Diwali

As I am growing older, festivals are not so much about looking forward to something as they are about looking back. Being nostalgic and turning into an uncle who’s always remembering the past. Last month I was invited to inaugurate a Durga Puja. The organizers asked me to speak a few lines. They must have been expecting me to talk about the future. All I did with that mike in my hand was to dwell on the past. I talked about how Durga Puja was the grandest festival in the town of my childhood, Jamshedpur.

Today I went shopping for crackers because my son changed his mind at the last moment and decided he will burst a few. He didn’t want to and he tried very hard to stick to his resolution. But when you are 12 and all your friends in the building are excited about the phatakas, you can’t remain moralistic unless you want to grow up to be Anna Hazare. I am glad he is showing no such sign.

As I was shopping, I suddenly found myself being overwhelmed by nostalgia. The crackers of childhood came back to haunt me. Back then, there was something called ‘taal phataka’, a cracker wrapped in dried palm leaf with a tail. You were meant to burst that one in your hand, holding it away from your face. By the time you were ten years old you had to prove to your peers that your gender was masculine by accomplishing this feat. Of course girls too soon caught on to the ritual and they too would burst it in their hands so it was even worse for someone like me who was mortally scared of fire ever since as a four year old I fell on a chulha with a pot of boiling water and burnt my arm pit.

I could hear echoes of my older brothers’ friends telling them ‘Kya yeh pataka bhi nahin phod sakta. Woh Meena saat saal ki hai aur woh bhi haath mein phodti hai.’ Something that used to freeze me in those years with a mixture of shame and humiliation brought a smile to my lips today. I asked the Kannadiga shop keeper whether he had taal phatakas’ and he looked clueless. I also looked for Krishna Double Sound bombs and they too were missing. Just as well, because I ended up buying the noise less anaars, chakris, phooljadis and those strings that shoot up to the sky and light it up in different colours.

We went down for the fireworks and the rains came. While we were getting back with the bag of crackers in my hand, I remembered my father, now dead for over twenty one years. He would get his bonus before Durga Puga and between buying all five of us, six if you count mother, new clothes for the four days of the Puja and the pocket money he would give us for pandal hopping, he used to be broke by the time Diwali came. Being the youngest and the most pampered, I used to always kick up a fuss about him not buying me enough crackers. He was a patient man and at the last moment he would gather whatever little money he had left and indulge me. Thinking about all that made me sad but that despondence also had a tinge of happiness. I was lucky to have a father like mine.

We should have festivals. They take us back to spaces we think we left behind long ago.

My 10 favourite Movie Moments

Movies are about magical moments that linger on for years afterwards either bringing a smile on an otherwise humdrum day or suffusing you with sorrow when you are taking a walk by a seaside. Here are my ten favourite moments from ten favourite films.


1. ‘Hey Jude’ moment from ‘Coming Home’- This is an anti Vietnam film with Jane Fonda, Bruce Dern and Jon Voight. Fonda plays a young woman and Dern is her Marine husband. While he is fighting the war, Fonda volunteers in a hospital and falls in love with Voight who has come back from Vietnam a paraplegic. The most haunting moment in the film is when Dern is making love to Fonda before leaving for the front. It is a top angle shot. We see Dern’s back moving and Fonda staring expressionlessly at the whirring fan and the Beatles song ‘Hey Jude’ plays in the background. Guaranteed to give you goose pimples!

2. ‘Poetry belongs to those who need it’ moment from Il Postino- This one is about a fictional relationship between the poet Pablo Neruda and a simple postman Mario Puoppolo while Neruda is serving his exile in a small village in Italy. Mario becomes fascinated by Neruda and uses his poems to woo his sweetheart. The incensed aunt of the girl confronts Neruda who in turn takes Mario for a walk on the beach and scolds him for using his poems without his permission. Mario wants to know why and Neruda tells him because he wrote the poems. Maria retorts by saying poetry does not belong to those who write it but to those who need it leaving Neruda confounded. The simplicity of the scene makes it immortal.

3. ‘Women’s Space’ moment from ‘All about my mother’- This one by Pedro Almadovar is too complex and complicated to be packed in a single line synopsis. It has themes ranging from faith and existentialism to Aids and transvestites. A mother seeks closure after the death of her young son and travels to Barcelona to meet the transvestite who had fathered her son and who didn’t know of his existence. In Barcelona she makes friends with a pregnant nun and the female actor who indirectly caused her son’s death. On a particular day, the grieving mother, the pregnant nun, the prima donna actress and a wise cracking transvestite get together accidently to bitch and giggle, giving the otherwise sombre film one of its few light moments. Brilliant!

4. ‘Mrs Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?’ moment from ‘The Graduate.’ Dustin Hoffman in his film debut is Benjamin Braddock, a confused young man not quite sure whether he wants to join Graduate School. Mrs Robinson is the wife of his father’s partner and a shocked Benjamin doesn’t quite know how to deal with the older woman hitting on him. They are both very good in the scene...Hoffman with his astounded expression and Ann Bancroft who brings a believable pathos to her character. Captivating!

5. ‘Vaada na Tod’ moment in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’- I am sure most people who have watched the film are confused about what I am talking about. But follow the film carefully and you will find Kate Winslet listening to this song in one of the initial scenes. I have always wondered why this song from a Kumar Gaurav- Rati Agnihotri flop and rewind to watch the scene whenever I watch the film. Intriguing!

6. ‘Promise me you will never forget this walk,’ moment from ‘Namesake’- This one owes more to the writer Jhumpa Lahiri than Mira Nair. But full marks to Nair for including this scene in the film and at such a poignant moment. Gogal goes for a holiday with his parents. While the mother waits for them at the beach, father and son go for a long walk and Gogol’s father makes this request to his young uncomprehending son. Gogol recalls this conversation after his father’s death. I always cry whenever I read this bit in the book or watch the film. And yes I have read the book and watched the movie more than once.

7.‘Kanto ko murjhane ka khauf nahin hota’ moment from Mughal- e- Azam. Prince Salim organizes a contest between the two resident courtesans of the palace- Heroine Madhubala and Vamp Nigar Sultana. After the singing is over, he rewards Nigar Sultana with a rose for her optimistic take on love while handing thorns to Madhubala for her bleak outlook only to have Madhubala throwing this immortal punch line at him. Wah!

8. ‘Mein aaj bhi phenke hue paise nahin utatha’ from ‘Deewar.’ The protagonist Vijay refuses to accept the coin gang lord Iffteqar throws at him after getting his shoes shined by him. When Vijay grows up and turns into a smuggler, the same gang lord throws a bundle of note for him and an intense Bachchan throws this line at him. Full Paisa Vasool.

9. ‘Maula Salim Chishti’ moment from Garam Hawa. The best film on Partition. The scene unfolds in Fathehpur Sikri. Even talking about the moment may spoil things so just watch the film to relish the scene with the kabutar followed by the haunting song.

10. “Keh do tum mujhse pyaaar nahin karti’ moment from ‘Dil to Pagal Hai.’ I am not ashamed to admit this remains my favourite romantic film and Shahrukh and Madhuri have such crackling chemistry between them that they burn the screen in this one.

Drop in anytime and I will watch any of these movies with you again. Just for the moments.

Creating Frankenstein's Monster

Victor Frankenstein is the name of a fictional character created by Mary Shelley. He is the progenitor of a monster. Eventually the monster becomes much larger than its creator and destroys him. For some strange reason or maybe not so strange after all, the monster is often confused with the creator and referred to by his creator’s name.

Politicians all over the world are notorious for following Victor Frankenstein’s example. They create monsters and are in turn consumed by them. Indira Gandhi created a monster Bhindaranwale in the Golden Temple to teach the Akalis a lesson and this monster in turn was responsible for felling her with bullets. The US under George Bush created Osama Bin Laden to counter forces averse to it in Afghanistan and saw its invincibility being challenged when 9/11 happened.

The team of Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Kiran Bedi and Manish Sesodia are not a group of politicians but they created a monster to take on a corrupt government. And there is no doubt in my mind Anna is eventually going to consume them all.

Prashant Bhushan is the most credible among all the Team Anna members. He and his father Shanti Bhushan have taken on the establishment on multiple fronts fighting battles for the common man. If he has an independent take on the Kashmir problem, isn’t he entitled to air them in a democracy? All he said is that he favours a plebiscite in Kashmir. How does it make him into a secessionist?

Successive Governments have not been able to do anything about Kashmiri Pandits being hounded out of their homes and being forced to live in refugee camps. If the government feels so strongly that Kashmir is an integral part of India, why don’t they ensure the homeless get back their homes and are provided with security and protection?

Not only was Bhushan badly mauled by a gang of ruffians for stating a rational view, he has also faced the ignominy of being threatened by Anna that he may lose his place in the team. This after the team used his services to draft the Jana Lokpal Bill. Anna has now grown big enough to condemn Bhushan for his comments and other team members have been quick to distance themselves from the lawyer and his views on Kashmir.

As for the Marwari boys, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sesodia, they may be beaming right now for TV cameras for the self goal they scored in Hisar but soon Anna is going to show them their place. He has already snubbed Kejriwal for making stupid statements like ‘Anna is above the parliament.’ Anna is all set to turn them into nothing more than his glorified secretaries.

Only Kiran Bedi need not despair. Even if Anna discards the entire team and Bedi along with it, she can always audition for the role of Surpanaka for the 2012 Ramlila to be held in the same grounds where Anna fasted.

After all, she has already displayed her acting chops with her ghungat act.

neither night nor day, the bald soprano and that girl in yellow boots

I was delighted to come across the book in a school library. I didn’t know such a collection of stories written by women writers from Pakistan existed. The anthology has been edited by Rakhshanda Jalil and published by Harper Collins India. It features 13 stories from across the border, all of them reemphasizing, at least for me, how futile and unnecessary partition was. The concerns of the people living on both sides remain the same. Whether it is the harried single mother who wants the middle aged Anglo Indian matriarch to stay with her family to babysit the children during school vacations and is ready to go to any length to prevent her from migrating to Australia in ‘Plans in Pink’ or the new immigrant to London of ‘Neither Night Nor Day’ who has married an Englishman but finds it difficult to let go of her taste for Biryani and Bollywood blockbusters. She concludes a trifle sadly at the end of the story ‘I am part of a nameless mongrel humanity with nothing to claim as my own, not even the land I stand on or the roads I left behind.’ The stories are both powerful and evocative and I am exercising tremendous discipline not to devour them all at once. I want to be with these stories for a long long time.

On Saturday I went to watch a play at Rangashankara with participants from the current batch of the Creative Writing workshop. ‘The Bald Soprano’ is the creation of the genius playwright Eugene Ionesco. Critics and theatre lovers alike have been attempting to deconstruct his works for decades but they always evade cubby holing. This one is about the meaningless existence of the English Bourgeoisie and their petty concerns. Ionesco was apparently trying to learn English during the time he wrote this play. There are a number of academic interpretations of the play but I suspect the playwright was completely frustrated with his English tutor and decided to hurl insults at anything British by writing this play. Good theatre and great plays are always about protest and this one is no exception.

Kirtana Kumar’s production fell woefully short of expectations. It is always difficult to direct and act in the same play and the challenge becomes all the more daunting when you have taken up a masterpiece. I am not sure whether it was just a bad day on stage for the cast or something more permanent but the performances started to fall apart especially during the latter part. Kirtana, always a brilliant actor decided to go in for a British accent that jarred. The rest of the cast mercifully didn’t fall into the trap but that’s not saying much. The actor playing the maid was a disaster, screeching her lines and being completely indecipherable. Fizz as the Fireman was audible but as the catalyst that changes the context by making the characters in the play confront what they had tried to drown in meaningless affected conversations, his performance lacked depth. He seemed content to remember his lines and deliver them on stage. Prerna Kaul was the only saving grace among the actors, giving her role an infectious energy but she too found it tough to maintain the tempo by the end of it.

I am not sure whether Konarak Reddy’s guitar playing did not match the performance or the performance did not deserve the music, but it became too overbearing and not in a way that enhanced the production. Obviously something had happened backstage to distract Kirtana the director between scenes and she brought it to stage with her when she came back as Mrs. Smith. There were two more performances to follow on Sunday and I hope the team managed to get over the blues they suffered on Saturday. Kirtana has given Bangalore some seminal works like ‘Shakuntala’ and the expectations from whatever she takes up are always huge. It is a measure of the city audience’s generosity that three individuals in the audience stood up to give the performers a standing ovation while they were taking the curtain call. But the rest were left unimpressed including half a dozen of us who had trooped in with great enthusiasm.

Satyajit Ray had an affair with Madhabi Mukherjee while he was directing ‘Charulatha,’ a film he considered to be his best work. Both Mukherjee and Ray’s spouse have at different times admitted to the relationship after the auteur director's death. I don’t think any true lover of cinema cares too hoots about this piece of trivia even though there is a recent Bengali film on this particular episode from Ray's life. We are just happy that a film like ‘Charulatha’ got made.

Anurag Kashyap and Kalki Koechlin didn’t have to get into any clandestine tangle. They were committed to each other while ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots’ was being conceptualized and got married before the film released. But it is sad that Kashyap has announced he will not make any more films with Kalki. After the Ray- Mukherjee association, the Kashyap- Koechlin pair has done the most rewarding work for Indian cinema. The director and his muse not only gave us the best contemporary adaptation of 'Devdas,' they have come up with truly cutting edge cinema at par with best in the world in ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots.’

Kashyap’s film is as much about Bombay as Kiran Rao’s ‘Dhobhi Ghat’ was. But there is no romance in his version of the city. This is the Bombay where pre-pubescent girls are confined to cages to pursue sexual slavery. There is nothing remotely beautiful about the dingy alleys, seedy massage parlours and the hell holes as homes it offers to the less fortunate migrants. Kalki plays a British girl who is lost in in the squalid metropolis in more ways than one. She does get what she is looking for but there is no redemption in store for her. You can’t imagine this film without Kalki Koechlin just as you can’t visualise Charulatha without Madhabi Mukherjee, although the two films are as different as they could be.

It is obvious that Kashyap is a director who respects his actors. He manages to extract brilliant performances from even those playing minor characters. They are all outstanding in the film. My only quibble with the director is about the way he short changes the Bangalore theatre actor Gulshan Devaiah by giving him a role that plays to the gallery. Devaiah shows what he is capable of in one scene where he searches for the right switch to turn off an unfamiliar television set. But his character soon descends into a caricature, the only one in the film to meet such a fate.

And that’s the most unfair thing you can do to an actor who has the potential to grow into one of the greats of Indian cinema.

'Curiouser and curiouser'

There’s trouble in Anna’s wonderland. One member of his core team has accused another of telling a lie. Of course it has been done in a very non violent way...all under the guise of we still have a lot of respect for her and she is still a very important member of our team, but the subtext of Kejriwal’s communication to the media is Bedi is a liar.

On Monday following the conclusion of the Fast Tamasha, Bedi was interviewed by Headlines Today. ‘It was a miracle,’ she preened. And went on to say how the miracle was penned by L K Advani, who has been licking his wounds for years that despite the rath yatra, despite his most loyal lieutenants screaming ek dhakka aur do during the Babri demolition, despite the Gujarat riots, the people of India successfully foiled his attempts to be the PM, not once but twice. She also gurgled like a little baby about the fact that when all else had failed, including her vulgar antics on stage, Advani ji had called her the night before the resolution. He reassured her by calling her ‘Beti’ for the first time and told her he will set things right. ‘Anna is India and India is Anna,’ she shouted and finally ended her interview by co-opting even critics of Anna’s movement like me into the people’s victory. ‘Every single Indian is proud today,’ she thundered. I had no choice. My citizenship was at stake. If I didn’t feel happy about her ghungat act, I was not an Indian. Just like years ago her new found Papaji and his party had tried to make me feel if I wasn’t happy about the Babri demolition, I was not a true Hindu.

But another miracle occurred the next day when her trusted colleague Kejriwal was interviewed by the same channel. ‘I don’t believe in miracles,’ he said looking rather sinister. ‘She is entitled to her views but I don’t agree with her,’ he added for good measure. And then came the clincher. ‘The phone call she is talking about happened two days before the resolution was passed. A lot of things happened in the next 48 hours she has no idea about.’ That was interesting. We know that the Delhi heat and humidity had addled Bedi’s brains during the fasting days but did she really get mixed up to such an extent that not only did she get confused about the day Papa ji called her but attributed the success of the movement to a call that never happened on a day when according to her all else had failed. What are the people of India to make of all this? Should Bedi be also admitted to a hospital to clear her head or is it Kejriwal who is lying and taking the credit away from Advani Ji, Sushma Ji and Jaitley Ji because he wants it all for himself. And yesterday the spoilsport came on another television channel and once again discredited Bedi. Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai?

And like any other member of the People’s Movement( so what if I never wanted any part of it, this time round) I felt like saying Hai...Hai when the same channel decided to interview that ‘hysterical’ and ‘illogical’ Arundhati Roy. Always a mischief maker, she claimed on national television that Kejriwal, Bedi and Sesodia had received 400 Crores from the World Bank and Ford Foundation to design and deliver a people’s movement. Such lies I tell you. Worse than Bedi’s or is it worse than Kejriwal’s? Time we nailed her lies. We know Anna has some 60 odd thousand in his savings account and lives in a room attached to a temple. But it’s time Kejriwal, Bedi and Sesodia declared their assets as well as the assets of the NGOs they run before the nation. Even without Roy making these terrible unfounded allegations. they should do it. Because they are the new leaders of the people of India and whether or not they are fighting an election, the country should know they are one among the poor in India with assets or non assets comparable to Anna.

We the proud people are waiting.

Anna Ko Bhagao...Manmohan Wapas Aao

No one among the dozen odd friends and family I am regularly in touch with in Bangalore has been anywhere near Freedom Park or have wanted to participate in the so called victory march yesterday. Neither has our domestic help or the driver of the cab services I use after shifting out of downtown into suburbs. Among the 42 families that stay in our apartment block I am yet to spot one Anna cap or even the national flag that I see supporters waving on television channels.

Yesterday I went out to meet a couple of friends. I was warned that I will encounter plenty of traffic jams because of the procession. Surprisingly, the streets wore the usual Sunday look. The only crowds and jams I encountered were on a busy street in Basvangudi while coming back. ‘They have come to shop for tomorrow...the Gauri Ganesh festival is starting’ said the driver.

Back home I switched on the television. The news channels as usual were full of Anna. One of them had Kiran Bedi being interviewed. She was asked whether she regretted making statements like Anna is India, India is Anna, something that had not found favour with even her comrades in arm, Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan. ‘Haven’t I been proved right?’ she countered. ‘Every single Indian is proud today,’ she preened. Looking a little like Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies gloating after punishing Harry for something he hadn’t done.

Sorry Ms. Bedi...I am an Indian and I am certainly not proud of how the democratic processes were subverted. Two wrongs don’t make a right as far as I am concerned.

The interviewer asked her what she had to say about Santosh Hegde expressing his disillusionment with the Anna movement when the fasting zeal was on. ‘He was a status quo ist,’ she waxed eloquent. ‘Now he has learnt from Anna how pushing the envelope helps.’ She went on to thank Advani and BJP before concluding the interview.

Until I followed Bedi’s interview yesterday I was all set to vote against the Congress in the next elections. I was open to giving BJP another chance. In the past few months, I have begun to despise the present government for its corruption, for its arrogance, for its double speak. I wished for mid- term polls and a defeat that was worse for Congress than its ally DMK got in Tamil Nadu.

Bedi’s interview was the ‘game changer’ for me. For the first time all the ruling party’s ‘mobocracy’ arguments started making sense. Bedi made me recall Advani’s rath yatra, the Babri demolition, the Gujarat genocide. I started feeling scared.

Manmohan Singh...I hate you for endorsing corruption on a scale never witnessed before in this country but at least you have never ordered the massacre of a community...you have not destroyed the secular fabric of this country...you have been more Gandhian than any of these self appointed heirs of Gandhi in your private and public life. So I have decided to cast my vote for you and your party in the next elections.

For in this great country of ours, it’s never about the greater good. It’s always about the lesser evil.

Six Questions to Anna & His Team

Now that the Anna Tamasha is over and we can all go back to work without worrying about traffic jams caused by processions of Anna supporters, are those of us who are not exactly fans allowed to ask a few questions. Thankfully I don’t live in Anna’s village and needn’t be afraid of being tied to a tree and flogged so I will go ahead and ask them anyway. Here’s my list of six questions.

1. Let’s say the Lokpal Bill is finally passed by the Parliament in a form that’s acceptable to not just Anna but to Kejriwal, Bhushan, Bedi, Patkar and all the other sideys and lackeys who hang out with them, will it put an end to corruption in this country? Do laws and those who are meant to administer them powerful enough to end social evils? In that case just having a police force in every state, every city and every village should curb crime. Why has that not happened in all these 65 years of Independent India.

2. Since this movement is all about curbing corruption, why didn’t Team Anna protest about Vilasrao Deshmukh being made the government emissary, considering his role in one of the most shameless scams has been acknowledged by even the government and he was asked to vacate the CM’s chair in Maharashtra. Is it okay for a politician to be corrupt as long as he can talk in Marathi with Anna Hazare?

3. What were all these Sadhus and Swamis doing during the fast? Why were they arrogating for themselves the role of emissaries? Sri Sri Ravishankar... Jaggi Vasudev...they call themselves spiritual leaders...what is their interest in all this? Earlier Baba Ramdev had also joined in the fray and later we learnt about the wealth he had horded. Sai Baba’s death has unearthed all kinds of hidden wealth from his ashram. With these two unholy precedents, why has Team Anna not asked these god men to stay away?

4. Why has the movement made politicians the face of corruption in this country? The politicians may horde cash in Swiss bank accounts but who bribes them with this cash? How come the corporate honchos have been left alone considering they take the lead in bribing the politicians to grab land and subvert the legal and administrative processes in this country?

5. Since the movement seems to derive its strength from the middle class, what is the position of the Anna Team on their corruption? The kind of corruption that makes them haggle over giving a two hundred rupees raise to their domestic helps and drivers but at the same time they get very strident about inflation?

6. How will Anna react if some of the people in his village decide to protest against his authoritarian ways by going on a fast and tell him they will go on fasting until he changes his way?