« December 2005 | Main | February 2006 »
January 29, 2006
Rang de Basanti
Aamir Khan loves being in “coming of age” films, playing young men in their early 20s. And somehow, like Jeetendra, despite his growing age, he manages to get away with these roles. First, it was Dil Chahta Hai (DCH), probably the best film of 2001. Now we have Rang De Basanti, which seems to be DCH II, with a twist.
The film works at multiple levels. As a simple entertainer, the film is excellent. Though a little too long (as was the case with Rakeysh Mehra’s first directorial venture, Aks), it has a good story, the characters are extremely well cast and the cinematography is terrific. The sepia tones of the pre-Independence scenes help set the right mood and among many such scenes, the Jalianwala Baug montage actually sent a chill down my spine.
But the film carries a message as well and Rakeysh Mehra takes no chances with us not getting it. The whole analogy between the protagonists and the martyrs (Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, etc). is fed to us as if we are KG children, who might miss it unless it is delivered ad nauseum. And to make sure that there are other under-currents, the Hindu-Muslim and the “white girl with Indian romeo/stud” issues are exploited to the hilt as well. Too much allegory is sometimes like having rabdi with gulab jamun and rosogollas.
The movie moves back and forth through time, capturing scenes from the past, where the protagonists (Aamir Khan as DJ, Siddharth Narayan as Karan, Kunal Kapoor as Aslam, Sharman Joshi as Sukhi, Atul Kulkarni as Laxman Pande and Soha Ali Pataudi as Sonia) agree to act in a documentary that Sue (Alice Patten) has decided to make in India, based on the diary left by her grandfather Mr. McKinley, who was a jail-warden at the time when Ram Prasad Bismil (played by Laxman Pande) and Ashfaqullah Khan (played by Aslam) were executed. He was a “bleeding heart” warden and sympathetic to the Indian cause and Sue, despite being turned down by her bosses, wants to bring this story to reel. She comes to India without money, befriends Sonia, her Indian contact, and the two start casting and shooting. Disappointed with the quality of people who audition, Sue suddenly finds her perfect cast in Sonia’s friends, who are currently at loose ends, studying in University, and gathering around bonfires at night to drink beer and to dance to boom-boxes.
As the documentary progresses, so do the lives of DJ, Karan, Aslam and Sukhi. They start internalizing their roles and though thoroughly disillusioned with life, specifically life in India, slowly start believing that they too can do something positive and maybe bring about some change. These scenes, especially the one in the lounge bar, with Ajay Rathod, Sonia’s fiance (played by R Madhavan), work really well, stopping just short of becoming sermonizing sessions. Prasoon Joshi’s dialogues are much above average and really kick-in during these scenes, adding to the already tight ensemble acting. DJ's line about how we, as Indians have one foot in the past, and one in the future and then piss on the present, instantly and spontaneously brought the house down.
Things reach a flashpoint, when an MIG-21 plane flown by Ajay Rathod crashes and the defense minister blames it on Ajay’s irresponsible flying, trying to draw attention away from a growing scandal regarding spurious and low-quality Russian spare parts for these planes. In the end, the protagonists take the law into their own hands and the finale as with most of our films, goes way over the top.
Eventually, despite its posturing about India’s optimistic future, the film still remains extremely cynical and insults our intelligence. It reinforces the usual Hindi film credo, that no change can be brought about in the Indian system, except by taking the law into your own hands. It negates the very real small and large changes that are slowly but surely, making a real difference to our lives, which countless individuals, such as IT professionals, doctors, engineers, police officers, journalists, etc, are bringing about, while working within the system.
Aamir Khan’s presence lends crackle to a film, which otherwise like Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, may have languished as art-house cinema. Atul Kulkarni is dependable as usual. K K Raina, Om Puri, Kiron Kher and Anupam Kher play their small cameos well, though their talents seem a tad wasted. Alice Patten has obviously worked at her Hindi delivery and is above average, though not great, but the surprise packet of this film is Soha Ali Pataudi, who shows that she has what it takes to be an actress to be reckoned with in the future.
In the end though, you wonder what the controversy with the Indian Air Force and Maneka Gandhi was all about. It helped get this otherwise low-key film, good publicity, especially since the issue about the MIG-21 planes points fingers at the politicians, not the Air Force and the only animals I can remember seeing, are horses, which were used for the scenes where the soldiers were running after the fugitives.
It is a film definitely worth seeing once, as long as you see it as an entertaining, well-crafted film, and then keep away at arm’s length all the messages that it tries to send across about what we can do to improve our “corrupt” system.
Posted by bhavinj at 06:41 AM | Comments (4)
January 28, 2006
Of the idli ilk
This is my new piece that came in today's Mumbai Mirror.
After having been around for 40 odd years, you often start believing that you’ve been there, done that and seen it all. Fewer and fewer things (unless they are IPODian gadgets or large-screen plasmas) get you excited. More and more, everything starts becoming routine. But then…once in a while…something happens….
Being in Matunga, I thought I knew everything that I had to about idlis. I’ve had idlis in all sizes and shapes; from simple idlis to idli-vada combinations, to dahi idli, butter-idli, fried idli, and masala idlis with cashews, etc embedded in them. I’ve had Muthu’s idlis, my Mom’s idlis, cocktail idlis, and the idli-like khottos and mudhos.
I’ve had idlis outside of Matunga, the best ever in Leela Goa, as well as in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, in Gujarat, Punjab, in London, San Diego, Dubai and God knows where else. I’ve had idlis without anything, with sambhar, with sambhar and chutney separately or sometimes even together and sometimes just with butter. I’ve fought with restaurateurs over their coconut chutneys, facing shameful admissions of embellishments with “daaliya” and “chana” or peanuts, as well as incredulous expressions of “how can you even ask if our chutney is pure coconut or no”.
Last week, on a lazy Sunday morning, we decided to go to Anand Bhuvan for breakfast. Wondering what to order apart from the usual idlis and dosas, my eyes fell on a name, written in chalk on a blackboard, in “Today’s Specials”, a dish I had never had before. There was nothing really great about the name itself, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had never before had this combination….a combination of rasam and idli forming a dish called…“rasam idli”. Rasam vadas, yes… rasam on its own, yes… rasam with rice…yes, but rasam idli…that was a new one.
And…the rasam idlis were absolutely to die for. As I put each portion into my mouth, the rasam-soaked pieces would melt immediately, releasing an explosive mix of a difficult to describe but a predominantly tangy mix of flavors and aromas. The combination was amazing and between the two of us, my wife and I finished another plate as well.
I guess it’s all in the combination. Unlike sambhar, which is much too thick, idlis just soak up the rasam. With that, I guess, they become softer and the rasam becomes part of the idli itself. When you then eat that idli, the combination becomes unbeatable.
Its amazing, isn’t it. Nothing fancy, no fusion, just a change from sambhar to rasam and boom!
I am sure that I will be besieged by emails from people telling me that this is a very usual, ordinary experience for many of them and that they have been having rasam idlis for years and years. Maybe so, but it is not listed as an item in most menus (unless I have been blind) and for some strange reason, in the last forty years (OK, 30, to count only the conscious, idli-eating years), I’ve have never had this combination before.
So from now, its going to be rasam idlis, for a long time to come…until the next Nirvanic experience (which I actually had with some home-cooked red Thai curry, but I can’t talk about it, since neither the chef nor the experience was in Matunga or Greater Matunga).
Posted by bhavinj at 06:47 AM | Comments (2)
January 18, 2006
Kati Patang
This has been published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
The crease between the middle and distal phalanges of my right index finger digit is burning and hurting a bit, because of a small cut, along the outer aspect, which like the black ink on the nail during voting time, is my mark of having flown kites on Sankrant.
The “maanjha”, because of the embedded fine glass, cuts and cuts badly. As a kid, I often used to fly kites with a Band-Aid around the index finger tip and many older kids I knew had developed calluses, due to the chronic friction with the “maanjha”. Today, I guess, you would only find cuts, since no one in Mumbai, and especially in Matunga, seems to fly kites except on Sankrant.
Last Saturday, the whole family was up on the terrace; we were trying to get the kids and some of their neighboring friends involved in the kite-flying process as well. Kids being kids, they were excited to begin with, but when they realized that they couldn’t fly the kites on their own, their interest kept waxing and waning. Whenever someone “kataoed” our kite, they would suddenly get animated (we lost 4 kites), and when we let them hold the kites or give some “dheel”, they would be fine, but otherwise, they would go back to playing their silly games.
The worst thing about losing the kites was that not even once did I see the “pech” happen. Talk about loss of practice. Also, each time we lost our kite, we had to draw the “maanjha” back in and the kids were terrible at handling the “firkees”. As kids, we used to palm the two handles of the “firkees” in our two hands and then start rocking the palms to roll in the “maanjha” as fast as possible – the aim was to be the “fastest firkee drawer” around. The current generation of kids have no clue about how to handle these instruments, and eventually, after each kite-loss, my father-in-law or I had to take over the “firkee”.
Just after dusk, we let up our first lantern – a paper one with a candle inside. We tied it to one of our kites that was already up. It looked gorgeous, snaking its way up slowly as we gave more “dheel”, but no sooner had it reached a good height (and was the only lantern in the sky), someone cut the kite it was attached to and we lost the kite and the lantern. Luckily, one of the American, LED-lit contraptions, which we had attached to another one, stayed put and we managed to get that one safely back.
Every other terrace in the locality had families flying kites and just before dusk, there were more than 20 kites in the air. Of course, this number is miniscule compared to the situation in Bhuleshwar and Ahmedabad, but for Matunga, 20 kites over Manikrao Lotlikar Marg was a good number.
The kids of course, kept asking why we were flying kites on this particular day. Thank God for Google and the ability to get quick answers. Obviously Makar Sankrant is the day of transition, from when the days become longer and the nights shorter, etc… and is also celebrated as Lohri in Punjab and Pongal in the South, but what I couldn’t find easily was the relationship between kite-flying and Makar Sankrant. Unless, it just started as an excuse to celebrate and to meet up on terraces.
Posted by bhavinj at 02:43 AM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2006
Tull they come
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
A few weeks ago, a senior colleague who lives in South Mumbai, walked into my office and mentioned how he enjoyed reading about Matunga. He then asked me why I did not write about the culture in Matunga, about the dance recitals and classical music concerts, etc. that are held in Mysore Sabha and Shanmukhananda Halls. His main contact with Matunga, was not the Udipi restaurants, as is usual, but these auditoria. I was nonplussed.
Never having learnt the fine art of fine arts appreciation, I am a little lost when people talk of Carnatic music or Hindustani classical or this or that gharana or arangetrams, etc.
To me, a music concert, until recently meant going to Rang Bhavan and listening to whichever act deigned to perform in our city or the Jazz Yatra every other year. Unfortunately, due to the High Court ruling on sound pollution, Rang Bhavan has met an untimely (hopefully temporary) death and the thought of going to the Andheri Sports Ground and other similar venues has stifled all further concert attendances.
Though some acts have started playing in closed halls, they don’t always work out well for jazz or rock concerts as a friend of mine discovered a couple of weeks ago, when he went for the Buddy Guy concert at the NCPA. Though the music was great, the reverberations in the hall were not!
For many years, Shanmukhananda Hall was the place where our annual school day programs were held, until they finally shifted to the quadrangle in the school itself. I also remembering attending “musical nights”, by the “voices” of Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi, etc. These used to be extremely popular in the days when we only had 3 male and 2 female playback singers to listen to.
I also remember attending a rock competition in the late 70s, at a time when Nandu Bhende and his group used to rule the roost. A Filipino rock star whose name I just can’t remember had come down to Mumbai and someone had hastily organized this competition. We were there from 10AM to 6PM and must have heard at least 20 odd bands. I don’t know who won, but I don’t think the Hall has ever hosted such an event since.
Mysore Sabha these days often becomes a surrogate Prithvi, with a good number of plays being held there. These are however poorly advertised and often we come to know of them either on the day of the show or just a day before (or sometimes after) when it becomes almost impossible to reschedule our weekends, especially when we’ve already worked out the kids’ activities in advance. I really miss the days when you could walk into Chhabildas School and for five rupees, sit on the wooden floor and from a touching distance, watch Naseer and Ratna stage their pre-opening day productions.
And so I am just praying that Jethro Tull at the end of this month, makes the cut in Shanmukhanda Hall. If it all works out, then maybe, just maybe, Matunga / Sion, may become a rock concert hub. Though where people will find the place to smoke their joints is another question!
PS: I had wondered in one of the earlier columns, what Shiv (the vernacular name for Sion) meant. Many readers emailed saying that it means the “boundary”, “exit point” or “threshold”, which Sion in the older days was, when Mumbai ended at Sion.
Posted by bhavinj at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
