Discovering the Beatles #1: Please Please Me

'Please Please Me' was the first studio album by The Beatles, released on the 22nd of March, 1963. Twenty-one years later, on the same day, I was born in a middle-class family from a small town in Bihar. It would take me another three decades to eventually kick-start my discovery of perhaps the most influential, popular and best-selling rock band of all time. I decided to start with their very first album, listen to it for a couple of months and then move on to the second album and so forth. Doing that I will perhaps have some idea of the evolution of their music and a taste of the era when they dominated the music scene. In my own way, I'll wait for the next album and then compare it with the previous ones. I'm going to document my discovery of their music on this blog. So you can expect a Beatles-post every couple of months or so. 

There were some striking observations I had as soon as I started listening to 'Please Please Me'. One, the songs are so full of love and joy that you find yourself smiling and tapping to them almost unknowingly. Their music does not try to impress you, or give you something very profound. It talks about simple things, mostly love and heartbreak. Hence, I think no one would pretend to be a fan of the Beatles. Being a true Pink Floyd fan is cool, and impressive. That's not the case with the Beatles. You don't love the Beatles, you fall in love with them. And once that happened to me, there was no turning back. I started reading about them, watching the video recordings of the songs from the album, listening to the original songs whose cover versions they did in this album and also listening to the cover versions by other artists of their originals. Another observation, that I eventually had, was the use of harmonics in their songs, something that they later used gloriously in the track 'Because'. More about that later. As of now, let me share with you my thoughts on 'Please Please Me'. You may want to click on the links highlighted below to enjoy the songs and the videos as you read.

There are 14 tracks in this album, eight of which are original songs. 'I Saw Her Standing There' is my personal favourite. There is nothing in the lyrics that I would relate with. But the tune and the rhythm just makes me so happy every time I hear it that I fell in love with it. I also like this cover version a lot, by Tiffany, that came twenty-five years later. 

This video that captures the Beatles perform 'Love Me Do' fills me with love and sadness at the same time. A 23-year old Lennon playing the harmonica evokes awe and a sense of terrible dramatic irony. The only thing that comes to my mind as I see his wonderfully chiseled face is that he will be murdered less than eighteen years later. George Harrison, only of twenty, looks like a bemused child. He will eventually fall in love with the Sitar and the Hindu philosophy and introduce his band-mates to India. Ringo and Paul would be the last two surviving members when Harrison would die of cancer at the age of 58. The joyful legacy that the four have created comes across so effortlessly in this track.

'Ask Me Why' is my third most favourite tracks of this album. Also, now I love 'Please Please Me' a lot, although it took me some time to appreciate the title track. I like 'There's a Place' for I can completely relate with its lyrics:

"There's a place where I can go, when I feel low, when I feel blue...

And it's my mind, and there's no time when I'm alone!"

'P.S. I Love You', 'Misery' and 'Do You Want to Know a Secret' are my least favourite, but I like them anyway. When I play the entire playlist of this album, I never skip a song. Even the six cover versions are worth listening to. In fact, I really really love 'Anna (Go With Him)' which was originally written by Arthur Alexander, although I must admit that the original appears to be more poignant and moving than the Beatles cover version of it. I also love 'A Taste of Honey' that always reminds me of the opening credits of a Western movie, the images of lonely cowboys on long journeys. Also very uplifting are 'Baby It's You' for its wonderful backing vocals, 'Boys' for its bass line and 'Twist and Shout' for Lennon's exhausted voice, and I prefer them over 'Chains'.

During the time when the album charts in the UK were dominated by easy listening vocals and film sound-tracks, 'Please Please Me' gained the top position in May 1963 and stayed there for thirty weeks, to be replaced by the second album by the Beatles. As many as ten of these fourteen tracks were recorded by the Beatles on a single day, 11th February 1963. The English author and historian, Mark Lewisohn, would later claim those 585 minutes to be the most productive in the history of recorded music. The 50th anniversary of that day was celebrated by modern artists re-recording those ten songs in just one day at the same venue - EMI Studios at Abbey Road, London. Watch this one-hour BBC documentary on how London celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first album by four boys who were to change the world music scene forever.

'Discovering the Beatles' is my documentation of discovering the music of the legendary band, album by album over several months. Click here and read from bottom upwards for the entire series.

Discovering the Beatles: Introduction

During the last semester at my medical college I had made an 85-minute docu-drama on my batch-mates. It was for that film that I had written the poem 'Joote Kahaan Utaare The' that later featured in Vikramaditya Motwane's 'Udaan'. That docu-drama carried snippets of interviews of my batch-mates, loosely connected through the theme of friendship. And for its closing credits, thanks to a friend's suggestion, I had used the Beatles track 'With a Little Help from My Friends'. My association with the band started and ended with that and I hadn't heard even the most popular of their songs when I visited the Beatles Cathedral in Rishikesh in April, 2014.

The Beatles' India-connection is very well-known. In Rishikesh, they had stayed at the Maharshi Mahesh Yogi ashram which now lies in ruins for almost 18 years. It is situated inside the forest land which is out-of-bounds for public. However, for the last few years, the abandoned ashram has been the site of graffiti artists who have created paintings on its walls, faces of the Beatles and their spiritual gurus, and the lyrics of their songs. And the satsang hall of the ashram is now known as the Beatles Cathedral. You can visit this surreal place by bribing the guard at the gate of the forest-land and find a fellow-traveller playing his guitar or smoking a joint or dancing in a trance inside its haunting, hallowed premises. I practically knew nothing about the band when I visited that place that April afternoon. But I knew that my discovery of the Beatles is only round the corner.

Finally, this September, I formally started my discovery of the band with some of their most popular songs but especially their first album 'Please Please Me'. Every little detail associated with the Beatles has been a revelation for me. Like, they were in their early twenties when they started the band and became overnight sensation with the unprecedented success of their first album. George Harrison, in fact, was only 20. Reading about the assassination of John Lennon when he was only forty now hurt like never before. And I don't think there has been a single week ever since I started paying attention to them that the Beatles have not featured in one or the other news article on my Google News page. Finally, I feel I'm experiencing one of the most important and loved cultural legacies of humankind. And hence I decided to document this journey - of my discovery of the Beatles.

Yesterday was the death anniversary of John Lennon. And this morning, I woke up to this news article on the first page of the Indian Express that reports the Uttarakhand government's decision to open the ashram for public. So this morning I decided to finally launch this new series on this blog. It has hardly anything to do with cinema. But then, does it really matter? I never wrote about my discovery of Pink Floyd more than seven years ago. Don't want to repeat the mistake. So stay tuned and share with me your Beatlemania...

'Discovering the Beatles' is my documentation of discovering the music of the legendary band, album by album over several months. Click here and read from bottom upwards for the entire series.

Tadaima

I'm home. That is what the Japanese expression "Tadaima" means. And I feel like shouting it aloud. Because I am glad to be back on my blog. I was away for so long that it had started bothering me. I also received phone calls from people wondering what's up with me, when they saw no activity on this blog for such a long time. But the inactivity on the blog is just one side of the story. Over several weeks that just went by, I have hardly done things I usually do. I have not worked at all. And the biggest surprise is that I have not watched a movie in forty-five days!

So what happened all these days? As Mumbai faces its biggest water crisis in years, and it may hurt my swimming all through next monsoons; as preparations for the Bihar elections are in full swing, and I may have to miss voting unless I take a flight to be in my constituency on the day; as Roger Federer keeps his promise alive by stunning us all with his magical innovations before going down to the greatest player in the game today and I am humbled once again by the spirit the two men have displayed; as my new batch at Anupam Kher's school struggles to keep up with the enormous work-load this course comes up with and I try my best to keep them motivated, what is it that has kept me away for so long?

Well, one, I had this amazing three-week trip where I roamed about the coastal towns, temple towns, hills and rain forests, and cities of Karnataka. The first half of the trip involved travelling alone and then my parents joined me. The trip finally culminated in Bangalore where I met some dear friends and conducted a one-day film-writing workshop. My parents saw me teach for the first time and I was so glad to see my father sit through the entire day as I talked about what I love the most in a language he did not completely understand. It really meant a lot to me, and to him.

Once I returned, I could not forget the blissful solitude the forests of Agumbe provided to me, or the 125-year old house where I spent two days, in a village that has only a few hundred inhabitants. A couple of episode of 'Malgudi Days' were shot in this house and I slept in the very same dormitory where it had happened. I could not forget the amazing food that I had all those days on my trip, and those long walks that eventually allowed me to achieve my target of getting under seventy kilos. And I could not forget the joy of travelling alone and then with my parents. But the days that followed, after my return to Mumbai, have been a tremendous revelation of life and my own self to me due to reasons too personal to share on this blog. I must admit, though, that in the last few weeks I have had the most special spiritual, emotional, and romantic experiences of my life.

So yes I was away. And I didn't watch any movie. And I didn't work. But life has given me so much in these six weeks that I'll be the last person to complain. There was a time when I doubted my love for cinema - after all I had had perhaps my longest break from it in almost a decade. A friend of mine reassured me instantly. He said - "You think of cinema all the time. Watching or not watching a movie cannot be any indication of your love for cinema or lack of it."

I felt glad. And I smiled. And in my heart I thanked him. Now as I scream "Tadaima" from all my heart, I hope to indulge in my first love all over again, and somehow compensate for my absence on this blog for this really long time.

I hope you agree with me that whatever has happened has only happened for good! :)

Our New Film-Poem

Recently did this web-ad. I adapted the classic O. Henry story into a script and wrote the Hindi poem. My brother, Devanshu, directed it. Hope it adds a smile to your day! :)

The Curious Case of a Movie Director

Years ago, while discussing a favorite new movie with my college-friends, one particular remark always left me slightly uncomfortable. It was not uncommon to hear from them that the film was very well-directed. To my young aspiring film-maker mind, such casual mention of the profession of my dreams was sacrilege. “What do they know about directing?” I wondered within.

As laymen, there are not many professions we so critically remark about. Visiting an amusement park does not make us wonder about the architect’s skill. An electronic good does not make us critical of the engineering that has given the product its merits or flaws. Cinema and cricket seem to be the only professions in our country where almost everyone has a critical reaction. But then, these two are also our people’s favorite passions. So, we cannot really blame them!

Anyway, so I just wrote an article for this online magazine on leadership. And tried to share whatever I have come to realize to be the job of a director. You can read the article by clicking HERE.

The Truest Love Story Told on Film

Spoiler Alert: The following post contains several crucial details about 'Vertigo' (1958). Please do not read it if you haven't watched the film yet.

In their first meeting early in the film, when Gavin Elster offers the 'job' to Scottie, Elster talks about the good old days of San Francisco. "The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast", he says, before adding those 'things' - "color, excitement, power, freedom." Later, Scottie visits an elderly book-shop owner, to enquire about Carlotta Valdes, the woman whose spirit has been supposedly haunting Elster's wife. Apart from other things, it is revealed to us that Carlotta was abandoned by her man, who kept their child and threw her away on the streets. "You know, a man could do that in those days. They had the power and the freedom." Last week, as I watched 'Vertigo' for the fourth time, the repeated use of the words "power and freedom" hit me like never before. Was this, the power and the freedom to dump your woman, that Elster was wistfully referring to in the earlier scene? That I knew the real truth behind Elster's plans definitely helped me read his lines in a new light. And my views got consolidated later, at the climax, when a livid and outraged Scottie is confronting Judy after having figured out how he was framed. Here, in the closing minutes of the film when he talks about her relationship with Elster, the words are repeated again - "...You were his girl, huh? Well, what happened to you? Did he ditch you? With all of his wife's money, and all that freedom and that power, and he ditched you. What a shame."

It is easy to dismiss this Hitchcock masterpiece as just another mainstream Hollywood suspense thriller. But then, I don't think it is too difficult either to figure out how deeply layered and hauntingly profound this story is. The example above is an illustration of what J. Hoberman writes in his 1996 review of the film, which according to him is "a mystery that only improves with knowledge of its solution". As mentioned above, the story can be read as a brutal tale of a man's successful abandoning of his woman - murdering her in this case, and the absolute victory of its demonic and invincible antagonist. This shameful act happens every day in each part of the world, although not all cases are covered with such an incredibly flawless plan. But more remarkably, I believe 'Vertigo' is the ultimate love tragedy, as deeply passionate and devastating as most love stories I encounter in real life. I have a feeling that you relate more with Scottie and the film if you are a man, and especially as you age, and see hints of all kinds of love affairs in this film. Please excuse my almost cynical world-view when it comes to love, and allow me to indulge in this reading of the film.

Look at the still above from the wonderfully crafted chase sequence when Scottie is following 'Madeleine'. Scottie is literally 'in the dark' and the woman he is following is nothing but an image - shiny, colorful, bright, and daringly inviting him to get infatuated with her. Hoberman's one-line description of the film is perhaps the most apt way of defining it. He writes that the movie is concerned with "being hopelessly, obsessively, fetishistically in love with an image" and I think the still above is exactly this definition, in these many words and more. But aren't all love affairs the same? When we fall in love, we are actually attracted to and infatuated with an image of the person we think we're falling in love with. That image is always extremely alluring and we are always taking a risk, and willingly so, when we fall for it. Scottie took a risk - he allowed himself to be drawn to the 'mentally-unstable wife' of his old schoolmate. And when that image crashed, the harsh reality hit him on his face. Haven't all of us experienced the same in our love affairs? I must add that I'm not saying that the person we love 'tricks' us into this by projecting a wrong and superficial image of herself or himself. It's just that this is how love affairs get constructed, and both parties are victims of this trickery that love plays on them. Afterall, isn't Judy as much a victim of this love affair as Scottie?

This brings me to another aspect of this love tragedy - the woman's perspective. Let us think of Judy and her story. She is a young girl from Kansas, somehow surviving in San Francisco City to support her mother back home. One day, a rich man discovers her and realises that she looks like his own wife whom he's been wanting to get rid of. So he proposes to her this plan that would make her rich and her life more comfortable than she can imagine. She agrees and they together start tricking Scottie. Until now, it feels like fiction, the stuff of the movies. But what happens next is something that I've seen happening with so many girls. Judy falls in love with Scottie. If we try to figure out the reason behind this, we'll have to agree that her love had hardly to do with the external appearance of Scottie, or the image he was portraying. Roger Ebert mentioned somewhere what he came up with during a shot-by-shot study of the film - that the turning point for Judy would be the day when Scottie 'fished her out' of the bay and took her home. Remember, here we have a single man, finally taking home the woman he has desired, who is 'unconscious'. He undresses her and makes her sleep in his bed. It is almost evident that his conduct during this entire process muct have been impeccable and Judy, who was hardly unconscious, must have been going through all this with great nervousness and terror. Can it ever be easy for a woman pretending to be unconscious to let a man undress her completely in his own house? And when she is going through this entire thing, scared and not knowing where it will take her, she finds that Scottie treats her with care, does not take advantage of the situation in any way, and then when she wakes up, he behaves like a perfect gentleman. I believe, this is good enough for a woman to be exceedingly drawn toward a man. Soon she realises that this man is strongly attracted to her, this man of values. Not only that. When asked about the details he cooks up answers that definitely make him appear 'innocent', even 'cute' - as the woman knows certain ghastly details that he does not. Her falling for him is definitely justified then, just like most girls I've seen fall for their men, in a way much deeper than the other way round.

Even after the successful execution of the plan, Judy does not leave the city and go into hiding - she cannot, although the mastermind, Elster, has fled to Europe. By deciding to stay in the city, hoping to see Scottie just once, she is being foolish. But this is what we all do when we are in love, right? We do foolish, dangerous things. After being discovered by Scottie, she decides to go with the flow. She allows him to dress her and change her despite finding this unbearably hurtful. Scottie indulges in his perverse attempt to resurrect the image he was in love with, and she lets him do that, bit by bit, with the hope of eventually making him love the real her, until her surrender to his absolute power and control recreates for them that fragile love affair that rests on images that we seek and unwillingly (or willingly) portray. The very next scene, after an obvious time-lapse, that image is shattered again. Scottie gets to discover the real and complete truth and this triggers in him a reaction both calm and violent, and hence so dangerous. In his final confrontation with Judy, atop the church, he cries - "Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you what to do and what to say?" A heart wounded in love always reacts in this way, bitterness and jealousy completely overpowering you, and you act without thinking, until it ends in something that silences you. And if you are as unfortunate as Scottie, it can devastate you forever. The cyclical nature of finding and losing your loved one, often by your own doing and mostly due to matters out of your control, is again a very strong depiction in this timeless tragedy. The loss may not always be the loss of one's life, as in the closing seconds of the film, but isn't it as brutal as that? Isn't the image of a slightly stooped Scottie hanging helplessly over the roof top of the site of the biggest tragedy of his life the image of most of us when we lose our love? And don't we thank our stars when someone we know goes through this and we silently hope to either stay away from love or succeed in it? For me, John 'Scottie' Ferguson has become that dear 'someone' whom I care for since the first scene everytime I watch this film. And mostly, I see myself in his mad pursuit of this woman. If you can see yourself in either Scottie or Judy, you will agree with me about 'Vertigo' being the truest love story ever put up on screen. And I believe, most of you will, someday, if not today.

Our First Film Poem: Ishq ki Ijaazat

You can click here to watch the first Film Poem Devanshu and I have created for online release. It is a four-minute video. And you can read the poem below. Let us know your reaction to it. Thanks.

इश्क़ की इजाज़त

दो इश्क़ की इजाज़त, इल्ज़ाम अब हटा दो,

हम ग़ैर हैं नहीं - ये एक बार तो जता दो.

पूछो ज़रा खुदा से जिसने हमें बनाया,

क्यूँ ख्वाहिशें अलग दीं, क्या रंग ये चढ़ाया?

और बोलते हो तुम कि हम क़ुदरती नहीं हैं,

तुम भीड़, हम ज़रा से, तो भीड़ ही सही है?

अपना सके हमें कोई दूसरा खुदा दो...

सदियाँ गुज़र-गुज़र कर करती रहीं गुज़ारिश,

न तुम बदल सके, न ये तोहमतों की बारिश,

फिर भी हमें हमेशा जो चाहते बदलना, 

इन्साफ ये कहाँ का - बस बात ये बता दो…

यूँ सहमे-सहमे कितने यहाँ छुपे हैं,

क़ायदों के पर्दों की ओट में रुके हैं,

ये क़ायदे उठा लो, बाहर हमें बुला लो,

हमको बराबरी की तुम आज इब्तदा दो,

हम ग़ैर हैं नहीं ये एक बार तो जता दो...

थी क़ैद कब मोहब्बत मज़हब के दायरों में ?

न क़ौम रोक पाई, न ज़ात टोक पाई,

न उम्र के फ़रक़ को भी आशिक़ों ने माना,

फिर आज तक हमें क्यूँ है रोकता ज़माना?

दो दिल ही जुड़ रहे हैं, दे दो दुआ इन्हे भी,

इस दिल के जश्न को थोड़ा अपना मयकदा दो,

हम ग़ैर हैं नहीं ये एक बार तो जता दो,

दो इश्क़ की इजाज़त, इल्ज़ाम अब हटा दो.

The Curse of Deficient Perspectives

I have always aspired to not judge people on the basis of conventional morality. I have always tried to let go of even the slightest need to fit into other people's idea of right or wrong. It has not always been easy, especially when deeply personal issues and intimate relationships are concerned. But I have always tried, and often succeeded, and have felt guilty and inadequate all the time I failed. It is almost an obsession, and is born out of one fundamental truth that I very strongly believe in: that it is not important to label things as right or wrong. And the conventional morality and the popular perceptions of correct and incorrect, and righteousness and sin, fail to appeal to me. In this life, it seems, I wouldn't be able to conform with the world around me, the world that is habitually used to classifying people, judging them, forming opinions, and almost imposing their perspectives on to others. However difficult it might be, I would, or at least want to, give the person in question a valid benefit of doubt. And nothing would please me more than finding that my assumptions about his or her wrongdoings were nothing more than acts of misjudgment.

Thomas Vinterberg's unforgettable and heartbreaking drama, 'The Hunt' (2012), is entirely based on a very innocent and unintentional mistake committed by an otherwise very sweet and loveable character. But what it snowballs into is a series of misconceptions, premature and unfair judgments, and devastation of reputations, self-esteems, and lives. The biggest achievement of the film is the way it manages to make you hate the gentlest of humans, because of the way they are hurting the protagonist, and also how it forces you to empathise with the very same people, because you know that what they are doing is only normal from their perspective. It is the kind of film that makes you feel fortunate that you are the audience, and not a part of the film's universe, because being the audience gives you the complete picture, and a rare blessing in the form of objectivity. You do not judge the characters, who are disillusioned by half-truths and rushed opinions, but still desperately wish the truth to come out in the open and everything to get right all over again.

"The world is full of evil. But if we hold on to each other it goes away," says an important character at the beginning of the final act of the film. It is then that you have your first sense of relief, and you start hoping that things will be fine soon. This character then makes the difficult decision to take the first step toward mending the ties, and get rid of the unwanted and unfortunate bitterness that has destroyed the peace of their lives. Also, perhaps that decision is not that difficult at that moment in the film because of the clarity this character has achieved, and he knows that this is the only way to correct the wrongs.

But in our real lives, we often lack clarity, and at times the intent, to set things right all over again. Despite realising the futility of bitterness, especially with people whom we love or loved, we fail to take that first step. And as the closing images of the film show, at times, the delay in that causes an irreparable damage to the soul of the victim, who is often the person with the best intent, almost closing the possibilities of the person's liberation from the unjust and unfair judgement forced upon him. Knowing all this, what do we keep waiting for? Why is it so difficult for us to seek that clarity which would hopefully erase all negativity, to make that effort to fill up the gaps in communication? Are we waiting for someone to take us out of the movie of our life, so that we are no more a character but the audience, with a complete perspective of things, and free of the curse that the characters seem to be bearing - the curse of incomplete understanding, premature judgments, and insufficient communication? Since we cannot be both the characters and the audience of the movie of our life, shouldn't we just act on our own, out of faith, trust, mutual respect and the desire to set everything straight, once and for all?

Merry Christmas!

Here is a text exchange I had with one of my former students, now a friend:


Me: What did Santa get for you?

She: Sadly, nothing. But I did eat a lot of cake. What did he get for you?

Me: Nothing. And a lot.

She: And a lot?

Me: I don't want to believe that he brought nothing for me. I think he did. Only I would realise what his gifts were as time passes.

She: Of course. That's how God works. Sometimes, it feels like a Tarantino movie to me. It's hard to keep up, but eventually everything will make sense.


Well, that was quite a compliment for the Almighty, don't you think?

Merry Christmas! :)

All the Days in a Decade

This post has nothing to do with cinema. It is an indulgence purely into myself, if my others posts are not sufficiently self-indulgent. But the occasion is such that I would rather want to share it with the world here. I had the choice of not doing this. But I decided otherwise.

July end. 2003. I had joined Armed Forces Medical College, Pune as a Medical Cadet. And on the day I took my train from home, with my Mamaji, to reach Pune, I started writing diary entries. It was a tough time for me and I felt like recording the events happening in my life. Once, several years ago when I was 11 and had just joined my boarding school, I had tried this. And had given up in a few weeks. This time, I was not sure whether I would be able to persist with this habit. The real test was the during the first few weeks in college. The 'orientation' by seniors was so strenuous and exhausting that by the time our floors were shut and the seniors left, which was around 10.30 every night, all of us Freshers just wanted to crash on bed. But despite that terrible desire to just go to sleep, and replenish ourselves to face fresh assault the very next morning, I made it a point to write the diary entry for the day. As a result, I have my entire Freshers' Term recorded in my diary, day by day, event by event.

What started then, has not stopped until today. This July I complete a decade of recording my every day on a single page. Do you understand what it means? It has a record of everything that has happened to me in the last ten years - my entire life at Medical College - the day I felt nauseous in the Operation Theatre to the day when eventually I 'washed' and assisted in a surgery, all the joys I experienced with my friends, all my trips, all my vacations, all the relationships I've had with women, including my first love, all my dreams and fantasies, all the moments of loss, including losing both my Grandfathers, my first attempts at making films, my entire journey as a poet, my coming to Mumbai and the life since, my experience with 'Udaan' and all other projects, my experience as a screenwriter trying to learn the craft, my experience as a teacher trying to introduce cinema to young minds, and most importantly - my entire discovery of the best of cinema - great Hindi and American movies, and all the hundreds of films I discovered from different languages and cultures. If the value of someone's life could be measured by his memories and experiences, I have all of it recorded, day by day. For a person who is not very intuitive and imaginative but still wants to live the life of a creative professional, like me, it is always important to dwell into the memories of his own past so as to feel the emotions and experience the moments that are there in the database of the days he has lived. Here are a couple of lines from a poem of mine I had written nine years ago. It is today that I realise how significant these lines are:

पलटते पन्ने पलों के पर पकड़ पाए नहीं पर
डायरी में समाई है हर ख़ुशी, हर ग़म गया है…

However, the biggest gain for me from this exercise of persistence has been this. Every day, when I write my diary entry, I think of what I achieved or learnt or experienced in those 24 hours. As a result, my way of life, consciously and sub-consciously, has become obsessed with the importance of the day I have in my hands, my present, my today. This not only helps me discipline myself, it makes me a happy man. I literally understand and believe and practice the fact that each day is a new beginning. Of course, it feels mighty strange to think that it has been ten years since I started doing this. Of course, I don't want this to end. And of course, I don't know what will happen to these diaries when I am gone, when I am no more. But who cares for what will happen once it's all over, when I am getting to immortalise all that is happening today, now? Today's diary entry will also have a mention of this blog post. See, how cool this is!

Must Watch Before You Die #35: Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

I love you in my selfish way, and I think you love me, in your fussy, pestering way. We love each other like people do here on earth...

There are two realities I have lived and experienced in the nearly three decades of my life, when it comes to the topic of marriage. Both realities are as intimate with me as they can be, and both are as opposite from each other as possible. And as expected, these realities reflect in my love for movies as well.

I was born and brought up in a world where marriage was, and still is, an undeniable truth of adult life. Small towns in our country, almost everywhere in this vast cultural collage that we call India, have a very traditional and typical way of looking at the institution of marriage. One has to marry after reaching a certain age, and mostly, the marriage is arranged by the elders of the families. Those getting married are supposed to accept the decisions of these elders with respect and dignity and, if possible, joy. Love marriages are rare, and if it is an inter-caste or inter-religion marriage it is almost certain that the families will not approve of it. It takes a lot of courage from a parent, who always claimed to have loved his or her child, to agree to that against the norms of the world around them. After marriage, the couple is expected to live through it in good times or bad and make sure the problems between them do not escape their bed-room. I have immense respect for such an institution of marriage. I am amazed to see how successful most arranged marriages are. It intrigues me how two families are bonded forever after one stressful night of unending rituals. It scares me to know how two people are almost forced to be united in body and soul without actually getting to know each other. It pains me to realize how a daughter leaves her home forever, to set-up a new world for herself. This reality is a part of my family, my traditions, their expectations from me, and I can never detach myself from it completely. This reality is the reason why I loved 'Vivah' (2006) despite its uni-dimensional characters and trite situations. I cried and smiled while watching that film, and I completely understand why the biggest success this film had was in the state of Bihar. If you accept the culture and beliefs of the people of that part of India, you will understand too.

However, I know that I do not want to be a part of that reality. And the answer to that is in the other reality that I discovered later. I left home when I was eleven. And have grown up to be an individual more concerned about himself than his family. I am more-or-less self-reliant in every way. However I long for someone to take care of me when I am not well, and bear my tantrums, and serve me good food every day. For the past eighteen years of my life, I have been away from all these privileges. All others from my world have got all this whenever they wanted. Add to this the kind of environment I was brought up in - eight years in an ashrama during my adolescence, and five years in an army institue during my early adulthood. My emotional side was almost forced to get suppressed by the intellectual disciplining of mind. I became more and more detached from my first reality. That my first love-affair ended badly did not help either. And around the same time, I discovered the expression of my self-centered, intellectual, alienated self in the cinema of Europe. Kieslowski became my favorite director and psychological dramas became my favorite genre. This new reality was a world of greys, complicated and difficult, less romantic than the world of Rajshri but very real. All my relationships after my first have been complicated. My sense of morality is pretty radical from that of the world around me, and I believe a man's biggest duty is towards himself. I also find myself not judging people but trying to understand the mechanism behind their allegedly wrong or right behaviour. I am completely fine with the morality of the lead characters in Kieslowski's 'White' (1994). If my people, back home, can accept the culture and beliefs of the world that is inside and around me, they too will be fine with it.

But most likely they will not. Ever. These two worlds will never understand each other. The characters from 'Vivah' will turn completely silent if they meet the characters from 'Three Colours: White'. The characters from the latter will possibly laugh at those from the first, but in their heart of hearts admire and envy them. And amidst these two conflicting worlds, marriage for me is and will remain a fascination, and a puzzle, that I will constantly try to figure out, whether I get married or not. It is a truth I can not close my eyes to. I will miss it if I don't experience it, and I will bear its pains if I do. As of now, I will leave it to destiny.

Ingmar Bergman's 'Scenes from a Marriage' (1973) will remind you of the films by Kieslowski. And it will remind you of the films by Gulzar. It will make you wonder how Sooraj Barjatya would react to it. Unlike any other Bergman film, a master film-maker whom I had always admired cerebrally for his surreal and philosophical dramas that never really tormented my heart or affected my soul, this film will make you think about your married life, whether you are married or not, and will remind you of all couples around you. Most importantly, it will make you cry miserably, deep within if not the actual act of weeping, and will connect you at an emotional level that you'd crave to go into the lives of the lead characters and help them out. But it will also make you believe that you can not. The man and the wife will have to do it themselves, amidst the magical bliss and the ugly pains that marriage brings with itself. Perhaps the only connection between the two realities is that the problems between the two should not leave the bed-room. Often, that is not the case.

Love. Finally.

Dear Shraddha,
I am in love. With you. It happened only a couple of days ago, and now I suddenly realize that I am very late. A little explanation is required and I hope you read on and let me tell you all that I want to.

Three years ago when I had first seen you in 'Teen Patti', I did find you immensely attractive. But the film was very unimpressive and your role was brief. Time went by, and although I always remembered how infatuated I was with you for some time, I never pursued you. And then, day before last, I watched your latest sensation, the film the entire trade is talking about, the film that has shattered various records at the box office and has surprised us all with its extra-ordinary run. I am sure you know all about it, including the fact that in the last 10 years, this film is the second highest fourth-week grosser, behind only '3 Idiots'. In the last ten years when we have seen huge numbers piled up by superstar-driven films, this little film of yours has managed to supersede all expectations. And let me tell you, a major portion of that revenue is actually a result of you and your work in the film, because you have done something in the film that no actress could do in recent times. Ask any man in the audience and you will know.

I apologize for going for the film almost a month after its release. I know you will never forgive me for that. But I tried to make up, you know. I watched it on Tuesday. And went back on Wednesday, this time only for you. I don't think I have ever done this. And I think I can go to watch it again. Not because I loved the film, but because I have fallen in love with you. I understand that I might be loving the 'image' of you projected on the screen. I do feel like Scottie from 'Vertigo', chasing the image of a woman played by an actress. (If you haven't watched that film, we will watch it together some day!) But somehow, I feel you and your character Aarohi are not two people. It seems both of you were born together, as one, and it will break my heart to see you doing the run-of-the-mill roles that other actresses are doing. If only my advice mattered, I would strongly advise you to keep playing the same character in all your films, because you have that rare quality of making men lose their sleep over you, in a way that is hardly lustful, but born out of the innocent charm that you possess. I am sure there must be millions of men like me, lost in your thoughts, and hoping to meet you some day.

Shraddha, I loved every moment of your presence on screen. I loved the way you brushed your delicate fingers against your wrists while singing your first lines of the song "Chahoon main ya naa', and later when you rehearsed in the balcony with your legs up the chair. I loved the way you said "nahin baba" with tears in your eyes, just before your first recording. I loved the way you ran up and down the stairs at the amphitheater, 'presenting' RJ to the audience. I loved the way you sat on the floor, against the door shut on you, trying to cajole him and help him. I loved the way you ran down the corridor of the recording studio and hugged him with that expression of infinite affection and unending support. I loved how your eyes were always fixed on him, whether in public or alone, as if everything that you were receiving was futile in front of the man you loved. And I loved the wonderful monologue you had just before the climax, when you talked about how you will accept 'his love' in order to bring him back. My eyes were wet throughout the film, looking at your beautiful face and worrying for you and wanting to take care of you. But that monologue broke my heart. I was crying. Your simplicity had won over me.

Looking at you, I felt you should be taken away from this cruel world to a land where all joys can be yours. From your fingertips to your hair, from your eyes to your smile, from your voice to your tears - I felt like treasuring them all. I have never felt like this for any other woman on screen. I am not a person who falls in love with heroines. I am not a person who falls in love so easily. But you have managed to do that. Today, I am dying to meet you, and tell you how special you are, and wish you all joys in the world. However, the biggest pain for me is that it indeed seems possible. I am not an unemployed goon-of-a-man lolling around the lanes of a my small town in Bihar, suddenly lovesick about an angel on the Big Screen. I am a professional working in the same industry as yours and the feeling that you are very much here, near me, and that there is a possibility that we could meet, however distant, is making me restless. As soon as I finished watching the film, I called up my manager-friend and asked him to get me your number. This mixed feeling of being near and yet so far is killing me.

So, I decided to write this letter to you. And leave it in the infinite cyber space. It is just one click away from you now. And I will wait for that fateful moment when you somehow receive this link, and click on it, and read my first love letter to you. I am hopeful it won't be my last.

Enjoy this success that you so truly deserve. And keep making the world a beautiful place by that wonderfully magical smile of yours.

Love,
Satyanshu.

P.S. I hope you don't take this letter as a trivial word play I do with every woman. Main us tarah ki ladkiyon se is tarah ki baatein nahin karta!

Invictus

This is perhaps one of the most inspiring poems I've read. Just finished watching this film, and had to share the poem here on this blog. May all of us be blessed with infinite hope, power, and faith that this great poem stands for. Thank you dear poet, Mr. William Earnest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Must Watch Before You Die #33: Z (1969)

I think I’m an obsessively positive person; obsessively, because my need for positivity, and my faith in it, borders to an extreme. I think this world is a beautiful place, and it’s disappointing how many fail to notice the abundant beauty all around us. But then, I have friends and acquaintances who have completely contrary views from mine. Whether they have a hint of cynicism or a rational realistic approach to life, they believe that we live in a miserable world which cannot hope to get any better. I cannot argue with them because when they talk about the wrong being committed by man all around the world, I can only nod silently, and regretfully. Because then my theory that “nothing bad can happen to you if you are good” falls flat on my face. Because then I realize that perhaps my persistent positivity has so much to do about the way I have cocooned myself away from the rest of the world. And then, there is this unnecessary, unreasonable, inexplicable guilt.

Let me state some facts. I do empathize with the innocent victims of man’s heinous crimes occurring all around us every moment. I do wish that this never happened. I do know that I will do all that is expected of me in such situations. But largely, at an emotional level I remain unaffected. Not having a TV is a big advantage, and every time there is some sensational and disturbing news driving the media into frenzy, I thank myself for not having the idiot-box at home. I do not indulge in any kind of social networking, and BlackBerry and WhatsApp are still Greek and Hebrew for me. The morning newspaper and Google News keeps me updated about everything, and I’m fine with that. Most of my waking hours are spent alone in my room, listening to music, watching movies, reading, writing, or talking on phone with those who are fine with my obsessively positive way of life.

The latest news of the brutal gang-rape in Delhi is echoing all around the country, and beyond, as I write these words. It has disturbed me immensely, perhaps more than before, and I pray to God for that girl, and I hope adequate and effective measures are taken for a better future in a better society. But then I retreat to my cocoon. And I smile, looking at the joy all around me. I know there is no reason to feel guilty about it, but how can I be sure that I am not being an ostrich, with its head buried in sand, cutting the world from its view, and believing that it is safe? Is it true that the only way to stay positive and preserve one’s sanity in this horrible world is by staying shut in a room, and staying hopelessly obsessed with hope, and dreams and fairy-tales?

Amidst all this, I got to watch Costa-Gavras’ provocative political thriller ‘Z’ (1969). Watch it for its use of film editing to complement the story it wants to tell. Watch it if you are cynical or a realist. Watch it if you are an obsessive optimist. Watch it if you have already watched ‘Shanghai’ (2012), the Hindi-language adaptation of the same story. Because a film so disturbing to your intellect without disturbing your senses, and a film so powerful and confident with its design, is rare. And ‘Z’ is that rare masterpiece.

P.S. Now that we have survived the Doomsday, I congratulate you and me, because this assures for us a sustained discovery of cinema and its pleasures, and more Must-Watch recommendations to come!

The Opportunity to Defy Death

I am scared of death, truly, genuinely. It is difficult for me to believe that one day I’ll be gone. This world, in its limitless expanse into time and space, exists because I exist – I, in my case, and in your case, you. Before me, the world didn’t exist at all, and it will cease to exist once I’m no more. One day, everything that matters to me, every truth, will turn meaningless. And this is scary. More disturbing than the mystery of “what will happen once I die” is the realization that everything that I’ve paid importance to, including myself, will end, and be lost forever.

I watched ‘Titanic’ today. I’m not a big fan of the movie and the decision to watch it was purely academic. I wanted to see how the 3D conversion of a 2D movie looks like, when done by the person who is an authority on 3D film-making. What I had not imagined was that the movie will also trigger the memories of watching it for the first time fourteen years ago. My brother says it was the first time we were sitting in an air-conditioned movie hall! Today I was reminded of that tender age when I was too innocent to believe that an actress can pose nude in front of the camera. They had chopped off the shots of full nudity and I was to wait several years to finally see Kate Winslet as proudly and defiantly exposed as the pencil sketch of her character.

Those shots were deleted in today’s show as well. The film had not changed much, despite the irritating 3D glasses, and a new ‘depth perspective’. But I had changed, and today the most affecting image for me was neither the erotic and gorgeous beauty of the leading lady nor the helpless surrender of that gigantic creation of man before the might of frozen and fluid water. Just before she is rescued, and seconds after she has let go of Jack’s dead body into the ocean, Rose blows into a whistle in order to attract the rescue boat towards her. That image of the young girl, surrounded by hundreds of dead bodies, blowing not helplessly but purposefully, to fight against death with an uncompromising and relentless desire to live, was for me the biggest moment in the film. In order to fulfill her promise to Jack, she had decided to live, and embrace life with all strength and passion. Today wherever she goes, she carries the photos from different stages of her life – Rose riding a horse, Rose posing like a black-and-white screen diva, Rose with her kids – the photos which are testimony to a life she has lived proudly and fully, a life that has stood firmly against death as long as it can. 

Last year a stupid mosquito had infected me with Dengue. In the hospital, it suddenly dawned upon me what I today consider to be the most valid definition of life. What is life? In my opinion, it is the opportunity to defy death. The best way to live is to honor life, feel blessed that it is with you, and to live as if there is nothing after it, because this is your only opportunity. And if you live it well, without letting any regret haunt you and remind you about “what could have been”, your existence will go beyond the body containing you, and the time defining your tenure as a living organism. A life thus lived will turn into a blissful memory or an inspiration for others, and survive well beyond death. When I listen to Celine Dion’s rendering of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ or when I watch the celebrated cinematic moment of Jack and Rose ‘flying’ with their hands stretched at the bow of the ship, the blissful tears brimming in my eyes are stronger than the fearful sight of hundreds of people dying their premature deaths. Embracing life lovingly and passionately is perhaps the only answer to death, and the only code to immortality.

Must Watch Before You Die #29: 'In the Mood for Love' (2000)

I believe in love. Because I think I understand its mechanism. I’m a student of biology and for me the laws of nature are the biggest and most powerful truths. So with the perspective of the way nature functions, I am beginning to understand the complex phenomenon that we have named as ‘love’. If I didn’t, I would have either unconditionally accepted love as a romantic truth (that most of us do as teenagers) or have discarded it as a false notion (that a lot of us feel after a few failed relationships). Today I have a neutral perspective on it, and hence would like to share it here without any inhibitions.

Disclaimer: We are talking about romantic love here, not the love between a mother and her son, or a boy and his dog. Nothing written here is absolute, and most points made below are generalizations from a male’s perspective. Please feel free to disagree.

We are naturally programmed to be attracted towards the object of our sexual desire. For a man, it can be a woman, another man, or both. Also, one person can have more than one objects of sexual desire. When we are attracted to another person, it is this subconscious (or conscious) desire that drives us. As a teenager, I had this notion of ‘pure love’ – that I’m truly in love with this girl and I don’t think of her sexually. I believe many of us felt that way sometime in our lives. Today I cannot separate sexuality from love, however pure or magical it might be. Now, if both these feelings are true for most people, there has to be a design in place here. The design is the biological truth that dictates us. We all know that a teenager has a lesser role to play sexually than a man aged 25 or above. We also know that a teenager’s notion of the world is more romantic and uninhibited than that of older people. Hence, it is common sense that a teenager’s notion of love is more romantic and less ‘biological’.

Now, we are attracted differently towards different people. This is as true as the varied taste we have for food, hobbies, arts, and perversions. So there is nothing inexplicable about it. Is there a reason why my favorite dessert is ras-malai? And is there a reason why the ras-malai of a particular shop is my favorite among all? No. We like something based on how our senses and feeling react to it, and ‘intellectualize’ it later. This ‘strong and intimate liking based on our response to someone at a sensory and feeling level’ is LOVE. Simple, isn’t it? Simple, until now.

Now, with the same person, who is our love-interest, we feel differently during different stages of our relationship. When we started dating, even before expressing our feelings, we were suffering from terrible weak-knees and dry-mouths, and overnight separation caused terrible anxieties. This magical stage – and this does not stop happening post-teenage – occurs under the effect of the hormone called dopamine. This hormone is also associated with intoxicated states, and all of us know that the ‘magical feeling when we are high’ and the ‘depression during hangover’ is very similar to the experience of the earliest stages of a romantic relationship. This hormone, however, cannot remain triggered forever. Once we start coming close, holding hands, getting physically comfortable with each other, the hormone called oxytocin is stimulated (both in men and women). This hormone is related to the female reproductive system and gives us the feeling of long-term association and bonding. If dopamine charges us, oxytocin calms us down. Again, this is a stage of love we are very much aware of. Even in arranged marriages (where the dopamine stage might be short and less powerful) this oxytocin stage of blissful togetherness is an essential experience. So yes love is magical, and love is also pacifying, fulfilling, and it ‘makes you complete’. All these things are true – we are designed that way.

Even if we talk non-biologically, from a relationship point-of-view, love can be defined as ‘the willingness to go out of your way for the fulfilling company of another individual’. The key part of this definition is: ‘out of your way’. If required, you resist temptations of all kinds, re-think and modify your personal plans, let other relationships and issues suffer, in order to maintain the company of someone you truly love. You say sorry when you don’t even know what your fault was, and you forgive the other person even if he hasn’t accepted his mistake. All these are examples of ‘going out of your way’. If you forgive the negative connotation, we can replace ‘going out of your way’ with the verb ‘compromising’. So, we can now define love as ‘the willingness to compromise for the fulfilling company of someone’. The catch here is, the moment we realize that we are ‘compromising,’ the intensity of our love starts to diminish. We then carry on for social reasons or break up. Or, we carry on as a habit – just being with that person is enough for us, and we decide to spend the entire life-time with him/her, not out of love, but by blaming or acknowledging ‘destiny’.

Remember that the notions of ‘destiny’, ‘social norms’ and ‘personal compromises’ is hardly thousands of years old. The sexual drive is millions of years old. It does not require too much of intelligence to figure out that the willingness to compromise depends greatly on the social expectations that surround us. A freer society has more percentage of divorces than a conservative one. Also, if marriage does not remain an essential institution in our society, 'marrying' for being together, and 'divorcing' for getting separated would be futile exercises. A truly free society will treat divorce and separation as equally normal and important as falling in love. So, in the end, love should be defined as: ‘a strong and intimate liking we develop for an individual based on our sensory reaction to and feelings for him/her, (influenced majorly by our sexual preferences at a subconscious level and affected strongly by the play of our hormones) and the outcome of which is greatly affected by the social norms that we agree to operate within’. This, in short, is love, its cause and effect. We react to it differently at its different stages – whether it is writing a love-sick poem, rendering a shoulder of support, or holding wrinkled hands sitting on a bench in a park.

And after this long post full of bulshit, let me recommend you the sublimely beautiful film on love and longing, Wong Kar-Wai’s ‘In the Mood for Love’ as a must-watch-before-you-die. Gift yourself this unforgettable film, whether you are in love with someone, or yourself.

My Subconscious is Also Me

These days I’m reading an extremely difficult book. Difficult for me, because it has forced me to rethink my way of living, and working. “The Film Director’s Intuition” by Judith Weston is also the only book on cinema that is not giving me an obvious ‘sense of learning and accomplishment.’ And that, perhaps, is exactly the point that it wants to make.

We remain too obsessed with results and accomplishments, and an evident sense of growth and development, so much so that we hardly take time to think whether in this mad rush to feed our conscious mind we are taking sufficient care of the subconscious or not. I realized this only a couple of days ago – that my subconscious is also me. And do I know about it? Do I take care of it? Subconsciously, may be; consciously, hardly. I know I operate mainly from my left brain. I set deadlines for myself when no one does, and I always tend to discipline everything I do, painstakingly, obsessively. Suddenly, this book is forcing me to question something I so strongly believe in.

At this point, I must make it very clear, why I have been so blissfully confident about my methodical approach. It is a constant desire to make sure that everything, every little thing at work or in my life, remains under my control – not to dominate, but to supervise them. I do this not in a stressful way, but to remain stress-free. For close to four years now, I have been monitoring my finances, my studies, my work, even my swimming regimen, with such a minute detail that it would intimidate anyone. Keeping a daily record in the form of diary entries helps. Not taking any day off, at least trying my best not to, has made it a habit. If I’m not sleeping, I’m working, or reading, or watching a movie, or doing something of ‘value’. I don’t sit idle, rarely hang out with friends, have drastically cut down my phone conversations, and there is an unending feeling of being “productively occupied” all the time, which is the pain and the pride of my existence.

I won’t believe I have been doing it wrong. Not having trained professionally, it has been only up to me to study about cinema and film-making. So, I would say these years might be considered as the time I have spent in a film school, working really hard, and orienting myself for objective and evident growth. And perhaps, at the right time, and before it was too late, life has gifted me with this amazing book, where each page is forcing me to see everything from a different perspective.

For example, this book asks me to shut down my “auto-pilot”, to give myself the permission to fail, to take time off from everything and just day-dream, to learn to listen to others as if that is the most important thing in this world, to spend time with nature, and children – things that I hardly do. It advices exercises which do not have any immediate results, but which are supposed to nurture the intuition and the imagination, one of them being indulging in “stream of consciousness” or “free-association”. It has started to convince me that having a good chat with friends is not a waste of time, and that spending hours in a mall, observing people and imagining about their lives is a desirable and productive exercise.

I just finished the first of its three parts, which is called “Intuition, Ideas, and Imagination” and am convinced that as a writer-director I need to strike a balance between my intuitive right-brain and the logical left-brain and pay more attention to the world around me, in all its sensory and visual glory, than the internal, intellectual learning I have imposed happily upon myself. Before moving on to the next part of the book, which is “Script Analysis”, I have decided to take a break from it. Instead of studying more pages of it, and making notes, I would rather spend some time doing these exercises that it suggests.

In fact I’ve already started one.

Just a couple of days ago, when I was irreparably affected by the book’s insistence on unleashing the subconscious, I watched David Cronenberg’s latest ‘A Dangerous Method’ (2011). The film is on the founders of modern psychology – Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein and Sigmund Freud, and talks about the ways of the subconscious. That night, I had a most weird dream, something that left me bewildered and shocked. The dream was disturbingly visual and had so many layers of possible interpretations that I still feel drained out thinking of it. Next morning, I decided to write down the description of that dream, without making any judgments. And have decided to do this as often as possible, to keep a track of all that my subconscious communicates with me, in order to understand the muted cries of this ignored child, which is very much me. It is an amazing coincidence that I had to watch this film on that very day, consolidating my desire to start listening to my subconscious immediately. It feels amazing to assume that life’s screenplay is always perfectly designed for the most rewarding journey, if not the desired destination. I am forced to believe, that the way I have lived all these years was as correct as the measures I’m now taking to modify my approach. Life is going to take care of me when I, consciously or subconsciously, forget to.

Movie-time at Macondo

I’m the happiest person on earth these days. And I’m the saddest. The reason for both is a wonderful experience I’m having, and for a change, it has nothing to do with cinema. The name of that experience is “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, one of the most amazingly original piece of fiction, more infectious and influential than anything I have read. The author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is my latest God.

I have wanted to talk about him and this novel on this blog ever since I started reading it. But since I had restricted myself from discussing anything except cinema on this space, I could not. Then Marquez himself came to my rescue. The twelfth chapter of the book began with following lines and I instantly got the ‘excuse’ to share it here.

[The eleventh chapter ends with the first locomotive arriving in the isolated town of Macondo: “…the innocent yellow train that was to bring so many ambiguities and certainties, so many pleasant and unpleasant moments, so many changes, calamities, and feelings of nostalgia to Macondo.” Following is the opening passage of the twelfth chapter]

“Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo did not know where their amazement began. They stayed up all night looking at the pale electric bulbs fed by the plant that Aureliano Triste had brought back when the train made its second trip, and it took time and effort for them to grow accustomed to its obsessive toom-toom. They became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears of affliction had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many felt that they had been the victims of some new and showy gypsy business and they decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortune of imaginary beings.”

So cinema flopped, failed to impress the people of this magical land. I didn’t mind, just thanked Marques sa’ab for weaving it in his work about which book-reviewer William Kennedy writes: “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race… Mr. Garcia Marquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life.”

So after completing seventy per cent of it, I’m sad. Some of the most endearing characters are dying in solitude, and the novel is about to end. But I find myself agreeing entirely with the above-mentioned book-reviewer, and want my Mom to read this urgently, and am looking for a Hindi translation of the book for her. This is the funniest and the saddest story I have ever read. And I believe, anyone who ends up reading this book will find his way of looking at the world change forever – by being magically aware of its beauty and sordidness, merits and futility, all at the same time.

P.S. By the way, cinema did not perish from Macondo. Later in the novel there is mention of people spending time at the movie theatre. “Then she got dressed, went to the movie theater, and in the darkness of the seats she recognized her daughter. The upsetting feeling of certainty stopped her from seeing the man she was kissing, but she managed to hear his tremulous voice in the midst of the deafening shouts and laughter from the audience.”

(image courtesy: http://thegourmetdilettante.blogspot.in/)

Baat Nikalegi Toh...

“Waqt rehta nahin kahin tik kar, iski aadat bhi aadmi-si hai, Aaj phir aapki kami-si hai…”

These lines in your voice have suddenly acquired an altogether new meaning. Perhaps the news was so unexpected that I couldn’t handle it. Or may be I had taken you for granted – that you are always going to be with us. This happens with family, right?

You know you had something that made me feel I’m related to you – as if you were a dear Uncle I had never met, but always shared great love with. Perhaps it was the kindness in your voice, perhaps it was the gentle demeanour of your face. And I’m sure you made everyone feel the same. You belonged to everyone. And it was never difficult to fall in love with you.

And falling in love with you meant falling in love with your music. You have to take credit for initiating in us a love for Ghazals when we were just kids. You made it accessible for us during an age when we were not capable enough to appreciate the likes of Ghulam Ali Sa’ab and others. You took the Ghazal form to the common man, you made popular its use in cinema. You gave us that push at the right time to develop a liking for something that was apparently not ‘easy to appreciate’.

So this naturally led to more exploration of this genre from our end. Once we ‘learnt’ some more and discovered the very classical form of Ghazals there was a time when we formed a strong opinion about your music. Let me confess this, there were times when I remarked that your music is repetitive and it does not have range. Too blinded by my ‘sense’ of music, I was beginning to forget my ‘Uncle’ who had initiated me into it. Again, this happens with family. I was taking you for granted.

The 23rd of last month, on my way from Pune to Mumbai, I got a chance to listen to ‘Teri khushboo mein base khat’. It was not for the first time that I was hearing that song, but suddenly my perception of you changed. I realized what your music was about. Your music was not about the melody or the voice, but about the words. No other composer-singer has achieved this – to underplay the composition in order to render the poetry in the best possible way. You sang as if you were talking to us – sharing those words of wisdom, making, among others, Gulzar sa’ab’s thoughts reach us unadulterated. You were the dear teacher-friend who shared great poems with us and made us understand what they meant only by reciting patiently, correctly, aptly. Despite possessing one of the best voices that we ever heard, you never tried to overpower the words, to overwhelm us with your singing. And yet, you managed to develop a style of your own, inimitable, pure, genuine.

During the last few days my brother and I talked a lot about you. A couple of days ago the two of us were singing your ‘Kya khoya kya paaya jag mein’ on the footbridge over Goregaon station. Not once we thought that you’ll be gone so soon. Today I feel like a son who never paid enough attention to you, never thought of paying back, mainly because somehow this thought never came to me – that one day even you’ll be gone.

Just talked to Mom over phone, about you, about your music. And then played your music. Was feeling really bad until these lines left me thinking, as your songs have always done…

“Shehad jeene ka mila karta hai thoda-thoda, Jaane walon ke liye dil nahin thoda karte; Haath chhooten bhi toh rishte nahin chhoda karte….”

If life is an opportunity to defy death, you have surely succeeded.

Always yours.

Boxing with the Idiot

Eva Green’s cinephile character in ‘The Dreamers’ proudly claims that she does not watch TV. ‘We are purists, the purest of the pure.’ That moment in this amazing film is what I could relate most to. I don’t have a TV set, I don’t want one. And I consciously stay away from the best of American TV – soaps that have a huge fan-following all around the world. I’m sure they must be well-made, and I would love them, but I’m afraid of being addicted. Reason – they will encroach into my movie-time!

Cinema, or at least the movie-watching trend in theatres, has never felt as threatened by anything as by the ‘Idiot Box’. In fact, various evolutionary milestones in the history of cinema were reactions to the advent of TV. For example, despite having produced successful colour blockbusters in the 30s, B&W movies continued to be made in Hollywood, so much so that 88% of those released in the year as late as 1947 were in B&W. Then came the TV, moving images brought home in a small box, gaining popularity in the 50s. In order to keep the audience interested, as many as 50% of the movies adopted colour. And when colour TV came in the 60s, it was the end of B&W era for cinema.

Another innovation made to counter the threat was the adoption of the Widescreen. The Aspect Ratio of 1.66:1 or more provided a visual experience that TV could not emulate. This not only led to dramatic changes in the cinema aesthetics: exploring the horizontal space, and using longer, uninterrupted shots as each frame was now wide enough to display a close up, a medium shot and a wide angle simultaneously, it also led to a natural proliferation of genres more suited to this format, like the Historical Epics and Westerns.

Hollywood also started experimenting with 3D as a ploy against the TV. The early attempts were flawed. However, the evolution continued and today 3D movies provide a strong attraction for the audience to come to the theatres. The idea is to provide them with something they do not usually experience, as is the idea behind the IMAX (Image Maximization) technology: to fill the field of human vision by producing an image as large as 20 metres high and 26 metres wide. OMNIMAX (or IMAX DOME) uses a fisheye lens for projecting a 165-degree image on a giant dome screen surrounding the viewer with high-fidelity sound, thus increasing the spectator's feeling of immersion.

These technological advances, however, continue to affect cinema in more ways than one. With improved CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) technology, the option of 3D, and a giant screen for projection, movie theatres are turning to amusement parks, with the preferred genres being Sci-Fi, Action-Adventure, and Fantasy. Drama, the most prominent film genre, is dying a slow death. Filmmaking was once a costly business. Today, with inexpensive but good-quality digital cameras around, anyone can shoot a Drama or a Comedy and upload it on the internet. In fact, the current American media is already showing such trends, where the genre of Drama is being limited to its widely popular soaps and serials. It will be interesting to see how, in the years to come, cinema responds to this. More technological innovations and increased focus on specific genres will be the oxygen for movie theatres. And perhaps the only way for Dramas, Comedies and Art-house/Experimental cinema to find its audience would be the way through the idiot box.

(A lot in this post comes from ‘Studying Film’, a book by Abrams, Bell, and Udris.)

P.S. On the insistence of a dear friend, I just finished watching Episode 1 of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, something that seems to be tailor-made for me, because of its setting in a hospital and the characters being young doctors – things which have already become nostalgia-elements for me. Seems I have taken the first step towards exploring something I kept delaying till today. And the first thing that came to the mind of this “purest of the pure” on watching the first episode was to start the second!