The YJHD Anachronisms

Why I Love Twitter Reason #352

A tweeter who goes by the cryptic screen name of Inspector and handle of @angrykopite came up with this brilliant analysis of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. When I was watching the movie, I did get an inkling if the cricket match was correctly placed in history but then I thought what I think nowadays - "Theek hi hoga...". But Inspector, of course, had a keener grip on these tiny details.

I posted the picture on Facebook. And needless to say, people had points of view. Most importantly, Abhishek Mukherjee a.k.a. Oh Yes Abhi a.k.a. Ovshake.
2013 is an assumption here. Given the heavy costumes of the wedding in Udaipur, it can be safely assumed that the wedding took place in winter, which means it was the winter of 2012-13.
This means that the "8 years earlier" incidents happened at least before the 2004 Holi. The India-Pakistan series had started on March 13, 2004 - but unfortunately Holi was on March 6 that year.What about 2003, then? The famous India-Pakistan World Cup match had taken place on March 1, 2003, while Holi fell on March 14. We can be happy with 2003, then.
BUT.
The India-Pakistan match started at 2 PM IST. Didn't Kalki say something about getting up at 6 AM and making ham sandwiches?

This led me to wonder if we can conclusively establish the date of the match and the date of Holi of that year. As most of you are aware, Bollywood research takes inordinate amount of checks and cross-checks. But then, I went after Sharmila Tagore's book without Google or YouTube.

These are my observations and findings:

Normally, Abhishek has a much sharper mind and observation but a few weeks in Haryana may have blunted some of that sharpness. It does not need to be assumed that the wedding took place in December 2012. It was very clearly mentioned that the 'destination wedding' took place in Udaipur between 20th and 25th December. New Year's Eve was a few days later, remember?

Also, "8 years earlier" should mean anything between "7.50 - 8.49 years earlier". That can mean either a 2004 or a 2005 Holi.
Why not a little bit earlier, say 2003?
To answer that, we have to get back to the match. What do we know about it?
1. India lost the match.
2. Mohammed Kaif was batting and was out caught.
3. India's score was partially heard as "143 for..."
4. It was an "India-Pakistan series" and not a Champion's Trophy or World Cup.
[That's what I know about it. I am sure youngsters with sharper eyes and ears would have picked up more.]

So, now we go to Cricinfo.
Then, we go to Statsguru.
We search for ODIs between India and Pakistan played between 2002 and 2005, in which India lost.
And what do we see?
The first match India lost during this period was on 16 March 2004.
(India had a fantastic victory in the 2003 Centurion match and the way Sachin batted in that match, I don't think Bunny could have convinced Avi to move away from the TV and go on a vacation. Also, it was not a series.)
In these ten matches, there was only one occasion when there was a batting collapse AND Kaif was out caught. And when he got out, the score was 143-7.
And that match was in Jamshedpur on 9 April 2005.

However, that brings forward a second anachronism.
India batted second in that match and the part of the match we saw would have been happened in the afternoon. And Kalki's culinary adventure, Farooque Shaikh's late-night sermon, Deepika's early morning flight all pointed to an early morning departure.

If you notice, this research did not change anything from the original assertion by @angrykopite but the amount of fun I had while doing this useless thing (while watching a useless awards show and a useless movie) is something quite irrational.
And that, my friends, is why I love Bollywood Reason #31,41,592.
(Yes, it is an irrational love.)

Rituparno Ghosh: 10 Favourite Films

While writing my earlier post on Rituparno Ghosh, I was amazed to realise that nearly half of his twenty directorial ventures are right up there among my favourite films. That puts him second only to Ray in my list. Not even Ritwik Ghatak had made so many A++ films.

My reminisces continued for the better part of yesterday and today and I hadn’t bargained for how sad I would feel on hearing about his death. Apart from the subtle hold he had over me with his films, the unexpectedness of his death had a lot to do with it.

At forty-nine, a director is usually reaching his peak. As my friend Suhel Banerjee pointed out, (given his age) Rituparno’s death is a bigger loss to Bengali cinema than Ray’s. With this in mind, I decided to cling more to the memories and yield ten of my favourite Rituparno films.

There are no ‘Tagore films’ in this list. But then, each one of his films is steeped in Tagore – much like how a Bengali life usually is. We often forget how much The Bearded One is part of our lives. Rituparno Ghosh’s films are perfect antidotes for that oversight.

Unishey April

My mother and I watched it together and I remember both of us staring at each other for a few seconds when the last frame dissolved and then breaking into smiles. Without speaking, we knew this was the best ending the film could have got and the writer-director wasn’t an ordinary one. Of course, the film was almost perfect in every other way.  

 As many commentators noted in their tributes, Rituparno got the bhadralok Bengali audiences back to the theatre and Unishey April was a magical start.

Dahan

As I just wrote, this is my favourite Rituparno Ghosh film. It took a very sensitive topic and gave the most well-balanced take possible. It was set in 1998 Calcutta. It could well be 2013 Delhi. Or 2020 Mumbai. More than the maturity (and sensitivity) with which he handled the topic, it was the writing which took my breath away. Having cut my cinema-appreciation teeth on Satyajit Ray, I remember feeling almost blasphemous when I thought that the writing – dialogues, screenplay – was almost like Ray’s.

Utsab

Rituparno, I felt, loved uncomfortable situations – at least in his films. In Ashukh, he created a situation where a daughter had to speculate on her father’s possible sexual relations. A series of uncomfortable situations and tense relationships were explored masterfully in Utsab. The old decaying mansion of the film was – to me – a metaphor for the city of Calcutta and the talented but squabbling relatives its citizens. When I saw the film, I had already become a probashi and the helplessness at the imminent downfall of the family – examined during Durga Pujo – was a gut-wrenching experience.

Titli

Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy meets girl – again. Boy also meets girl’s daughter.

For me, Titli was Lamhe meets Kapurush. When you go to see a film that seems to be a hybrid of two earlier movies you love, you almost pre-decide to hate the movie. I did exactly the same but came back converted. The music – especially the title song – warmed my heart. The writing wowed me. And the performances of the three lead pairs just blew me up.

(I think I had just seen Konkona’s debut – Ek Je Achhey Kanya – with considerable dismay. I became her fan with Titli. And Mithun. How can you not like Mithun when he plays a movie star?)

Shubho Maharat

Unlike some of his earlier films, I decided to like Shubho Maharat much before I saw it. Raakhee as a Bangali Miss Marple (with a name as endearing as Ranga pishima) was brilliant. And the best part of the movie was the smoothness with which she solved the crime, without ever going anywhere near the scene of crime and yet making it perfectly plausible.

After this one, I had hoped for a series of Miss Marple films (or at least a television series) but that never happened.

Raincoat

When Chetan Bhagat and Vinod Chopra were fighting over credits for 3 Idiots, I remembered an interview of Rituparno, where he stated that the credit to O’Henry’s Gift of the Magi was given at the end of the film only to retain the suspense but it was against his principle to not credit the original writer upfront. O’Henry received a Bangali makeover as we got to know that Aishwarya Rai could actually act and Ajay Devgn’s Zakhm wasn’t a flash in the pan.

Dosar

He went back to an uncomfortable situation – with a vengeance. A wife learns of his husband’s infidelity after an accident which kills the husband’s lover and renders the husband critically injured. The wife’s family, the husband’s colleagues, the lover’s husband and an assortment of bloody real characters played out the aftermath of the accident. Konkona delivered an understated but powerhouse performance. Before the movie, I expected her to chew Prasenjit up and ‘expose’ him. I think it is Rituparno’s directorial baton that got Prasenjit to match her scene by scene.

The Last Lear

A long time back, I had imagined Amitabh Bachchan as an actor in the twilight of his career. The arrogance of having been the emperor once upon a time. The desperation of seeing it all slip away. The frustration of seeing midgets occupying centre-stage. The guilt of ignoring his family. The pain of them now ignoring him. The contempt for his contemporaries compromising to do character roles. The obsession of trying to get a final hurrah before the curtain falls. And the quest for a group of people who would be ready to gamble on this old war-horse…

Rituparno delivered this exact story of my dreams to me – with only a few small modifications. What’s there not to love in it?

Abohomaan

A lot of people saw Satyajit Ray’s life story in this film. I didn’t. I just felt Dipankar Dey gave the performance of a lifetime in this film as an eccentric film director who gave up his family for fame and regretted it at the twilight of his life. Or did he regret it? They forgave him for that. Or did they? I remember being a little unimpressed with the film while watching it but ended thinking about the questions it asked for several days afterwards till I had to pull out the DVD and watch it once again. Rituparno did that sort of thing to you.  

And yes, there are only nine films in the list. I am leaving one space for Satyanweshi, which will – I am hoping – overtake Ray’s Byomkesh film.

Rituparno Ghosh: A Few Random Thoughts

When I was studying business administration in Jamshedpur, I got up very early on a Sunday morning to attend a film festival, braving a terrible hangover, torrential rains and knee-deep water-logging. The film I wanted to see was (what I then thought) the director's second film, based on a novel by a favourite author of mine.
Having loved - and even more, been intrigued - by the director's earlier film, I was eagerly awaiting this one though I remember thinking (in the auto to the auditorium) that the film was bound to be a disappointment - something I grew accustomed to. Having seen Bengali (and Hindi also, come to think of it) cinema in an inexorable decline, I just knew it. Why was I being a masochist when I could have slept off my hangover, I thought.
As you would have guessed from the context, the author was Suchitra Bhattacharya. The film was Dahan - which still remains my favourite film by Rituparno Ghosh. It would be unfair if I called Dahan merely Rituparno's best film. Along with Mahanagar, it is one of the two most brilliant documents on women's rights in India.

Having not watched Bengali cinema - or more importantly, not thought about it too much either - in recent times, I often mentioned Srijit Mukherji, Sujoy Ghosh or Dibakar Banerjee as the best Bengali directors in the country today. In the last couple of days, I thought about Rituparno Ghosh's twenty films (soon to be twenty-one) and realised I was thinking of the others as directors who were Bengalis. As a director of Bengali films, Rituparno Ghosh stood unparalleled. Even when he made so-called Hindi films like Raincoat and The Last Lear, the Bangaliyana just engulfed you like a warm embrace.

Over the last two days, I have been reading up all the tributes to him and wondering what has got left out. There has been a succinctly comprehensive appraisal by Sohini Mitter on the Forbes India blogs - highlighting his portrayal of women characters and understanding of Tagore.
There has been an affectionate thought from Tanmay Mukherjee on how would They meet?
An extensive interview by Kaustav Bakshi looks at his relationships with Ray and Tagore, his handling of actors (including child actors, which was remarkably similar to Ray himself) and his sexuality.
Sandip Roy looked at the missionary zeal with which he brought forward his support of the sexual minority and cleverly connected it with a feature of the Bengali language.
By and large, they have been around his forte of depicting women, Tagore and - in the last phase of his career - alternate sexuality.
UPDATED TO ADD: After I published this post, I found Arnab written - as usual - a balanced and nuanced take on Rituparno's legacy - which, I think, is the best of all the tributes written for the director.
Apart from that, Trisha Gupta wrote a nice piece on Rituparno's many hats - as actor, director and agent provocateur.

I feel one of Rituparno's abiding contribution to parallel cinema - which has not been acknowledged in the obituaries - has been his effort to bring it to the mainstream by improving its commercial viability. He chose to do this by having superstars in his films, without compromising the content or the form.
I think it is a matter of huge confidence when a parallel filmmaker takes on a star - his mannerisms, his airs, his ego - and squeezes out a great performance from him. Rituparno did this with aplomb and in his films, a roll-call of stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgn, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal, Jackie Shroff, Bipasha Basu and Rituparna Sengupta wowed the festival circuit, while bringing their box-office clout to his offbeat themes.
In this respect, one must remember that the actor of Shanghai, Baishey Srabon, Autograph, Moner Manush, Aparajita Tumi and (the forthcoming) Kakababu was delivered to us by Rituparno. Prasenjit gave up his box-office occasionally and turned to meaningful cinema (and even brought his clout to support it). Theirs was the most enduring - and most endearing - commercial-artistic partnership. As my mother once said, "Rituparno turned Possenjit into Prasenjit".

I will end with a favourite sequence of mine - the last few scenes of Shubho Maharat. Rituparno took diverse strands of realistic dialogue, strong women characters and Rabindranath Tagore to create a mesmeric ending to an already brilliant film.
Of course, you have watched it many times. Do watch it again. If not for anything else, the lines sound even more prophetic right now.
Jiban maraner shimana chharaye
Bandhu hey amar royechho dnaraye... 

Filmi Fridays: Mughal Gardens

My Yahoo! Movies column, first published here.

As Aurangzeb jumps out of the underworld and into our lives today, it would be a worthwhile exercise to look at his ancestors. Mughal emperors – with their pomp and grandeur – have been a big favourite of Bollywood directors. Here are some of them, in reverse chronological order.

The first name in the list enters somewhat slyly. Because the film never got made!

Aakhri Mughal was supposed to be Abhishek Bachchan’s launch vehicle. Directed by J.P. Dutta, it was the tale of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s relationship with his son. Apparently, the rights were with Kamal Amrohi once upon a time and he had wanted to make the film with Amitabh Bachchan, after

seeing him in Zanjeer. It did not happen then. It did not happen with the son.

With all star sons getting launched in all-singing-alldancing-all-muscle-flexing roles, a debut like this would have been very different (to the point of being risky). But then, so was Abhishek’s actual debut film—Refugee—with the same director.

A monument as timeless as the Taj Mahal has been accorded not one, but two movies named after it. Quite unfortunately, neither of Shah Jahans evoked much excitement.

In the 1960s version, Pradeep Kumar played Shah Jahan and the movie was famous for excellent music composed by Roshan. The soundtrack included the superhit Jo vaada kiya woh nibhana padega which the hero sang soulfully for the benefit of Bina Rai.

Emperor Trivia: Pradeep Kumar has the distinction of playing Shah Jahan in this movie and Jahangir in another movie called Anarkali.

Akbar Khan made Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story with a lavish budget and not much commercial success. Zulfi Sayed played the young Shah Jahan while Kabir Bedi donned white tresses to play the old version. Pakistani actress Sonya Jehan played the object of affection and devotion. The romance of Prince Khurram and Arjumand Bano Begum reached its culmination in the white mausoleum – a symbol of eternal love as well as a place where a king’s dreams lay buried.

Jahangir was immortalised by his birth name – Prince Salim – where one of India’s greatest actors played him in Mughal-e-Azam. K Asif directed Dilip Kumar in the magnificent saga of a prince rebelling against his father the emperor for the love of a woman. Before he became the ‘conqueror of the world’, Salim was just a man in love and frustrated by his class-conscious father. In some of the largest battle scenes filmed in Bollywood, Prince Salim took on Emperor Akbar and lost spectacularly. Prithviraj Kapoor played the baritone voiced emperor whose kingship forced him to take up arms against his rebellious son.

And there was Madhubala, who was worth every war fought in the history of India.

Emperor Trivia: In Anand, Johnny Walker also played Salim in a theatre production and uttered the immortal lines that Anand would make his death speech. Zindagi aur maut uparwale ke haath mein hai, jahanpanah...

More Emperor Trivia: In an absolutely obscure film Angaar, Kader Khan played a Robin Hoodesque Mafia don – Jahangir Khan – who ruled Bombay with an iron hand and velvet gloves. His (and his sons’) run-ins with hero Jackie Shroff formed the crux of this eminently forgettable movie.   

In Jodha Akbar – a film which was historically before and chronologically after Mughal-e-Azam – Akbar was no longer the spoilsport but a rather flamboyant lover. Hrithik Roshan – he of the sculpted body and chiselled looks – romanced Aishwarya Rai – she of the dulcet voice and mesmerising eyes – in the grand film.

Ashutosh Gowariker invented several new historical ‘events’ to concoct this tale of love and honour between the Muslim ruler of India and his Hindu wife. When Akbar acquiesced to each of Jodha’s demands in order to marry her, who knew he would soon be haranguing his son for marrying a girl of his choice?

The final name in the list in Babar or – more accurately – Baabarr, a crime drama set in the ganglands of Uttar Pradesh where one Baabarr Qureshi ruled the underworld with aggressive help from the police and politicians. It traced his rise from a poor little boy to a dreaded gangster and pitted him against two charismatic actors as police officers – Om Puri and Mithun Chakraborty. The movie’s tagline ominously declared “I was... I am... I will be... Baabarr” which did nothing to improve the collections and Baabarr collapsed at the box office.

Historical Alert: The last time Om and Mithun formed a team was when the former was the latter’s manager in Disco Dancer and you could say Mithun was the Emperor of Disco!  

Filmi Fridays: Go Goa!

My weekly column for Yahoo! Movies, first published here.

This week, Saif plays a blond, wannabe-Russian, zombie-hunter operating in India’s Party Capital – Goa. Be it a band of comrades fighting for independence or be it a trio of friend living it up in a Merc convertible, Goa has been a big hit with moviegoers. Here’s a look at ten of those movies.

Saat Hindustani went on a mission – ahead of Indian troops – to destabilize the Portugese rule through a symbolic protest of raising the Indian flag atop seven buildings in occupied Goa. Hailing from different parts of India and following different religions, these seven Indians were symbols of unity in diversity. Even the actors who played the roles had their actual identities and characters criss-crossed. Bengali actor Utpal Dutt played a Punjabi while Malayalam actor Madhu played a Bengali. Actor Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood) played a Hindu while a new actor called Amitabh Bachchan played a Muslim character (called Anwar Ali)!

KA Abbas directed this patriotic drama that wasn’t about idyllic Goa but more about the mission to free it.

Amitabh Bachchan returned to the Goan liberation movement in Pukar as Ramdas a.k.a. Ronnie. He was the good guy (and freedom fighter’s son) who crossed over to the dark side (due to a misunderstanding with this father’s comrades). He sported a mean moustache and wooed a Goan girl – Julie (Zeenat Aman) – with what was probably the most famous ‘sea song’ in Bollywood. Samandar mein nahake could have only been set in Goa – if not for the beach setting, then certainly for Amitabh’s flashy blue-yellow-striped jacket.

(And to restrict the number of Amitabh Bachchan movies, I am skipping Bombay To Goa since it is more about the trip and less about the place!)

After the pop-patriotism, came Shyam Benegal’s brooding family drama – Trikal – where a Portugese family struggled to come to terms with the Indian Army’s takeover of Goa. With superb art direction and lush depiction of Goa, the film was vintage arthouse fare that made Benegal famous. Naseeruddin Shah was the narrator who told the story in flashback and a wonderful ensemble cast populated the story.

Trivia Alert: Three playback singers – Lucky Ali, Remo Fernandes and Alisha Chinai – made screen appearances in this film.

The moment Goa got free, drug peddlers came and settled down. One of their first victims was Cyrus Broacha (WHAT?) who made his cinematic debut in Jalwa as heroine Archana Puran Singh’s drug-addicted younger brother. The battle against drugs was led by Naseeruddin Shah who threw aside his ‘art film’ subtlety and put on some serious muscle for this role. Archana Puran Singh made her name with the Yeh hai jalwaaaaaaaa song with the sea in the background as Remo did his brand of vocal calisthenics.

Trivia Alert: Farah Khan was a backup dancer in one of the songs.

Shah Rukh Khan countered his villainous turn in Baazigar with a super-cute role in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, where he played the forever-flunking, musically inclined Sunil in Goa. While the beaches and fishermen remained only as props, the laidback attitude, the music and the Portugese priests were all there. Add to that a band of musicians, a Mafia Don called Anthony Gomes, a restaurant called China Town and you had the perfect picture of Goa. Wait… why a Chinese restaurant in Goa? Arre, just!

“Welcome to Goa, Singham!”

Villain Prakash Raj made this ominous invitation to Ajay Devgn and that was pretty much the only Goa in the movie. The sea food and siesta got replaced by flying kicks and revolving SUVs. Playing the title role of Singham, Devgn got down and dirty with the goons of Goa and the fabled susegad didn’t have a chance. Not venturing anywhere near the beaches and shacks, he was content tearing lamp posts off promenades. Clearly, a philistine!

A champion con-man came to Goa, followed by three women whom he had cheated earlier. And the game was afoot.

Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl chose Goa as the venue of the final showdown between Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma as they scouted idyllic locations for the perfect restaurant she wanted to start. That restaurant was part of an elaborate con the ladies were playing to recoup their money but Goa’s languid pace and verdant surroundings play the strangest of tricks on the most hardened people. And somebody fell in love with somebody. As I said, the game was afoot.

In the new wave of low-budget, off-beat films, we had Love Wrinkle Free. It was a comedy set in Goa where a salesman (Ash Chandler) planned to start his own business of – hold your breath – edible underwear. The obsession with soccer and siesta was brought out beautifully as our protagonist bumbled around his new business, his old wife and his mid-life crisis. Apart from the nostalgic favourites, the movie touched upon the new problems of Goa too.

Talking of Goa’s new problems, Dum Maaro Dum – as the title indicated – looked at the drug smuggling and mess that it has created among the young people. Abhishek Bachchan was the dour ACP chasing drug heists as a pretty airhostess (Bipasha Basu) and a confused youngster (Rana Daggubati) flitted in and out of love and jail. And finally, we had a movie that touched the Holy Grail of Goa entertainment – the rave party! (Complete with Deepika Padukone sporting a sexy tattoo. Beat that, God’s own country!)

The final name of the list has to be that film that made Goa ‘cool’. It is my contention that Goa’s ascension of the top holiday destination in India was largely brought about by Dil Chahta Hai.

Farhan Akhtar’s tale about three Bombay dudes doing cool things in Goa (even though it was for a short while in the film) was super-aspirational and was almost like an ad film for the destination. The montage of places in Goa – as part of the title song – playing incessantly on TV probably did more for Goa than any tourism development initiative. Of course, we didn’t have Merc convertibles to zip off in but Akash, Sameer and Siddharth’s capers in Goa would have prompted many a trio to get into their rickety cars and take off. After all, Goa is a place jo dil chahta hai… 

A Star Is Born

My family has a thing for - what we call - 'gaalbhora' (literally, a mouthful) names though they got shortened by well-meaning friends. I am Diptakirti going around as Dipta while my sister is Debanjana, now known as Debbie. (Not Debi, unfortunately. Sigh.)
Probably scarred by our efforts in explaining these long names to less evolved people, my sister and I decided to give simple names to our children. (Dyujoy is a simple name, okay?) While I had Joy and Deeti, my sister came up with Tara. (She lives in a civilised place where they let you know the child's gender beforehand.) My mother murmured some desire for a 'gaalbhora naam' but then, my sister has never listened to anybody in her entire life.

I was quite tickled to because
(a) My sister's nickname is Moon. And now there is a Star.
(b) The second part of Phoolon ka, taaron ka arrived before the first part. (Page 114 of Kitnay Aadmi Thay, dudes!)

* * * * * *
As I have mentioned twice before, I strongly believe in birthdays passing on traits. We already have a Roger Waters in the family and an International Woman of Mystery.
When I first heard my sister was due for delivery in the first week of May, my first thought was to wish for a May 2nd date. No other date (not even October 11) holds so much meaning for me as this one and if I could choose a date for any of my kids, I would have chosen this one without a shade of doubt.
When QSQT turned 25 earlier this week, I slyly thought my sister probably deserves her daughter to be born on that day. I know she herself wanted it when she messaged me - somewhat resignedly - after a checkup.
So thankfully, the little girl decided to come today and ensure her Mamu will never forget everything else in the world but not her birthday.

Welcome, Miss Tara Nair. May you grow up to be a Ray heroine. 

Book Review: Salvation Of A Saint

It is very difficult to objectively review a book whose cover has a blurb “The Japanese Stieg Larsson” from a publication as venerable as The Times (presumably, London). Keigo Higashino is also the author of The Devotion Of Suspect X, the multi-million copy bestseller that was also made into a movie (needless to say, hugely successful).

Salvation Of A Saint is the story of a millionaire killed by arsenic poisoning, which has only two suspects – the victim’s wife and his lover (for whom he was leaving the wife). It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to hazard a guess who the killer might be. Even if you are wrong, your second guess has to be correct. The beauty of this mystery novel is that the solution comes through stray observations, throw-away comments and simple assertions about human nature.  Why would an obsessively neat housewife not put her champagne flutes away? Why would a man insist on bottled water to make coffee? How does a woman feel when she is unable to bear a child? As Higashino goes about building seeming inconsequential conversations and describes quotidian events, he builds a tapestry of clues to unravel later. And when he does that, the logic of deduction is masterful.

Having said that, there is a problem. This is a mystery novel, not a thriller. The build-up of events and characters is a little too slow to get sucked into the story right from the beginning. For me, the reputation of the author was the only hook that kept me on till the very end.

Except for the last quarter of the novel, the pace is leisurely and there are just not enough clues for the readers to get their brain cells into play. Blame it on the breathless pace of the TV crime dramas (which kill off several people in one episode), my expectation of a crime story has come to include a lot more ‘happenings’ – murders, reveals, twists, turns. Salvation doesn’t offer any of that.

In itself, this should not have been a problem. There are many detective stories that gloss over the ‘inactive’ period with the eccentricities of the hero and his interactions with his cronies. Hercule Poirot’s obsessive neatness, his sartorial style, his exasperation with Hastings all added to the allure and often, one looked forward to these descriptions to add a bit of spice to the detection. Likewise, Sherlock Holmes’ cocaine addiction, Feluda’s banter with Jatayu, Byomkesh’s social milieu were all grist for finely etched episodes that framed the detective stories beautifully. I felt the premise of Detective Galileo – a University professor swearing allegiance to science and scientific methods to solve crimes – was too commonplace. His interactions with the police officers were again not sharp enough to look forward to. And indeed, he just isn’t there for long enough to make an impression.

Salvation has a brilliant twist in the end but the scale of the crime, the pace of the detection and the charm of the protagonists just did not have enough thrills. A likeable enough book but not one that will keep you up past your bedtime to know the killer. 

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Filmy Fridays: I, Mac

My weekly column for Yahoo! Movies, first published here.

April 24 was the birthday of Mac Mohan – one of the most recognised faces in Bollywood. With his distinctive white-streaked hair and beard, he was the quintessential villain’s henchman – never shying away from ordering a hit or helpfully passing on his boss’ message.

Today’s column looks at the life, times and trivia of ‘Mac’.

Mac Mohan was his screen name, arrived at by cleverly juxtaposing the first syllables of his name and surname – Mohan Makhijani.

He came to Bombay to become a cricketer but ended up in the movie industry instead. He had several filmi connections as he was Sunil Dutt’s classmate in Lucknow and Raveena Tandon’s maternal uncle. In fact, the actress was very fond of ‘Mohan mama’ and thought him to be a hero in real life. There was a controversy around the National Awards of 2001 when Raveena won the Best Actress prize for Daman while Mac Mohan was a member of the jury (and later accused of nepotism).

He made his film debut way back in 1964 with a part in Chetan Anand’s war drama – Haqeeqat – set in the backdrop of the Sino-Indian war.

He was also seen soon afterwards in Joy Mukherjee starrer, Aao Pyar Karein, where he danced to a song displaying female moves as part of a prank with his friends.

The song can be seen here and acknowledgments are due to Jai Arjun Singh who discovered Mac and Sanjeev Kumar as the ‘hero’s friends’ in the song.

His most iconic role was – of course, obviously, definitely, TOTALLY – in Sholay.

He gained legendary fame and his name in Sholay – Sambha – became a household word, thanks to a superb conversation with Gabbar Singh that led to his speaking just three words in the entire film. The device of Gabbar getting a sidekick to praise was explained by Javed Akhtar as an obvious one since megalomaniacs like others singing their praise. To this end, Sambha said “Pooray pachaas hazaar”, the reward on Gabbar’s head and made history.

Incidentally, the shooting of Sholay had him speaking in several scenes but all of them got edited out. In fact, Mac Mohan was very disappointed he saw the rushes and requested director Ramesh Sippy to edit even that one scene out.

As it turned out, he started getting recognised on streets as Sambha and was mobbed by audiences when he went to see the film in the theatre! 

Silly Aside: Rekha played an outrageously dressed vamp in Madam X. The fourteen people who saw that abomination of a film would remember (or not) that Mac Mohan played her chief henchman and his name was Sambha!

Mac Mohan made his career out of playing the villain’s henchman in countless (actually, 218) Hindi films.

In Karz, he was Sir Juda’s (Premnath) interpreter since the main villain did not speak and communicated only by clinking fingers on glasses.

In Satte Pe Satta, he played a henchman who tried to roll a boulder on an heiress but failed due to the efforts of the brothers.

In Don, he was part of the smugglers’ gang wearing natty clothes and playing cards. 

He did the occasional ‘good’ role as well. For example in The Burning Train, he was the leader of labourers trying to make an incline to stop the hurtling train. In fact, he was shown as the passionate leader who egged his team to complete this critical task taking instructions from Vinod Mehra (through a megaphone). In fact, the final instruction – which precipitated the climax – identified him by name – “Mac, Super Express ko incline pe daal do”.  

His name was so popular that in an exceptionally large number of films, his characters were also called Mac. This was in line with the tradition created by iconic villains like Ranjeet and Prem Chopra, whose characters were often named after their real names.

In 31 out of his 218 movies, Mac was Mac! For the mathematically inclined, that is a whopping 14% of the total output. For the trivially inclined, he was Mac in three successive movies in 1993 and called Mac Kelkar in the forgettable Jawab Hum Denge.

One of his very interesting roles came in Kaala Patthar, where he played Rana the card shark.

He was perennially ripping off fellow miners in the colony in card games, which he seemed incapable of losing. He met his match when Shatrughan Sinha challenged him to a game of teen patti and ended up with two kings. When Mac took out his three jacks (one of which was produced from under his sleeve), Shatru tore up his third card and announced – “teesre badshah hum hain...”

This character had a very interesting twist in the climax when a group of miners were stuck in the submerged mine and used a draw of cards to decide who would get to escape using the lift first.

One of Mac’s last roles was in Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, set in the world of strugglers in the film industry.

He played himself, as the chief guest at the graduation ceremony of an acting class (run by Saurabh Shukla). Before giving out the certificates, he was requested to speak. A gushing student asked him not for a few words but for those three words that made him iconic. Mac good-naturedly obliged by restating the reward on Gabbar’s head... to thunderous applause.

At the end of a busy career, he deserved it. 

Filmy Fridays: Which witch is which?

I have just started writing a column for Yahoo! Movies called Filmy Fridays. This is what I wrote in the introduction of the column. 

When you watch an Ayushmann Khurana movie, do you remember other movies in which the hero sang? Did Chashme Buddoor (the Classic) remind you of other movies shot in Delhi? Does Shashi Kapoor in Deewaar remind you of Raj Kiran in Karz? Well, you turned up at the right place then.

Every Friday, we will take one element of a current topic – a newly released movie, a special day, a star in the news – and go back in time to find some similar elements from the classics of Bollywood. Some will be obvious, some obscure and some tangential… hopefully, it will all add up to a lot of fun.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And this is the first column, which takes off from last week's 'big' release - Ek Thi Daayan.

Ek Thi Daayan releases today. Emraan Hashmi will be torn between the attentions of Huma Qureshi, Kalki Koechlin and Konkona Sensharma to decide which witch is which. The trailer offers many tantalizing theories about recognizing a witch while the National Commission for Women protests against the ‘negative’ portrayal of witches/women in the movie.

Now would be a good time to examine how many witches and lady ghosts have appeared in Hindi movies. How scary were they? What did they do?  Bad things or good things? How were they identified? How memorable were they?

Vishal Bhardwaj – the producer of Ek Thi Daayan – seems to have a witch obsession. He created a memorable chudail in Makdee as well.

Gnarled fingers. Matted hair. Creepy eyes. A dilapidated mansion adorned with skull and bones. She drank blood of eagles and bats. She was known to have dark magical powers and turned people into animals at a star-shaped altar in her mansion.

While it was supposed to be a film for children, Shabana Azmi became an evil witch who managed to scare even the adults. She met her match in Chunni (child actor Shweta Prasad) after she ‘turned’ her twin sister Munni into a chicken. The little girl pulled together all her courage, friends and meager resources to fight the evil witch – who became a metaphor for superstition and blind faith. And in the climax, Shabana Azmi’s frenzied performance made us realize once again why she is still India’s finest actress.

Villain killed heroine. Hero wanted to prove it and discovered a lookalike. The lookalike was supposed to pretend to be the dead heroine and extract a confession from the villain. Everything went as per plan – lights went out, thunder flashed and sound of anklets reverberated. The lookalike walked in and – with much drama – got the villain to confess. Except that she knew much more than she should have. On cue, another lookalike walked in, who had got delayed due to some unforeseen situation. As the hero processed this information, the earlier lookalike vanished into thin air. She was the ghost of the dead heroine, returning to take revenge.

Madhumati (Vyjayanthimala) was the first to have this ghostly trick and then tribute-factory Om Shanti Om recreated this sequence with Deepika Padukone. Both heroines were, well, deadly in the roles.

The title of the most ethereal ghost in Bollywood has to be Dimple Kapadia in Lekin.

She took smitten archaeologist Vinod Khanna on elaborate tours of deserted havelis, gave him delusions of grandeur, sang breathtaking songs and vanished into thin air amidst sand dunes. And just when we were confused if she was a figment of Vinod Khanna’s imagination or ours, her elder sister Hema Malini (ethereal running in the family, clearly) popped up and informed us of Dimple’s demise.

Interestingly, Meghna Gulzar revealed in her biography of Gulzar that Dimple was not allowed to blink in any of her scenes in the film and that endless fixed gaze added to her other-worldly allure. 

Ever since Manoj Night Shyamalan made The Sixth Sense, a whole new avenue of ‘inspiration’ opened up for scriptwriters across the globe.

In Hum Tum Aur Ghost, Arshad Warsi had the same gift, often not realizing they were dead. His fiancée attributed his hallucinations to excessive drinking and generally scattered brain. Boman Irani was a ghost who had an errand for him (bringing in a lost-and-found track) and paid a tribute to the original film. He deadpanned to Arshad, “You see dead people.”

Of course, Arshad’s girlfriend (Dia Mirza) gave him hell for his eccentric mumblings and threatened to leave him. Till she died herself. And guess who was the one living guy who could see and hear her? Arshad could have become the first man in history who actually heard what his wife told him… but for a silly plot twist. Tchah!

*** SPOILER ALERT *** SPOILER ALERT *** SPOILER ALERT *** SPOILER ALERT *** 

When the trailers of Aamir Khan-starrer Talaash flashed across TV screens, Kareena Kapoor seemed to be the femme fatale leading the police office hero in murder investigation offering seductive glances and cryptic clues. The fatale of this femme was actually literal as she wasn’t a witness or an accomplice but the victim herself. She was an unfortunate call girl who got killed by some rich playboys and her murder hushed up. She appeared only to Aamir Khan and took him to scary locations and shady people whose secrets she seemed to know a lot of. Essentially an extension of The Sixth Sense plot device, Kareena the Ghost popped up whenever Aamir Khan needed a clue and nudged him towards the criminals.

You know, our police could do with a lot of these other worldly assistances. 

*** SPOILER OVER *** SPOILER OVER *** SPOILER OVER *** SPOILER OVER *** 

As a final aside, it would be interesting to look at the many chudails and daayans who have inhabited the world of B-grade Bollywood.

-    The most common epithet for witches in Bollywood lexicon is obviously Pyaasi. Pyasi Chudail and Pyaasi Bhootni, for example. Obviously, these violent creatures are thirsting for blood. (Sale Alert: Both these eclectic movies are now available in a 3-in-1 DVD set, along with Khooni Murdaa.)

-    Daayan has also been the title of a movie while horror TV shows have picked up some of the more intriguing ones like Daayan Bani Dulhan (Whoa, this is Ramsay Bros meet Ekta Kapoor!) and Pahaadi Daayan. 

55 Goes To Bollywood

A while back, I was slightly obsessed with writing 55-word stories/paragraphs. I wrote one set of stories on heroines, one on the seven deadly sins and another longer story in 55-word paragraphs. Then, I forgot all about it.
Yesterday I got some ideas while thinking about my pet topic.
And 55 went to tinsel town.

* * * * *

“Sagar-saab, without good dialogues, a scene falls flat. These daily dialogue writers you get are rubbish.”
“Arre, I got a new fellow today.”
“Forget him. Let me write. I promise you...”
“Yaar Salim, tu akele kya kya karega. Acting karega ya dialogue likhega? You meet this new guy - Javed. You'll like his work. Guaranteed.”

* * * * *

“The guy is really good”, Salim said.
“He was a pain in the romantic scenes. But the fights were amazing”, added Javed.
“I think Ramesh should see the movie.”
“The distributors won’t let him take this guy…”
“Let Ramesh see the film. After that, it’s his call…”
“Yeah. What’s the film called?”
“Bombay to Goa.”

* * * * *

“Barjatya-saab, I can't take Hari-bhai for the role.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing. He's a great actor. But he's no longer hungry. His passion has...”
“What passion, Mahesh? Talent chahiye, bhai...”
“Yesterday, Anupam came to my place. His anger. His talent. His hunger... I've decided. Either he does the role or I won't direct this film.”

* * * * *

"Ramu-ji, Anurag and I were discussing the don must be an everyday guy in his personal life. Scared of his wife. Loves his kids. Loves eating kheer. You know, normal."
"Interesting. Then the name shouldn't be bombastic. Not Mogambo or Bhaktavar."
"No, no. Not at all."
The office boy walked in.
"Bhiku, teen coffee lana."

* * * * *

Vishal entered Chandan Cinema. Sajid came running, waving tickets.
“VD, this movie is a classic. Saw the noon show. Now matinee with you.”
Vishal lit a cigarette and smiled at his friend’s enthu.
“If I become a director, I will remake this film. And you’ll be the hero.”
“I’ll change my name if that happens.”

* * * * *

Five stories of 55 words each.
Each about one notable instance of Bollywood history, as imagined by yours truly.
I am now wondering if they have become too obscure because the snapshot is all-too-brief.
What do you think? Did you manage to recognize the people and the settings? Yes?
Then, write some of yours, no?