Rockstar: It's rocking...almost, till the heroine gets sick

I watched Rockstar on the day of its release and have been quite kicked about the movie.
One, because, damn, Ranbir Kapoor has grown up! He's put in some serious effort into his role and looks convincing, making the film an endearing watch.
Two, because A.R. Rahman's music is as much of the Rockstar as Ranbir is, needless to say. And yippeee Mohit Chauhan sounds suitably angsty for the Ranbir who looks suitably angsty.
Three, because, I'm happy with the kind of films that the Hindi film industry is coming up with. Honestly.
Ok so there's mindless mayhem like Dabanng that actually mints money....but there's all kinds of film co-existing, thank god.
If you guys have been switching channels this weekend, there were a whole lot of discussions on news channels on "Has Indian cinema come of age?" keeping in mind "The Dirty Picture", and and the Think Fest at Goa, with discussions on "The Changing Face of Bollywood". The discussions have been engrossing, open, throwing up frank opinions and opening up new threads of thought. It was great to hear Khushboo, Mahesh Bhat, Dibakar Banerjee, and Aamir Khan speak.

Hubby and me, both being avid moviegoers were feeling thrilled after watching the film that we're moviegoers at a time when Hindi cinema is going through such a gutsy phase. We just saw a few weeks ago the very unsettling "That Girl in Yellow Boots"... I couldn't sleep for much of the night. It's revolting, the end. But my point is, a cinema should leave you feeling something. If it's just popcorn-eating entertainment, it's fine, but only once in a way. I can't take too much of that kind of cinema. But I need it too!

Ok I'm veering off the Rockstar track. But if there's one thing I want to, in true Bollywood style declare, "I object My Lord!" in a court -- it's a protest against director Imtiaz Ali for making the heroine have a terminal bone marrow illness. I thought it was a Shah Rukh Khan thing to have his heroines dying of all sorts of diseases... I mean that track of the film has seriously maimed the rest of the story.

I mean, what's it with Hindi films in this aspect? You must have a dying heroine? Always? Bah!! Terminal illness. It has to be the only reason to accept a woman who loves someone outside her marriage?
The strong point however is the character of Ranbir; in fact all the effort seems to have gone into shaping him.
The fact that Nargis Fakhri can't act and look beyond her bee-stung lips makes Ranbir look even better (a deliberate pairing, I presume).
But the angst in Ranbir....aaah that's something I loved. The anger, the restlessness, the aimlessness...it's something a lot of us feel, even if we are not rockstars. His grungy air, his temper ufff it all fell neatly in place.
I don't want to sit here and tell the story. You must see it. And forgive Imtiaz Ali, lord, for his sin of dumping yet another terminal illness on yet another Hindi cinema heroine.

Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...Jagjit Singh lives on in a smile

If you are an Indian, your music, specially your film music, is an inseparable part of your life, isn't it?
And so are the singers. And when one of these singers dies, it's as if someone in your own life has gone away. It's a voice that's been a part of your life, your growing up, your memories...

Jagjit Singh's voice was one that you came running from the kitchen, if you happened to hear it playing on TV, which was often. At least "Hosh walon ko khabar kya...." from the film Sarfarosh is a big thing on TV. He died this morning; may his soul rest in peace. May his music stir many more hearts and create in people who don't really appreciate ghazals a love for that genre of music.

For me, somehow, the songs that come instantly to my lips when I think Jagjit Singh are those from the films "Saath Saath" and "Arth". Incidentally, I discovered only today, that both were made in 1982. I don't know when exactly i got hooked to those songs, or why i bought the tape first, and then the CD...but somehow i listened to it a lot after i got married. Maybe because both movies have dealt intricately with relationships and it was a kind of Hindi cinema where the lyrics were actually meaningful, reflected the theme of the movie, made sense when heard individually too. I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe it was the perfect marriage of great lyricists like Kaifi Azmi and Javed Akhtar's words with the soulful voice of Jagjit Singh.

Even today, when I'm low, I reach out to this music. I cry sometimes listening to "Jhuki jhuki si nazar" and "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...".

Then there's the most hauntingly painfully truthful song from Arth:
"Koi ye kaise bataaye ke wo tanahaa kyon hai
wo jo apanaa thaa, wohee aur kisi kaa kyon hai
yahee duniyaan hain to fir, aisee ye duniyaan kyon hai?
yahee hotaa hain to, aakhir yahee hotaa kyon hai?"

There's a painful deliciousness to the lyrics...you sort of savour the pain in the words and when Jagjit Singh sang it, he added his own beautiful pain to it -- though, with the soothing balm of his timbre that was his trademark.

I'm getting slap-happy. Feel like monster mom

I can't control my hand these days. It instinctively flies at Sonny Boy almost every day. Yeah that's bad. But what the hell! He's always spilling out food stuff from jars on to the floor, and throwing goodies out of the window, sticking his dirty finger up the water filter tap, defiantly peeing just outside the bathroom door -- the works.

Defiance. That's what I see in his eyes.

Am i getting too hard on him? I don't really have too many dont's for him. But the few things i don't want him doing, I DON'T want him doing.

I've tried ignoring him when he misbehaves (because i think he does it for attention).
I've tried holding him close and slowly and calmly telling him the consequences of what he's done ("See, now we don't have grandmas' yummy food left to eat" -- kind of stuff)
I've tried telling him a strict no, looking hard into his eyes.
I've tried smacking his bottom and sometimes rapping him on his back.
I've tried short time outs too (something i hate, but decided to give a shot, in desperation).
Nothing seems to work.

But most instinctively I've been slapping his bottom.
My mom and grandmom keep warning me that soon he'll be so immune to the slaps, he'll get more stubborn.
My dad in all patience tries to tell him what he's doing is wrong etc. Then he runs out of patience too and complains to me.

Spare the rod, spoil the child, I tell myself.
Then I keep reminding myself, I wasn't spoilt, and I was almost never hit -- twice precisely through childhood, and both times by my father! And my parents swear I was well-behaved and never needed so much disciplining.

I mean, Sonny Boy has to be reasonable at least some times -- at least five out of 10. Yesterday again he'd managed to reach the salt jar; nanny grabbed it in time. And he threw a tantrum saying he wants the salt jar. I asked him "why do u want it?" and he says "I want to throw salt on the floor"! and cried again without letting up. Ufffff... I tried telling him that salt was for eating; the only person listening was nanny.

P.S: Happy Diwali every one. Have a great year. I'm away for a few days, doing the customary "Diwali with the in-laws in husband's hometown" which translates into cooking humongous amounts of food for the joint family that will be there in full force -- 12 adults and four children. Sigh. Yeah! I have to say happy holidays ;-)

Oh and another PS: Please do catch this film called Udaan (made in 2010), starring the very sweet and angelic-faced Rajat Barmecha, and Ronit Roy in a very hate-able role. It's so much about breaking free and coming of age; but for me, it was so about how not to the kind of father Ronit (Bhairav Singh) is in the film. And don't watch it during the festival. Before or after is better; the film can be heart wrenching at times.

Peepli Live - REVIEW Don't you dare miss it!

Let me be honest. The only reason I went to see Peepli Live today morning was because Aamir Khan produced it. Strange reason to watch a movie, yes. But not for me, because I believe the quirky man has a nose for good things -- he can smell out a good story.

And he's made an effort to market it well, the marketing maverick he's proving to be. (Imagine, my mum who's so not into films recalled the film's title from trailers she'd seen on TV; she doesn't even watch much TV!)

Peepli Live is a story that has to be told, that must be told, so that people don't forget the lives of other fellow people. How you do the telling, makes a big difference. And that is where Anusha Rizvi (a former journalist) and the film's director gets my appreciation. For a first film, it's a very bold and risky one. Because I'm not too sure if satire goes down well with audience. And that's too when it's so dark and deep like in Peepli Live.

If you were told it was a film on farmer's suicides and how the country's farmers are forced out of an agrarian way of life, would you bother watching the film? Which is what is the crux of the movie. But it has been ensconced very finely in a razhai of the mockery called the media/news and the world of netagiri/babudom.

I'm from the media, and watching the film was a sadistically joyous affair, as I spotted all resemblances to news anchors/journalists/channels. But what worried me about the film was, again, the approach. People in the audience (at the theatre) were so busy laughing at the numerous digs taken at the media, I hope in all the humour, they didn't lose out on the layer that dealt with the gory reality of farmers, their living conditions, their concerns, which are all so neatly interwoven into the narrative. It's not the come-look-here-and-weep-at-my-poverty kind of portrayal of rural poverty. Peepli Live is not thumping its chest saying 'I'm dealing with a serious issue here'. And therefore it becomes very entertaining.

But overall, the approach works, and Peepli Live clicks as a black comedy -- it makes you laugh, and it makes you uncomfortable and uneasy -- at the same time. That's good. You don't leave the cinema hall weepy. But at the same time, Anusha Rizvi and her entire cast have jabbed you several times in the heart, rather forcefully. With guilt.

Guilt that you know farmers are dying every day and are unable to really do anything about it yourself. And that we are treating it like an everyday affair. That in a news channel's order of headlines, Shilpa Shetty figures way on top compared to "another farmer suicide today".

Omkar Das and Raghuvir Yadav as the central characters -- the farmer brothers -- anchor the film brilliantly. Omkar Das is so real, you can't believe he's an actor! And Raghuvir Yadav always seems to match his performances with better ones whenever he's given the scope and character. The pain and anguish on his face, the helplessness had my stomach in knots.

The entire cast of the film is, to say repetitively, brilliant. Almost all are fairly newcomers. The small town newspaper reporter Rakesh (actor Nawazuddin) plays conscience-keeper of the film with great import. And together with Omkar Das, I feel, they form the soul-pair of Peepli Live.

The English and Hindi news channel reporters, can be seen as case studies -- they are real, they may be stereotypical, but bloody hell, they are the window to the REAL and NASTY world of the media. They are so believable.

The songs are beautifully stylised and shot with gusto, but for once, they never interfere with your enjoyment of the film.

You must go watch the film to see how all these people come together to make you laugh uproariously and yet, also leave you feeling ashamed that this is how the lives of many of our fellow countrymen unfolds. While we sit and watch them go by, with maybe a Coke and popcorn in our hands.

With Ravi Baswani's death, it's the end of a generation of comedians in Bollywood who didn't have to try too hard to be funny

Making people laugh isn't easy. If you've tried it, specially at a gathering, you'll know. Unless you're one of those brilliant stand up and improv comedians.

When it comes to Bollywood movies, I think the subtlety is lost. It's very often loud, slapstick and a grating delivery of dialogues that our Hindi films try to pass off as comedy. I mostly squirm when our films attempt it. I'm not being mean here to an industry i dote on. It's just that I think we're not very good with the comic element.

I hate it most when actors make the jokes and then laugh at them themselves! That's supposed to be a cue for audience to laugh, i guess (duh!!) but it falls so flat on its face.

I also hate it when at a theatre, the audience is howling with laughter, holding their stomachs and doubling up and I'm feeling cheesed off. I mean, I doubt sometimes if I'm human at all. (When most in the theatre are crying, I'm often all giggly).

Most of us from my generation must have watched "Chashme Baddoor" and "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron" and laughed and smiled, watching it every single time it came on TV. What makes Baswani different was that we laughed at his comic timing, we laughed at the situations and dialogues. We did not laugh at him.

In Bollywood, comedians were laughed at because they were fat. That's what happened to Tun Tun most often. People just saw her come on to the screen and laughed at her. They equated being fat with being laughable at. Then there was the comedian Lilliput who was supposed to inspire laughs because he was short. Most of the jokes/dialogues were about such physical attributes of the actors.

Let's admit it, (may his soul rest in peace) that Baswani wasn't exactly good looking. He also had a bit of cross-eye, something that he could have allowed directors to bank on or he could have used himself. But he didn't. He wasn't funny because of the way he looked. He genuinely had a comic sense, brought out excellently by directors like Sai Paranjpe and Kundan Shah.

I'm not one who subscribes to Priyadarshan's brand o slpastick over-the-top humour. I hate it when Paresh Rawal screams his dialogues (he's immensely talented, yes, but hie's equally great with emotional roles). I hate it even more when Akshay Kumar laughs that incredulous stupid laugh of his. I could never stand Jagdeeps' double entendre and loud jokes either in the films of yore. Even Lakshmikant Berde became unbearable with his exaggeration.

I'm no expert on films, and I can't give a point-by-poinbt criticism here. But all I'm saying is that there are very few comedians we've had who were great, individually, as well as in groups. They were offset by teh humour, chemistry and comic timing of another co-actor who held up their talent for us to see -- Satish Shah, Shafi Inamdar, Swaroop Sampat, Farooq Sheik, Rakesh Bedi, Deepti Nvl, Kader Khan (sometimes). But most of these people worked for me because of those around them...in groups. Yes, Farooq and Deepti can't be termed comedians, but if you put these names together you know what kind of movies I'm talking about.

I could appreciate Johnny Lever only on some stage shows, never in films. Anupam Kher, I still believe is best at human, normal, emotional roles. Keshto Mukherjee just tripped on drunken humour.

Amitabh Bachchan (esp. "Chupke Chupke") and Aamir Khan have some good comic timing.

Whew...ok this is too longish a post. I hate reading them, I'm sure you do too. So I'll stop just liek that. Peace to Ravi Baswani.

Coming away from a film...with nothing :-(

As much as i like to crib about motherhood, if there's one joy I like going back to, it's watching a movie at the theatre. Something I do so little of since my dear S was born. And something I like to crib about -- no movies in my life :-(
But it is (or rather was) also my baby -- films!! Sigh!

But, by quirk of fate I got a Saturday noon free (I work otherwise) so I finally saw "Rajneeti', voting to go for it, and not "Raavan", which is the latest release, and THE thing to see, considering it's Mani Ratnam. But a colleague whose opinion I trust, came back with an exasperated look after "Raavan". Non comprehendo, she said. So there. That decided it.

I'm not trying to review anything here, just some random thoughts.
"Rajneeti" was disappointing. So much so that i was wondering if it would have been better to be at another theatre watching Abhishek and Aishwarya instead!

"Rajneeti" was fast-paced to begin with, but it became such a cycle of predictable patterns, I would rather the director had called it "Love, Sex aur Dhoka". I mean seriously. There's lots of kissing, lots of sex, some love in between, and most of all, lots of dhoka. And it's a superficial skimming over of the wily world of politics. Ok at least Prkash Jha made a film on such a subject. Most others are busy with just candyfloss love stories. But this was a candyfloss political story.

I like it when I come out of theatre with the movie buzzing in my head, making me dizzy with thoughts and possibilities.

Anurag Kashyap's "Gulaal" was one such film. Rocked my brains. In fact it was a better and more complex, layered film on rajneeti (politics) than "Rajneeti" was. The characters (except the hero) were so well-etched in "Gulaal" and their stories so viciously twisted.

Ajay Devgan is one guy I love in such roles. Where his quiet mean look works. He can't be lover boy or comic hero, I strictly believe. But he was so so so much better off in Bhagat Singh. This was so disappointing, I dont even know what he was doing in "Rajneeti". I doubt even Ajay knew what he was doing there, but that's another thought.

I'm just upset that after having spent my precious few hours watching a movie (instead of spending it with Dear S like a good mamma)I came away so unsatiated.

Made up for it by taking Dear S to teh park, and running around with him so much my back still hurts!

Mere paas maa hai

RANDOM THOUGHT

Was just wondering... we are much influenced by our Hindi cinema, its actors and dialogues.

We are from the land where "Mere paas maa hai" is a dialogue that says a thousand things in that one sentence. (It can't be translated into English. It's contextual and loaded with connotations. But roughly transliterated, when one says "What have you in life?" the answer is "I have a mother.")
It means so many complex things to so many people. So much can be read into it. It's so much a part of our psyche that it's used as an advertising pitch. If someone says that, they are saying a lot.

But the world of Hindi cinema, usages in language, our social structure are all so patriarchal, I was just wondering what would happen if we swap parent roles in Hindi film dialogue/everyday usage.

What would have been the impact if Shashi Kapoor had said in Deewar: "Mere paas baap hai"
What if people, when they ask in scorn said: "Tere maa ka road hai kya?" How come that sense of ownership comes as "Road tere baap ka hai kya?"

Or, if on Vijay's hands (again Deewar) were tattooed the words :"Meri maa chor hai" instead of "Mera baap chor hai". History would have changed.

I'm not really making sense am I? As i said, just some random thoughts.