Hi,

Thanks for voting and do keep at it (by the way my best friend claims that most of the votes in so far have been by either his wife or himself)

I have been travelling all this week and so have been unable to sit down and blog even though i did manage to catch Saawariya and my review will follow shortly.

Meanwhile i did find a wonderfully caustic yet entertaining article about reality show judges and as usual i had to share it with you.

Enjoy.

Vish.


TTTT - Their Turn To Talk

A new species has established itself on our TV screens. This particular genus preens, struts, weeps, sulks and displays its hairy chest quite frequently. It is a diverse group but, cast as it is in this particular role, manages to behave with a degree of predictability. The judges of reality shows are a bona fide breed, having had enough time to grow in number and establish a pattern of behaviour.

The group today boasts of people as illustrious (and otherwise) as Javed Akhtar, Jeetendra, Himesh Reshammiya, Bappi Lahiri, Sonu Nigam, Abhijeet, Farah Khan, Shiamak Davar, Shekhar Suman, Alisha Chinai and Navjot Singh Sidhu, to name a few.

That list also includes Anu Maliik, who is one of a kind and needs separate mention. If not a major star from yesteryears, the celebrity judge is either a minor star in a major category (fringe actors such as Malaika Arora Khan, Isha Koppikar) or a major star in a minor one (singing, music direction, choreography, television).

Several subspecies have sprung up among the judges.

We have the “Chortling Cheerleader”, whose ranks include Archana Puran Singh and Sidhu.

Then there is the “Strutting Self-Promoter” who spends as much time glorifying himself as in pronouncing judgement. Maliik is the undisputed champion of this category, although Reshammiya might disagree and spend the next 15 minutes telling us why.

There is the “Passive Mutterer” led by Udit Narayan and the “Emotional Embracer” exemplified by Ismail Darbar and Abhijeet.

Nigam brings up the ranks of the “Always Agonized Expert”, Arora Khan spearheads the “Pouty Pandit” category, flashing eyes and legs at the audience, while Bappi plays the “Beached Whale in Bliss” (but then again he does this all the time).

Judging has two distinct elements—to judge contestants and for judges to project themselves as stars. The latter phenomenon produces a parallel reality show, where the judges put themselves on display, strutting about in resplendent plumage.

For, in reality, the reality talent show contains an arena within an arena. The judges watch the contestants and, in turn, are watched by a larger audience. There is a studio audience, but it is almost always one that has no will of its own and exists to wave banners and dance badly. The judges, in effect, become contestants and strive to outdo each other in terms of gaining audience attention. The stakes are high, being a judge catapults a Name into a Face; everyone today knows what Ismail Darbar or Abhijeet look like. In many ways, just as contestants are small-town dreamers waiting to be transported to a magical world of 70mm fantasy, the judges themselves are awaiting metamorphosis from being sort-of-somebodies to bona fide targets for autograph seekers.

MAKE US MAKE IT BETTER FOR YOU

We are constantly striving to improve the content of this blog. I am very thankful (not to mention surprised, pleasantly i may add) that so many of you spend time logging in and checking out my random musings on this blog (when infact you could/should actually be working).

However i would really appreciate it if you could just click on what topics you would like to see on the blog by voting in the poll (see top-left-hand corner). Multiple choices are also permitted.

Go On... Do the right thing...

And by the way, Thanks too... for everything.

Vish

OM SHAH-RUKH OM and SNOOREWARIYA

This blog has always been about posting anything randomly interesting. As the head-line and tag-line says, this page is just about being a comma in our hectic lives, a pause before we get back to the rat race. Nothing profound… (not that you’d know it with some of the topics).

Anyway the point is that it is not ONLY about me and my views (though that too does sometimes seem like the case). I just try to be a medium for interesting (hopefully) bits of random articles.

If anyone of you follow news from Bollywood (and in this case even if you don’t) then you must have been swamped recently with the over hype of Saawariya and Om Shanti Om in the media. I haven’t managed to watch Saawariya as yet so I can't personally compare the two.

Shyam Upadhyay, a very good friend of mine from College and a cine-buff & writer himself however sent me his views on them. With his permission (as I don’t want to be sued for plagiarism) I am reprinting his email here with my own inputs marked in red.

Enjoy and if any of you have other views on them then do feel free to write in to me at vishalsubba@hotmail.com . We will try and include your views too.

Ciao & Enjoy.

On Saawariya…..

“I have been very cagey about SL Bhansali and his grandeur, opulence what have you. The last film I liked from him was Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam- it had a soul - everything after that was mere perfection in execution- no soul. I walked into Sawariya with a lot of trepidation expecting to be assaulted by perfection, more perfection, rich colors, la-la land if you will. I did get all of that for sure- but to be fair to Bhansali- his opulence this time around was warranted. It is a dream-like setting for almost a fable of unrequited love. To me the beauty in the settings cancelled out the fundamental sadness of the story- and that is always a good thing. It did not happen with Black for me- it did with Sawariya….I actually liked the movie. The 2 star kids- are clearly better than lots of the star kid debuts we have seen in a long time….Ranbir has a boyish charm that I liked and Sonam has wonderfully expressive eyes. Do they act well?? Its too early to judge….but it did not feel like they will turn out very badly in the long run….Sonam though can do a little better by giggling lesser. Zohra Sehgal was an absolute delight…there are moments in the film that stand out- the scene when they meet for the first time; jump around water puddles and talk inane stuff, the last sequence when Ranbir walks away, Zohra’s singing, the Mughal- e- Azam encounter….it does not compare to the magic of HDCC; but this was definitely a better effort. The film is almost poetic- but is uneven as one of the reviewers put it so well. Salman Khan was a total let down- and amidst all the perfection – he could have done with a shave and lesser facial hair in his brief appearances. Rani in the role of the narrator was adequate. The music for such films needs to be memorable- and in my mind except for the title song everything else was very pedestrian and that is my big grouse with Sawariya……

I will write about Saawariya soon but even before I have watched it I am getting pissed off at SLB for acting like a petulant child and lashing out at all critics for having an ulterior motive. Khalid Mohammed (a flop director of movies like Tezheeb and Silsilay (not Silsila) who now writes 'personally motivated' reviews for the Hindustan Times in puns which he thinks are fun.) and Taran Adarsh (a wannabe intellectual writer who reviews for IndiaFM and who incidentally was deported from Dubai 2 yrs back during one of the Award ceremonies for trying to ‘rub himself against’ a Filipino maid in his hotel) are critics who are not worth taking seriously or even paying attention to but when almost every other critic (even respected ones like Raja Sen) slams your movie then it does help to turn inwards and analyze if something did go wrong. Instead SLB is so shrouded in his self perpetuated aura of perfection that he cannot stomach anyone else challenging it. Grow up already.

Om Shanti Om…….

The tribute to the 70s era seems more like an MTV spoof….I was not born during the Rajesh Khanna period- but I cant remember people wearing sideburns and garish clothes so uniformly in films from that era. Yes- the stars did- but not everyone else. Farah Khan has her own sensibilities- and she pulls off Round 1, pre intermission with a lot of panache- the jokes, the styling, tributes to some of our stars et al. My problem really started with Round II which is post interval- where the film looses its semblance of being a spoof and takes on a Subhash Ghai kind of feel. If you watch closely- Mr Ghai always made films that progressively got terrible after intermission. While Farah may want to believe that this is very much in line with her tribute approach with OSO- my sense is that she is plagued with the same problem as Mr Ghai. Deepika was eye candy- very confident for her first film- but so were the star kids in Sawariya. Quite honestly- I don’t know what to make of SRK- he was good in Chak De- here he was who he is – SRK the star- he looked so comfortable in the second half because it was probably him……and you know I have always had a problem with that. Shreyas as always was consistent. The music of OSO though has the right mood and every song does justice to the plot.
Overall though- OSO did not work for me. If the second half carried on in the same vein- maybe it would have- the first true Hindi cinema spoof- alas it did not. Khalid Mohammed saying Arjun Rampal was first rate as the devious villain….was a rude joke on our sensibilities. For a non-starter like Arjun; even a tolerable performance seems to warrant a first rate review.

For me OSO was just about average. There are just 3 reasons to watch OSO.

1. Subash Ghai in an (unintentionally) hilarious cameo as himself, where the poor man seems to be oblivious to the fact that he is being mocked not celebrated.

2) SRK in a side splitting scene, dressed as a south Indian cowboy, Quick Gun Murugan, spouting “Mind It I Say” and fighting a stuffed tiger doll even as he puns every possible pun on the word pussy & cat.

3. Akshay Kumar as himself in an imagined future flick called Return to Khiladi firing a gun from and with (there is no other way that trigger could have been squeezed) his genitals.

Over to you readers now.

To read Raja Sen’s incisive review of OSO click here http://www.rediff.com/movies/2007/nov/09oso.htm
To read Raja Sen’s brilliant review of Saawariya click here http://www.rediff.com/movies/2007/nov/08saawariya.htm
To read Taran Adarsh’s hyper-bole review of OSO click here http://www.indiafm.com/movies/review/12950/index.html
To read Taran Adarsh’s confused review of Saawariya click here http://www.indiafm.com/movies/review/12780/index.html
To read Khalid Mohammed’s punny review of OSO click here http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=4c53bac6-5c3d-4821-baa2-230c15d5569b&&Headline=Review%3a+EMOm+Shanti+Om%2fEM
To read Khalid Mohammed’s jealous review of Saawariya click here http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=fef9bb56-b22b-4bb9-96da-6f99322ec9a5&&Headline=Review%3a+EMSaawariya%2fEM

THERE IS A WAY TO BE GOOD AGAIN


In the truest sense of the word, you can say that I am the ideal audience.
Be it a movie or a book or even just a cartoon strip in the daily newspaper, I get totally involved. I laugh, snigger, cry, sing along… you name it… I do it. As a result I am more forgiving towards even amateur works (as long as they entertain) as compared to pretentiously highbrow pseudo intellectual crap (read: Arundhati Roy)

I can read Kafka with equal delight as I can a Sidney Sheldon or enjoy The Godfather as much as a Sarkar.

Recently I read The Kite Runner by Khalid Hoseini.

It is the winner of the Penguin Readers Choice Award but surprisingly nothing else.

No Pulitzer’s or Bookers etc. The book is widely loved and the movie of the same directed by Marc Foster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland) is coming out in December (it was supposed to release in Nov but the 2 kids playing the principal characters had to be relocated to UAE for their safety as the rape scenes could have gotten them ostracized and even harmed in Afghanistan).

One reason for its omission from major western awards maybe is its tendency, as one of the reviews put it, to not be afraid to use every method to tug at your heartstrings. In other words it isn’t constipated enough for the pseudo intellectual shrinks to find layers of imaginary meaning. Aaah Yes, and it is also melodramatic, they said.

The truth is that the book is as Asian as you can possibly get.

As much as we try to ape the west externally, in our hearts and souls we are inherently native.

We enjoy skimming over news about Britney and Brangelina but it takes a SRK or AbhiAsh to get us really reading.
We may hum and sing along to the Madonnas and Mariahs but it takes Alisha and Kajra Re to get us dancing in the aisles.
And the only reason we don’t have a Justin here is simply because in Asia, Sexy never went away.

Like Bollywood everything in Asia is heightened. Emotions, Actions, Characters are all larger than life.

We dress in more colours than the rainbow, our food can blow the taste buds off almost all non natives, and most of our festivals can seem like a higgledy-piggledy mess to the uninitiated.

Take the 3 most important events of a person’s life and compare how they differ: Birth, Marriage & Death.

In the west celebration as well as mourning is characterized by restraint, while in Asia it is accompanied by lots of either dancing or shouting or crying or music or beating of chests or in some cases all of them together.

So why do we base our appreciation of local cinema & literature on western notions of what it should conform to?

Cinema & Literature while universal in its appeal is actually very local and cultural in its foundations and it has to be so, or else all movies and books would be the same homogenized version.
If Asians are so demonstrative of their emotions then it is only natural that their Cinema, Literature etc will also be reflective of the same. Why should that be looked down upon?

If The Kite Runner has a moral redemption and makes you reach for your kerchief like all folk tales then why should we apologise for it.

I recently read 2 novels on Bombay, Sacred Games by Virkam Chandra and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

The former was appreciated but never really got its due because it was unabashedly colloquial. Shantaram meanwhile was lapped up by the media (the Indian contingent following the western lead stopped just short of comparing it to the Mahabharat) and is even being made into a major Hollywood movie. To be fair, it was an engrossing read but which reader can honestly say that they didn’t find the principal character, Karla, to be a pretentious bitch. She spends most parts of the novel spouting inane (here comes the dreaded phrase again) pseudo-intellectual crap. Infact her character would fit right into any of the numerous daily soap-operas. Yet because it is about a ‘foreigner’ who is ‘experiencing’ India, it becomes the must read book of the season.

I have to confess that I never bothered to read a book I didn’t enjoy (except if you count textbooks in school).

And I can honestly say that I could not stand to complete reading any of Salman Rushdie’s books and it had nothing to do with his religious or political leanings. It’s just that I didn’t want to plod through it just so that I could make conversation at parties. It was quite another matter that I managed to distract the conversation at the same parties, quite simply by admitting that I hadn’t read the book. Irony anyone?

The Kite Runner is simple in both its style and format. My English teacher in school always impressed upon us that good writing is one which can say something in short, simple words. Advice, which I have to admit, I myself do not often follow but it does not stop me from appreciating it in others. Hoseini's language is simple & wholesome and yet it evokes images that some authors struggle to do with long tirades. It begins with the tag line of the novel which is short, succinct and doesn’t have a single word a 5 year old can’t understand:

“There Is A Way To Be Good Again”.

After the young characters, Amir & Hassan, grow up on a diet of dubbed western movies, one fine day the realization dawns on them that “John Wayne didn’t speak Farsi and he wasn’t Iranian. He was American, …” and later a wise old man tells a character that “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

When asked to go retrieve the falling Kite by Amir, Hassan the hare lipped and loyal servant says, “Amir agha, For You A Thousand Times Over”.

"For You A Thousand Times Over"

Many chapters, incidents and a lifetime later in another continent on another cloudy day a grown up Amir tells another little boy “For You A Thousand Times Over” and brings the novel a full circle.

Now if you are not moved a little by this gem of a novel then you don’t need to check out another book, you need to check your humanity.

In this fast paced world even avid readers sometimes don’t have time to sit down and really read. If you haven’t read this (or any book in a long time), try and pick it up soon. Believe me, there is a way to be good again.

As winter approaches with its cold misty tentacles, grab a cup of Darjeeling, snuggle under a warm blanket and lose yourself in this heart warming tale of paradise found, lost and regained. Move over Milton.

Hiya,

I thought i wouldnt be blogging till after Diwali but came across an article about Indian Idol Prashant Tamang's visit to Sikkim. Nice witty article by Mr. Daniel but the thing that caught my eye is the pasty makeup on Prashant's face. I know stage requires a little more makeup (to make sure that you don't get lost on the huge stage) but poor Prashant does not look like he has been made up; he looks like he has been painted. Enjoy!

And once again, Happy Diwali!

Vish

Gangtok welcomes Prashant Tamang, Indian Idol
Text and photographs: Vaihayasi Pande Daniel

\

Monday was a dry day in Gangtok.
But alcohol was hardly required to buoy the local spirits.
There was a gigantic buzz in this prosperous hill station, the capital of Sikkim located at about 4,700 ft, up in the Himalayas. Indian Idol Prashant Tamang was paying his very first visit to the Darjeeling-Sikkim area since winning his national title.
It was an enormous moment of Nepali pride.

with Pawan Chamling, the Chief Minister of Sikkim

Tamang may hail from Darjeeling, but is a Nepali like much of the population of the mountainous state of Sikkim and massive Indian Idol voting -- organised with fierce regional loyalty -- in every town and hamlet in Sikkim, in part by Sikkim's Nepali chief minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, helped propel Tamang towards the crown.
Tamang had now come to say dhanyavad.

The newly-minted star had not yet been to Darjeeling and could not go on this trip because his organisers anticipated problems there after the flare-up post his win.
All of Gangtok's picturesque, winding, up-and-down roads led to Paljor Stadium where Tamang was to perform at 5 pm under the shadow of the snowy Mount Kangchenjunga.

Stylishly dressed youth from all income groups and lots of middle-aged and elderly people -- even a few monks -- poured down the roads towards the stadium. Posters welcoming Tamang dangled from every electricity pole. Tickets -- for Rs 150 -- were being sold at each street corner.

Hundreds gathered, from hours before, outside the gates of Gangtok's best hotel Nor-Khill, where he was staying. Once a royal lodge belonging to Sikkim's King, and now people were waiting for a glimpse of new royalty -- a simple Nepali police constable, now turned a singing hero.

Inside the hotel and outside his room, aunties, uncles, cousins, wee kids, students, friends, reporters from Darjeeling's Nepali papers, acquaintances (some of them as distant as you can get), hotel guests, including a few foreign tourists, hung around waiting for even the smallest glimpse of Tamang as he bounced energetically between rooms, being extremely polite and accommodating allowing photos, hugs and handshakes by the score, much to the exasperation of his handlers.

with fellow Idol finalist Charu

Tamang is a gentle, shy, and modest young man; very likeable. He is soft-spoken and extremely courteous to his fans and admirers and repeatedly acknowledges their support that got him his win.

One sari-clad auntie-type character, staying in the hotel, having come from Mumbai, sat on a sofa nearby declaring over and over again loudly and excitedly like a child, "Kabhi humaare naseeb mein nahin tha ki hum Indian Idol se mile. Aur idhar aake humko ye mauka mila!" (We never thought we'd have the luck to meet the Indian Idol, and got the chance after coming here) She gushingly praised her good luck about 50 times, while she waited to get a picture of Tamang.

A young man, accompanied by a female friend, who had studied with Tamang patiently waited outside his door to meet him. He said he had always gone to hear Tamang sing when he gave concerts in Darjeeling, and loved his voice. An English tourist -- and mum to a few brats -- delightedly chuckled at the fact that her boys had infiltrated Tamang's room.

Loads of his relatives, dressed in the finest saris and Nepali outfits, had journeyed from Darjeeling, 94 km away, to congratulate him. Tamang was meeting his mom Rupa and pretty sister Archana for the first time since his win. And it was an emotional moment.

As it edged beyond 5 pm, and the crowds of friends and well-wishers outside his door swelled, the atmosphere got a bit more electric as thousands of fans waiting for him across the road at the stadium began chanting "Pra-shaaant, Pra-shaaant!"
It began to rain and the energetic bellowing only grew louder. Tamang was bundled across the road to the stadium at lightning speed by his minders and an exuberant bunch of police officers, as eager crowds chased him. A deafening roar went up in the air as he made his entry. A ceremonial white silk scarf was wrapped around his shoulders, a Nepali hat propped on his head and the chief minister personally welcomed him. Together they released his thank you album, Dhanyavad.

Tamang quickly launched into a Nepali song. The surging, ecstatic crowd of about 20,000 went hysterical with glee. Tamang has a very folksy, lilting voice. You can almost visualise the countryside -- green fields, tea gardens and mountains of Darjeeling -- in the happy Nepali song he croons.

Hot cups of coffee were passed around. Bikas, minding the coffee machine, a Bengali hailing from Sikkim, said, "I must have voted for him on SMS at least 1,000 times! I wanted him to win because he is from here." Bikas is very happy to be here and hear his hero sing.

Young Kuber, a local restaurant owner, explained that he had minded an SMS-stall during the Indian Idol campaign. "I manned about 15 cellphones. I must have voted myself over 50 times! Every one from 5-year-old children and up voted for him. We had booths set up in 200 places in Gangtok alone, and then in every village. Grass-root people as well as the wealthy all turned out to vote for him. A poor man even sold his cow so he could vote!"

Tamang, who shared the stage with Charu, a fellow Indian Idol contestant who had accompanied him to Gangtok, sang for 3 hours through bouts of cold rain, cheerfully, playing to the crowd and belting out top Hindi numbers as well as local songs. The crowd lapped it up the cheers, never diminishing till the end. The evening was probably Gangtok's proudest moment since footballer Bhaichung Bhutia returned home.

FOR YOU A THOUSAND TIMES OVER

Hey Guys,

I am sorry but have been Crazy/Busy with work and havent been able to reply to mails or even blog. I will do so as soon as Diwali gets over.

I also just completed reading "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini, which incidentally was my B'day gift (hint hint) from and highly recommended by the immoral Ms. Tashi (immoral becoz she for some reason does not like to be called Moral)

It is definitely one of the finds of the year. If you have read it you will have got the title of this post and if you havent read it as yet, then run out and grab a copy. Guaranteed to make even the stoniest (HRH) heart melt.

Will post my views about in the next blog.

Meanwhile here's wishing you a very Happy & Prosperous Diwali 2007.

May your ventures all be profitable.

(This must be the only festival where asking for Prosperity & Wealth doesnt make you guilty)

My Prayers and Wishes will always be with you .....,

my family, my friends & my fans.

Always!

For You A Thousand Times Over