Desicritics Category: Culture: Films

The Lord of The Rings is a Bollywood Movie

Fleiger — Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:51:06 EST

Just a few days back, I was talking to a friend who was ranting about the hindi movies, and the completely over the top masala ingredients added in them to spice them up. After defending the Bollywood for a long time (hey, we Indians may make fun of those movies but we stand together when some outsider does it), I went back to my most recent re-reading of Lord of The Rings.

And I got an epiphany. Here are:

10 Reasons why LoTR is just another Bollywood Masala film:

10. If you are a good guy and a father, you get to die at the hands of The Villain or his Henchmen. Which of course will inspire your kid(s) and others to vanquish the villain for revenge.

9. Things are going very badly for the good guys, when BAM! Help arrives in the form of the Hero.

8. The hero has a bumbling but faithful sidekick (or a group of them), who provides the comic sidetrack, but will lay down his life for the hero.

7. There's a costumed villain, sitting in his snazzy layer, surrounded by costumed henchmen and weird looking followers.

6. The "supporting actress" loves the hero, who cannot return her affections because he is in love with the heroine. But don't worry, she will find her life partner in the "supporting actor" before the climax.

5. The hero and heroine belong to different social groups, and hence her father is not exactly happy about their union, but there is a loving aunt who will help the lovers.

4. The heroine, the one belonging to higher social group in this case, will "sacrifice" her advantages in order to marry the hero.

3. The hero has greedy, conniving, thieving relatives who have their eye on his estate.

2. You can stab him, fire arrows at him, slash at him with swords, poison him. The Hero just goes on and on and on...

1. At moment's notice, there's at least one person who has got to sing up. Sometimes that quickly grows into a group song.

Anybody got any idea which characters I am talking about here?

P.S. The comparison is based solely on the basis of the books, and those who know LoTR as only the movie trilogy may be a bit confused.

Cape Malay Music

Amitabh Mitra — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:47:34 EST

Sanjay Dutt, the popular Bollywood actor was recently in Cape Town for a shooting sequence of Chatursingh Four Star. Many Indian movies have been made with Cape Locations as a part of the story but none of the Directors have ever thought of using the unique Cape Malay Music and using it in playback singing. I was in Cape Town at a Writer’s Meet and accidentally encountered this fascinating ‘out of this world’ music which many people term it as Cape Jazz and Ghoema music.

The Cape Malays had a big influence on the genres known as Cape Ghoema and Cape Jazz. This cultural group first arrived on the Cape shores around the end of the 17th century mainly from Malaysia, courtesy of their then English and Dutch slavemasters.

Wikipedia explains Cape Malay music as a speciality that is original to this cultural group. An interesting secular folk song type, of Dutch origin, is termed the 'nederlandslied'. The language and musical style of this genre reflects the history of South African slavery; it is often described and perceived as 'sad' and 'emotional' in content and context. The nederlandslied shows the influence of the Arabesque (ornamented) style of singing. This style is unique in South Africa, Africa and probably in the world. Cape Malay music has been of great interest to academics, historians, musicologists, writers and even politicians. The well-known annual Cape Town Minstrel or Carnival Street festival is a deep-rooted Cape Malay cultural event; it incorporates the Cape Malay comic song or 'moppie' (often also referred to as 'ghoema' songs). The barrel-shaped drum, called the 'ghoema', is also closely associated with Cape Malay music.

It is said that in 1834 at the time of their liberation, small groups of slaves descended into the streets of Cape Town, singing songs to celebrate their freedom. This tradition persists today during the "negro" carnival (Coon carnival), which is held there each New Year.

The "Malay" musical culture has also spread through the townships in the wake of the forced movements of black and half-caste populations towards the Cape Flats - the sandy plain surrounding the Cape. The tradition of "Cape Malay" choirs, and with it, a musical culture which goes back to the age of slavery, still exists today in the old "Coloured" townships, and in certain areas (half-caste) of the Cape such as Bo-Kaap.

It is interesting to know that over the years the Cape Malay Music has blended with Cape Muslim music or South African Islamic music. Desmond Desai an independent researcher and an authority on Southern African Islamic music has done a doctoral work on Ratiep a self mutilating spiritual art form as practised by South African Muslims.On December 16, 2006 one of the stalwarts of Cape Town Ghoema Music, Taliep Petersen, was brutally killed at his home in Athlone. He studied Classical Guitar at the Fitznell School of Music in England and wrote the popular revue called Carnival a la District Six based on New Year Celebrations in Cape Town. He remains an icon of Cape Malay music.

Mac Hendricks is a well known face of the Cape Ghoema music tradition. In a You Tube interview he says that Cape Malay music is a mixture of Indian music, indigenous music of Khoisan, San, Griekwa, Malaysian, Indonesian and the English people. He adds. ‘All the blood of the world is mixed in Cape Town’

I am at the V&A Waterfront. There is music in the air. I follow the strains and find myself in a group of avid listeners under a tree. I am confronted with the best of Cape Malay music. Mr. Pieterson is a wizened old man playing the sax accompanied by his friends on base guitar and mandolin. We are spell bound as the music flows in and takes roots. Suddenly an elderly lady starts dancing, Mr. Pieterson smiles and plays for her. I wanted to dance too. I wish to go back again if only to listen to Cape Malay music.

The next day, my friend Ismail Robinson and his wife drove me back to the Cape Town airport. On the way, he says ‘Look Dr. Mitra towards your left, there is Athlone in Cape Flats home to the Cape Malays. We stay there.’ It is said that there is one thing that is in abundance in Athlone is the willingness of people to help each other. It was previously known as West London and later named after Earl of Athlone, Governor General in South Africa in Nineteen Thirties.I think of a love story between a beautiful Cape Malay girl and an Indian boy which might entice a Bollywood producer to make a movie in the Cape Flats. Obviously the startling colours of Cape Malay music would feature most prominently in such a film.

Reference – Wikipedia

-You Tube

Book Review: Romancing with Life by Dev Anand

Anuradha Goyal — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:31:40 EST

I have always loved Dev Anand for all the melodious songs in his films. Having grown up in the Doordarshan era, I have grown on all those black and white numbers, which still keep resonating in the ears. So, when his autobiography was published last year, it was definitely on my list of ‘to be read’ books.

Like most autobiographies, this book also moves in an absolute chronological order, except in the beginning where Dev Anand remembers his life before he moves to Bombay while on a train from Gurdaspur to Bombay. He briefly talks about his family and what he felt when he left them to pursue his dreams. Throughout the book Dev Anand comes across as a constant dreamer, who lives in his dreams and then wakes up to make those dreams come true both in his life and his films. His life is all about films and the women who walked with him in his journey, specially the ones which painted the silver screen with him. At times he met them while being a part of the film and at other times, he met them and then went ahead and made films for them. From the early forties to the 21st century what has not changed is the age of the women he fancied and romanced; it was less than twenty then and continues to be the same now.

In line with his image of an evergreen, timeless hero, he does not mention the years anywhere, though you can make out the rough timing by the films he mentions and the national events that he mentions here and there. But otherwise he has tried to keep the story more or less timeless. He is a man totally in love with himself; everyone else comes and plays a role in his life and goes. He also comes across as someone who lives only in the present, totally in the moment, with the person he is with, feeling the surroundings he is in and weaving out his future dreams from this present moment. He talks very romantically about all the women he romanced on and off screen.

His autobiography also brings out the businessman in Dev Anand. You would admire his networking skills and leveraging his fan following and start status as and when required. The fact that he once tried to launch a political party was a revelation to me. But what I admired about him was his ability to very quickly let go of the failures and move on to the next dream. I was amazed at the care and caution he takes to maintain his image in the minds of his audience, going to the extent of hiding his small disease that he had to suffer, going all the way to England to get a small operation done. All this so that none of his audience see him in a diseased state, something he thinks they can not imagine, their eternal hero can not fall down with a disease.

Before he could find himself a job in film industry, he worked for the military censor office and had the job of screening letters written by army officers. He probably got lots of romantic ideas from the letters written by army officers to their wives and girlfriends. He also got the idea of quitting the job from one of the letters, which said ‘just do it’. But wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, he was always a Casanova, trying to charm people and specially women around him, always believing he is the best. This phase also highlights his ability to draw inspiration from just about anywhere.

Dev Anand’s career spans almost the whole lifetime of Indian film industry and hence as he talks about himself, his films and his friends and colleagues in the industry, you also get the feel of how this industry has evolved over the ages, how things have changed. Here and there he also mentions his views on the social and political scenarios in the country and the world, giving a feeling of someone who is very connected to the outside world and its happenings and not just lost in his eccentricities.

Having been educated in the British era, he writes in flowery English.I guess the editors have not really changed the text. At places you feel that the language of the book could have been a bit better. There is a chapter for each of the films he made under his banner and some of the films he worked in. Though hardbound, the quality of the physical book could have been better along with the cover design. But now having read the book, I realize that the star might not have wanted anything except his picture on the cover. I would have wanted little more depth in the book, as there is so much the author has to share, but I guess in the interest of the length of the book, he has not gone into too much detail and just touched upon what he felt was important to share. He has hardly spoken about the music, which in my opinion is the biggest contributor to his success. The last portion of the book could have been compressed, as he talks about his films which not many people have seen and have starred people whom no one recognizes.

Read the book to see a man completely in love with himself. A star, who thrived on public adulation, who worked towards it, lived amongst the adulation poured on him from all directions and continued to seek more and more of it. An eternal optimist, who looks back at his life as if everything was picture perfect including the heart aches that we went through.

Dev Anand at 85 - Triumphant

Ritu Chandra — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:36:10 EDT

September 26, 2008

The day marks 85 years of an incredible life. A life filled with glory, glamour, grit and guts. The guts to take risks, the guts to follow convictions and most importantly the guts to believe in the self long after the world stopped believing in it. Today is the 85th Birthday of the irrepressible phenomena, the matinee idol of the past and the tireless maker of the turkeys our times - Dev Anand.

For those who have known me over the years have known that I have been a hyperventilating 'pankha' of the man in the past. It was undoubtedly an unusual fixation for the brat of the eighties and nineties, but then I have always enjoyed the unusual over the accepted and more than that I have enjoyed the sense of exclusivity of my choice. After all every Meeta, Geeta and Seeta or should I say Anya, Tanya and Manya (to keep it contemporary) was a fan of Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, I stood apart with my fascination for Dev Anand, a man older than my grandfather! I have idolised Dev Anand, watched his films, gone weak in the knees and run the whole nine yards of emotions typical to 'fanship'.

I finally got over him after I had a chance to meet him two years back. It was inevitable, one because I had grown far beyond the gamut of sensibilities he had to offer and more importantly, the man is after all human and the imagination of a fan - super human, he really did not have a chance to live up to it even if I had not outgrown him.

But Dev Anand is not going away from my schema of things so soon. Now with the idol worship firmly put to rest, a new admiration for the spirit of the man is slowly finding root. I idolised the Dev Anand of the pre seventies, but it is the Dev Anand of the post seventies that I admire. Because this was when his films starting tanking and his true spirit started to manifest. And that just thrives with time.

Anyone who has been down and out or faced failure at any point in their life knows that it takes some amount of effort to get up and get on. The older a human being gets, the more difficult it is to recover. Which probably explains why people take a backseat in their autumn years. It is partially due to diminishing drive and partially due to a need to protect themselves from disappointments and downfalls. And that is what sets Dev Anand apart. Not because he has a drive to deliver at 85, but because he has the drive to deliver in the face of continuing failure. The last film which did some kind of business was 'Des Pardes'. The year was 1978. Exactly thirty years ago. Since then Dev Anand has made 15 films each a colder turkey than the previous. Yet he persists and delivers.

Film production is a business that has seen the ruin of great a many people. Filmy lore is choc-a-bloc-full with such stories. If the producer doubled as an artist the chance of doom became higher. Artists are sensitive people and are likely to take failure more personally than others. Guru Dutt is a classic example of that syndrome. The inability to cope with the uncertainties of the film business cost him his life. Dev Anand's own brother, the brilliant Vijay Anand could not get his swan song 'Jaana Na Dil se Door' released. A sure shot would-have-been classic today sadly lies in the cans. On the other hand, Dev Anand with his admittedly lesser products not only manages to get a release but sufficient publicity as well. He has not let the business rule him, his entrepreneur skills have conquered the system. That by itself calls for a round of applause.

Don't judge Dev Anand by the quality of his films or the depth of his acting talent. That was never much to begin with. His USP was a winning persona, an ability to spot and nurture talent around him and use them to his benefit. Dev Anand films are popular not only because of his persona but also because the entire package is attractive. Good music, good lyrics, thought provoking story and outstanding direction. His good run lasted from 'Baazi' in 1951 to 'Tere Mere Sapne' in 1971 about twenty years. In a career spanning sixty years Dev Anand has seen more years of failure than success. But the truth is that the day commercial success abandoned him his true success began it's journey.

The wise men and the sages over the years have spoken of the art of detachment. The technique of conquering the self by conquering the desire for the fruits of labour and the concept of single minded Karma. Whether it is through delusion or through detachment it is apparent that Dev Anand has discovered that secret of separating the effort from the fruits. His tireless journey bears testimony to that.

I end off with poetry by Shailendra from his film Guide in the voice of the great Sachin Dev Burman. This song plays around with these deep truths of life.

Kehte hain gyaani
duniya hai faani
paani pe likhi likhai
hai sabki dekhi
hai sabki jaani
haath kisike na aayi

[a very functional translation

The great sages have observed,

how this world is transient

as transient as words on water,

people have observed it,

understood it,

yet haven't been able to control it.

]

However Dev Saab it seems has found the grasp to this capricious duniya- it lies in mastering the art of letting go!. An easy to preach but difficult to acheive state of being. Congrats to Dev Anand for having done it and shown that it can be done.

Happy birthday Dev Saab. May your spirit thrive. You will continue to remain an inspiration for generations to come!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Watch the song 'Wahan Kaun Hai Tera' by clicking on the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5t1eErbsU

Movie Reviews: Trade and Human Trafficking

Kim — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:41:20 EDT

By coincidence, I happened to watch two movies dealing with the same subject in two days. One a video rental, the other, a Lifetime miniseries on Hallmark. Both deal with the subject of women and young children being kidnapped and sold in a modern day form of slavery.

Trade is a movie seen from the eyes of a Mexican teenager following the trail of his 13 year old sister and her kidnappers across the border. Human Trafficking mostly follows from the point of view of an NYPD agent working with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In both movies, the women are brought from all over the world into Mexico and then into the US by walking across the Mexican border.

Both show Mexican cops hand in glove with the traders. In both movies there is a scene where the Mexican cops get to "sample the merchandise" when it is being en route.

In Trade, the group is caught by the border police in the US and placed in detention until they can be sent back to Mexico. And the American officials simply turn away when one of the women tries to explain that they have been kidnapped.

Both movies are very realistic without being sensational or titillating. The horrors the girls and children (little boys and girls) face are unimaginable.

In Human Trafficking an entire set of young children is sequestered in a container and sent on a ship bound for Saudi Arabia on a 10 day journey from Mexico when their pimp gets news that the cops are about to raid his den.

Trade introduces two new child actors who are absolutely brilliant in their roles. Kevin Kline is the only well known actor in that movie and is in more of a supporting role.

Human Trafficking has a star cast of Donald Sutherland, Mira Sorvino and Robert Carlyle (the Scottish guy from Full Monty) who turns out an amazingly chilly performance as a Eastern European Sex Trade boss.

The entire situation of Human Trafficking is summed up absolutely eloquently in Mira Sorvino's press statement at the end of that movie.

Worth a watch for the realistic view of a universal problem. As Sorvino says, "It could be your daughter, your sister, your best friend next."

Taare Zameen Par - Is Every Child Special?

Cine Cynic — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:28:54 EDT

Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par is a wonderful movie, but for its tagline. "Every child is special," has now become part of the Used-Taglines-List which has been growing with each movie. I will wait for the day when our film-makers no longer feel compelled to contribute to the list.

If you think about it, Taare Zamee Par is about a special child in various senses of the term. Dyslexia is Ishaan Awasthi's curse and also his gift (if we go by the Davis Dyslexia Association International). Ishaan's gift, in a more direct sense, is painting. That gift makes him prodigious, not just special. The movie proves the specialty of that child to the rest of the world, not just to his parents.

A movie that fits this movie's tagline is yet to be made. That movie would be about a normal child without disabilities nor special talents, a child who is not specially abled either in the literal or in the euphemistic sense, and if things need to be made worse, is plain mediocre. But then, how will it really work? It perhaps won't.

"Every child is special," is a trite remark that we are all obliged to believe. It has been so often used, without meaning it, that we don't stop to think if it's true, nor to think if we believe in it. Even if someone stops to think, they are haunted by guilt and fear that proving it, justifying it, rationalizing it, or even questioning it may be heretic.

There is a proverb in Telugu: kAki pilla kAkiki muddu. A baby crow is special to the crow. Not to every or most or many crows, but to the parent crow. Children are special to their parents. To the rest of the world in most cases, especially to the parents of other children, they are simply other children.

That's alright. Every child need not be special to everybody; adults are not. Though it would be nice to have more, any person needs just one other person to make them feel special.

Umrao Jaan - A Story of The Indian Girl Child

Madhu Chandra — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:41:41 EDT

Umrao Jaan is a Bollywood film produced by Muzaffar Ali in 1981, which was remade by J. P. Dutta in 2006. It is based on the Urdu novel Umrao Jaan Ada written in 1905 by Mirza Hadi Ruswa, based on the life of the famous Lucknow courtesan.

It is a story of an Indian girl child who laments her agony of life, composed in the form of poetry and music, with soul-gripping lyrics.

“Agale Janam Mohe, Betiya na kijo”
“In my next birth, Oh God, don’t bring me as a girl child!”

It is the song of a woman, whose childhood was looted when she was kidnapped by her neighbor Dilwar Khan for revenge against her father for testifying in a criminal case which led him to be imprisoned for several years. She was sold to a brothel at Lucknow at the age of eight, and was later adopted by a couple to bring her up with the same parental care, education, dance, poetry and music, only to charm the wealthy as a famous courtesan of Lucknow.

Ameeran, her parental name was changed to Umrao Jaan (love). The love she earned from wealthy men, who came to the courtesan, also brought her the label “Bazaar Aurat, a prostitute”

In the remake, former Miss Universe and Bollywood Super Star, Aishwariya Rai acted as Umrao Jaan along with Abhishek Bachchan as Nawab Sultan and Sunil Shetty as Faiz Ali.

At the age of 20, when she was fully grown and matured, Umrao got the title “Jaan” after performing a charming courtesan dance and singing at Lucknow, where Umrao caught the eye of wealthy princes, kings, and Nawabs.

Nawab Sultan was one among many such wealthy men, whose love was stolen by the charms of Umrao at first meeting itself. Soon, Umrao got into the net of Sultan, with true passionate romance, not knowing her love for Sultan would be rejected soon. Sultan’s father did not want to see his family defamed by his son marrying a “Bazaar Aurat” and disowned him.

When Sultan didn’t have a penny after his father disowned him he went to live with his uncle at Grahi.

In the absence of Sultan, Umrao was noticed by wealthy Faiz Ali, who wanted her at any cost. Faiz Ali turned to be a dacoit and got arrested during a journey to Grahi with Umrao. Sultan heard the news about Faiz Ali and Umrao’s coming to Grahi, and questioned Umrao about the suspicious relationship with Faiz Ali.

Brokenhearted, Umrao, finally decided to return back to her cage of courtesan at Lucknow, where on her arrival, she was raped by her childhood friend in the brothel, and yet, later, she forgave him unconditionally.

Soon, the British attacked the city and forced her to leave Lucknow. She decided to go to her forgotten childhood home at Faizabad. She found her father dead and her mother and brother refused to accept her because of her profession.

Umrao, shunned by her family, her lover and society, leaves to return to Lucknow, but fate plays another joke and on her way out of the city, she encounters the man who kidnapped and sold her to the brothel in the first place. Poor, wretched, homeless and injured, the man begs for pity, not recognizing that she is Ameeran, and she essentially forgives him.

Shunned by all and having forgiven those who destroyed her life, she lives the rest of her days in Lucknow with her poetry and ill fate.

Umrao Jaan’s story reflects what a girl child often experiences in Indian society where the issues of crimes, abuse and gender discrimination to the girl child are debated continually.

It is a story that reflects the life of a girl child, whose choice is nothing but slavery throughout life, beginning under the dominion of father at childhood, husband at married life and son at old age.

The story reflects the gender discrimination, female foeticide, and female infanticide in our society. The story reflects the trafficking of children, pushing many into the life like of Umrao Jaan.

After being shunned by her mother and brother, Umrao laments,

Tell me. Have you seen such a farewell?
Nor mother, nor father, nor brother.
No one is there.”
Tears are the ornaments and the palanquin of sorrow.
The locked doors are bidding farewell to me.
Never return here even in your dreams.

Look at my lover, he has broken my heart
After abandoning me midway,
He is setting a new life
As like a child gets new toy,
Plays with it for some days and then forgets
Don’t make me a doll like this, who cannot even cry

In the next birth of mine,
Oh God, don’t birth me as a girl child!
Whatever you have done now,
Oh God, don’t do it again.

Where Umrao Jaan was shunned and forsaken, no one could hear the song that narrates her misery, but it was Mirza Hadi Ruswa, who heard as she cried,

You call me, “the voice of broken heart.”
I am the instrument, which contains all melodies
Who am I, what and am I, for whom am I alive?
I myself do not understand.
Tell me the secret.
Tell me the secret.

Rakhi Sawant - My Big Break Is Breaking Me Up

Sakshi Juneja — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:25:09 EDT

Sakshi is a big Rakhi Sawant fan – The only line people seem to come up with whenever handed with the responsibility of introducing me to a new set of people. I can’t really blame them though. Ever since I started dedicating wholesome posts in honour of Bollywood’s most famous Item Girl, my blog’s popularity jumped higher with every controversy she entertained.

Traffic, links, feed counts…you name it, “Rakhi Sawant’s unofficial PR agent of the virtual world” became my by-line. And I lapped it up every single time, never feeling that it’s gotten too much.

Until now that is. For quite sometime, I have been dabbling with the idea of a career change. Not that my current profession provides me any less opportunities; working in a family-owned business has major perks and believe me, I have exploited each to the very maximum. But I guess I have stretched myself a bit too far – I've spent five years in a field that is interesting but not stimulating enough, for me that is. Since I don’t plan on spending the rest of my (workable) life caught up in the same rut, I have decided its time I take blogging rather more seriously than just a much-loved hobby.

Cutting a long story short, since I have put myself out in the market, freelance offers have been pouring in. Unfortunately though, quantity is all I have been getting (and no, I am not referring to the paycheck). But as they say, “sabar ka phal meetha hota hai” - Couple of weeks ago an editor texted me for an assignment which, he claimed, only I could truly justify.

He asked me to write a feature (running to several thousand words, to be accompanied by a high couture photo shoot – you know the works) for his high-profile fashion and lifestyle magazine on a Bollywood celebrity. No brownie points for guessing who he wanted me to write on – Rakhi Sawant it was. Now, Rakhi isn't part of the magazine's usual 'profile', but hats off to this editor who wanted to get something new and daring in.

To say that I was excited is to the say the least – not only was I getting to write about someone I truly admired for her gutsy and in-your-face attitude (to her profession and life in general), I was also still very much within familiar territory.

Or so I thought.

Dream ends, nightmare begins

The past two weeks have been unbelievably frustrating. Getting through to her has seemed like an endless series of phone calls that were just never answered, SMSes that just weren’t replied to (or understood?) and emails that were treated with little more concern than you treat your spam folder. For several days, I felt like I was part of a bad Bollywood love song, chasing my elusive heroine around the banyan tree!

Then, when I finally managed to get in touch with the lady herself, she promptly threw me back into the pool of sharks – that’s right, she asked me to speak to her manager. To be fair however, that phone call did set the ball rolling. In a manner of speaking. Although I do have an interview date with her now, I’m still hoping they see the light regarding arranging a photoshoot soon.

It’s really disheartening if you think about it – my first big assignment, on someone I feel so strongly about and all the discouragements that can possibly arise, have come my way. Welcome to the real world, or rather more aptly, the glamorous world of the Hindi film industry. Maybe I should ask Rakhi for tips on surviving.

Gulzar's Hu Tu Tu - Misplaced Idealism?

Shantanu Dutta — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 13:38:48 EDT

In the midst of the 25 crore per MP conversation going on all over, I returned to Gulzar’s Hu Tu Tu, which explores political venality so well. Even the name of the film has been conveys a meaning – Nana Patekar, who etches a key role in the film explains that politics is like Hu Tu Tu – the Marathi name for Kabaddi- politicians grabbing, dragging and pulling each other down as often as possible and the one who pushes and shoves most successfully gets to win.

Gulzar’s film was made in 1999, close to a decade ago and watching it today, and then watching Parliament in session last week and then reading all these news pieces about the horse trading and the alleged barter of parliamentarians in 2008, it would lend credence to the quote that the more things change, the more they essentially they remain the same.

Since Hu Tu Tu, other films on a similar subject have been made = most notably recently Aamir Khan’s Rang de Basanti and Hazaron Khwaishen Aise-  all dealing with the same subject and delivering a similar message – that politicians are vile and that the youth are unsullied and pure and broadly sinless.

That conclusion is no longer entirely true unfortunately. Youth may be idealistic as they entirely adulthood but if their seniors are sullied, it does not take too much time for the young people to be sullied too. To give an example, the emergency and the Total Revolution movement of JP brought to the fore front a whole generation of young people into politics – people who upset the hitherto followed caste and class equations in Indian politics. Leaders like Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad and many others were products of the student movement offshoots of the JP movement. If they were ever inspiring idealists – even in their youth, that period of their life has been left long behind in shadowy mists. Here and there a Nitish Kumar or an Arun Jaitley might be different but no more.

Take a look at university life today to dispel any remaining myth that the youth of today are honest and idealistic and the grey haired seniors are alone the villains. University life today is not essentially about academics in several places; it is about delinquency of the worst order. Look at Lucknow University, Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Milia Islamia, Meerut, Agra and Patna Universities for examples.

So why are our movies so clear cut in their solutions – so black and white – young is good and noble – and old is dying and decaying? I guess it is because probably it is nice to throw some light of hope as you end a movie and hold up the youth as symbols of change and metamorphosis even if it is not entirely true. In all the movies cited, Hu Tu Tu, Rang De Basanti and Hazaron Khwaishein Aise, the young people are disgusted by the decadence all around and end up wielding the gun in quasi revolutionary style as if solutions to complex social and moral problems really lay in the barrel of a gun.

So am I some kind of prophet of doom, seeing gloom where others see different? Not really. I see hope; but the thing is I see hope every where- in the old and also in the young. To end with an example; in the recent parliamentary debate, I saw hope in the 80 year old Somnath Chatterjee and I saw hope in the 38 year old Omar Abdullah. Where I did not see hope was in the relatively middle aged 60 year old Prakash Karat, incidentally another product of the emergency era. Perhaps middle age indeed is the fountainhead of cynicism and the period to beware of.

Movie Review: WALL·E - The Love Story Of A Robot

IdeaSmith — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 12:25:40 EDT

What if you could spend the rest of your life lying back in an easy-recliner chair? What if you never had to lift a finger to work again? What if everything you wanted and needed was at your beck and call, and you literally had to just...ask?

Maybe you'd read a book. Maybe you'd watch television all day. Maybe you'd eat all the goodies you ever wanted. Maybe you'd exercise, get spa treatments and beauty tips.

Maybe you'd be in bliss.

Maybe you'd forget what 'bliss' meant and even how to look up a dictionary.

And maybe, just maybe, in a world run by machines, two machines would meet, touch, fall in love and save the world. Not necessarily in that order either.

Say hello to Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, a trash compactor robot, better known as WALL·E. Pixar brings us the delightful story of a lonely robot and his first brush with love.

WALL·E creates a future world where Earth is a gigantic deserted garbage dump and all of humankind is comfortably nestled in their individualized utopias aboard a spaceship. What is commendable is that this complicated story is told with a touching simplicity and laced with humour that appeals across age groups. In the theatre with me were a bunch of boisterous under-10s who ceased their screaming and rolling on the floor antics the minute the screen lit up and stayed put till the very end. It was helped even further by the fact that the movie has virtually no dialogue (I hate animation movies with too much dialogue!) and the story progresses neatly in action.

WALL·E's day begins with the sun shining over the wasteland of a planet as he stands at a vantage point charging his solar circuits. Solar-breakfast done, he bumpetty-bumps and clanks his way through the rubble and garbage and trash and stacks up the compacted blocks into neat fences, mountains, towers and buildings. There is a distinctly kiddie feel to this bit, reminiscent of the early computer games like Bob the Builder, except with a tad more pizzaz. The little-boy feel continues as we meet WALL·E's only living companion, a skeetering, screeching cockroach who gets run over every now and then but cheerfully shakes himself up and continues to creepy-crawl around WALL·E's dirty planet. We are then invited into WALL·E's tidy little gizmo-home, a delightfully tidied-up and neatly categorized metal container filled with racks of cutlery, wires, nuts-and-bolts and sundry other objects. After what looks like a hard day's work, WALL·E settles in to watch a TV program of human beings having fun, laughing, dancing and living. And he sighs..perceptibly. Awwww.

Along comes a snazzy, ultra-future-futuristic Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator or EVE and you guessed it - WALL·E's circuits start zooming (or whatever it is that circuits do) hundredfold. EVE is purposeful, efficient, focused and not in the mood for romance! As the sweet (and sometimes pesky) WALL·E woos his lovely robot-ess, she shrugs off his overtures in favour of more important pursuits - like saving the world.

Just as you wonder if this will be just another chickflick romance masquerading as science-fiction, the movie changes tracks. While WALL·E has been wheeling around peacefully on his planet, the rest of the human race has been upto a whole lot of living. As the podgy lumpkins that we've all turned into bump-wobble around, WALL·E and EVE join forces (or arms) to battle a runaway program. In the process, they're accused of being Rogue Robots, acquire a few friends like a green plant potted in a shoe and a cleaning fetishist called M-O. And all at once you realize that what started off as little-boy-comic, meandered into chickie-romance has grown into a fully-charged sci-fi plot with odd bits of humour.

Pixar must believe that God is in the details since every last nuance of the future, from WALL·E's wasteland littered with supermarket banners and plastic wrappers down to human beings chatting with each other online while unknowingly riding next to each other on the freeway. There are few real nuggets sprinkled through the whole movie like a robot getting a makeover, the captain whooping away into the night as he learns how to use a dictionary and a couple bracing themselves to catch a bunch of babies tumbling towards them with a "I think we're finally ready to start a family!"

So do they make it? Does the human race survive? Do we ever return to Planet Earth, filthy as it is? Does organic life ever create and re-create again? And do WALL·E and EVE finally meet?

WALL·E, a Pixar Animation Film releases in India on August 29. You should definitely watch it!