Manipulation by Shahrukh Khan

Is it now LOUD and CLEAR to all those Shahrukh  Khan and Yash Chopra fans that how their beloved idols DESTROYING the film industry? How they are MANIPULATING not only people's minds but also business of film making?

Why is there no Son of Sardar in my nearby theaters? Why is there only Jab Tak Hain Jaan in my nearby theaters? I would like to go and see Son of Sardar anytime than it's competitor as Son of Sardar is at least honest in its approach, at least it's showing nonsense comedy by claiming that they ARE doing nonsense comedy, unlike it's competitor which is PRETENDING to be serious in disguise of being utter rubbish and nonsense.

I have been observing this trend of Manipulation for a long time now when I see all big shots of media will say nothing but pure praise for all those dim-witted stupid and obnoxious movies by Shahrukh Khan, Yash Raj camp, Karan Johar camp and their chamchaas and chamchis (the chamchi is no more a chamchi now anymore since drunk Shahrukh abused her husband physically, publicly). Only a few years back, any movie which didn't star Sharukh Khan but used to do good business in the box office were termed as 'surprize hits'. My question is Why surprize hit? If people liked a movie naturally, why can't that movie be a hit? Only because it doesn't star Shahrukh Khan? Or, because they are surprized with the fact that  someone earned profit in THEIR manipulated arena?

It's a shame and disgrace to a democratic country like us. Whenever I have tried to say this fact to people, the utter stupidity of Shahrukh Khna fans have only surprized me. But then who else but stupids would be a fan of this rickety, bony and old horse like Shahrukh Khan? Age is no matter, even Amitabh Bachchan looks better than Shahrukh Khan. The face is the reflection of mind after all  otherwise I don't see such an ugly hero in this country, forget about a star.

Sleepless days and nights of Indian movie critics

Every time a movie like Kahaani, Lagaan, Ekalavya or Guzarish releases, the Indian movie critics start having sleepless nights, gastritis, acidity, indigestion and all sorts of un-comforting ailments. Now this is turn of Barfi. 

Reason? 

The reason is that they have to scan each and every second of these movies and have to dig their minds as hard as they can to find out even 1 second resemblance with any foreign language movie! They have such a monumental task before them to complete. How can they rest? So, what if they find even 2 seconds of resemblance with some Hungarian stage play or Italian documentary, they have to establish the fact that everything good that happens in Indian movies are copied from Western movies. 

I often hear people saying "XYZ is such a great movie. They must have copied it from some English movie". Why someone has to copy something from English movie to make something good in India? I can't believe the fact that all people from one country are better than another country in terms of creativity or intellect. I believe just like good and bad people are there in every country, every culture, intelligent and dull people are also there in every country and every culture.

But having said that, this is also true that English and foreign language movies have great influence on the Indian movie and television. If we keep the blame game aside for a moment, then may be this is the time when we should ask the question "why so". In my understanding, this is because America started developing movies and television far before anyone in the world started. So, that makes them the pioneer in this field. In that case, is it but not natural that everyone in the world will look upto them in this field? If someone wants to even study about films, they have to rely on the huge collection of movies what America has been producing for all these years. Can you blame a student for being influenced by his professor?

But what is more important is that what is being copied and how it is used. For example, if someone has created a full story and has narrated the story in his own original cinematic language, but while telling the story, he has used one sequence whose core idea might be similar to some other existing sequence of a Foreign language movie but he has completely developed the idea in the newly woven environment. Also, the sequence doesn’t bear much impact on the original storyline but on the contrary, can be edited also. In this situation, will you discard the director’s effort to create the entire movie in his own right, or will you blame the director of plagiarism for using that trivial sequence? I find Barfi such a movie and blaming Anurag Basu of doing “copy-paste job” would be a crime to his entire effort of making such a poetic movie.

On the other hand, there are other directors in our country, who develop the entire story of the movie combining 3-4 English movies. They not only copy and use the sequences from English movies, but they don’t hesitate to show Indian characters following American culture – For example, they show Indian (the name suggest them to be Hindu) people getting married in churches wearing white gowns. They also shoot the movies in foreign locations to easily portray the copied stories and copied sequences. Directors like Sajid Khan, Kunal Kohli, Kabir Khan, Farah Khan, Karan Johar, Shirish Kunder, Aditya Chopra are few typical examples of such directors. But unfortunately, the great knowledgeable critics of India never say a word against these directors and their movies. They will never say how much copy-paste job they have done. Why so? Is it because of the fact that all these critics are actually paid employees to these directors, producers and these banners?

I don’t have any trust or belief on these so-called critics. I detest them. I loathe their boot-licking nature. I never read any review done by any Indian critic. I am sorry but over the years I have found them the most corrupt people of our country. They misuse their power of pen and misguide people by their employer-guided goal.

So, I will never blame Barfi of plagiarism. Instead, I’ll be grateful to Anurag Basu to dare to create such a masterpiece for the most undeserving and ungrateful audience of India.

August, a special month

August 2012 turned out to be a special month for me. I had two long-term dream fulfillment in this month.

Ever since my father passed away, my mother doesn't wear any gold ornament in her hand as she doesn't have any gold bangle. When my father was alive, she used to wear 'ayastha' made in gold, which is a sign of marriage. My mother took this off when my father passed away two years back. Since then, she wears only two citi-gold bangles. Every time I see her hands without any gold ornament, it pinches me. So, last year I started to save in a monthly gold scheme in Tanishq. The plan matured last month and finally I bought two beautiful gold bangles for my mother. Though the purchase practically broke me, but what am I earning money for anyway?

The second dream was to visit Bombay which I could make happen in August, 2012. Since my sister stays in Bombay and also since I have already stayed and worked in Bombay for one year, the dream to stay and visit Bombay may sound very ordinary. But for me, it was one of the most extraordinary events of my life. For me, it was coming out of two of my greatest dreads. I might not be able to discuss everything here, but I'll always remember the August 2012 Bombay trip to be my victory in life.

The primary focus to visit Bombay was to visit the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, which I couldn't do in my one year stay there. The trip to the museum turned out to be more astounding than I had imagined as it took six hours for me to visit the entire museum. And, I can only assure everyone that it was worth visiting the place. I wish I had not caught fever the next day, mainly due to the change of climatic condition between Bangalore and Bombay, I believe, I could have one more day to spend in Bombay and I would be able to visit the Jehangir Art Gallery also. May be next time.

Spice Jet and a Cup of Coffee

As usual, I was sleeping as deep as I always do. I can't say if I was snoring. Suddenly the fragrance of food awoke me up and then I saw two air-hostesses carrying the food trolley and selling food items near my seat. Then I realized where I was....I was going to Mumbai from Bangalore in Spice Jet airlines and I was sitting in window seat.

I was not hungry. So, I asked for a cup of coffee as I was feeling cold. They obliged. One sip and I knew that I was having the worst coffee till date. Still I kept sipping the coffee as at least it was a hot liquid, and it was comforting my soar throat. I took out my purse and was waiting to pay for the  coffee. "How much would it be? 50 rupees?", I was wondering in a literally bitter mood.

But cabin crew members never came back to ask for money. As I was again drifting in my sleep land, I was wondering,"Is the coffee so bad since it's free OR is it free since it's so bad?"

Where will it stop?

It was 2006 in Delhi when over a casual discussion, an influential political journalist had told my journalist friend some details about the current political scenario of Assam. He had said that much has been said and discussed about the political situation of Kashmir and the entire world seems to be concerned about it. But what is entirely unknown to the entire world is the political situation of Assam, and the situation of Assam is far worse than that of Kashmir. The political scenario is so bad that suddenly one day the Hindus of the state will wake up to a morning when they will be thrown out of their own houses by Bangladeshis. For Hindus of the state, the situation would be ‘sudden’ but the for those who would be leading the killings, for them the entire situation would be pre-planned and well organized.

My friend was so shocked by learning this that she had immediately called me to tell me about what she came to know. It shook me and my family as well. This fact finding slowly prepared us mentally to shift somewhere in the mainland India before we face something similar to what our ancestors had faced during the independence of India. But surprisingly, over last these many years, whenever I have tried to warn people about this political forecast, people have not believed me; sometimes some people even behaved to be know-all and felt ‘hugely offended’ as I had tried to convince them that what they know is not ‘all’, there is more to it.

Anyway, now we all know that the prediction has come true in Assam. Look at the people of Bodo land and see how they have been driven away from them their houses and how they are taking refuge to the nearby state West Bengal. Bodos are the early settlers of Assam; mainly Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts are their own land. Then why are they being driven out of their homes and who is driving them away? There is answer and that is brutal. All those illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who had immigrated illegally to India one day and settled in Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts are now killing and driving away the native people of bodo land out of their own land.

Then the question is why are they doing this? And why did they even come to india in the first place? All those Bangladeshi illegally immigrate to India for work, since they have no work there in Bangladesh and they would simply starve and die in their own country. So they illegally immigrate to India so that they can eat and live. They keep pulling more immigrants illegally from their country continuously to India. After couple of years or may be after a decade these illegal immigrants, who have become valid voters in India, all thanks to Tarun Gogoi government, become the most powerful pawns of the political power game between India and Bangladesh. Now, Bangladesh has an army of their own inside India, all thanks again to Tarun Gogoi government. Then why wouldn’t they drive away natives and create terror? It’s their right. This is what they are best at, creating troubles and nuisance everywhere they go and finally create a religious riot.

Why blame only Tarun Gogoi government? After the independence, all governments in Assam and West Bengal have been build and sustained on the one and only formula – “Invite and worship Bangladeshis. Thwey will vote me”. This is quite easily understandable that the governments don’t give a damn whether their people are living or dying. They are busy summing up their calculations for vote bank and brimming their own accounts. And why blame only state governments? What is our central government going? Do they really consider North East a part of India? Or, are they also waiting for this chicken’s neck to break and be relieved from all this trouble? Otherwise, how can village after village of Assam go inside the political border of Bangladesh and the supreme authorities of our country are not bothered!

Now in this situation what should we do? Kokrajhar has lived its fate. Should we wait for this to happen to Barak valley and follow the trails of 1947 again? How many times will the same group of people drive us away from one part of land to another? How long and for how many generations will we see the same history repeating itself?

I will miss you Batman

"I wanted to see, what breaks first...your spirit or your body." - That was the darkest moment of The Dark Knight Rises.

I think I was the last person to leave the theater with a heavy heart that Christopher Nolan-Christian Bale Batman series is over. I don't know if I would like Nolan's upcoming Man of Steel considering that I never really like the Superman. But I'll always miss Christian Bale as the Batman.

PS. Those who thought Agent Vinod sucks, might like to eat up their words after watching The Dark Knight Rises. I still believe that had Agent Vinod been made in English with some Hollywood A-lister in lead and with the same ditto script, the people of our country would have gulped it with 5 stars.

Insomnia and other Stories by Aamer Hussein (Penguin)

This was a book that I had picked up from Bangalore book fair last year. It was very abrupt decision on my part as I never buy a book without substantial amount of ground work. But this time I relied more on my instinct as the book is published by Penguin press.

I must say I was not wrong. When I started reading it, I fell in love with the author’s eloquence to play with words. Not only words, but Aamer Hussain seems to be an expert in narrating the minutest of human emotions with so much fervor that I could almost feel and smell the cold and bleak winter of London while sitting in Bangalore summer.

This book is a short story collection and Aamer Hussain has written stories based on his experience in various parts of the world. Since he comes from Karachi, the influence of Pakistani literature is unavoidable. Aamer keeps telling stories of fellow Pakistani authors, poets and thinkers who succumb to the political powers and that they are left with no chance to speak their minds freely. His bold approach to criticize Pakistani rulers made me consider him to be one of those free thinkers like Khaleid Husseini or Gabriel Marquez. But I was wrong. His immense and strong hatred for India and the way he explained how some villagers near Jaipur kill and eat almost-alive pigs not only surprised me but once again established him to be just another orthodox Pakistani writer who though does not live in Pakistan but cannot come out of the grasp of age-old mindset. Isn’t the characteristic of poor people same irrespective of what religion they belong to and where they live?

As for me the principle of the author is important and this short story suddenly changed my view towards the high thinking of Aamer Hussein and I discovered Insomnia and other Stories by Aamer Hussein not to be my favorite book.