Poll Sell

There was a time when the walls in Calcutta were plastered with posters and graffiti endorsing political parties, once the poll frenzy began. Thanks to Court's order, that has been curtailed, well almost. But the political parties have found out more sophisticated ways to advertise themselves, which is what else but hiring advertising agencies. So now you have TVCs, press, outdoor, web advertising, the entire works done by leading agencies of the country for political parties And that, is something I am so afraid of. I work in advertising and I do my bit of selling aerated drinks when you actually should be having water. And I have designed cigarette packs and glamourised a life-threatening thing initially in my career. So yes, I am guilty of it all. But I believe, endorsing a political party and its people are a different ballgame altogether. And I am glad I am not in an agency which endorses them. Because I know, I will not do it, just like I will not work on cigarette brands. EVER.

How can we endorse criminals, mass murderers, people who have orchestrated hate crimes and genocide against a section of people or a particular community? How can we advertise them! Glorify them! And more so when we might not believe in a particular party’s ideology (if it has any). I am glad I am not part of the team which sits down and ideates on how to ‘sell’ a politician to masses. A politician, who might have criminal cases pending against him, or has led an armed mob to maul a particular community, or has twisted the system’s arm to facilitate genocide against a particular community.

But then I am an advertising guy and my job is to sell things. Only thing I can try doing is sell a product which is honest. So here am me selling you a politician who has what it takes. Ok, on a serious note, we know that not all politicians are corrupt. There are people out there who are doing it to actually make a difference. One such person is Mr. Arun Bhatia, an ex IAS Officer who is contesting from Pune. An honest man of steely resolve who in his own word, “paid the price of denial of promotion, frequent transfers (26 transfers in as many years of service in India), numerous charges and enquiries, bad assessment reports, ridicule by peers, seniors and subordinates, lack of support when giant offenders like Glaxo or senior officers and politicians were prosecuted by me, ugly threats from the Bombay land mafia.” You can read more about the man (And I insist, you must) on his site, http://www.arunbhatiaelect.com/

Delhi went to poll today. I could not vote as I am registered in Calcutta and I haven’t had it transferred to Delhi. The total turnout in Delhi was roughly 50%, while sometime back Bombay recorded a shameful 43%. I wonder what is it with people. People in Bombay had come out in full force a la Rang De Basanti to light candles after 26th November’s terrorist attack. Roughly 4 months later, the very people took the first train, bus or car out of Bombay on polling day, just to enjoy the long weekend. How sorry is that! As they say, a nation gets the government it deserves; I hope the 50% of you in Delhi who have voted kept that in mind while voting.

Up, up and away, forever

Okay, another one of my ‘those who came really late’ stories. To my generation (people who were born in the 70s), TV was the biggest luxury. You know, the time when TVs were black and white and they came in this huge wooden box with shutters. The era of Doordarshan, when you waited for almost an entire minute for that doordarshan logo to unfold before a programme would start. Programmes, we would so eagerly wait for. We would hang on to everything that was beamed on the idiot box and we would lap it all up. But one programme I used to watch as a boy and thought to be the greatest show of all time was, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.

For the uninitiated, it is a Japanese Tokusatsu (which literally means, Special Effect) series about a Japanese boy, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot who save the world from the evil plans of Emperor Guillotine from the planet Gargoyle. Johnny is joined in his adventures by a young man named Jerry Mano, who is secretly Member U3 of the top-secret peacekeeping organization, Unicorn, which even Johnny joins after their fateful first meeting. So each episode would consist of Guillotine trying to destroy the earth by sending a missile or a monster and Johnny and His Robot fighting it off.

It was such a pleasure to watch the show. Now when I look back at it, it was crude and very primitive in style compared to what we have today. But back then, when you’re was not even 10, who would care or even bother about it. That was the best shit we were getting to watch and it was great. For an elite crime-fighting group, Johnny and his team members wore scooter helmets and not so flattering clothes. Guillotine himself had a large blue head with tentacles extending from the bottom of the head, wore a long robe, and carried a staff with a white orb. His terrorist army called Gargoyle consisted of a pretty incompetent bunch that wore uniforms like Soviet soldiers and greeted Emperor Guillotine with a Hitleresque hail, a la Japanese Nazi. And Flying Robot, for some strange reason looked nothing like a Japanese character, what with a Pharaoh kind of hairdo and face. Still, with all it’s limitations of low budget production and not so advanced technology, it made for a great watch. They beamed the series dubbed in English, which we never noticed. To us, that’s the way the Japs spoke English, with the lips movements and uttered word having no relationship whatsoever. Even if you missed the dialogues, you’d never miss the context as the facial expressions of Japanese actors would successfully convey it. The only exception was the Giant Robot who was a wee bit less expressive than John Abraham.

The reason, I think, Johnny Sokko struck a chord with kids around the world was that somewhere, somehow they saw themselves in both the characters. I am sure, whoever watched the series then secretly or not so secretly so wished to have a Giant Robot friend at his or her command, to thrash the bullies around. I remember, I wanted to be Johnny Sokko and Giant Robot both. I would pretend to be Johnny Sokko and call my imaginary giant Robot on my two-size-too-big fake branded china-made digital watch. And then I would do the Robot part too, complete with the ‘robotic’ hand movements, before flying off. Now when I think of it, so many memories of the show and its impact on me, flood my mind. I still remember the last episode where the Giant Robot finally battles with Guillotine himself. The robot had used up all his nuclear energy and had no strength left. Guillotine increases his size to that of the robot, but his body is a mass of atomic energy. So if a bullet were to hit him, his body would explode and the entire Earth would explode with him. Johnny activates Giant Robot’s auxiliary power source and fights Guillotine. He disobeys Johnny’s commands to stop attacking and flies into Space with Guillotine and they collide with a meteor destroying them both. Johnny Sokko breaks into tears and as Johnny, Gerry and the rest of the Unicorn Agency salute the Giant Robot we are left with the words “And so the saga comes to an end. Giant Robot sacrificed himself to save the Earth from the terrible Guillotine but, who knows, when Johnny desperately needs him again, perhaps like a miracle he will come back out of the sky.” But that never happened. The Robot flew up, up and away, never to come back. I remember I cried my eyes out when Giant Robot ‘died’.

Thankfully I stumbled upon some forums and these videos on youtube. I can’t be thankful enough to the gentle souls who share the same love for Johnny Sokko as me. Guys, thanks to you, I got to revisit a part of my childhood. I’m sure you’d love them as much as I did. Adding a couple of links here, you can see more in youtube, sadly the sites like hulu and Johnny sokko.org where you can see entire episodes for free are only available in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x74GTv9BylQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNmeixYw9m0

I do a lot of nonsense TV watching now, flipping channels after channels endlessly, what with so many channels nowadays, but hardly anything captivating enough to watch. In the good ol’ days of Doordarshan we didn’t have the luxury. Or rather we didn’t need it.

Slumdog Millionaire

I, like so many of us ‘advertising types’ have already seen 'Slumdog Millionaire' before it has got its theatrical release in India. Now, don’t ask me how…you know, wink, wink! But anyway, that’s not important. Some of the people in my office who’ve watched the film as well, are all praises about the film. Everybody is like “what a great film it is”, and “how you need an outsider to make a ‘real’ film about India”. The thing is I really didn’t like the film. And I’ve been much mocked and reviled for not liking a ‘truly great film’. But, I didn’t. Now I thought I’ll keep my mouth shut about it and not act the movie pundit, but I simply can’t help it. The western media is all gung-ho about the film, what with calling it an ‘epic fantasy movie’ and ‘movie of the year’ and all that. I believe, it is really not ‘great’ cinema as it is made out to be. Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it visually dazzling? Of course. Is it a great film? Not by a yard.

The western world is, and forever has been in love with our misery, poverty and the perverseness of our society. They love to romanticize it, taking it to bilblical proportions. Like Johnny Depp calls ‘Shantaram’ his bible. Or when Lars Von Trier challenged his mentor Jorgen Leth to remake his celebrated documentary, ‘The Perfect Human’ in 5 different extremes situations, guess which place he chose when he was asked to make it in what he considers ‘the-worst-place-on-the-earth’?! Yes, you guessed it right! Bombay!! Kamathipura, the red-light district in Bombay, to be more precise. So it is this kind of romantic love the westerners have for India, which the Slumdog Millionaire is product of. Colours, kistch, homeless kids, organised crime, poverty, Call centers, police brutality…and yeah, a Shakespearean love story above it all. And you have your most human movie of the year. Not that we haven’t seen it before. It’s just that we’ve seen better. Like Mira Nair’s ‘Salaam Bombay’ a powerhouse of a debut film. Slumdog Millionaire just doesn’t do it. It just never rises from a level of morbidity. Slumdog tries too hard to be an entertainer. It is as good a movie on India as ‘Crash’ was about the state of America. Full of cliches. Jamal, the protagonist of Slumdog is like ‘forrest Gump’. He is in the middle of everything, every evil of our society, It is like the ‘Forrest Gump’ in India, only difference being unlike Forrest, Jamal, rarely ever meets anybody with a heart. We are in India, not America, remember.

The movie has an interesting format, ripped from the writer Vikas Swarup’s novel ‘Q&A’ and turned into a rags-to-riches story by writer Simon Beaufoy. But that’s about it. Like I said, the film never rises above the story. One more thing I absolutely hated was the fact that the characters spoke in English, which looked so-so fake. I know the film has been made for a western audience, and that it is an ‘English’ film, but it just doesn’t sound right. Remember the Chinese films that you watch dubbed in English where the characters talk in ‘Chinese English’. You get the picture, right?! And then it doesn’t help that the dialogues are really flat. I know it’s asking for too much but I wish the film was shot in hindi with english subtitles, just the way ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ was shot. Dialogues in English by Indian characters, that too mouthed by the characters who belong to the slums, just doesn’t do it. More so when Dev Patel (Jamal) sounds and looks every bit the British lad that he is. Anil Kapoor does his bit, so do the rest of the cast, especially Mahesh Manjrekar who gives a very balanced performance. The film is shot brilliantly by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, and the score by A.R. Rehman is good. But that’s almost all that I found good about the film. The only other Danny Boyle films that I’ve seen are Trainspotting’ and ‘The Beach’. The Beach was entertaining, nicely shot, great score and a brilliant performance by Leo DiCaprio. And I think Trainspotting had everything going for it, the right mix of the dialogue, the music, the performances, the direction, the production values, the humor, the shock-value.

And above all, in these films, you see a director who is in-charge of his material, one who is at home with the subject and their circumstances. Sadly, with Slumdog Millionaire, it isn’t the case.

Mall-Mutra

Been planning to write this post down for so long, finally did. The title is courtesy Kaushik da, which so aptly describes in a word what i'll take an entire post to.

Somehow or the other, I just couldn’t manage to take a vacation back home to Calcutta in more than 2 years. I finally went there this pujas. Once there, I realized it was a bad idea to be in Calcutta during pujas as the entire city is out on the street. It’s one big carnival, a big orgy of people on the streets, all dolled up with particularly nowhere to go but from this end of the town to the other visiting pandals. Which needless to say is not exactly my idea of fun in Calcutta. So there I was, in the middle of it all, and hoping for it to pass. Which it did after the four days of pujas and I got my city back. Just the way I like it, or should I say the way I liked it. Call me a little hung-up or whatever but I have forever been a fan of the Calcutta of yore, of the old Victorian charm, which already was in it’s way out while we were growing up.

I had planned to write my next post on the old Bungalows or ‘Baadis’ of my locality in particular and of Calcutta in general. I have grown up in Elgin Road, which they now insist on calling Lala Lajpat Rai Sarani. Elgin Road, sourrounded by Bishop Lefroy Road, Lee Road is now one of the most so called ‘happening’ part of Calcutta what with ‘this’ mall and ‘that’ shopping complex sprouting all around. The only old baadi left on Elgin Road is house no. 38/2. The house of Subhash Chandra Bose, now known as Netaji Bhawan. And the only reason it’s standing intact and preserved is because it is now a museum and a tourist spot. It’s the house from where Netaji escaped to his freedom, with the dream of India’s armed struggle. A dream which was lost. Much like the world which Elgin Road was. Other than Netaji’s House, this locality was dotted with old bungalows, each one grand and beautiful in it’s architecture. Baadis like Rajabadi, Lal Kuthi, Phoolbadi with their Buicks(mostly left as a showpiece only) or Fiats parked were such a delight to the eyes. Reminiscent of a world gone by. A world I am so romantic about. I wanted to take pictures, but there remains nothing to click, but ugly vertical buildings in their place, all bought over by land-sharks and converted into ugly multiplexes and Shopping Complexes, or ‘flats’(The word itself is so uninspiring, isn’t it?!). The families who lived in these buildings have lost their sheen much like the buildings they owned, so they were forced to sell them and move into the oblivion of Calcutta by-lanes, making room for the neo rich of the city.

Calcutta is going through a weird time, a weird phase, one which is torn between the old and new. At one side, it is as dirty and as unorganized at it could be, and on the other side, the malls are mushrooming, the misery and grandeur lives side by side, rather uncomfortably. The city doen’t have the flamboyance of Delhi, or recklessness of Bombay, which ends up making it a nowhere land at the moment. That certain something, which is so Calcutta, which is hard to put down in words, in phrases, is getting lost. In its reckless quest to become a global city its losing its charm, its identity, its character. And what is a city without a character!

I had planned to photograph the old ‘Baadis’ of Elgin Road, along with this post, but then, none are left to be.

BOMBay Calling

On Thursday morning, I made some calls to my friends in Bombay. You know, the usual, I-hope-your-ass’s-safe? calls we are so used to making every two month or so nowadays. Great way of keeping in touch. Pardon my sarcasm, but how exactly is one supposed to react? I can’t think of any other, because getting angry and sulking and licking our wounds is all we’ve been forced to do forever. Just 2 months back, I wrote my post on the Delhi attack, and I was sure I will not write another on this one, because what purpose does it solve anyway? It will be another one of those ‘me too’ posts, and I hate that. And moreover I have forever hated terms like the spirit of this and that people talk about everywhere, on TV, on the streets, at home, offices, and their blogs. To fucking hell with that. People don’t go back to their work and their life as they used to be because of some god damn spirit, but for the compulsion of commerce. In thse times, a Babu who goes to MNCs is as insecure about his daily bread as a rickshaw puller. So there, so much for the spirit of ‘humankind’. I have said and I still do, that there is nothing heroic about being an asshole in the line of fire. But this time, it’s different. It’s not a military attack. It’s war against India. Everybody’s calling it India’s 9/11. Yeah, true! Let’s see how we follow up on this attack. Americans, once it was established that it was Al Qaeda after the attacks on US soil, made sure they ‘smoked them out’, as Bush would put it. But here, our political babus are busy playing it out in public again.

But we’ve had enough of you guys taking us for granted and promising people ‘compensation’ for their life and yet another promise of a ‘committee’ or some such shit. Vanita sent me a piece, which so rightly expresses the mood of the people and thank God for that! Here it is…

Hi all,
Fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, all of them. I know we would all like to honour their memory and respect the sacrifice of those who died in the line of duty.
So if anyone suggests a 'peace march' or a candle in the window, or a human chain, or a message wall celebrating the city's resilience… tell them to F*%K OFF. Our city has had enough! No more candles, no more marches, no more resilience. People don't go back to work bravely facing down the terrorists – they go back to work DESPITE their fear and terror because they need to feed their families! Don't accept the insulting insinuation that we're somehow equipped to deal with this – we're not! And someone needs to do something about this fact – we want action.
The Police aren't equipped to deal with this – not all of them we're armed, and most of them that were, had antique .303 rifles. 3 of Mumbai's best cops were taken out – how easy will be to replace their wealth of experience and leadership?
And of course, the Delhi flock of vultures has descended to meet victims at hospitals and in one case, give a rabble-rousing speech in front of a still-untaken hotel. Tell them to f*%k off. Now they will talk about whose fault it is and why it happened despite 'intelligence alerts'. BTW, where is Raj Thackeray? We should've sent him and his goons in FIRST to protect 'aamchi Mumbai'. Why the silence? Or is he only good for bashing up labourers and taxi-drivers, and is content for the real fighting and dying to be done by soldiers from all over India?
In memory of those who were killed, injured & maimed, I beg you – DO NOT accept platitudes. DO NOT accept bland assurances. DEMAND action. Tomorrow, God forbid, it could be you.

We have to give some spine to our effort in combating terrorism. AND FAST! More and more fanatical youths are being trained to wage a war against us while we wait for our phone calls from Bombay checking if our asses are safe this time.

Dostana

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW……....................................
That’s how you go again and again when you watch the latest candy-floss offering from the house of Dharma. Like all Dharma Productions, its full of fun, frolic and rose tinted vision of the world, and nothing wrong with that. Taran Adarsh calls it a pathbreaking film and all that jackshit about it being a great ‘gay’ film but believe me this is not a film about gays, this is a film on gay jokes. And I say again, nothing wrong with that. And the thing is that if you have followed american sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld, you have heard all the gay jokes. All they have done is put the jokes in hindi and some jokes which they can’t put in hindi, they’ve simply kept them as is in english. The film is funny as a whole and hilarious in parts though it tends to drag in the second half. While watching the film, I realised that the biggest achievement Karan Johar and Co. have is making some very western concepts homogenised and acceptabe to the Indian audience ( ‘Homo’ genised and acceptable to Indians, ironically funny, no!?). I mean the same Pammi Aunties and their children who watch Balika Badhu and never EVER switch on a Star World or such ‘english’ channels were laughing their heads off at all the ‘situations’. The film is set in Miami where a hot shot photographer (John Abraham) and a hairy male nurse (Abhishek Bachchan) end up pretending to be gay partner, to share an apartment with bhartiya sanskaaron wali ‘baby’ (Priyanka Chopra). And then what happens is full of those awwww…moments, happy shiny people, song and dance thrown in and some more awwww…moments which continues for some time till you start wondering if the film is at all going anywhere. First- time director Tarun Mansukhani has done his job well, and he more than enough pays his homage to his mentor, what with the movie full of Karan Johar movie references used in such ‘gay’ abundance that at times it looks like a home made video for Karan Johar. Of the cast, Abhishek Bachchan is really good with his comic timing, Priyanka looks hot. Period. John Abraham plays an eye-toffee who portrays 8 basic emotions and more with ‘equal’ ease, a sample here…



Kiron Kher’s role is something she has done before, that of a loud punjabi mother, only a lot louder this time. And Boman Irani gets all the parts which Anupam Kher used to get at one time. And Sushmita Mukherjee, who is supposed to be a sindhi but strangely speaks a weird accent which to me sounded more like a cliched bengali accent, I don’t know what exactly to call it. Singali, maybe. And then there is this firang guy in a small wee bit of a role, as officer Xavier whose acting is more balanced than many people with bigger role. And yeah, Bobby Deol is also there in the movie. To sum up, Dostana is a fairy tale love story Karan Johar never had. Wink-wink.

Yeh Ho Chuka hai??

‘Does committing a crime make you a criminal?’

Sanjay Gadhvi surely doesn’t think so. Hey, lifting off ideas is no crime. In bollywood it’s called inspiration. Don’t believe me? Ask Sanjay Gupta, Guddu Dhanoa, Anu malik (or is it annu malek?), Pritam, the list goes on longer than the Nile. These fine men take inspiration from international films and music and whatever and ‘indianise’ it and bring it to us lesser Indian mortals. In fact, they are doing us a favour. Opening up the world to us.

Okay, now coming back to the question ‘Does committing a crime make you a criminal?’

That’s the BIG question on which Sanjay Gadhvi’s yet to be released film, Kidnap treads on.
Vikrant Raina, net worth 51.7 billion dollars. No more pachchaas tola and do peti roles for Sanju Baba. In Kidnap he is, in his own words, “The richest Indian in the world” . They say, in advertising there is no such thing as an ‘original idea’. Whatever there is to be said has been said before, done before. ‘Yeh ho chuka hai’ are the four goddamn words an advertising person dreads the most but is subjected to, everyday. But Sanjay Gadhvi of course had no such problem. So he is bringing us a film, which by the look of it doesn’t look like it’s been inspired by just one film, but a motley crew of films. One look at the promos and one can tell he is a big ‘fan’ of Korean films, so what better way to pay homage than to take inspiration from a whole lot of them. Looking at the promos one can tell that there is a bit of ‘Save the Green Planet’, the directorial debut of Korean director Jang Jun-Hwan, about a guy who kidnaps a rich entrepreneur who is responsible for his misfortune. And then there is a bit of Korean director Chan-wook Park’s ‘Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance’, a story about a young girl’s kidnap gone wrong. Only in Sympathy the young girl drowns in the water, unlike Minissa Lamba who takes up the oppurtunity to get into a bikini and do a little song and dance. I told you guys about the Indian ‘touch’, didn’t I? And then there is a bit of ‘The Cut’, another film by Park. It’s about a couple held hostage in their own home by a man, who makes the guy follow his instructions or else see his wife killed by the kidnapper. So there, at least 3 juicy stories concocted to make one wholesome indian offer.


And the inspiration doesn’t just end there. Imraan Khan’s look is inspired by Travis Bickle, who in my opinion is the most human hero of all times. Now that’s too much. Imran Khan is a promising guy, but jaane tu ya jaane na Mr. Gadhvi, Imran can’t hold no candle to Robert GOD De Niro. Or anybody can for that matter.

It’s Friday morning and in some time people will have a first public screening of the film. The eternal supporter of indian films that I am, I would be delighted to eat my words and see Mr. Gadhvi dishing out a ‘fresh’ film instead of a cheap rehash of some really brilliant international films. But I have a feeling he will not disappoint me, or should I say he will.