PEEPLI [LIVE]

If there's one man in India whom we could term as the Godfather of Bollywood it would be Aamir Khan. Aamir's third consecutive blockbuster- Peepli Live is the ultimate mockery of the Indian Press and The Indian Government. I saw it recently, in its third running week, in a late night show, with a dear one, and some 20 other people in the hall. But Peepli is the kind of movie that can be seen all alone in the theater without feeling the obvious absence of any other fellow viewer. It is a hard hitting satire on the opportunistic self-serving politicians, smarmy local political goons, the voyeuristic media persons, and on the hundreds of government policies that are made everyday only to reach dead ends. It does not preach, has no melodrama, no grandstands. It pragmatically shows us the extremes of Political Conflict and Media 'Sensations'. Farmer suicides is the ugliest truth of our democracy, and to make a movie on this subject with no glitz-glamour, big stars, and melodrama is nothing short of valor!

One of the peculiarities of this movie is the consistent and coherent digression from the protagonist's dilemma to other subsidiary comic stories that come up. These short comic mockeries work out wonders for Peepli Live- be it the saas-bahu tussle, political gimmicks of the local henchmen, or the Lal Bahadur. Talking about the acting, I would not think twice before saying that these village actors are better than most Bollywood actors who could just go do some Advertisements and forget about movies. Natthu, the protagonist hardly said a word, yet his expression and acting made him an awe-inspiring character on the screen. Even Rajpal Yadav wouldn't have played this part so well.
The beauty of the movie lies not in the songs (unlike 99% of bollywood movies) but in the dialogues. The language used is just what a farmer would speak. No fancy monologues. There are few bad words used repeatedly, but I wonder what impact it could have had without them!


For those who found it loose, ineffective, depressing or heartless, I would say that Peepli is not a spoof on farmer suicides. It is realism in the barest form. It shows us what really happens from an objective, neutral standpoint, without giving any sermons and spoiling the show, and leaves us wondering, in shame, about why it continues to go on in this so-called developing economy. The sharp subtleties that run through the movie constantly remind us of the moot point it's trying to make. All said, Peepli has its heart in the right place, and is easily the finest movie of the new millenium, and might just continue to be for another 10 years to come (knowing Bollywood!).

THE ENGLISH THAT OX4D DOES NOT TEACH !

I recently received a comment for my post, it read- "SMH, TMI !" It was too cryptic for my grey cells, so I googled it. As it turns out, it means- Shaking my head, too much information.


I read in school that grammar evolves continuously, and adapts to the accepted usage of every generation. The purists accept these contemporary changes, however these take few years to be effected. But the English that I refer to here is not the grammar we learnt in school, or the vocabulary we read in our books, but the hip-happening turn of phrase that we hear, read and type everyday. It is different from the colloquial language spoken by the natives, it's the universal hip language, spoken by people, generally miles away from the native land. It is the latest fad, evolving faster than the Apple app innovations, and spreading like wildfire.
If you aren't in touch with this cool intertext lingo, you are so out of the 'game'. And it's not just written, it's spoken too. The more fluent you are with these words, the "cooler" you are. If you don't hang with the cool kids, you can always go back to twitter, facebook, tabloids and the spam of some texts and mails to get your daily dose of slangs. Also insightful in this regard can be sitcoms like 90210, gossip girl, entourage and so on. 

                                                            


Here are some of the 'cool' slangs that I came across -
A3- anytime, anywhere, anyplace
It's sick- It's awesome (contrast is in)
The Shit- The best or the the greatest (same principle as above)
Ma- My ; Ya- You  ( I may not dance like Jamaicans but I can copy their accent! )
FUGLY- extremely ugly (like they used in the movie)
Postmodem Depression- when u stay away from the internet for a long time (like several minutes)
UNSULT- insult given as a compliment (invented by The Simpsons)
Sinlaws- parents of the live-in boyfriend/girlfriend (they are a reality now)
What's The Beef- what's the problem (sounds more fun)
MIA - missing in action
PTA- pain in the ass
FTW- f*** the world (I don't give a damn, how cool is that)
JK- just kidding
STFU- shut the f*** up
AFAIK- as far as I know (now sent in official mails)
XOXO- hugs and kisses (courtesy: gossip girl)
DKDC- don't know don't care
ADOD- another day another dollar
FML -   f*** my life
KISS-   keep it short and simple (seems to be the bottomline of it all )


Every decade has its own slangs, but the intertext slang is the fastest growing cult, it's catching up everywhere. It's shorter, faster, and as I mentioned 'cooler'. People are using it not only in chat boxes and texts, but in official-unofficial mails, letters, and in day to day conversations. It would not be uncanny to imagine that some day this lingo might even take over English as we know it, turning our Oxford Dictionary into an Ox4d one !

Common"wealth" and Delhi

A very catchy Commonwealth Games poster read- “24 flyovers, 75 aerobridge airport, 1285 kms of better roads, 80 new metro destinations, 59 hectare games village, 11 world class sport venues, 5000 low floor buses, and thousands of Job opportunities.. For you..for decades!” What a dream to sell to the Indians! I’m hugely baffled and appalled, by the baleful irony draped in this dream. There is an ulterior lie being sold to Delhi, and the country, at a very high price!

The Commonwealth Games will showcase Delhi to the entire world, so our government has started taking measures to embellish the city, though a little late in the day! The Delhi “Clean Up” crusade has landed the city in a complete mess. All major roads are dug up for flyovers or metro, and others not affected by it can thank the substantial material used in road building for giving them a uniform experience. It takes 1-2 hours just to traverse 8-10 kms, Delhi now measures its distance in hours and not in kilometers. For those who call it a temporary hassle for a world class city tomorrow, there is irreversible damage being caused in this rush-up as well. Besides the enormous deforestation done to build and support the new infrastructure and transport system, the Games village being built on the floodplains of Yamuna ( which has already turned into a dirty drain) is reducing its surface area considerably, making way for easier flooding of the city.

Far more worrying than the possible threat to the lives of few privileged foreigners, should be the eviction of 1,40,000 families from their (kuccha) homes to clear space for the lavish facilities for these events. These families have been “re-settled” for their own good. (I wonder what a vendor in Munirka would do resettling in the 'slums' of Najafgadh!) The authorities seem to be following a very smart mantra- “If you don’t see it, it does not exist.”

Commonwealth is the biggest sporting extravaganza to have ever been held in India. Keeping in mind the high stakes of its international reputation, and its love for mediocrity and corruption, our government has comfortably increased the expenditure to 20 times the original estimate, making it over 2 Billion dollars. Needless to say 10's of millions meant for poverty alleviation and other developmental schemes have been diverted here.

Along with the usual accidents of the workers, leading to both death and disablement, and denial of basic minimum wages to them, this Commonwealth also gives children a chance to contribute to this memorable sporting carnival. The workers are promised extra food and wages if they get their children and families along, to work with them on the construction sites.

Now we share this burden of Commonwealth too. The recent budget hiked oil, LPG, CNG and other commodity prices. So what do we get in return? We get the promise of economic boom for decades to follow. This dream being sold to the rest of us doesn’t seem credible either. After all, we don’t have many good precedents to look up to. When the Greek capital won the right to stage the 2004 Olympics it was touted as an opportunity for renewed wealth and glory. But the legacy is a Greek tragedy of immense financial debt. Up to 21 of the 22 stadiums built for the Olympics now lie abandoned. The Athens Olympics cost a reported £9.4bn, and left a debt of €50,000 for each Greek household. Six years later, Greece is on the brink of utter economic ruin.

Have we bitten off more than we can chew? Or is it just bad organization, corruption and inefficieny standing in our way again?

Whatever may be, this commonwealth will only increase prosperity of a handful of globalised partners, make few rich even richer and leave behind very costly facilities for elite sport, only to be stared at by those whose homes and lives have been destroyed to make it possible.

Of Love, Hate, and Everything in Between..

" Why don't you have the time to call me anymore?" "What are you so busy doing all the time?" "I can't believe you forgot my birthday!" I heard my friend speak these lines as she spent her days weeping, dejected, getting out of a long, yet broken relationship. Now my friend, I'll call her Alex, is a feeler. She is almost mentally wired to take all her decisions based on how she feels about the situation. Alex spent weeks thinking, caught up in the battle between her head asking her to let go and her heart asking her to cling on to the deep love that was there once, and fearing the break-up would lead to an ego death and emotional deficit in her life. I sat with her through a lot of this, wondering the strange unexpected courses that love can take, and how difficult it is to fall out of it.

After much deliberation, I feel I have had an epiphany, I'm going to formulate it into a theory.

It's because love is the most intense emotion we feel, and because we have so much at stake, that it is so closely related to fear. We fear those whom we love because they are the ones who can hurt us the most, and when they do, it's not such a big leap from that realized fear to hate. So it is no irony any more that Alex now hates the one she loved so dearly once, probably as fiercely as she loved him!

I feel romantic love, and I mean the true romantic love here, is no more or less crazy than parental love. Just as our parents continue to love us the same way they did when they first held us and looked into our tiny half-open eyes, even if we eventually grow up to become crappy adults; this love keeps us from breaking out of the once blissful but eventually crappy relationship. Just like Alex, we are caught up in the never-ending head-heart battle, till we reach the ultimate emotional breaking point.

But are we deceiving ourselves? For self-deception is also deception.

UNDER-APPRECIATED CINEMA - I

As I have come to understand, a movie doesn't really have to be "good" to be "awesome". With the right amount of audio-video and special effects, huge landscapes and sets, and mind-boggling stunts, an otherwise ordinary movie becomes a top box-office grosser. The intrinsic characteristics of the movie are seldom sized up. I do not speak of the artsy-fartsy flicks here, but of the subtle yet riveting onez, that have gone unsung for want of more glitz and glamor, publicity or maybe publicity stunts.

But should we miss a great movie just because we haven't heard of it?

TEEN DEEWAREIN (2003) : Very few have heard of this movie, fewer have seen it, maybe because it wasn't released in many theaters across India. Nagesh Kukunoor, writer-producer-director of the movie, belongs to a new cadre of film-makers who use new innovative ways to target the new urban audience. The movie is a story of 3 prison inmates on death row- Jackie Shroff, Naseeruddin Shah, and Nagesh Kukunoor, each for having killed a woman. Gulshan Grover plays, ironically, the humane prison warden and Juhi Chawala an amateur filmmaker, making a documentary on their lives. The three convicts could not be any more different in character and in their responses to the death sentence. The film is not just a human interest story or a polemic against the death penalty but also a suspense thriller. The story has an unpredictable twist in the end where we see how a single incident connects 3 different people forever, like the 3 walls of a room. With outstanding performances by Naseeruddin Shah and Juhi Chawala, and an exceptional plot, this movie could certainly make the biggies of Hollywood jealous!

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975) : This is one of the very few movies that I have watched on TV, and perhaps the only one that I watched in the middle of the night. Not only is it adapted from a Rudyard Kipling story, or directed by John Huston, or set in the British ruled India, but it also has Sean Connery and Michael Caine in their finest performances. The two are officers in the British army who find themselves at a loss when their services are no longer required in Asia. While blackmailing a local Raj, they are exposed by author Rudyard Kipling and eventually get him to witness a contract for their latest plan – to become kings of a small country by training a village to conquer the rest of the villages and then leave months later with riches. 'Flawless', is the word for it as it couldn't be closer to perfect. Interesting trivia about the movie is that it is about a real place- the then 'Kafiristan' is now 'Nuristan', a place located in Eastern Afghanistan.

The Great 10 of all Time

I have been toying with the idea of writing a blog for many weeks now. After much procrastination, insistence of friends and lot of sincere and random reading, here I am joining the bandwagon of blogging. And as I do so, it’s only fair that my first entry is dedicated to the Great writers and thinkers whose works I have admired, revered and followed in the last few years, and who have influenced the thinking of many others like myself.

The Great 10 of all time (in no order) :-

George Orwell- I began my serious novel reading with ‘Animal Farm’, so it remains very special to me. It had this brilliant analogy, which contained my interest throughout the book and stirred up my interest in reading literature further. My second book was therefore 1984, and it only got better. Orwell’s books connect, very effortlessly, to the real world and lend an indelible impact on the reader's mind for a long time after they have been read.

Fyodor Dostoevsky- Despite reading only 2 novels by this legendary Russian writer- 'Crime and Punishment' & 'The Brothers Karmazov', I stay challenged to state that he is one of the most phenomenal philosophers to have ever lived. His grip on human psyche, seen in the context of the 19^th century Russian society and influenced by the socio-political rhetorics of the same, puts him in the league of the most profound psychologists of all time as well!

Ayn Rand- Path-breaking writer, and in my opinion the most misunderstood too, Ayn Rand invented the ideals of objectivism and opined that ethical egoism and rational self interest will lead to a perfect world. Despite meeting with fierce critics of Rand’s philosophy, I have relished reading her books for the true heroism they seek to portray in otherwise ordinary people.

Oscar Wilde- I had been forewarned about reading the Picture of Dorian Gray, as it was supposedly too much to grasp! The great thing about Oscar Wilde’s works is that they are anything but one-time reads. They keep getting better with every read ! Wilde’s sharp witticism and self-conscious contradiction is truly unmatched. Unfortunately I have been able to read only 2 works by this great author, who dared to write about being gay in the 1800s !

George Bernard Shaw- His works show great verbal wit, rebellious attitude and disregard for (English) conventions, and are a pure treat to read. Very few know that Shaw also won an Oscar, along with the Nobel prize for literature. I’m a mad fan of his quotes too, so concise yet so profound!

Charles Dickens- All of us have grown up reading stories from his plays and despite his archaic turn of phrase, so far there hasn't lived a soul that has been as humourous as Dickens. Pip, David Copperfield, and Oliver Twist have almost become historical figures!

Leo Tolstoy- When it comes to "realist fiction", nothing compares with 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karanina'. I had to slow down my reading to fully savour every word and each phrase of these books. The grandeur and enormity of his books is overwhelming.

P.G.Wodehouse- He has written the best modern-day comedy I have come across so far. The elegance and humour in his writing is class apart, i feel everyone should read a Wodehouse in his/her lifetime. I wouldn’t think twice before calling him the funniest writer of the 20^th century!

J K Rowling- Okay I have to be biased about this one! As a die hard Harry Potter fan, I am obligated to admire the genius behind it. J K Rowling isn’t the most successful modern day writer for no reason- she has created a magical yet consistent and believable world! Her narrative genius and extensive character descriptions have made the books worldwide classics, besides making whopping sums of money for the makers of Harry Potter movies.

Mahabharata- There is never-ending controversy about who wrote this great epic. Ved Vyas is credited with it, but I believe those who say that it isn’t the work of a single person. Truly, it can’t be. Mahabharata is the greatest work of literature to have ever existed, capable of spawning hundreds of novels out of itself. Even the abridged, translated version of this epic holds you in awe for many days. It is rightly said about Mahabharata- "What is found here may also exist elsewhere, but what is not found here does not exist".