A Time To Reflect

charukesi November 24th, 2003

On Saturday evening on NDTV 24*7. Amidst many platitudes about religion and secularism (there is that damned word again), ShahRukh said something very perceptive : Movies are selling everything but the movies.

That is so true….. From one film in Hindi and one in the regional language per week, television is now entirely cinema-centric. Apart from as many as fifty-plus movies in a day across channels, there is little else on tv except count-down shows, film talk shows, film trailers…..

Who would have ever thought radio could make a come-back, and such a come-back as FM has done? And on the strength of film music alone….

Newspapers (not the dish-rag alone) thrive on cinema….not to mention the numerous film and “general interest” magazines.

Stage Shows, Remix Albums…. you name it……

Except movies….. the state of the Hindi film industry is such that any movie that stays in the theatres for more than three days is declared a super-hit !

• Media Matters , - Cinema
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charukesi November 24th, 2003

Watching him(??) on TV, I remembered what I read long ago : Michael Jackson has come full circle, from poor black male to rich white female.

Pretty neat, eh ?

• Pot-pourri
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charukesi November 23rd, 2003

Just the kind of question that makes my blood boil…..

Mr.R.K.Raghavan, ex Director of the CBI asks this question in today’s Indian Express(with or without the The, I am not sure, if you know what I mean). He argues in defence of Indian Bureaucrats saying that they grovel in front of politicans out of lack of choice.

Any attempt to express their views, says Raghavan, is met not with mild threats of transfer as earlier but open intimidation; particularly so for the police force. You can almost hear the pitiful plea, what can anybody do?

And the context is what Mr. Lyngdoh, our CEC’s latest stance on Chattisgarh. Sometimes he goes over-board and I feel uncomfortable about it, says Mr Raghavan. Why do you feel uncomfortable, Mr. Raghavan? I feel kicked when I read about Mr. Lyngdoh’s stance against politicians who have always taken the voting public for granted…..

As if enough is not enough, he goes on to say that Lyngdoh can afford to speak his mind because of the “position” he holds. Added to the fact that he is due to retire soon.

Is it not a fact that Mr. Lyngdoh’s stand has always been clear and brave, be it Gujarat or Chattisgarh. And does any “position” provide total immunity anyways?

Who says individuals cannot make a difference ? Admittedly, it takes a looooooot of courage to stand up and defy the all-mighty politicians, but is it impossible ?

• Indiawatch
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charukesi November 23rd, 2003

Blogging is soooooo addictive….. Have not been able to blog regularly for a while now with all this travel. And it’s going to be this way till I return to Bangalore (though I have given up hopes of seeing Bangalore in the near future).

Am at my husband’s place in Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh). Don’t blame you for not knowing. I didn’t know myself till I got married….. Kakinada is as all small towns across the country are. Small enough for people to know you by name, for you to get from end to end in half an hour, for genuine niceness……

It’s good to be here for a change but I am a big-city person, have always lived in big cities, And am bound to go mad after a few days of this….. Living in big cities makes one soooo cynical…..

Will blog whenever I manage to find a computer. And whenever blogger / blogspot behaves itself. Unlike right now. Random thought - does Musings from Kakinada sound half as exciting as Vajpayee’s Musings from Kumarakom?

• The World of Indsight
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charukesi November 18th, 2003

I keep reading about people (especially about authors) - she lives in Bombay and London. Or he spends his time between Paris and California. Or some such exotic thingy. You get the drift.

I wonder how they do it….. Here I have been shuttling between Madras and Bangalore. And I go, enough is enough.

I am off for a Himalayan holiday early December. And I have drooling, I mean poring over websites and maps and travel guides for the last two weeks.Lesson Number One. Any information you need, never under-estimate Government websites. And I mean the Indian Government. Some of them are amazing……

I find planning a holiday even more exciting than the actual holiday itself. That includes thinking about it, dreaming about it, constantly talking about it, thinking about it some more….. Ok, maybe it is not more exciting than the holiday itself, but it makes me feel as happy as I am during the holiday!

So, Uttaranchal, here I come. The Kumaon region is where I have set my sights. Anybody been there before ? Any travel tips?!!

• My Roadblog
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charukesi November 17th, 2003

The BJP has gone nuts….. or is the word desperate….. the latest to jump on the BJP bandwagon is Smriti Malhotra, the tear-jerky daughter-in-law of KKSKBT (too long, man)….. I remember the lady who played Sita in Ramayana (Dipika something) had also campaigned for the BJP, as did Krishna of Mahabharata, Nitish Bharadwaj…. Sita nahi to Smriti hi sahi, what ?

What is The SB’s (Swadeshi Bahu) trip ? To work for a party whose ideology she believes in. What ideology, please ? For a ticklish wannabe youth icon, she seems quite confident…..

And what does the BJP get ? Star Value, they say…. Yeah, right…. Next, they will be roping in Donald Duck…. Oops sorry, NO Videshi please, we are fully Swadeshi; Chacha Choudhry maybe…..

What they do get is a Made-in-India daughter-in-law (Smriti Malhotra has no other claim to fame) who is eager to serve her country….. Take that, Congress.

The Battle of the Bahus hots up ! This should be fun…..

• Indiawatch , - Television
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charukesi November 14th, 2003

Watched again His Highness Abdullah, a Malayalam movie…. Fantastic movie… No other description…..

As someone said, music has the charms to soothe the nerves of a wild beast…. and the movie is based on this simple theme.

A hired assassin, Mohanlal, whom the world knows as a ghazal singer, comes down from Bombay to kill a Raja. The Raja, a patron of music, is surrounded by greedy relatives after his wealth. Once in Malluland, Mohanlal has a change of heart, induced purely by the music around him.

The music is still ringing in my ears; gives me goose-pimples every time I hear the songs. What makes the Mals such connoisseurs of good music, in good cinema ?

Not to worry, this is not a eulogy of Mals but a lament about the lack of good cinema otherwise.

How do the Mallus churn out movie after awesome movie ? With the wafer-thinnest of story-lines and non-existent formulae ? And all in “main-stream” cinema. (Sure, I saw a “chorus white-dressed extras in the open spaces” kind of song recently in a Mal movie but then I think that is an aberration rather than the norm)

Regional cinema still manages to produce a few gems every year. I can speak for Tamil with certainty. Am not qualified to comment on other languages but I suspect there are good small budget movies being made in languages like Bengali and Telugu.

But Hindi cinema ? What goes by the name of main-stream or popular cinema is an insult to the average cinema-goer’s intelligence, whether he is from a metro or a small small town….

True, there have been some good films recently, 3 Deewarein, Mr and Mrs. Iyer, to name just a couple. But :
1. these are few and far between
2. they go by the name of alternate cinema (saying art is passe in film and a cultural gaffe, and the term parallel cinema reminds me more of geometry than cinema)

I keep wondering : why is there so little experimentation ? is there lack of creativity in main-stream cinema professionals ? or is it lack of guts to deviate from the formula ? Or the belief that Hindi film audiences are dunces ? too dim to appreciate the nuances of fine cinema ?

There must be some reason….

And some day when intelligent and sensitive cinema is available to main-stream (how I hate this word) audiences.

• - Cinema
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charukesi November 13th, 2003

The world is divided between those who have seen the Taj and those who have not. Very soon, I hope to be on the side that has seen the Taj

William Jefferson Clinton, President, United States of America, while addressing the Indian Parliament on 22.03.2000 before he joined the “halves”

I read this recently, I think on the UP tourism website.

Made me think about the misleadingly named Taj Heritage Corridor

What will Clinton have to say about the Corridor : the world is divided into those who have shopped there and those who have not ?

I remember going by bus from London to Dover to climb up the magnificent chalk cliffs. I was amazed as half the bus got off mid-way at a small town, with no obvious “touristy” scene. I found out later that the stop was Bluewater, a huge shopping complex, home to the world’s best brands, obviously a much stronger attraction any old cliff !

The Hindu as usual had a great editorial on this proposed eye-sore….. Thankfully, we have seen the last of it and the worst to have happened (I hope) was money siphoned into the pockets of politicians….. so what’s new ?

• Indiawatch
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charukesi November 11th, 2003

You may have heard of Marlboro Country. The Marlboro Man. Ever heard of the Marlboro Horse ?

Presenting two of the best anti-smoking ads I have ever seen. No scary skeletons, no threats of cancer….. pure subtle humour. But effective, stopping one dead in one’s tracks.

1. created by O&M (Piyush Pandey?) for the Cancer Patients Association of India. It shows a horse lying dead, brown barren countryside in the background. The horse-rider (the Marlboro man, Texas hat, cowboy boots and jacket intact) with his hand on his head.

The caption says, Second hand smoke kills…..

It turns the oh-so-macho imagery of Marlboro Country on its head. Move over, Leo Burnett, who created what is arguably one of the most powerful advertising images of all times.

2. Don’t know who created the ad. I saw it on MTV a while ago. A girl is driving down a wide open road, as she sees a young man thumbing a ride. She whizzes past without a second look. As she drives ahead, she sees another young man hitching, this time with a cigarette in his mouth. She drives past, and then reverses as she sees the man in the rear view mirror, and gives him a lift.

The line says : Smoking causes impotence.

I was awe-struck by the sheer force of this ad. If you see this ad, and still smoke, you must be one brave man indeed. Read this for more on smoking….

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charukesi November 11th, 2003

I lost my only uncle (mamaji) on Saturday. Heart attack.

He was close to 70 and has seen a good long life, with children and grand children.

My grandfather is alive at 90+. He had five sons, four of whom he lost as children. The fifth was this mama.

To see one’s child pass away in front of one’s eyes must be the most tragic and traumatic thing to happen to any human being. And to be alive at 93 and see one’s only son pass away…..

After all, even at 70, my mama was my grandfather’s child…..

Parent-offspring is truly the pinnacle of all human relations….

• The World of Indsight
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