Film Critics

It is really annoying how bad most Indian film reviews are. I was reading Raja Sen's review of The Social Network and he actually called the lead actor Jesse Eisenstein! It's Jesse Eisenberg, if you don't already know, but more than the really idiotic mistake with the name it's the extremely unoriginal reviews that these people seem to write that gets me.

If you remotely follow the spectrum of film 'critics' in India you would know that Raja Sen is probably among the better and more informed of the clan. Which does not say much at all. Almost all of the Rediff reviews while Sen was on a sabbatical made me feel like strangling myself. And my opinion is not very different when it comes to most of the other morons selling their wares on TV and on the net.

Nikhat Kazmi has been the butt of everyone's jokes for a long time, and it's fascinating how thick her skin must be to get to work everyday despite all of it, but it speaks more about how utterly pedestrian even the best-selling English newspaper in India must be if it still continues to employ her. But, that does not in any way mean that the other 'experts' are any less stupid. That Masand chap and that Chopra woman are not any better and their animated commentaries on cinema only make me shudder with fear. If these are the chaps people are going to look up to, film criticism in India is born dead.

Even though it's very offensive when someone like Sajid Khan abuses film critics, I do not feel completely surprised. Almost all film critics in the media today deserve the derision. They are leeches who probably do not even understand the import of words, let alone a camera frame.

A Tale of Two Movies

After a very long time, I saw two films in a day today. And, even though I enjoyed both tremendously, it's very interesting how different the two films are - in treatment, in their setting, in terms of the people they depict.

Saw The Social Network in the morning. It's not out in India yet, which is a shame, and I also missed its screening at the MAMI festival's opening, so gave in and downloaded it last night.

It's one of those rare films of which I was skeptical about when I heard about it first a few months back and even after I saw the trailer, but turned out to be very very good finally. I should have known - one should have faith in David Fincher. And the screenplay by Aaron Sorkin is quite brilliant too. Instead of telling a linear story, the film suddenly jumps to the pre-hearing depositions involving Zuckerburg and his ex-friends. Doing this and then coming back to various points in the story makes one see every conversation in the past in perspective, and makes the Facebook story so much more thrilling.

The film is extremely tight, with some of the best dialogues I have seen since President Nixon was interviewed by a Brit TV anchor and the German Colonel hunted down Jews on screen all those months back. It's very refreshing to see such intelligent characters on screen, where even the Victoria's Secret models are Harvard undergrads, and where everyone speaks such sharp language. Which goes to show how good, realistic dialogues add so much to a film.

And, Zuckerberg comes across as not completely unsavory by the time the film ends. I understand that this is not exactly how things happened in real life, but I have a feeling how things happened in real life would not have made this into a front-runner for the Oscars (as per current run-up talk, things could change by Oscar season), and so the youngest billionaire in the world should not mind too much that he comes across only a bit sexist, selfish, disloyal and mostly childish. And a brilliant programmer.

The other film I saw a short while back was Rakht Charitra.

I generally like Ram Gopal Varma's films. I don't know anyone else who has enjoyed even RGV Ki Aag apart from me. And when on rare occasions he makes something classic like Satya and Company, it just makes it worth one's while to not give up on him. Even though I abhor some of his camera angles, and there's one here that pretty much made me puke - the camera makes two consecutive 360 degree turns when a character goes to meet a powerful politician (whose face is never shown) - and am not a big fan of the Govinda-Govinda-type constant chants, the overall effect is very unique.

I had been looking forward to this film mainly because of the gore-fest it promised to be from the trailers. And so was more than slightly horrified when I saw 2-3 parents walking into the audi at the start of the film with their kids in tow. School-going age kids. Does no one at all ensure that kids don't come to an Adult Only certified film? Sure enough all of these morons made a beeline for the exit half an hour into the film.

I despise generally am not too fond of kids, and I am all for fucking their minds up with scenes of rape and violence (how much more fucked up than today's kids can one get anyway, right?) but I would prefer it if their minds are fucked up in the privacy of people's homes rather than in the movie hall on one of those few occasions when I get to watch a movie children-free. It's bad enough that parents bring children to Pixar films, but it truly is irritating when they bring them to movies such as these.

Coming back to the film, it is really as gory (and more) as the trailer promised. And so the paisa was vasool-ed completely.

But I kept thinking how un-subtle this film was compared to the film I had seen in the morning. Here, the narrator, with an irritatingly nasal voice (oh, why in the world can't Ramu have an Om Puri or an Amitabh Bachchan doing the narration?), spells pretty much everything out. Varma seems to think that everyone in the audience is as dumb as Karan Johar. Or maybe he made the film for Johar.

And how un-gentlemanly the men were. In the earlier film, the (very large) Winklevoss brothers refuse to go and beat up Zuckerburg because it is not what Harvard gentlemen do, and hence end up getting just USD 65 mn from a multi-billion dollar company based on their original idea. In this film, people cut down each other for the flimsiest of reasons. And women are slapped and treated almost as badly as the men. Women's equality has finally reached us in a twisted way.

But, I have made a short trip to the place depicted in the film. And I have heard stories. And I have a very strong feeling the violence is still quite Karan Johar-ed in this film. I am not sure there was someone like Bukka Reddy (played with such relish by Abhimanyu Singh, and I wish the man gets more roles to act himself out - after Gulaal and this one, I am a big fan) but I am sure Paritala Ravi was not as white as he's shown to be either.

On a slight detour to the usual personal experience, I made a trip to Kadapa last Diwali because my dad was posted there for a few months, and I was shocked by the place. It is a part of the Rayalaseema region and even though many friends from IIMC had told me about it, I was quite unprepared for the trip. It's a place where the vegetation is desert-like, food is unimaginably spicy and people are inhumanly violent. In their main fest, whose name I fail to recall right now, animals are slaughtered openly and blood flows in the markets. I saw the pictures, so I am not bluffing. This is India's frontier country, not Western UP.

Since, being from Bihar, I know the cost of exaggerating things, let me also add that the people are generally nice. And most people from there are very nice. As from any other place in India. But, history, culture and climate have come together in such a deadly mix that life seems to count for a little less. Our very sober and pious driver used to drive so carelessly there that I was permanently tense while on the road there, and relaxed only after I crossed the hills into the relatively soothing Karnataka on my way to Bangalore airport.

The film depicts that heat well. And it should be a good lesson in culture for North Indians used to equating every one from down South to the rather (imaginatively conceptualized) non-violent and simple Maddu.

You should watch the film. Partly because you would not want to miss the sequel when the fiery Suriya makes his entry. This feels like an appetizer for the main course coming up in November.

And what a peppery appetizer it is.

MnA Update

There hasn't been an update on MnA for some time now. So, I suppose a post on what we have been up to is in order.

We have been quite active lately, and if some of the current discussions bear fruit, should get even more busy in the coming weeks. It's great to get work, and get appreciated for that work, without pretty much any specific pitching or publicity till now.

And it's more heartening because we are not exactly quoting basement remuneration for our quizzes. We don't overcharge, but we put in sincere effort for every single quiz, and we ask for what we feel is reasonable for that effort, and we have been invited above people who quoted much lower than us in recent times. We must be doing something right. To not have had a single experience till date where our quiz has not been appreciated adds all that much more to the effort.

Apart from the increase in number of cities our weekly Hindustan Times quiz goes to, we have done one corporate quiz and two college quizzes in the last few weeks.

We did three quizzes based on the Tata Crucible format for Ispat Industries. It was very enjoyable, and it's always nice to associate with a leading corporate house.

The next gig was for NIT Surat - a general quiz for their technical fest, on the 2nd of October. We have been trying to expand our presence to more colleges in Western India, and it was a pleasure doing a quiz for NIT Surat, a college which has had some of the country's best college quizzers in the not so distant past.

Of course, we have to mention that because of unavoidable circumstances both Menon and I could not be there for the quiz, but we did ensure that the event went smoothly by getting one of our friends - a well known figure in the quizzing circles - to do it on our behalf.

And, finally, I was in Lucknow over the weekend to conduct an open quiz at Varchasva, IIM Lucknow's sports-cum-cultural meet. I loved the experience - the campus is beautiful and reminded me of Joka - and the response from the participants was extremely encouraging too. I have known so many people from IIM Lucknow over the years, and it was awesome to be there finally.

So, it's been a very rewarding last few weeks, not only monetarily, but also in terms of being at new places, sharing the joys of quizzing. Hoping for tons of more interesting experiences in the near future.

Palestine and Kashmir

It makes my blood boil at times when people treat me with polite amusement when I start sounding all passionate about graphic novels. There are an amazingly high number of people who seem to not realize that it is a medium that can say so much, so effectively, and is not only about superheroes wearing their undies over their leotards.

Not that undies over leotard type comic books are things to scoff at.

This is very similar to the life-long irritation I have had with people who consider fiction a waste of time, and utter with great pride that they read only biographies or books like the one about the monk who sold his Ferrari.

Maybe such people should read one of those graphic novels that have the ability to change your complete perception of the medium, with not many graphic novel artists probably being more effective than Joe Sacco. I have been a fan of some of his previous works like Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine and Notes from a Defeatist, all of which hold a special position of pride on my bookshelf.

But, his latest creation - Footnotes in Gaza - is quite something else even in the light of the brilliant work he has done over the years. The hardcover edition is a 400-plus page wrist-sprainer of a book, which deals with two forgotten incidents of massacre of Palestinians by Israeli forces.

These incidents occurred in the 1950s during the Suez Canal Crisis, and Sacco deserves great credit for making the effort of traveling to Gaza Strip, talking to the residents there in detail and chronicling all of it for us. Because the incidents really had been relegated to footnotes of UN reports over the years otherwise.

People have a habit of forgetting things, no matter how traumatic. Especially if the traumatic incidents keep hitting you incessantly over decades. For a community, large parts of which has not known any reasonably long period of peace, the massacres of Khan Younis and Rafah might just be a blink in their painful history, but, as Sacco says in the foreword, it goes a long way in understanding how 'hatred was planted in the hearts' of the people of Palestine.

I was in Iraq when the First Intifada was on, and the understandably pro-Palestine Iraqi media would give a lot of coverage to those young boys throwing stones and crude Molotov Cocktails at the Israeli forces. I had never seen unrest like that on TV before. And, unsure of the historical context though I was, I used to wonder what kind of dissatisfaction would make young people come out on streets like that and face armed forces fearlessly. It seemed like the last act of desperation - the final step you took after you realized that nothing else could save you. Nothing else could make others hear your side of the story.

So, over the last few months, it has been extremely spooky seeing fairly similar clips from Kashmir. Reading Footnotes in Gaza, I am forced to think if, irrespective of cross-border instigation, India has really been remotely as inhuman to Kashmiris as the Israelis were to the Palestinians. So much so that the young boys there too would come out on the streets to throw stones at our forces.

I understand that the situation is much too complicated for me to make a general comparison like that.

But, I hope people in Kashmir don't hate me as badly as the people in Rafah hate an Israeli.

Random Thought

This is part of a song I had learned in Class V and it just came to me suddenly for some reason -

Kasturi mrig ki naabhi mein,
Moorakh dhoonde van jhaadi mein.
Khota bhatak bhatak nij praan,
Mile man mandir mein bhagwaan

The Last Man

I just realized that two of Brian K Vaughan's most brilliant graphic novel series - Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina - are being made into films.

The man also wrote Pride of Baghdad, which remains one of my most loved short series. And the man also wrote a few episodes of Lost, but I haven't been following the series after the first couple of seasons because it got too confusing. Will probably buy DVDs of the entire series.

Y: The Last Man is a story that gave me goose-bumps. The story of a man being left alone in a world filled with women is got to be one horrifying tale. But, the way its many chains were handled and brought to satisfying closure it made one feel fortunate to have witnessed the creation of a milestone in graphic novel writing.

Ex Machina, in many ways, is similar to Y: The Last Man, particularly in terms of the various trails of stories it keeps leaving and picking up. I have not come to the end of the chain yet, so don't know if I'll be completely satisfied, but the episodes till now have been worth the devotion.

Coming back to Y: The Last Man, I can still recall the evening I read the last issue of the series. I was crying. I named my best friend Ampersand that night. And hopefully he understood.

It has been one of the most satisfying and gratifying graphic novel experiences of my life. And, I would love to see how it shapes up on the big screen. I am sure I'll crib about some issue with the film version, but it's a story that needs to be experienced by more people, even if in the form of a film and not in its original one.

Sherlock

Been having a bit of a pop-culture overdose lately. And I am not complaining.

Have read some, or parts of some, great graphic novels. Partly read some novels. Partly seen some TV series and movies. As you can tell, I have been distracted a lot.

But, one series I watched completely - it helped that the first season had just three 90-minute long episodes - has been Sherlock. It's a recent BBC series that's been renewed for the 2nd season too.

If you have ever liked the original Sherlock Holmes stories the least bit, and how could you not, then you ought to watch this modern retelling of the Holmes-Watson saga. Mycroft Holmes has a more prominent role than I recall from the original stories, and then there's the wicked Moriarty too, who makes his appearance in the final episode in a very inventive manner.

One of the first non-child stories I read was The Hound of the Baskervilles, when I was all of 7 years old. I remember sitting on the couch in our living room in the afternoon, alone in the house for all practical purposes as my 2 year old sister was fast asleep (parents were at work), and I kept looking over my shoulder for that beast to pounce on me. Been in love with Dr Doyle's stories since then.

Have seen several film and TV versions of the stories over the years, but none hits the spot as well as this newest BBC version.

Benedict Cumberbatch seems to have been born to play Holmes, and is more than ably aided by Martin Freeman's Watson. You might remember Freeman from that awkward Tim from the original The Office.

If for some reason you have put a restriction on yourself for watching just one TV series this year, do yourself a favor - watch Sherlock.

Zandu Balm

You know, when I first heard about Sonakshi Sinha making her debut with a Salman Khan starrer called Dabangg, my thought was - well, there goes another starlet. Didn't she learn anything from Sneha Ullal and Zarine Khan? And considering her brother made a rather forgettable debut, I didn't have much hopes from the other Shatru bhaiya offspring either. But the Bihari (and Sindhi) girl might just do us proud.

After having seen the trailers multiple times and having listened to Munni Badnaam Hui, I can't wait enough for September 10th, when it will be out. Of course, I should admit here that I absolutely loved Wanted and do think Salman Khan has the ability to carry off some really corny stuff (haven't seen Veer though, and have no intention to). But, the crazy thing is I don't even consider Dabangg, from what I have seen of it, to be in that same corny territory. Yes, it's going to be a full-blown masala movie. Yes, it will play to the gallery. Yes, people in single screen halls will throw coins at it (I hope they still do it). But, it reeks of such awesomeness.

And Sonakshi Sinha's smile is quite off the scales. As is her forehead.

I will kill Arbaaz Khan if this movie sucks.

Who the hell is John Roy Hill btw? Google says he is on Facebook, but it surely can't be the same man who apparently said - WHEN YOU LOSE THE FEAR OF DEATH, LIFE BEGINS

Tamarind Rice

I normally feel inspired enough to write here either when I am really happy or feeling really low. Thankfully it's happy right now. Of course, having read the post you would realize that it takes very little to make me really happy. Or really sad for that matter. Sometimes nothing at all.

The reason for my happiness right now is that I made some absolutely brilliant Puliyogare. It's tamarind rice from Karnataka, and even though I used the ready-made Puliyogare mix available in the market rather than preparing all the ingredients myself, it still feels great to make something so delicious in my kitchen.

And, I am also glad I used ghee instead of the oil the recipe on the back of the packet instructed. The best South Indian food ought to be had with ghee not some refined sunflower oil.

Even though the Wiki article says that it's meant to be had as a snack, it goes very well with bhindi (as I tried it last night) or shimla mirch ki sabzi (as I am trying tonight).

I have always felt that people living South of the Vindhyas have a better deal when it comes to food. Not only do they have the amazing variety of dishes from their respective states, most South Indian cities today seem to have restaurants that serve really good North Indian food too. And if you are in Hyderabad, you are living in culinary heaven. Because, according to me, the Hyderabadi Biryani is the epitome of Indian cuisine.

But, in the north, and by that I mean even in a city as cosmopolitan as Mumbai, one pines for a place that would serve a half-decent Bisi Bele Bath. North India's understanding of 'South Indian' food seems to be limited to a satisfying breakfast of idli-vada or masala dosa.

To be fair to some of the Udupi joints in Mumbai, and even in Delhi, they do serve some exquisite dosas, and even quite reasonably edible sambhars, but after having lived in Bangalore, I know they are not the real thing. The road-side minimal darshinis serve better stuff there. And even if the joints in Mumbai were authentic, I wish they would go beyond the basic idli-dosa stuff. There's so much more to food from every region in the South, which is largely lost on us uncouth Northies, who are wont to douse every thing in oil and garam masala.

Ok, I am being a little too unfair to North Indian food now. I know Bihari food (and am not even talking about Litti-Chokha) is quite something and so are dishes from other parts of North India, but it just gets my goose that finding good authentic food from the South is so difficult here. A good avial or meen moilee should not be so difficult to come by in this city, without having to shell out a large fraction of my salary on an upmarket fine dining restaurant!

Ah well, I'll get going with my Puliyogare then. Can't resist the inviting fragrance anymore.

Missing Topi

I have been wanting to make a post on the magazines I love reading, but like everything else I want to write about I get bored midway through the post and move on to something else.

But, I chanced upon this piece by Aatish Taseer in this week's Lounge, the HT Mint supplement that I am a huge fan of, and felt like writing about it. The piece as well as the weekly.

First about Lounge. It is by far the most intelligent supplement that any newspaper has in India. Considering that Mint is by far the most intelligent newspaper in India, it might not come as a surprise, but the wide range of topics Lounge covers, and the phenomenally great columnists it has on its menu, it deserves mention several times more. If nothing else, just the fact that a mainstream paper comes out with a weekly column that very often talks, very intelligently at that, about graphic novels must be a proof of how great it is.

And now coming to the piece itself, which is about the moderate Pakistan. It took me back to the short time I had spent there in the spring of 2006. Pakistan is a beautiful country, almost as much as India, and it is one of humankind's greatest tragedies that the two countries are not together. For we could have achieved so much more if we had not wasted so much time fighting each other.

It is also a waste because we are so alike. One story I love narrating is how my friends and I were having a great time talking to people around us in Urdu till the time we crossed the border at Wagah and came to India where we could not understand anything because everyone was talking in Punjabi.

Personally, walking around in Lahore, singing obscure Hindi film songs on the bus trip to and from NWFP with other students, enjoying some random gupp-baazi after the debates on the rain-soaked stairs of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, even the abuse from that woman whom I accidentally dropped coke on during the bus trip back to Lahore - it all seems part of another world now. A world I miss every day, for I don't think I will ever get to go there again.

A world we are unfortunately doomed to see as foreign. When we could have been brothers.

Believe them when they tell you - 'Jine Lahore nai dekhya, o janmya nai'.