Life...As We (THINK we) Know it

Job Description: WHISTLER!!

2006-09-20T16:38:00.000+10:00

I read this very interesting article in 'The Telegraph' by Vishnupriya Sengupta about Nagesh Surve who has charmed Bollywood with his whistling for three decades!

Subhanallah,” that is how Lalit of the Jatin-Lalit duo — the music composers of Fanaa — describes this ace whistler. Not without reason. Whistling sets the mood of the song, Subhanallah in Fanaa. It runs as a parallel theme throughout the film, conveying much more than an amalgam of lyrics and musical instruments.

Meet Nagesh Surve, 57, who has been Hindi filmdom’s chief whistler for more than 30 years. So melodious is his whistling that it is often mistaken for the flute. Last year, when the late Pt Bismillah Khan heard him whistling snatches of raga Yaman Kalyan, he assumed that Surve was playing it on the flute. Kishore Kumar’s compliment too rings in his ears: “You whistle just as I sing — effortlessly and flawlessly.”

Music composers of Bollywood don’t hesitate to shower accolades on him. From Pyarelal — of the Laxmikant Pyarelal team — to Pritam , who has used his whistling prowess in the much-awaited Dhoom II, everybody agrees that “he is not just the best but the only whistler in the film industry who has a tremendous sense of mike balancing”.

From Julie to Karz, Hero to Tezaab, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Koi Mil Gaya, Satya to Lage Raho Munnabhai, not to forget the bird calls in Paheli and Krrish, Surve has whistled his way unfailingly through tinsel world. His career as the ace whistler in 1400 Bollywood flicks spans three decades, and yet his face expresses nothing but humility.

His modest recording studio, which doubles as his residence, is tucked in one of the flats in a housing estate in Goregaon East. The room — with its perforated walls, two huge sound boxes, spools and microphones — exudes an old world charm in keeping with the avuncular image of the man himself.

“The other day my doctor was telling me casually that the Subhanallah ring tone is just incomparable. ‘Kya whistling ki hai,’ he had exclaimed. He didn’t know that I was the one who had whistled the tune. I didn’t tell him, or else he would have hiked his fee,” chuckles the unassuming Surve, interspersing his words with some impromptu whistling.

Most people in the locality know him as music director Rishiraj, who has done the background score for several Hindi and Marathi films. In fact, last year he won a state award for his score in the Marathi film, Mi Tujhi Tujhich Re. “In the Seventies, there was another person in the film industry by the name Nagesh. So I decided to rechristen myself,” he explains.

Surve has a firm grounding in both eastern and western classical music — he is both a sitarist and a violinist. He spent his childhood in Dadar in a neighbourhood which was more of a musical conglomerate comprising the likes of Laxmikant Pyarelal, Vasant Desai and Jaikishan. “I was friends with Pyarelal. We went to the same Bombay municipality school. It was from his father, Ramprasad Sharma, that I learnt to play the violin. Of all the musical instruments, I think playing the violin is the toughest,” he says.

The exposure to both eastern and western classical music helped hone his skill as a musician while his visits to a nearby recording studio where he would attend sessions for hours on end drew him gradually into the vortex of Hindi film music.

Initially, he played the sitar and then the violin in the orchestra. Whistling happened by chance. “Kishore Sharma, who was then assistant music director to Usha Khanna, heard me whistling once and said that he had never heard such melodious notes before. He said that they would use my whistling in the film Pyasi.” Later, Lakshmikant Pyarelal gave him a break in Subhash Ghai’s Hero.

That marked the turning point of Surve’s career. Whistling took centrestage though the whistler himself preferred to remain in the wings. “Anyone can whistle,” says Lalit. “But Surve whistles by just looking at the notations. He knows how to improvise, and his sense of cadence and technique is excellent.” Pritam, Dhoom II’s music director, agrees. The whistling in Dhoom II is restricted to a song which virtually has no musical instruments. “It has the sound of objects of daily use like, say, the trash can. So whistling is an integral part of that number.”

Surve has set himself another goal now. He plans to cut an album of ragas. “Many companies have asked me to whistle tunes of old Hindi film numbers. But that doesn’t excite me. What I would like to do is cut an album comprising Indian ragas.” His face glows as he puckers his lips and gives a quick demonstration of how he would whistle an alap or a jhala.

That denotes a long journey for whistling which hasn’t quite been able to rid itself of its derogatory association with eve teasing. “That is why it’s not taken seriously,” Surve laments. True, there have been singers in the West — like Roger Whittaker and John Lennon — who have been known to whistle and sing with equal dexterity. Back home, the late R.D. Burman made it an indispensable component of filmi music.

Whistling as a source of melody, will always have to come from within. It can never be reproduced digitally as the keyboard — which dominates today’s world of music — can never capture the subtle nuances of the sound of whistling.

But Surve is hopeful about the future of his craft. So he has trained his younger daughter Rupali who has whistled alongside him in films like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Dhoom II. And with Eves like Rupali taking to whistling, maybe they will succeed in teasing out the derogatory connotation of whistling and help it gain due recognition.

An enlightened corps of techies is ditching hi-profile jobs to return to school, testing their logic, rigour and yen for quality at the grassroots

2006-09-15T09:40:00.000+10:00

I wish we had more people like this. I came across this article in Outlook India by Anjali Puri. Its a must read!

The Class 5 student knew that the difference between the earth's equatorial circumference and its polar circumference was 72 km. It was, after all, the answer to a popular exam question, and she had simply memorised it. But she had no idea what 'equatorial' or 'polar' meant—or even plain 'circumference'.

But IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus and former Tata IBM employee Sridhar Rajagopalan and his two colleagues knew what the gaps in her learning meant—a business opportunity and the chance to make an impact in their new career area: education. In five years, their company Educational Initiatives has administered asset, a set of diagnostic tests they have developed to probe how far schoolchildren are learning concepts rather than just parroting them, to over 1,00,000 students. Business from private schools makes their start-up profitable, but 40 per cent of their work is now done with rural government schools, at a subsidised rate.

It was also five years ago that Aditya Natraj, an MBA from the prestigious French management school, INSEAD, and a chartered accountant with seven years' corporate experience, offered his services to education NGO Pratham, which focuses on improving learning outcomes in government schools. Recruited to run Pratham's operations in Gujarat, he manages a team of 300 full-time staff and 3,000 volunteers that provides learning support to about 30,000 government schoolchildren in the state.

Meanwhile, Dehradun boy Himanshu Joshi achieved his dream, making it to IIM-Ahmedabad after three years in manufacturing on a factory shop floor. After his MBA, he rejoined his employer, Glaxo SmithKline, in a new role, with a new package. But six months ago, the 29-year-old quit finessing strategies to sell Horlicks Lite, and took a 30 per cent salary cut to join iDiscoveri, a Delhi-based educational services company started by former corporate professionals. His new baby: the launch of an innovative teacher training programme, which, he declares with infectious confidence, "will be a model of excellence for the country".

And in Chennai, Balaji Sampath, an IIT graduate with a doctorate in electrical engineering from the US, who runs AID India, an NGO that carries out science teaching and primary school programmes in 350 government schools in Tamil Nadu, finds other engineers are keen to join his project. Starting out as volunteers, hardware engineer Chandra Anil, 32; software engineer Smita Kalyani, 25; and Ravi Shankar, 31, an ex-IITian with a doctorate in computer and electronic engineering and who once worked for IBM in the US, now work with him full-time.

The point of these examples is that a significant number of 'techies' and 'corporate types', many with blue-chip names on their CVs, are going down this road—not at retirement age, but during their most productive professional years. For most, there are financial costs involved—from the risks inherent in a new venture to taking a salary cut. Even if large NGOs like Pratham pay their top staff Rs 60,000 per month, it is still a fraction of what their corporate counterparts earn. Smaller NGOs, like AID India, pay far less.

It's not an entirely new phenomenon; education has always had drawing power for "outsiders"—in the '70s, there were the physicists, engineers and others who came together under the banner of education NGO Eklavya. Madhav Chavan, one of Pratham's founders, was a chemistry professor until the mid-'80s. IIT and MIT-trained engineer Lalit Pande also turned to education in the mid-'80s.

But remarkable though these actions were, it was also a different time.Engineering and management colleges were not 'brands', parents weren't blowing up their savings on coaching classes, MBAs weren't being wooed with seven-figure starting salaries, and people who worked in the social sector were not dismissed as "jholawalas". Today, it's perhaps even more at odds with an increasingly right-wing public culture for bright, ambitious, young people to want to spend their working lives on giving 200 million shortchanged Indian schoolchildren a better educational deal.

So, why are they doing it? This is social commitment defined by a strong dash of individualism. "A sense of adventure, and a desire for recognition, the need to be something more than a small fish in a corporate pond," says Rukmini Banerji of Pratham, herself a PhD in economics. "These are also people wanting to make an impact, to use their skills to improve what they see around them."

They are also, often, people who have nursed ambitions to work "in development" while reflexively sitting for exams, and then measuring out their lives in software projects or corporate targets, to meet the expectations of middle-class families. Or professionals chafing at the rigid structures of corporate life. In six months, says Joshi, he has been coining slogans, sticking posters on walls, liasing with government, meeting teachers and principals, interacting with cutting-edge educators—a range of activities that did not come his way before. "You have a freedom to experiment—and a chance to learn by failing."

Says Gurumurthy Kasinathan, 38, who worked for consultancy giant A.F. Ferguson and software company i-Flex Solutions before moving to the Azim Premji Foundation (APF), which has deputed him to help the Karnataka education department revamp its programmes, "A staff of two lakh, 32 districts, 202 blocks, 2,200 villages, 45,000 schools. No corporate job can give you this size, this scale, this complexity and these multiple levels of expectations."

But why education? "With anything else, you're tackling symptoms, not the disease. With education, you're tackling the root of the problem," says Rajagopalan. "There are fewer conflicts of interests, compared to other areas, vested interests are marginal," points out Pratham's Chavan. "You can see change happening on the ground," says Sampath.

"I don't want to stand on a high horse and say, I'm doing something for my country," says Natraj. "You can do that by working in telecom. I'm here because creating high-quality education systems on a large scale is a challenge that excites me."

Two trends in the last decade have also made education attractive to "crossovers": One, a gradual shift of focus from increasing enrolment in schools, to tackling appallingly low levels of learning, one of the causes of extremely high dropout rates. That gives NGOs or ventures like Educational Initiatives greater opportunities to contribute, and makes government more receptive to their contributions (though the relationship can also be fraught with contradictions).

As Sampath points out, "Enrolment in schools in Tamil Nadu is 98 per cent, but the government can't deliver on quality. Fifty per cent of the children can't read. A Class 12 student from a private school who takes IIT coaching knows more maths and science than an MSc from a government school background."

The second trend is more funding for NGOs working in education, thanks to CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds, diaspora money and government grants; and the rise of big education NGOs, among them Pratham, the Naandi Foundation and APF, with multi-crore budgets, and a capacity to work on a scale that excites challenge-seekers.Some, like Naandi CEO Manoj Kumar, are more than keen to attract corporate professionals. "Why are some of the best minds in the country selling soaps and shampoos?" he asks. Good question.

Waris Ahluwalia - Ten Questions

2006-08-08T17:09:00.000+10:00

I came across Waris' interview in Outlook India. People who have seen "Inside Man" and "The Life Aquatic" will know him. During the day he is a very famous Jewellery Designer operating under the label "House of Waris".

How did you become an internationally acclaimed high-end jewellery designer?
I live between Rome, Jaipur and NY (throw in some Paris too)—so it’s easy to be internationally anything. Other than that, it’s simple. Once chance and fate had played its cards, I took time to search out the best craftsmen, both in India and Italy, and then put it in the best stores in the world. From there the work takes care of itself. It’s a very pure approach to luxury.

Why the emphasis on religious and cultural symbols in your pieces?
No emphasis—these are just visuals in my life and I feel they are universal symbols. You can say I’m sharing a bit of India with the world. And not everyone sees religion in them.

How did you decide to become an actor?
I didn’t choose acting. The universe did.

And how did you land a part in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic?
It may seem a little boring, but—Wes asked me one day and I said yes.

How did you get to work on Spike Lee’s Inside Man?
Spike had seen Life Aquatic. He got my number from Willem Dafoe and called me up.

You play a bank clerk racially abused by the police. Do Sikhs in NY deal with this often?
Sikhs have to deal with it everywhere. I’ve fond memories of my encounters with Roman police.

Do you think your refusal to cut your hair mean you will be typecast in Hollywood?
I haven’t been yet. Stay tuned—we’ll see.

How was it working with Hollywood biggies?
It was an honour.

Will we see more of you in Hollywood?
I start another movie by the year-end.

Any plans to star in a smaller film?
If an interesting one comes along.

Auto-Rickshaw in England??!!

2006-07-07T10:04:00.000+10:00

I read this article by AMIT ROY in The Telegraph

Tuk tuk, look what Brighton’s riding - Britain discovers autos

The tuk tuk, India’s motorised rickshaw, began service in Brighton today and was “hailed as the next new big thing”.

It has been introduced by 26-year-old enthusiast and businessman Dominic Ponniah, who confessed he was hooked when he first rode on a tuk tuk as a back packing student in Delhi in 1999.

Ponniah has chosen to spell tuk tuk as tuc tuc but there is no doubting the vehicle’s Indian origins.

He has bought 12 machines from the factory in Pune.

“Each cost me £2,000, then I had to spend another £500 on shipping, and spend a further £2,500 on modifying them here — they almost had to be rebuilt from scratch — and finally £1,000 for rebranding and painting so each tuk tuk ended up costing me £6,000,” he said.

But the result was gratifying as the tuk tuk was today the centre of attention in the warm July sunshine. A fleet of colourfully painted tuk tuks made their way from Brighton Marina, along the sea front in Brighton and Hove and on to Brighton station, a journey of 6 miles. The fare will be a flat £2.50 (£1.50 for children).

Each tuk tuk will be able to take three people and operate more like a bus along the predetermined route than like a taxi.

A total of 30 drivers, both young men and women, have been taken on and dressed in bespoke waistcoats made by a well-known local tailor, Gresham Blake.

Ponniah, part of whose family is of Sri Lankan origin, said: “Next May we will introduce the service with 40 tuk tuks in London, and then in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and other cities in the UK and in Europe.”

There were some hitches before the day of the tuk tuk arrived. “It has taken me over two years to get the tuk tuks and permission (from the traffic commissioners in Brighton).”

The vehicles, which are run on CNG (compressed natural gas), are said to be environmentally cleaner as there is “almost no emission”.

The tuk tuks are seen as a possible solution to urban congestion as they are able to weave through traffic. They will be capable of 35 mph but it is unlikely they will be driven as recklessly as they are in Delhi or Mumbai.

The British tuk tuks have roll bars, side-impact protection and seatbelts and have had to meet the requirements of UK vehicle safety chiefs.

The service will provide tourists, shoppers and visitors with a safe, economical and environment-friendly means of getting around the city.

The company also says that the tuk tuks will be individually wrapped with one of 12 distinctive designs.

Ponniah said: “We want to encourage everyone to go green. The new tuk tuk service supports local government transport and sustainability strategies to make Brighton & Hove a vibrant and healthy, people-friendly city in which to travel. We’re convinced that the service will provide a fun-factor to getting around the city.”

Councillor Gill Mitchell, chairman of Brighton & Hove City Council’s environment committee, said: “This is a real coup for Brighton & Hove. Tuk tuks will undoubtedly attract many tourists as well as complimenting our existing public transport. The price is realistic and they have great environmental credentials which I welcome.”

A few moments with Gulzar....

2006-06-18T00:25:00.000+10:00

'Lyrics Today Aren't Poetry, Just Bad Prose' SAIBAL CHATTERJEE interviews Gulzar in Outlook India

It was India's very first sound film, Alam Ara, that established the song-n-dance convention in our cinema.

"We're so stuck with the hero-heroine kind of cinema that it's impossible for us to get out of the mindset."

Seventy-five years on, how would you assess the state of film lyrics?
It would be unfair to judge film songs in isolation. Lyrics can be only as good as the film, the script and the music they're written for. If the quality of the film and its music is poor, the lyrics too are bound to deteriorate.... The lyrics should not only reflect the spirit of a film, but also capture the essence of the time and place it's set in. If some of today's songs seem laboured, it's because of a huge disconnect between lyric writing and poetry. Words are rustled up to fit pre-composed tunes. The beat is important, not the words.

When exactly did this decline begin?

The slide started when dance became gymnastics and songs turned into a meaningless stringing together of words. Today's lyrics aren't poetry. They aren't even prose. They are bad prose. The attempts at rhyming are painfully laboured. In the past, a Hindi film lyricist had 70-75 words to play around with. Today he has no more than 30 or 35. Their vocabulary is very limited. Today's cinema has no gentle dissolves, no flashbacks. It's cut-to-cut. Images and sounds are thrown at you one after the other. In song sequences, the movements usually have no connection with the words. Words are just an excuse to hang a tune on.

Is that a reason why our film songs are predominantly about a single emotion—romantic love? Elements like anger, cynicism and social satire are virtually absent...
Well, most of our films are love stories. We don't tell stories about older people. Our stories are usually about boys and girls falling in love. If I tell somebody I'm doing a film with A.K. Hangal and Dr Shreeram Lagoo, the first question I'd be asked is: "Hero aur heroine kaun hai?" We are so stuck with this kind of cinema, it seems impossible for us to get out of this mindset.

So, is the situation unlikely to change ever?

Some contemporary filmmakers are bucking the trend. Nagesh Kukunoor's Iqbal does not have a heroine. Rang de Basanti isn't a typical boy-meets-girl story either. The songs in these films, especially in the latter, reflect this departure quite distinctly.

How would you describe the love songs you've penned over the years?
I've often tried to inject Sufism into purportedly romantic songs. Take Chhaiyyan Chhaiyyan as an example. It has the influence of Bulle Shah and Baba Farid, the great Sufi poet-singers of Punjab. In Saathiya, too, I wrote Mera yaar mila de saiyyan, which isn't a typical romantic number though it's essentially a love song. My songs aren't exactly romantic; they are often pastoral vignettes of life in Punjab, redolent with nostalgia and a sense of loss. I'm talking about songs like Chappa Chappa charkha chale and Chhod aaye hum, woh galiyaan from Maachis.

With someone like A.R. Rahman, I can work on the words and imagery strictly in relation to scenes and visuals.

In that sense your romantic songs are probably closer in spirit to the outpourings of the great Romantics of English poetry like John Keats and P.B. Shelley...

I'm not sure of that, but yes, it is important for our film lyrics to keep evolving. The imagery of Krishna serenading Radha, trying to wake her up, teasing her as she sits on a branch or trying to break her earthen pot as she heads for the well, used to work once. It can't work anymore, yet our lyrics are stuck in that imagery drawn from our folklore and mythology. Life has changed, the images in our songs haven't.

Your own lyrics have always had a degree of playfulness about them. Would you agree were I to say it has only increased in recent times?

You don't have to wear heavy glasses to write film lyrics. Beeti na beetayi raina in Parichay was a classical bandish that conveyed the pain of separation. It worked wonderfully well in the '70s. Today's Hindi cinema has no room for such songs. If we think old classical poetry will still work, we'd be deluding ourselves. Do we still wear the kurtas or pants we wore in the '60s? To survive, you have to move with the times. You have to think of images relevant to the contemporary environment. In Satya, I wrote sara din sadkon pe khaali rickshey sa peechhe peechhe chalta hai to refer to a lover pursuing her beloved. I couldn't have used the traditional Radha-Krishna imagery here. It would've been completely out of place.

Does your being a director help?

It certainly does. When I write lyrics, I know what will work. In Satya, only Goli maar bheje mein bheja shor karta hai would have been apt. I could not have written Dil-e-naadaan tujhe hua kya hai. Similarly, when I wrote Chhadi re chhadi kaise gale mein padi in Mausam, I knew nothing else would work.

Film songs made pre-Independence often exuded a strong nationalistic fervour, but that changed once India attained freedom and cinema became a medium of sheer entertainment. Would you agree?

Yes, indeed. Songs like Door hato ae duniyawaalon Hindustan hamara hai or the use of Vande Mataram in numerous lyrics was the norm in pre-Independence Hindi cinema. Bhajans sung by fakirs were also popular. These songs commented upon life; the wandering minstrel was like a sutradhar or chorus throwing light on the drama. That has been a tradition. I used a blind man in Kitaab to sing a similar song. In Aap Ki Kasam, Rajesh Khanna, in the garb of an old man, sings Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo mukaam, woh phir nahin aate. This convention springs from India's age-old katha tradition that rests on a solo narration of the Ramayana or Mahabharat. In post-Independence films, songs that reflected disillusionment were also common. The songs of Dharti Ke Lal, which brought together the talents of Ali Sardar Jafri, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and Ravi Shankar, did that.

Who, to your mind, are the greatest Hindi film lyricists of all time?

Shailendra was the best. He knew the medium and he knew poetry. He would write Mera joota hai Japani to go with the image of a tramp but would invest the song with many layers of meaning. He could turn a film song into a piece of literature. Sahir Ludhianvi was another great. For him words always came before the tune. Who else but he could write Pedon ki shaakhon pe khili khili chandni?

And among contemporary lyricists...

There are quite a few, but how much difference they'll make will depend on how long they can last. Remember Yogesh, the poet who wrote Kahin door jab din dhal jaaye, saanjh ki dulhan badan churaye, chupke se aaye in Anand, and other lovely lyrics for Salil Chowdhury? He vanished all too soon.Prasoon Joshi uses language very skilfully. His lyrics for Rang de Basanti are a classic case of songs matching the film and its characters perfectly. Another lyricist I'd like to hear more of is Nida Fazli. He is a wonderful poet.

Quote

2006-06-09T15:20:00.000+10:00

Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down

Came across this quote so thought of posting it here.

Takla Hatela ya Lamba Khamba?

2006-06-01T17:08:00.000+10:00

Read this very interesting article re: how the underworld has rechristened Bollywood. In an attempt to confuse anti-piracy cells in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Dubai, Malaysia and Bangkok, 'bhais' have come up with new nicknames for actors and actresses, based largely on recent roles or makeovers.

Here's the list decoded/unearthed by the Police

The Men

- Chyawanprash: Amitabh Bachchan (after the brand he endorses)
- Takla Hatela: Salman Khan (recently went bald)
- Jhakaas Mamu: Anil Kapoor (his favourite word is jhakaas)
- Chhe Ungli ka Kamaal: Hrithik Roshan
- Chikna Kaana: Saif Ali Khan
- Neta ka abhineta or Political hero: Riteish Deshmukh
- Jawani ka Viagra: Aamir Khan (looks young for his age)
- Junior Daadhi: Abhishek Bachchan (thanks to his ever-present stubble)
- Booddha Hakla: Shah Rukh Khan (K…k…k…Kiran?)
- Kavla hakla: Shahid Kapur (the aspiring SRK)
- Satkela AK-47 or Munnabhai: Sunjay Dutt
- Kala Ghoda: Ajay Devgan
- Dhai Kilo ka Hero: Sunny Deol (‘dhai kilo’ dialogue in Damini)
- Charsi Punter: Fardeen Khan
- Bawa Model: John Abraham (he’s half Parsi)
- Chumma Jumma: Emraan Hashmi (Mr Lucky Lips)
- Pakaau hero: Akshaye Khanna
- Garam Masala: Akshay Kumar (his latest comedy)
- Anna: Suniel Shetty
- Circuit House: Arshad Warsi
- Paaji ka bachhda: Bobby Deol
- Hatela Nana: Nana Patekar

The Women

- Black Beauty: Bipasha Basu
- Kajrawali: Aishwarya Rai
- Chhipkali: Urmila Matondkar
- Item bomb: Mallika Sherawat
- Boodhi Ghodi Lal Lagam: Rekha (never say die)
- Carrom Board: Priyanka Chopra (eh?)
- MMS item: Kareena Kapoor
- Shaani Batli: Rani Mukerji
- Dimple: Preity Zinta
- Lamba Khamba: Shilpa Shetty
- Khallaas Baby: Isha Koppikar
- Mota rola: Manisha Koirala
- Universe ka Pataka: Sushmita Sen

Gangster M.D

2006-06-01T11:02:00.000+10:00

I knew Munnbhai M.B.B.S was being remade as a Hollywood movie; its been in the news for a while now, but this is fresh news - Chris Tucker has officially been signed now. Is this the start of a new trend? Are we going to see more stars (Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie) act in remakes of Devdas and other mushy love stories, have songs and dances, blind mothers/sisters and corrupt politicians & villians in white suits!!

Read the news here -

Chris Tucker ("Rush Hour") is set to star in a Hollywood remake of Bollywood hit "Munnabhai MBBS" says The Associated Press.

The remake's director, Mira Nair ("Vanity Fair", "Monsoon Wedding"), told the Mumbai Mirror about Tucker's casting and said filming would begin on the retitled "Gangster M.D." after Tucker finishes making "Rush Hour 3."

Munnabhai MBBS tells the story of a mafia leader who pretends to be a doctor whenever his parents visit him from their village. But when his cover is blown, he decides to better himself by trying to become a doctor -- which he hopes will also prove himself to the woman he loves and her father, a hospital superintendent.

Nair said she may cast some actors from the Bollywood original, and is on the lookout for an Indian woman to star opposite Tucker.

Or from the main link here at 'Dark Horizons'

For everyone who wants to follow their dreams....

2006-05-22T15:24:00.000+10:00

Read this article in 'The Telegraph' and is dedicated to everyone who wants to follow their dreams....

In filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh’s cult hit Jhankaar Beats, a group of advertising executives nurse a dream to form their own band and launch a music album, even as they worship R D Burman and lug drums around in the boots of their cars. Ghosh might have taken a leaf out of the lives of the members of Bangalore band Aurko — with the difference that these particular RD worshippers have actually lived out the Jhankaar Beats dream.

With the launch of their maiden Indipop album Nadiyaa, Aurko has chosen to go a route only a few Indian bands have gone before —releasing original Hindi non-film music. The music video of their signature song Nadiyaa — an ode to the city of Calcutta — is catching the imagination of viewers even as it is played repeatedly on music channels, while their album released by Times Music is steadily making its way up the charts.

The story of how a small group of dedicated music lovers from Bangalore managed to release a pop album in Hindi with an established label, even as they climbed the corporate ladder as managers and executives, is an inspiring one.

The six-year-old band’s journey probably started when lead singer Supratik Ghosh, whose day-time avatar is that of GM, sales and marketing of a leading advertising agency, was transferred to Bangalore from Mumbai. Supratik came from film and music stock — singer Geeta Dutt was his grandmother’s sister and his father Shyamol Ghosh was a director — and he had already cut his teeth in music by reaching the semi-finals of popular TV talent hunt Sa Re Ga Ma. “Just before I was sent to Bangalore, I had been on the verge of establishing real contacts and making successful forays into the Mumbai music scene,” recalls Supratik. “Being sent to Bangalore seemed like a punishment, but it turned out to be blessing in disguise,” he says.

Chance meetings with Souvik Mukherjee, an engineer who is the band’s other lead singer, Aakash (who’s not a part of the band any more) and IIT-ian Saumya Shanker, who works in the financial services sector, kicked off the process that culminated with the release of the album. They started with doing covers of Hindi songs for Durga Puja functions, moved on to corporate events and did close to 200 live shows before another chance meeting spurred them on to write and compose their own music. Meanwhile, some people left, and others joined in, such as bass guitarist Jeet Das who is a part of the core group now.

At a show at Planet M, the band met Ravi Bhatnagar, VP, marketing of Times Music. “He gave us the confidence to start work on our original compositions,” recalls Supratik. “I think we had been moving towards that for some time, and his encouragement just gave us the final spark,” adds Saumya.

Having recorded the album, they did the rounds of music labels and were almost signed up by Sony Music in 2005, when an unexpected blow fell. The label decided to hold back on launching any new voices to support the channel’s reality show winners, and it looked like one phone call would end a dream that had been in the making for six years. “The day we were told Sony could not sign us up was perhaps the worst day of our lives. We couldn’t talk, couldn’t sleep the whole night. It was a really bad time,” says Supratik. But soon Times Music stepped in and the album was very much on its way.

Melody and fresh voices are Aurko’s strengths, and they are refreshingly honest about the fact that they are catering to the masses — no highbrow pretensions here. “We want our songs to be hummed by a maid as she sweeps the floor, by a chauffeur as he drives his master’s car,” says Supratik. They have made melody-based music and a very Bollywood-ish sensibility their own and are unabashedly populist.

What they do offer, according to them, is a value-for-money album. “It’s not the kind of album where the video song is the only one worth listening to while the others are just there to make up the numbers,” asserts mild-mannered Saumya. Their music has folk and tribal elements — while Nadiyaa has a Bhatiyali refrain, Dholna has strains from an Assamese folk song and Kaho Na makes use of traditional Indian instruments such as the sarod and tanpura.

Shooting the video for Nadiyaa in Calcutta was a first-time experience for most of the members — it left them slightly wet behind the ears and pretty much everywhere else. “Since water is the overwhelming theme of the song, we were drenched almost throughout the three-day shoot in the middle of a rather cold December,” grins Supratik. The shoot had other harum-scarum moments, such as director Oni Sen ordering Supratik’s wife Lalpi to act in the video after an actress had dropped out. “Those three days were completely mad, but total fun,” they say in chorus.

The whole project has been almost a family venture — with Lalpi and Saumya’s wife Soma writing the lyrics, doing PR and graphics work for the band and other friends chipping in with important back-stage work. “The fact that our non-performing friends work tirelessly for the band without a share of the limelight and glamour shows that they really believe in the music. This gives us a lot of strength,” says Saumya.

What also helps are the discipline and work ethics instilled in them by the corporate world. Even with demanding jobs and upwardly spiralling careers, the band manages to find time to practice, ideate and chill out together. “I think we have a good mix of creativity and discipline, and that’s helped us a lot,” says Supratik. Of course, the creative side of their lives is set to escalate now with the release of the album and the large numbers of shows that they have committed to — but a little bit of clever time management should be able to cover that, they feel. Besides live shows, they also have the release of the second video for the song Puchhe Ye Dil Se to look forward to, as also other on-ground activities. A tie-up with Café Coffee Day promises that their CDs and cassettes will be sold from the café chain’s 300 outlets soon. The release of the second video will also be followed up with what they are calling the ‘What’s Your Story’ campaign,a programme that will encourage visitors to Café Coffee Day to relate incidents of being misunderstood by loved ones in a fast-paced life — the theme of the song Puchhe Ye Dil Se.

They might be the new kids on the block, but Aurko sure knows how to play its audience the right way.

Dial-A-Dinner!!

2006-05-02T12:26:00.000+10:00

Read this article in 'The Telegraph'.

Dialled dinner delivered at doorstep - Scooter-borne network picks up food from restaurants, brings it to caller’s home free

Condos of swank steel and myriad marble are reshaping Calcutta’s urbanscape and the ever-widening base of ICE-age (information, communication and entertainment) pros is changing the way the city eats — outdoors and in. With dialling for dinner fast becoming a way of life, the need for meals on wheels is growing by the night.

Enter, WoW! or Waiter on Wheels, a “unique free door-delivery system” that picks up food from various F&B outlets on phone-in orders to serve both domestic and corporate clientele in town. “An informal survey showed a defined need for a service like this,” says Vikas Thakker. The 42-year-old marketing man has kicked off the WoW! delivery device with a fleet of Honda scooters, a call centre and a tie-up with three outlets for starters.

The service for the moment is operational in south Calcutta, and the munch menu comes from Copper Chimney on Theatre Road, Azad Hind Dhaba in Hindustan Park and Green Chilli on Rashbehari Avenue.

The central business district and Sector V are next on the radar, besides expanding the domestic domain.

“We plan to have 18-20 two-wheelers in the next six to 12 months and eventually cover the entire city with our door-delivery network,” promises Thakker. To beef up the cuisine count, WoW! is looking at “one or two options on Park Street”, restaurants in Chinatown, Salt Lake, VIP Road and the Phoolbagan-Kankurgachhi belt in the immediate future.

The WoW! army aims to break the common ‘two-km-radius’ boundary for home delivery. “The concept is nice and as long as they have a solid database of clientele from good eateries with a proper mix of menus, it should work. Similar services are quite popular in Bangalore and Mumbai,” observes Debasish Ghosh of Mainland China.

Rajiv Kothari of Bar-B-Q agrees. “There is immense potential in home delivery, and many families would love to have their favourite restaurant food in the comfort of their homes during weekends and even on weeknights after a gruelling day. No one has done it in a professional manner in Calcutta till date and so it hasn’t taken off yet.”

Thakker is aware of the huge dormant delivery market and is keen to serve it right. “The restaurant owner gets to provide an additional service with existing infrastructure, and the customer gets his/her favourite fare without budging from home,” he stresses.

While dishes from the existing restaurant roster come at “no extra cost” to the consumer, WoW! promises to deliver “any order from any reputed eatery” in future at “a nominal additional price”.

A comment by Lord Swraj Paul..

2006-04-04T12:16:00.000+10:00

Here's an an excerpt from an article I read in The Telegraph; which incidentally I found quite amusing.

I am reminded of an incident in New York. I was standing at a crosswalk, when a van pulled up. On the side, it said, ‘Singh & Singh — Plumbers.’ And underneath, the slogan was, ‘You have tried the cowboys, now try the Indians.”

India Shining??

2006-03-30T11:43:00.000+11:00

Came upon this article on the web by MADHAVI TATA. India Shining??

Andhra's looms are again weaving a tale of suicides

The roar of powerlooms in a small shed at Baddam Yellareddy Nagar in Sircilla drowns out the muted mantras being read out at Bitla Ramu’s house at a funeral.
Ramu, 23, unemployed and newly married, hanged himself on February 28 when his wife had stepped out to borrow rice. The couple hadn’t eaten a proper meal in three days. The loom shed where Ramu worked had been ridden by power cuts and shortage of raw material. Consequently, he hadn’t drawn any wages for days.

The roar also stands out in contrast to the silence that prevails in Ratsa Narsaiah’s house. Plagued by poor eyesight and piling debts, 55-year-old Narsaiah, a weaver at the Bhadravathi Cooperative Society, also committed suicide, on March 8. His last act: checking his wage book.

Everywhere you go, the story is the same. In 2000-03, the then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to hike power tariff led to 120 suicides in Sircilla. In 2004-05, there were 40 such deaths. It seems to be a continuing crisis. Locals say there have been 12 suicides in Sircilla this February and five already in March. Official figures cite only eight suicides for these months, and attribute most of them to "personal reasons".

Sircilla, with its 23,000 powerlooms, has about 25,000 families depending on weaving and allied activities. The majority comprises workers who are paid Rs 85-100 per day for 12 hours of work. Most weavers suffer from TB, asthma, poor eyesight by the time they are 40. Powerloom weaving is the major occupation in Sircilla division, but it continues to be an unorganised sector. The loom owners market the produce themselves. While the handloom sector is supported by the State Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society, the powerloom industry is not quite lucky. Chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s gift of free power doesn’t extend to powerlooms as they fall under the industrial sector. There’s been frequent power cuts since January-end. A four-hour power trims worker’s wages to Rs 35-50 a day.

Most cloth from Sircilla goes to the Katedan Industrial Estate near Hyderabad for further processing. But a recent Pollution Control Board order to shut the Katedan units has resulted in stocks piling up at Sircilla, leaving workers jobless.

Ironically, the Rs 10,000 spot compensation for each suicide-hit family from the National Family Benefit Fund has been cut to Rs 5,000. The government has announced Rs 1,50,000 for every such family. But the catch is it includes only those households where the suicides occurred after May 14, 2004—the day Rajasekhara Reddy came into power. Outraged widows, who have been subsisting on beedi-rolling, protest the unfairness of it all.

Joint collector Christiana Z. Chongthu refutes news of starvation. "Every household is covered by either BPL or Annapurna Antyodaya Yojana ration cards. So how’s it that they don’t get food," she asks. But then these families don’t even have the money to buy rice at subsidised prices. Labour minister G. Vinod says ‘livery’ cloth worth Rs 50 crore generated by Sircilla weavers is being bought on behalf of the government by Apco. "Also, pensions are now given at the age of 50, considering that the weavers age fast. Our job is to avoid backlog of payments and ensure greater liquidity," he notes.

But for the weaving families, liquidity is practically a non-existent term.

"Indians are, beyond question, the best company in the world." - John Keay

2006-03-24T16:43:00.000+11:00

John Keay is a British Historian and is the author of The Spice Route. I recently read his interview and am incuding a a few lines here...

The people of India is why I first loved, and still love, the country. I was not born there, but Julia and I were married there and we would quite like to die there. You/they are, beyond question, the best company in the world. Occasionally infuriating but always friendly, deeply sympathetic, entertaining, immensely hospitable, highly stimulating and ever surprising. I could go on. You make all things possible. You restore one’s faith in humanity. I have researched, travelled and written elsewhere – notably on West Asia, South East Asia, Indonesia and now China. The fact that I keep returning to India speaks for itself.

Read the full interview HERE

Highrise grows in heritage compound

2006-03-23T11:26:00.000+11:00

RAISING FUNDS FOR HISTORY UPKEEP

Read this article in The Telegraph (March 23'06). Is this a good idea? Desperate calls for desperate times??!!

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), for the first time, has allowed a construction on the premises of a heritage building, in an effort to raise funds for the upkeep of old structures with historical significance.

The owners of the 206-year-old Cossimbazar Rajbati, in Sealdah, will have to pay the civic body Rs 1 crore in return for the nod to their proposal of constructing a 20-storeyed building.

Civic director-general (building) Gorachand Mondol said the building would come up on four bighas in the Rajbati compound, at a cost of Rs 100 crore. The proposal is awaiting clearance from the state pollution control board.

“I think it is a good decision. The city is rich in heritage structures, but most of them are in a poor state because the CMC lacks funds to preserve them,” said mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya.

Officials said the Rs 1 crore that would come to the civic coffers from the Sealdah property would be spent on the heritage structures whose owners either are reluctant to maintain them or cannot afford the upkeep.

Though the new building will overshadow the heritage structure, the civic body’s heritage committee (the members include Ramananda Bandopadhyay, Samir Rakshit and Barun De) cleared the proposal — subsequently ratified by the mayoral council — because the Rajbati does not possess any unique architectural value.

Mayor Bhattacharyya and municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay had imposed one condition on the Rajbati owners — they would have to pay the civic body Rs 1 crore. The owners readily agreed.

The heritage rules not only prevent redevelopment of a heritage structure, but bar construction even on a vacant plot that falls within its boundary. Going by the rules, the CMC had abandoned its project to set up a commercial complex in the Town Hall compound nine years ago.

Cossimbazar Rajbati — the only one in the city without a thakurdalan — figured on the primary list of 76 heritage structures published by the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, under the Land Use and Development Control Planning Act, 1996. Subsequently, more than 1,100 structures have been added to the list.

The building at 302, APC Road stands on 20 bighas. Built in 1800 by then superintendent of Calcutta Mint James Forbes, it was originally a single-storeyed structure. In 1824, the building was purchased by Raja Harinath Nundi, scion of the Cossimbazar royal family, who added a storey to it.

Tongue Twister Memories Of Some Magical Meals

2006-03-21T15:45:00.000+11:00

SITUATION AND SETTINGS PLAY AN IMPORTANT PART IN CULINARY EXPERIENCES TO CHERISH, SAYS MUSICIAN & FOODIE NONDON BAGCHI From The Telegraph - Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Situation, environment and pleasant recollections play an important part. Speaking for myself, no matter how fancy the food, I never enjoy eating at large gatherings making inane conversation between mouthfuls, most likely standing up with the plate in one hand and a weapon in the other, too much food piled up together because you don’t want to keep getting into a queue, as is the case at wedding receptions and the like.

You’ve got this jumbo prawn on your plate, you can’t get enough purchase on it with just a fork in one hand and you plate a tad unstable in the other, so you pick at the convenient bits and leave nearly half unfinished (forget the pleasures of eating the head) and you have also made a few trite remarks about the weather in between. What a tragic waste of good food which should be eaten sitting down, with no time constraints, course by course, with devotion and concentration.

Setting and occasion are vital. Most people will hark back to family feasts on holidays, with all right smells emanating from grandma’s or mom’s kitchen. Some of my most mouth-watering memories are of eating outdoors.

As a young lad, I remember, we had a bonfire one night out in someone’s garden and we baked these big, old potatoes with thick skins, in their jackets. They came out with jackets crisp and blackened in places; we split them open and had them with generous amounts of butter. There were also barbecued sausages (the spicy ones) and a homemade salad with a mayonnaise base.

Another time was out on a fishing safari with my great uncle near Lake Victoria in Uganda, eating fresh Nile Perch slightly pan-fried in olive oil over a wood fire in the crystal clear air of absolutely virgin surroundings. Nile Perch is the world’s largest fresh water fish and can grow up to two metres in length and can weigh up to 200 kg. It is a sublime and versatile item which can be cooked in many ways to suit many styles of cuisine; very similar is our Calcutta freshwater bekti which of course grows nowhere near as large and is a less fatty fish.

Another fishing trip, this time with an uncle, up in Assam on the banks of the Bohreli river near the Arunachal Pradesh border, but the meal to remember was not fish, but pork. They know their pork up in the Northeast and they do magical things with it. Again, there was a bonfire out in the open and it was cold. Not a young lad any more, our glasses were well supplied.

Our host’s major domo appeared with three or four sections of green bamboo, closed at one end and open at the other, each about two feet long. Into these hollow cylinders he put a healthy amount of lean pork which had been marinated for about 20 hours in just ginger, chillies and salt. The open ends were plugged with stoppers fashioned from banana leaves and the cylinders of bamboo were placed close to the blazing wood at the base of the fire. The major domo kept turning the bamboo sections at regular intervals and when he figured that the meat was cooked, he prized the banana-leaf plugs loose with a stick and they shot out, followed by a gush of steam and a heavenly aroma. The meat was whitish — not a drop of oil or grain of turmeric had been used. It was delicious, fiery both to touch and taste, and it vanished before we could say “Cheers!”

The combined cost of these delights would be so negligible that one would be tempted to say that the best things in life are free — well, almost.

Closer to home, a stroll around the Maidan indulging in phuchkas, aloo kabli, jhaal muri and other temptations can transport you to a level of bliss for just a few rupees. We carry in our memories a handful of quality experiences; most of them revolve around simple, homely fare — a good monsoon khichuri, Sunday afternoon mangsho bhaat, an orgy of mangoes in the summertime…

Not to say that meals had in five-star luxury have never been satisfying. Far from it. Just to say that when it comes to the tastebuds, price has no part to play, for even if one has tasted bliss in such situations, it has been because of the chef’s magic and not because of the figure on the bill.

Coming back to the book that echoed my thoughts. Written by a celebrated chef, he talks about a game he plays with friends called the Last Meal Game where someone has to decide what his dinner will be the night before his execution. “When playing this game with chefs — and we’re talking good chefs here — ”, he writes , “the answers are invariably simple ones”.

“‘Braised short ribs’, said one friend

“‘A single slab of seared foie gras,’ said another.

“‘Cold meat loaf sandwich,’ said another, shuddering with pleasure. ‘Don’t tell anyone?’”

My Calcutta

2006-02-14T12:17:00.000+11:00

Found an interesting blog - Here are the first few lines which are EXACTLY my sentiments as well -

I haven't been to Calcutta in three and a half years. I belong to that class of homesick individuals who eagerly browse the web for any new information about the city they grew up in, who read and re-read emails from home, to glean every bit of information about the newest development, the latest trends, the coolest resturants, the hippest shops, and the juiciest gossip to hit my hometown. I have a strange nostalgia associated with anything Calcutta and that gets rekindled everytime I come across an article, a photo, that talks about the people, the culture, the city.

Read the full article here - calcutta, all the way: My Calcutta

Read this outside a Pub..

2006-02-13T13:08:00.000+11:00

..in Launcestion, Australia. It said "Drinking Consultants"

Should have taken a picture, but was tired of the camera by that time. It was a 11-day trip driving around Tasmania and had literally taken thousands of pics.

Anyways, I have uploaded some pics HERE. Please feel free to check them out and post comments.

Lost for Words...

2006-02-06T12:43:00.000+11:00

I was spending my time in the doldrums
I was caught in a cauldron of hate
I felt persecuted and paralysed
I thought that everything else would just wait

While you are wasting your time on your enemies
Engulfed in a fever of spite
Beyond your tunnel vision reality fades
Like shadows into the night

To martyr yourself to caution
Is not going to help at all
because ther'll be no safety in numbers
When the right one walks out of the door

Can you see your days blighted by darkness?
Is it true you beat your fists on the floor?
Stuck in a world of isolation
While the ivy grows over the door

So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go f*** myself
You know you just can't win

I have become COMFORTABLY NUMB!

2006-02-06T12:27:00.000+11:00

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now,
I hear you're feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smokes on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain it you would not understand
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

I have become comfortably numb.

O.K.
Just a little pinprick.
There'll be no more aaaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good.
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smokes on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
but I have become COMFORTABLY NUMB!

8 Things About Bollywood You May Not Know (Originally posted by Amardeep Singh)

2005-07-28T12:33:00.000+10:00

Found an interesting post by Amardeep Singh - which I would like to share

Writing about Bollywood is incredibly difficult for an amateur fan. Many people are mainly interested in the latest filmi news and gossip, and watch current films to see whether they liked the heroine's outfits. Rani Mukherji's colorful outfits are scrutinized closely, but the quality of the film in which the outfits appear is somehow overlooked.

Then you have the retro-hipsters and nostalgists, who note the decline of the industry from its golden era in the 1960s and 70s, when both actresses and actors were impressively plump, and everything was fabulous, in that kind of “Amitabh's pants are way too tight, but the sequins on his orange vest are oh so bright!” kind of way. Yes, I concur: dishoom, dishoom.

Some retro-bollywood fans will even argue that in the old days the films were actually objectively better, which doesn't seem terribly plausible to me. There were of course some things that were better in the high-class productions from the old days. In particular there were beautiful song lyrics (many of the writers were professional Urdu poets) and the language -– one thinks especially of 'courtesan' movies like Pakeezah -- but often it was just as bad as it is today, and for the same reasons it is often bad today: very low budgets, hurried shooting, and the privileging of star-power and profit over artistic integrity.

That said, there have been some interesting changes in the Indian film industry in the last 10-15 years, which are in my opinion worth noting and appreciating. The industry is still far from perfect, but it is evolving.

If you can't please everyone with your opinions, you can at least offer some information. Here, I'm going from Tejaswini Ganti's excellent Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema, which was just published last year on Routledge Press. Ganti is by training an anthropologist, who teaches at a university in the U.S. When she researched this book, she did extensive interviews with many people in Bollywood, including producers, stars, art directors, screenwriters, choreographers, etc. In large part, the interviews are what guide her description of the industry, not so much other people's books. (Incidentally, excerpts from her interviews with people like Ramesh Sippy, Aamir Khan, Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, screenwriter Anjum Rabali, Pooja Bhatt, and Subhash Ghai, to name just a few, are included in the final chapter of the book.) The opening chapters of Bollywood set up the industry in general terms (history, general themes, important facts), while the later chapters get into the impact of key films and key figures (especially actors and directors). The book as a whole is quite readable, in contrast to many other recent books of "film theory" on Hindi cinema that have been coming out.

Here, then, are eight things I picked up in Tejaswini Ganti's Bollywood:

1.”Bollywood” vs. “India”. You hear again and again that Bollywood is the biggest film industry in the world, producing 800-1000 films a year. Actually this isn't strictly correct. It's the Indian film industry that produces that many films; Bollywood -– defined as commercial Hindi films produced in or around Bombay -– produces only about 150-200 films a year. According to Ganti, both the ~~Telegu~~ Telugu and Tamil film industries produce equal numbers of films (though I suspect budgets and audiences are probably smaller).

2.Taxation. Unlike in the U.S., where the film industry has always been treated by the government as a legitimate business, in India for many years, the film industry was treated as a vice, and taxed egregiously, at rates between 25 and 75 percent. This is so despite the fact that the film industry is the second largest in the country in terms of capital investment, and the fifth largest in terms of people employed.

Moreover, the tax is not just one tax, but a whole series of them, affecting the producers, distributors, and exhibitors of films. States use taxes to protect local language cinemas, and the Indian government waives taxes on films that are deemed to be especially patriotic (recently, films like Lakshya and LOC: Kargil were 'tax-free'. So the next time you see some uber-patriotic war film and wonder how Bollywood got so patriotic all of a sudden, keep in mind that there's a profit-margin in there.)

The tax situation has improved somewhat since May 1998, when the government finally granted the film industry the status of an actual “industry,” which means some alleviation of taxes, as well as smaller perks like reduced rates for electricity. However, taxes on films are still pretty high.

With all the tax, it's a wonder that the industry survived at all, especially during the deep recession in the early 1970s, when the government imposed a 250 percent tariff on imported film stock.

3. Flops. The success rate for Bollywood films is 15-20 percent a year. The vast majority of films are 'flops'. The industry survives because there is always some rich sap ready to invest in another film (see #6 below).

4. Number of Prints. The number of prints made for even big films is no more than 500 or so, including prints to be sent abroad. Compare to Hollywood, which releases big films on 3000 or more screens at once in the U.S. alone. One has to keep in mind, of course, that normal (i.e., non-multiplex) movie theaters in India are much larger than in America. A big movie theater in India can seat up to 2500 people.

5. Box Office totals. I've often wondered why we don't get precise box office totals for Bollywood releases the way we do in Hollywood. According to Ganti, while theaters at the main urban centers give quite specific box office numbers, the smaller centers (which also sometimes get films a little later) don't report their earnings accurately or consistently.

6. Financing. Bollywood movies are produced and financed in a completely chaotic way. Here are two paragraphs from Ganti on the decentralized, flexible Bollywood system:

The industry is neither vertically nor horizontally integrated in the manner of the major Hollywood studios or multinational entertainment conglomerates. 'Studios' within the Indian context are merely shooting spaces and not production and distribution concerns. Though there has been a move toward integration and points of convergence . . . these instances are not systemic and do not preclude others from entering the business. Essentially, the 'industry' is a very diffuse and chaotic place where anyone with large sums of money and the right contacts can make a film.
Although both the Western and the Indian press use the metaphors of factories and assembly-line production to characterize the Bombay film industry, i.e., 'Bombay's dream factories churn out hundreds of films a year,' in reality the industry is extremely decentralized and flexible and a more apt comparison would be to a start-up company financed with venture capital. Each Hindi film is made by a team of people who operate as independent contractors or freelancers and work together on a particular project rather than being permanent employees of a particular production company. Films are often financed simply on the basis of a star-cast, the germ of a story idea and a director's reputation. . . . Power resides in the stars, directors, and producers. The industry contains very few non-value-added people such as executives, lawyers, agents, professional managers, i.e., the 'suits,' who do not contribute to the actual filmmaking process. There are also no intermediaries such as casting agents, talent scouts, or agencies like ICA and William Morris.

In the absence of lawyers, Ganti notes (and Suketa Mehta corroborates much of this in his book Maximum City, which is also largely based on personal experience with prominent figures in the industry), large deals are often sealed on the basis of verbal agreements between trusted partners. The informal nature of the system also makes it a convenient haven for 'black money' –- cash investments by gangsters, who need to hide their earnings from tax collectors.

7. English. These days, many Bollywood screenplays are written in English originally. The reasons for this are many and overlapping. Here is how Ganti explains it:

While the narration of a [Bollywood] script is in Hindi or 'Hinglish' – a mix of Hindi and English prevalent among urban elites, many contemporary screenwriters first write their scripts in English and then translate the dialogues themselves into Hindi or work with a dialogue writer who is more proficient in the language. The specifics of a screenplay such as location, time of day, scene descriptions, and camera movement are always in English. The presence of English as a language of production may surprise readers, but is testament of the cosmopolitan nature of the Bombay film industry where people come from every linguistic region of India, and are not necessarily native Hindi speakers. . . . This reliance on English by screenwriters is a recent phenomenon and also signals a shift in [the screenwriters'] background. In the earlier decades of Hindi cinema, screenwriters were often Hindi or Urdu poets, playwrights, or novelists who supported their literary endeavors by working in the film industry. Today, the majority of screenwriters come not from such literary backgrounds, but from a wide range of professional as well as film industry backgrounds. (69)

The change in the kinds of people who write the films might explain why some people feel the films today are not up to the par set by the 1950s and 60s. It also explains how the Hindi dialogue in more 'urban' themed films (like Dil Chahta Hai) sometimes seems a little forced, as if everyone would be more comfortable doing the whole thing in English.

8. Synch-sound. The vast majority of Bollywood films are still dubbed. The industry is still generally using older cameras, which produce camera noise, and has never invested in creating sound-proof shooting conditions in their studios. As a result, it's still easier and more efficient for actors to dub their voices in studio after shooting. This state of affairs is unfortunate, as dubbing is sometimes adversely affects the quality of the acting and the 'production values' more generally.

This set-up also helps non-Hindi speaking actors (like the Tamilian superstar Kamal Haasan) to enter into the Hindi film industry. Conversely, it allows Hindi film actors to get into non-Hindi film industries, even if they don't speak the language. The weirdness is that in some cases, if the actors concerned can't quite get their lips around the language in question, other actors' voices might be over-dubbed for their lines. Thus, the actor who is physically on screen may have his lines vocalized by someone else, while the songs in the film are sung by yet a third person!

Wheres the weekend GONE ???!!??

2005-07-18T13:54:00.000+10:00

I repeat the question - Wheres the weekend GONE ???!!??

Anyways, it was its usual 'speedy' self. A birthday party on Friday night finished at around 2.30 AM , hence woke up at 11.30 AM on Saturday 'morning'. Spent the day doing chores arounsd the house etc etc.

On Sunday went to see 'Dus' (No Comments) with a group of friends. What could have been a watchable movie was churned into a 'masala' flick. The only problem was - the only 'masala' available was tasteless. The soundtrack was good (esp. the title song) & some scenes stood out though. In a nutshell - 'Dud'

Went to an Indian Restaurant later - Guru Da Dhaba. Neither the owner nor the chef is Punjabi, the food was CRAP. All in all - a bad evening.

The weekends ALMOST here...

2005-07-15T13:08:00.000+10:00

Being a hardcore movie nut I am.....I was unable to resist the opening show of Frank Miller's 'Sin City' (Even though it was Thursday). Based on his own graphic novel with the same name, the movie is a visual feast. Directed by one of my favourites - Robert 'El Mariachi' Rodriguez, the film is made to look like a graphic comic (more popularily known as 'Film Noir' style).

It is a visually dazzling film with violence in abundance (females stay out!!). I simply loved it but the wife kinda had an expression "what the...???!!"

It been a good few weeks for me. I saw - The War of the Worlds (Good), Fantastic Four (Good), Batman Begins (Excellent), Star Wars 3 (OK), Paheli (OK) and Parineeta (Excellent).

Did I say I was a movie nut..??