plan to make his mission a success. Thus, Prof Mathur is the only other person who can get him into the VIP enclosure; Prof Mathur is a good man, a well-respected man. The only hitch – Prof Mathur’s firebrand wife, Roma who feels Numair is more suspicious than trustworthy. The terrorists hatch a plan to convince Roma that this young man is a victim of communal hatred, a soul who has lost his childhood in the raging fires of Gujarat. Stealthily, the terrorist gains entry into the Mathur household, into the impregnable fortress of Indian syncretism. Ghai plans his narrative well. He places the Afghan extremist in the sprawling mansion of an elderly poet-patriarch, played so brilliantly by the inredible Habib Tanvir. No one suspects him, not even the chirpy newspaper baron’s daughter who lives next door and loses her heart to the silent, brooding young man. The film dwells deftly on a couple of sequences that are quite strikingly woven together to create an overall impact. One such sequence is the one in where the stodgy government official offers Numair prasad from a temple. The man’s intention is clear. He plays on the notions of morality and blasphemy in the annals of conservative Islam. Numair is an Islamic radical. Earlier in the film, he kills a man, a Muslim, in cold blood after he announces that he drank himself to a stupor and could not wake up in the morning and states that he does not believe that anyone who doesn’t follow Islam needs to survive in this world. So, the officer looks expectantly for the man to flinch, lift up his hand and strike him down, kick him from under the chair. Numair does none of these. He puts the sweet in his mouth and gulps it down disdainfully, all for the sake of the final hurrah, his ultimate prize—the path, you see, has been chosen by his maker. He must die so that he can live in the afterlife. Numair gets his entry pass, his ticket to salvation. The other sequence that needs a mention here is when Prof Mathur’s little daughter plays Saare Jahan se Accha on her synthesizer for Numair, who has by now been accepted as a member of the Mathur family. The scene is study in understanding the conceptual tendencies of trans-territorial Islamic fundamentalism. Numair is an Afghan, he is on a deadly mission to India and here is listening to this little girl playing an ode to the very edifice that he has come to breach. The creases on the man’s brow tell it all. Does he succeed in his mission? No, he doesn’t. Roma, the woman who called him brother is killed by members of his group. Prof Mathur forbids his daughter from wailing as he fears a Hindu backlash will ruin the peace of Chandni Chowk—a secular haven. In one heart-rending sweep, Ghai delivers a power-packed scene. Independence Day; Numair does gain entry into the VIP enclosure, is about to blow himself up but does not. His eyes well up, they killed the woman who called him brother, they let her die…he cannot take it anymore. The police too – having cracked the plot – is closing in. Numair escapes. With a lost dream, with an image of India that still lives on the hope that Hindus and Muslims are one nation. Does he survive? Yes he does. Prof Mathur saves him, standing like a shield between the bullet and the man he gave shelter to. The Indian state accuses him of treason. The film ends with the terrorist’s email absolving the good professor of all guilt, declaring him a great son of India.

The film works because of the way it ends. Ghai resists the urge to close the narrative in a form of a bloody encounter where yet another suspected terrorist is killed. The man survives to realize that perhaps the larger ethos of India is much too strong for the footsoldiers of global jehad to break down. However, at the cost of sounding nit-picky, I lament the fact that the film, in many ways, falls into the trap of stereotyping the Muslim. The villains of the set-piece are all Muslim barring the good-hearted poet and the guitar-totting aspiring musician. The terrorists are technical wiz-kids; the protagonist/antagonist prefers the jehadi’s interpretation of the Quran over the professor’s peace-message. The man is ruthless, unscrupulous and takes lives without batting an eyelid. One does not doubt Ghai’s intensions but frankly these rather stark images sometimes leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The narrative moves at a good pace. Some critics panned the film by saying that it is slow. It is not. This is Ghai’s best work till date. After Yaadein and Kisna and a long hibernation, the man returns with a powerful critique of contemporary world politics. Even though he does get caught in the exigencies of stereotyping and imagination, the film is well intentioned. He succeeds in extracting good performances from the leads actors. Newcomer Anurag Sinha is, in a word, minimalist, the solitary, quiet recluse with a searing screen presence—Ghai’s perfect terrorist, viscous and uncompromising. Another possible addition to the string of ‘performing actors’ who have made their presence felt in an incestuous industry. Veteran Anil Kapoor is exceptional. One wonders where Sonam Kapoor came from. She certainly does not seem to be this man’s daughter.

Calcutta-Kolkata

Kolkata is a strange city. I for one am quite fond of using the old Victorian intonation for the part-dilapidated, part-growing metropolis, if you could call it that. The growth, measured solely in terms of grand multiplexes and swanky shopping plazas, seems to be, in places, suspended in time. Not that someone like me should complain. I am quite satisfied with snaking through narrow Calcutta lanes, with monolithic, soot-blackened walls lining the sides, green and brown windows behaving themselves to allow cycle-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws and even taxis to maneuver through them.

The wall faces are rather steep, sometimes children peep through them, at other times men of various ages look around for friends to sit down with a cup of sweet tea and spend the next few hours engrossed in the favourite Bengali pastime, adda while their wives are ensconced neatly in kitchens preparing for the evening meal. Food for one is one of the lifelines of Calcutta along with the Metro and of course, the Howrah Bridge. The old neighbourhoods bear the undisputed mark of past masters like Tagore and Satyajit Ray. I am reminded of the ubiquitous city detective Feluda and the manner in which Ray (the writer) described Calcutta in the stories.

The rumbling houses bear the telltale signs of a bygone era, a time of precocious wealth and grandeur that has now given way to grime, filth and dust. The old city is crumbling. True, it is crumbling. But the crumble is worth its while even when erstwhile towns like Bangalore and Hyderabad have transformed into tech-savvy dream destinations.

Calcutta is beyond compare. Beyond compare even with the New Town area that is witnessing the first pangs of unmitigated commercial growth. In its oldness and lazy languidity lies the promise of a new tomorrow. The youth is brimming with confidence. There is urgency in their stride. But somewhere they lack the passion of a Mumbaikar or Delhiite to compete with the rest of the country. There are areas of improvement and they, one is sure are working towards making sense of the world…as they do day after day while in the midst of an adda.

The Wipro SEZ is a good beginning. One is however fearful of this uniquely beautiful city losing its old-world charm, swamped by skyscrapers and glass cascades. But again, the indomitable spirit of the Calcuttan – that comes to the fore each year as the Goddess Durga makes her way into the city, spends five days and walks into the sunset – is at work to preserve and secure an inviolate space. A space that takes me back to an age that I can never be part of but can glimpse…only in this city called Calcutta.

Khuda Kay Liye: a searing critique

Watching Khuda Kay Liye in a plush multiplex in the capital reminded me of another piece of searing political drama—Black Friday. One section of the audience reacted with such mirth and vile that one felt nauseous. They sniggered at a man being tortured by Americans saying, ‘These Muslims deserve it.’ Was I amazed, shocked? Neither. The sensibilities of a so-called educated class are suspect to say the least.

The finest thing about Khuda Kay Liye, Pakistani filmmaker Shoaib Manzoor’s ambitious take on the current political scenario in the Islamic world and Western hegemony is that it begins with music and ends with music. Within the larger debate of fundamentalism and extremism pervading Pakistan, the film narrates the tragic story of a family torn apart by the endless and devastating scourge of a disintegrating world order. It is about Mansoor and Sarmad, blood brothers who belong to an upwardly mobile, elite Pakistani family. Both are musicians. They play to the gallery, they love their music. Symbols of a modernizing world, English-speaking, and hence the object of hate in the conservative, fundamentalist sections of the Pakistani society.

And Sarmad succumbs. To the blatant venom-spewing Maulana Tahiri. A radical, the Maulana drills hate into his very being. ‘Islam mein mausiki haraam hai,’ says Tahiri. Sarmad falls deeper, stops singing, questions his older brother who still swears by music, defies his family and leaves home to accompany the mullah into the depths of jihad. Meanwhile, Sarmad’s cousin, Mary (or Mariam) – a British-Pakistani in love with a Brit youth – arrives in Pakistan with her father, who is bent on getting his ‘wayward’ daughter married off to a true Muslim to prevent her from getting into an alliance with the firang man. The man is worried to death about the purity of the Islami nasl being in danger! And who does he want as his daughter’s groom? Her cousin, Mansoor. But as luck would have it Mansoor proceeds to the United States for higher studies in musicology and leaves behind a forced marriage between Sarmad – by now a real jihadi, complete with the Islamic attire including the headgear – in the rugged backdrop of the frontier areas. Mary is shattered, she hates her father, hates her cousin (now husband) and everyone else around her.

By now Mansoor has settled down in the United States, and found himself a gori girlfriend. Of course, they plan to get married. Then 9/11 happens to the world—the event that shattered the lives of an unimaginable number of people all over the globe, be it Afghanistan or Iraq, Morocco or Egypt, no one was spared America’s wrath, most of it misplaced and misconstrued. Mansoor is arrested on the night of his wedding and taken away by the US police. The pain sets in. Mansoor’s incarceration in the US torture cell are the most chilling sequences in the film. It is no hold’s barred, one is reminded of the horrors of Abu Ghraib.

However, the sequence that defines Khuda Ke Liye is so telling, one is caught between a guffaw at America’s foolhardiness and a tear at the condition of an innocent man held in an American hellhole for no fault of his. A raid at Mansoor’s house yields an old abandoned taweez. But of course, the chief investigator has no idea what it is. He tears it open and finds a scrap of paper with a grid, a common sight in dargahs and mazaars’s across South Asia—the blessed pieces of paper that so many of us carry with us as divine protection against the evils of the world. Our super-intelligent American, of course thinks the grid is a map of New York. And here’s more, he picks out the numbers 9 and 11 written in two squares, encircles them, and holds it as evidence of Mansoor’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks. The quantum of torture increases. Relentless and never-ending, the young aspiring musician ends up in a mental rehabilitation centre—paralysed, bruised, broken, and speechless.

While Mansoor is facing the wrath of the American (in)justice system, Sarmad is busy fighting a fruitless battle against the marauding American forces in Afghanistan and his own inner demons which pull him back, prevent him from killing another human being. Mary, his wife by force in the meantime has succeeded in sending a letter to her British lover. She receives help. The British government gets involved in a legal battle to get Mary back to England. The girl by now is a mother, the result of a forced copulation. Sarmad too decides to go back.

The courtroom sequences are brilliantly written, especially the monologue delivered to such amazing perfection by Nasiruddin Shah. From the right of a woman in Islam to walk out of a marriage to the Prophet’s love for music, Shah dispels myths with a panache never seen before. Pakistani star Shaan is superb as the tortured Mansoor and so is Fawad Khan as the confused Sarmad. The young man’s return to music – his first love – is well-crafted. Mary, free from a life of bondage, presented with a bright future in Britain, returns to the frontier areas to set up a school for little children whose love for ‘Englis’is unparalleled.

Encounters: to be killed like dogs

I recently read a rather pointed, well-researched and blow-by-blow account of the encounter that had the ATS progenitor, A A Khan pitted against the notorious gangster, Maya Dolas (born Mahendra Vithoba Dolas) close to 14 years ago. The piece that appeared in the Mumbai tabloid, Mid-Day obviously was inspired by the release of Bollywood's latest take on Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs -- Shootout at Lokhandwala. The film dramatises the encounter which according to some accounts was stage managed by the police to eliminate the foulmouthed Dolas at the behest of underworld don and Dolas' estranged boss, Dawood Ibrahim. Others critiqued it as cold blooded murder by the men in uniform of five petty criminals who possessed less than half the ammunition carried to the site by the police. The police used more than three hundred to kill five.



Perhaps a case of being overprepared? Were 300 policemen required to tackle five men? Is it fair to not allow the criminal to have proper recourse to justice and a trial? After all, every man, woman, and child born free has a right to be heard. Why does the police prefer to 'Shoot to kill' when arresting the man alive could lead to vital leads in very many cases? The gangsters could have been caught alive and tried for murder, extortion, arson, whatever.



Ditto for Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Ishrat Jahan, scores in the Kashmir Valley, Khwaja Yunus, Javed Ahmad...many more. Yes Sohrabuddin Sheikh was a criminal, an extortionist. But the Gujarat police have no records to show that he was a Lashkar militant, the charge on which he was shot in cold blood. What about Kausar Bi? Was she also a militant? Ishrat Jahan -- university student, amateur tutor, shot point blank in an 'encounter' in Ahmedabad. How on earth was she shot in the head and chest if she was fleeing and trying to escape the police? The windshield of the car she was travelling in was smashed completely. The rear shield was intact. How? Khwaja Yunus -- software engineer in Dubai, picked up after the Ghatkopar blast in Mumbai, never returned home. The police has been accused of killing him in custody. The 1993 Mumbai blasts led to a flurry of arrests and torture recounted impeccably in S Hussain Zaidi's book and then filmed to perfection by Anurag Kashyap in his project which goes by the same name. The film showcases the torture scenes brilliantly, the macabre violence of it all is outlandish and scary. Thus, it is but childish to either believe or expect the police to adhere to and abide by rules. If the police manual permits torture, in fact lists it as the only method to extract information, then it is but usual that the men in uniform do not think twice before torturing suspects. And mind you, these men (sometimes women) are only suspects. The question then is -- Is is fair to get down to torture purely on the basis of suspicion?



Coming back to the Lokhandwala encounter, the police denies that the underworld bosses has any hand in the encounter and claim that it was absolutely legitimate and true. The incident had been forgotten until film-maker Apurva Lakhia (of the Mumbai Se Aya Mera Dost and Ek Ajnabi fame) decided to dig into the past and come up with a film on the encounter that shook Mumbai in 1991. He has been accused of glorifying violence and creating iconic figures out of misdirected youth ending up as gangsters. Shootout at Lokhandwala is a violent film. After all it is based on an extremely violent episode where a lot of blood was spilt. Not only did the police put the lives of close to a hundred and fifty Mumbaikars at stake by firing indiscriminately at the dilapidated flat where Maya Dolas, Dilip Bhuwa and three others were holed up for some weeks, it also converted the entire residential area into a war zone for close to six hours at the end of which the five gangsters were killed and two policemen injured.



So does the film justify the methods adopted by A A Khan? Apurva Lakhia would like to think so but Shootout... actually ends up not taking sides at all. If anything Maya Dolas emerges as a somewhat wronged antagonist who was not allowed a shot a justice. I have written about the film in the other blog I frequent and write for -- Passion for Cinema. I'll extend my argument a little bit here and say that the police went overboard. And Lakhia goes overboard in trying to make a case for Khan and his boys while all he ends up doing is convert Maya and his gang into reel heroes. Let me explain. SI Javed Sheikh, drafted into the ATS by Khan specifically because of the wide network of informers he had in the Muslim dominated areas as well as the underworld drags one of the men out of the building, alive, before Khan shoots him down in full view of the heaving, screaming crowds. 'I said Shoot to Kill meaning shoot to kill,' he says before gunning down Maya's cohort. The fact that the shooting happened in front of a thronging crowd made it look like a spectacle. The 'Breaking News' phenomena is made full use of the film as television journalist Meeta Mattoo (yet to decipher if the real encounter was filmed or not) played by Diya Mirza follows the cops to Lokhandwala. She questions the ethics of the encounter throughout the film, from the first frame to the last. Her expression after having witnessed the killing of the criminal says it all. Disgust is writ large over the character's face even though she happens to be an admirer of Khan's ways. The police, according to the rules are supposed to shoot a man only in extreme circumstances and that too below the knees to decapitate the person. This is true even for encounters. Under no circumstances are they supposed to cross the line. But they do, day after day across India, there are reports of encounter killings. Ahmedabad gangster Abdul Latif was shown bail papers, ordered to escape and then shot at. Hardly an encounter!



Thousands have disappeared in Kashmir and never returned. The lucky ones have found column space in newspapers as victims of fake encounters. Others are just numbers, statistics. The police (as also the army in Kashmir) is said to have staged fake encounters to boost their chances of promotion and to bag the cash award that comes with the killing of every militant. And mind you, all these men killed in so-called encounters are all 'dreaded' terrorists who pose a grave threat to the safety and security of India. After investigations by independent agencies and the media, the men turned out to be carpenters, teachers, tailors, farmers, shepherds, and even informers.



Two men were killed in a staged encounter in New Delhi's Ansal Plaza some years ago. Eyewitnesses recount that the men were brought in a police jeep, the bandobast was complete with coffins and shrouds to take the bodies away. People too scared to bat an eyelid later said that the men were pushed out of the jeep and asked to run...the police shot them dead after a perfectly staged drama that went on for more than two hours. Just before Diwali, the encounter of alleged militants was a feather in the caps of the Delhi police.



This is not to say that criminals are to be left free to hurt the society even more and not taught a lesson. The nature of the lesson needs to be questioned. The police went to Lokhandwala with an 'intention' of killing Maya Dolas and his men. The police manual describes and defines an encounter as an act of self defence. 300 people and Khan himself certainly did not need self defence. Thus, the encounter was intentional, cold-blooded. Was killing the only option? The film does not answer the question. Instead it raises many more. One of them is, well -- was killing really the only option? Repeated over and over again by Dia Mirza. Lakhia's attempt at glorifying the police actually doesn't work that way. It does otherwise propelling the ethical debate into the public domain. Amitabh Bachchan's question in the courtroom is misplaced and melodramatic. Would you be confronted by a gangster or the police? Ask the riot victims in Gujarat who were directed towards the murderous mobs by the police? Ask the families of the 14 Muslim men killed by the police at the Suleiman Bakery in the Bombay riots? Ask the wives of those who have disappeared without a trace in the Kashmir valley? The answers would be apparent.


The film comes at an apt time. Televised debates have been held on the question of encounter killings in the past few weeks after the Sohrabuddin story broke. But Bollywood has from time to time dwelt on the issue. Ab Tak Chappan was apparently based on encounter specialist Daya Nayak's life. Company, D and Sarkar looked at the underworld quite effectively. Black Friday was an exceptional film. Shootout attempts it...and succeeds to a great extent. Bollywood finally creates a desi Reservoir Dogs-lookalike in the form of Maya Dolas and his men after attempts such as Kaante and the ilk. By putting police encounters back in the limelight, the film, even though overtly dramatic in parts is a great try. The sepia background makes Swati Building where the encounter happened look sinister, almost imposing. The battleground becomes the backdrop of a perfect potboiler. Masterfully edited, Shootout at Lokhandwala is crisp and pithy, something a film such as this rides on. And more importantly, it put the encounter question back in the minds of the people. But will there be a public outcry? One is yet to see a public outcry in cases involving the lowly and the downtrodden. Yet one question still remains-- will Manu Sharma, Santosh Kumar Singh or even Vikas Yadav, the offcpring of powerful men ever be killed in encounters?