Welcome (to) Ashok Mishra

Just when we thought no one except Gulzaarsaab, Javedsaab, Kirkireji and to a certain extent Neelesh Mishra could write enjoyable songs for Hindi movies, we have a welcome addition to this honoured club. Let's extend a warm welcome to Ashok Mishra. Ashok Mishra debuts as a lyricist with Welcome to Sajjanpur. Forget all this nonsense about how the songs try and put the cool back in the gaon, or how the songs try and show that it's all happening in the hinterland, or even how the album really tries hard to bring out the latent “gaon-waala / gaon-waali” in all of us. Just sit back and take a good listen to the songs and I'm sure you will come round to appreciate the talent that Ashok Mishra is. And it definitely doesn't harm one's chances if he's in the good company of Swananand Kirkire and Shantanu Moitra and moreover for a Shyam Benegal movie. If I were to start writing songs for Hindi movies, this would be my dream team to start working with.



You can listen to the songs here or better still, buy the CD. Or download the songs and make sure you at least ten people around you listen to each song! My picks are Sita Ram, Aadmi Aazad Hai and Ek Meetha Marz De Ke.

PS. Found out that there was no Wikipedia entry for Ashok Mishra. Here's the page I've created. If you more information about this talented lyricist, please go ahead and add it to the page.

The Real Hero of Rock On !!

None of the following are the real heroes of Rock On!!

Farhan Akhtar

Arjun Rampal

Shahana Goswami

Prachi Desai

Javed Akhtar(Only he can write both - Zehreeley Zehreely Kaale Neele Peele and Jo Tum Ho Toh Hawa Mein Bhi Mohabbaton Ka Rang Hai with equal ease. Yes he wrote Dard-e-Disco.)

Jason West (He's the cinematographer)

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (As Ehsaan mentioned, it was just another jam session for them. Western music comes naturally to Ehsaan and Loy and I'm sure if ever there's a Rock On!! 2, they'l do much much much better.)

Ritesh Sidhwani (He does remain a hero for me, not only for this movie but also for the way he and Farhan have carried their friendship and passion to this level)

And not Purab Kohli, Luke Kenny or even Chakravyuh!

To me, the hero of Rock On!! is Anu Malik. Why, you ask? Because it takes something to play yourself in a role in which you know you are being ridiculed. Well, almost. Some of us know it as the ability to laugh at oneself. Perhaps that's Anu Malik's idea of laughing at himself. Hats off to you Anubhai!



PS. Hats off definitely, but I don't know about the wig inside the hat/cap!

Image Credit: www.radiosargam.com

Koel - Kahaan Gayi Teri Boli?

[Promise to myself - This is the first and last time that a post is entirely about a celebrity]

Maybe this post was supposed to be about Rock On!! Or it was supposed to be about my our music story or about Vajra, our college band comprising of Mrinabh, Joji, Chinsi and Shubam which I briefly managed during our final year. No, it's about none of them. Instead, turns out that it's about Koel Purie. I'm no style or fashion expert for I still don't understand all the brouhaha over Vidya Balan's sense of dressing or even the apparent lack of it and surely will never understand it. But I can definitely see how worn down Keol appears now, compared to her Everybody Says I'm Fine days.

Dear Koel,

Congratulations on your new TV show - On the Couch with Koel. Definitely helps when you have a father like him,, doesn't it?. If you are listening, can you please clarify this for us? Were you drunk or high on drugs while interviewing Salman Khan on your show? And what's with that forlorn look in Rock On!!? For God's, discerning viewers', your followers and my sake, you looked like Purab's mother in the movie! Did Niharika Khan have some evil designs for you?! Please take care of yourself and your appearances in forthcoming TV shows and movies. We are watching you. Hope you are listening to us.

Regards,
Nikhil

PS. Rock On!! is good. And sorry guys, I downloaded the songs. But then I have the lyrics of all songs except Zehreelay by heart and have made at least ten people around me listen to at least two songs each from the movie. Hope that makes it up for downloading the songs. I'd have been really glad if you guys made the album available for free download and recovered the money on the music by touring across the country and performing with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. That perhaps wouldn't be BIG money, but you'd have done more than your bit to promote good music in India and encouraged other musicians to try and work towards a better solution to end piracy.

PPS. Technically, this post still remains about Koel, right? Post scripts aren't considered a part of the main post, are they?

Hazaaron Khwahishein Nahin, Bas Ek Khwahish

Dear Kirkireji,

I hope you, like I do, believe that this is your best song till date. I do not say best song ever because I believe, hopefully you also do, that there are many more such gems to come from you, both as a writer and a singer. It hurts me no end when I see such a beautiful composition being trivialised by being used in a television commercial*. I understand that perhaps you did not have as much say as folks at Virgin Records or at PNC, but this is still something we find hard to digest. Not music to our ears, if I may say.

I earnestly request you not to hurt your fans henceforth by letting your songs, either sung or written, be used for purposes other than for reaching musical ecstasy. Yes, there's an odd aberration like this one, but we know you're back in tune after this. Your songs, like this one, are music lovers' secrets, and only those in the know of it really understand how valuable they are. Please let them remain that way.

Please convey my regards to Jhingranji, Shantanuda and Mishraji.

Regards,
Nikhil

* The television commercial in question is the new Airtel+Nokia ad featuring Abhay Deol and Raima Sen. Glad that it's not up on YouTube yet. Glad that I'm not linking to it from my blog.

Via Darjeeling and The Darjeeling Limited

Two movies I'm looking forward to watch in some time - Via Darjeeling and The Darjeeling Limited.




Via Darjeeling comes from Arindam Nandy and has a very impressive star cast with an interesting story-line. More from Arindam Nandy on Via Darjeeling. Heartening to see NFDC (back to?)backing projects like these.


The Darjeeling Limited sounds a lot like Asiawheeling. Promises to be an interesting ride. I'm not sure which character from the movie would Scott, Woody and I be parallel to during Asiawheeling, but I'm more than sure that we could make a movie, nothing less, out of our experiences from Asiawheeling.

A couple of movies, of course, are waiting to be made out of my own trip to Darjeeling. Not to forget Gangtok, Kurseong, Siliguri, Kolkata, and Bhutan, and Nepal!

Good Will Hunting Fucking Short Version

Ok, I'm not able to decide which one is better of the two - the movie Good Will Hunting or the following Fucking Short Version. Can you please help me decide?




The movie is excellent no doubt, and I was pleasantly surprised to know that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay and went on to win the Academy and the Golden Globe Awards for the Best Original Screenplay. That's some really good talent, and I'm glad they've gone on to do much better with their movie careers following Good Will Hunting. Have been following movie soundtracks more closely these days and a very poignant Miss Misery by Elliot Smith comes on as the credits roll in the end. Sad to know that it lost to My Heart Will Go Yawn On from Titanic for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Even sadder that like many other gifted musicians, Elliot Smith ended his life at 34 under what else, mysterious circumstances. Hope you're doing well wherever you are Mr. Smith, there will be a lot of listens to songs in your whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery style in the coming days.

While we're on the movie, lucky are those of who have Chuckies, Seans and Prof. Lambeaus in believe in ourselves more that we believe ourselves. Sonofabitch, he stole our line, the producers of the movie would say. No wonder since the tag line of the movie goes - Some people can never believe in themselves, until someone believes in them. That's perhaps the best line of the movie - Sonofabitch, he stole my line. No, wait. There's something that tops it - I gotta go see about a girl!

Bliss - Dil Indeed Dance Maare Re

It has always been my dream to make a song like this. Write it, get someone to put the song to music and shoot it. But I'm glad one among Piyush Mishra, Vishal Dadlani, Anvita Dutt Guptan or Kausar Munir(from what I gather, Vishal it is) wrote a masterpiece like this and Vishal-Shekhar gave such wonderful desi music. And Uditji, your rendition of even the word sasura is amazing indeed. Thank you Yashji and Adi for letting Vijay Krishna Acharya do this.

My favourite lines -

Rose Ke Jaisan Pink Pink Hamare Gaal Gulaabi
Sky Ke Jaisan Blue Blue Yeh Tohra Nain Saraabi
Bhola Chehra Jaise Moon, Kaali Julfe Jaise Cloud
Abb Na Aur Chhupaaya Jaaye, dhadkan Ho Gayi bhery loud

Now to the masterpiece -



PS. What if someone achieved my dream? I can always do better!

Thank You

Thank Yous. Not in any specific order but all the specific reasons.

Thank You guys .

Thank You and You guys.

Thank You Sir and your Friends.

Thank You Panditji and You, Sir.

Thank You for this.

Thank You for this.

Thank You for this. Interesting that the main character is from Bijapur. But it's not close to Bangalore, is it?

Thank You for this.

Thank You.

Thank You guys.

Thank You Sahab.

Thank You and You guys.

Thank You for this. Thank You again.

Thank You for this.

And Thank You people - You, You, You, You, You and You. You know who you are!

Point Your Mouse To

No pun intended, unless you thought of that thing as a mouse. Let's not get into the pun trap, or punt rap for now!

Point your mouse to CircusMouse. Lot of action happening there. And someone likes posts on CircusMouse doesn't mean he's gay for me. Gay for me? Now, as a young thing would say - How gay is that, Sahu? Perhaps he liked this guy's one's only post on that blog. Hence gay maybe.

Random Remembrances.

• India- Australia Cricket Match at Chinnaswamy Stadium. [photos] No, we didn't heckle Symonds. But had awesome fun with Dada, Karthik and Powar fielding at the boundary right in front of us. Cricket will never die in India. And Cricket is a simple game of heart, mind, bat, ball and a couple of guards for safety. The excessively annoying TV coverage is doing no good to the gentleman's game it is it once was. Hope though, is still alive.

• The mid-night trek to Skandagiri [photos] following the match. That I was tired and exhausted would be an understatement, and that I was a bicycle because I was too tired would be a wonderstatement. Puns aside or puns-a-side, I still have no clue about the source of energy that kept me alive during the trek. Thank heavens(we were definitely closer to it) for the life-saving omlettes and tea at the summit. The trek would be incomplete without the mention of birth of Joshi, a person who existed amidst us all along, but we had no idea about him. Thanks to a certain America-bound dude, we discovered his existence and he's been living with us since then. The day Joshi's true identity is revealed would be the day when this polite, gentlemanly, mature Nikhil Kulkarni's make-believe identity will be known. Till then, live and thrive, Joshi.
  

• A Walk In The Clouds, Caffeine, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Laaga Chunari Mein Aag, Morning Raaga (Oh fuck! How could I forget Apparao and Annapoorna? Wake Up!), Tout Va Bien (Everything Is Alright - that's the movie's name in English!), Un homme et une femme (A Man And A Woman)
  
• A special mention. We were brave enough to watch this one - The Brave One. Clovie, get out of the car! Those who suffered this at my hands, or my mouth rather, after this movie, should feel honoured. Gods (Warner Brothers, that is) have heard us and we have this great news - Warner Bros says “No More Female Lead Characters”?!
  only to be followed by Warner Bros Denies Comments.
  Huh, no reward for our bravery.

• The trips home, the series of forgotten birthdays, the chull that was finally put to rest a minute back (Aw fuck! Commander will go crazy over this!) , the falling ill and getting back to life again, Octoberfest, the Bangalore Book Festival, the visit to that insti, the scary predictions(I should stop doing that now!)......
  

• Pustakaaha
• Londonstani - rudeboy rules, rudeboys rule! Samira Ahmed, Product Marketing and innit! Absolute must-read.
• Games Indians Play - interesting, especially the application of the behavioural economics tools to understand why we are the way we are. In addition to things mentioned here, I want to become a Behavioural Economist. Very fancy it sounds. Absolutely. And that's not the only reason I want to become one.
  
• A book on the best upcoming writing in Indian English edited by Kushwant Singh.
  
• Plans are to read Butter Chicken In Ludhiana during the upcoming trip to Kanpur. If the previous trip out of Bangalore was anything to go by, this one should be great fun! The same refrain again - but that was Mumbai! This one is no less either- Bangalore->Delhi->Lucknow->Kanpur->Lucknow->Delhi->Bangalore. Should be fun enough.
  

PS. Began this post with just the thought of directing readers to CircusMouse, but it ended up being an almost-complete update post. I'm glad it came. Good for the well-being of this world. Om Shanti Om. Huh, the movie's noise these days. Shanti Shanti. Huh, that's Mandira Bedi. Ab Bas. Huh, that's Diana Hayden.

Filmosophy

Apart from those well spent 2-3 hours, one of the best things about watching movies is that one discovers interesting connections between the characters in the movie philosophers.

• In A Fish Called Wanda, Otto's favourite philosopher is Nietzsche.
  

• In Little Miss Sunshine, Frank is America's Number 1 Proust scholar. [Marcel Proust] And Dwyane is shown reading Nietzsche in the movie .

• In The Namesake, Gogol is named after Nikolai Gogol. Gogol's The Overcoat is an important character in the movie.
  

Then, do good films like these and philosophy go eye in brain? Just like romantic movies and Mills and Boon books go hand in hand? Or probably something else in something else? Wouldn't want to get into the innards of this now!

Movies - Towards Achieving My Aim In Life

Not that I'm going to become another Madhur Bhandarkar, but watching as many movies as one can has never made anyone a bad film-maker, has it? So much ado for a movie update. But seriously, if I had only seventeen more days to live, I'd make start working on a short film Right Angle. I might as well start working on it right away, but why not? I need the space and the time for it, the luxury of which I do not have right now. Here's the list of movies I watched recently-

• Not a 17% contented child as mentioned here , I can probably die a 23% contented child now. Have finished watching all movies made by Vishal Bharadwaj - Makdee, Maqbool, Omkara and now, The Blue Umbrella. Each of them is brilliant, with Vishal's earnestness and honest approach standing out. Watch The Blue Umbrella in a theater, otherwise one wouldn't be doing justice to the wonderful cinematography by Sachin K Krishn. I'll be following Abhishek Chaubey very closely now on. His work till now -
  
• Screenplay, dialogue, Associate Director - Omkara
  
• Associate Director-Maqbool, Makdee
  
• Associate Director & Screenplay-The Blue Umbrella

• Chakde! India - decent good movie. Couldn't have come a better time for it to do well. Independence Day, prosperity(?) all around, things looking more hopeful than ever for our country(yes) and for the youth(?). Pop-corn patriotism is very convenient for today's generation who do not have much time. Convenient for the producers too, pop-corn patriotism sells. On a related note, this is Celebrating Freedom from CircusMouse, our new blog. We don't have a description for it yet, please visit it and helps us find one. Warning : Very chaotic there.
  

• Naagarahaavu - the first of Puttanna Kanagal's movies I've watched. Ramachari's character is perhaps a better representation of the angry young man of those days. Even better than Amitabh's roles then? Not sure, need to watch more movies of the 70's to be qualified to answer this. But I liked the character played by Loknath the best. Ade namma speciality!
  

• Ananathana Avaanthara by Kashinath. Kannada industry needs more people like him. People like him, Upendra, Jaggesh whose work maverick, unconventional approaches add a new dimension to Kannada film-making. But what has happened to Sunil Kumar Desai to make a sub-standard movie like Kshana Kshana? Forget the review, Shri Desai has set certain standards with his earlier movies. At least live up to them, Sir?
  

• Movies I caught up with now, as they released during the time of my shift to Bangalore -
• Guru - huh, they shoot it in Karnataka and pass it off as Gujarat! The movie fails to capture the magnitude of Dhirubhai's empire. Perhaps his story is such that one can't put it together in a 3 hour movie. Maybe one can, if they do away with needless songs and not give extra time to characters just because they are played by Aishwarya Rais and Vidya Balans. Ratnam Sir, is Mahabharat still on? Forget Lajjo, make Mahabharat. Please!
  
  
• Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd - Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba. Well made movie.
  
  
• Ek Chalis Ki Last Local - This movie would be more tight and crisp if unnecessary songs and sequences could have been done away with. Nonetheless, it was about Mumbai Meri Jaan and that more than makes up for all the shortcomings in the movie. Laree Choote. At the last count, it was 2643 - number of times I've played it.
  

• Movies I slept half-way through -
  
• Choker Bali - will someone please explain why it is such an acclaimed movie? Maybe I do not know the meaning of the italicized word. Finding its meaning should be a rewording exercise.
  
• Yatra - my yatra to bed only got faster while watching this. Again, will someone please explain everything about this movie. Art movies, more often than not, are definitely enjoyable. But this one wasn't.
  

PS. Why Madhur Bhadarkar? I used to study and run a video cassette shop at the same time. I developed a liking for movies. I would watch all the movies in the theatre, first day first show! More in this interview - here.

The Long Tail in radio

I'm no rocket scientist(I've never wanted to be one), or an economist(which I've sometimes wanted to be) or a social scientist(which I want to be), but one doesn't need to be any of the above to figure this out.

For Jaane Do Na from Cheeni Kum, Illayaraja uses one of his earlier compositions, Jothe Jotheyali from the Kannada film, Geetha. An earlier version of the same is Vizhiyile Undan vizhiyile from Tamil film, Nooravadu Naal. Been listening to lot of FM radio and happened to make this observation. The observation being - while Jaane Do Na was played across different radio stations, the Kannada original was played more frequently. Much like this from Chris Anderson's The Long Tail. Here's an excerpt which talks about a similar phenomenon -

In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It got good reviews but, only a modest success, it was soon forgotten. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again.

Random House rushed out a new edition to keep up with demand. Booksellers began to promote it next to their Into Thin Air displays, and sales rose further. A revised paperback edition, which came out in January, spent 14 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. That same month, IFC Films released a docudrama of the story to critical acclaim. Now Touching the Void outsells Into Thin Air more than two to one.

What happened? In short, Amazon.com recommendations. The online bookseller's software noted patterns in buying behavior and suggested that readers who liked Into Thin Air would also like Touching the Void. People took the suggestion, agreed wholeheartedly, wrote rhapsodic reviews. More sales, more algorithm-fueled recommendations, and the positive feedback loop kicked in.

Particularly notable is that when Krakauer's book hit shelves, Simpson's was nearly out of print. A few years ago, readers of Krakauer would never even have learned about Simpson's book - and if they had, they wouldn't have been able to find it. Amazon changed that. It created the Touching the Void phenomenon by combining infinite shelf space with real-time information about buying trends and public opinion. The result: rising demand for an obscure book.

While Jothe Jotheyali is by no means an obscure song, Jaane Do Na definitely helped to bring it in the popular public realm. And how did The Long Tail work here? The radio stations can store all the content they want and with smart methods of organizing such content and information, it helps them serve their audience better. All this and more without having to spend extra resources and still being able to find that one song which a caller might ask for during a request show.

Here's the Kannada song from perhaps the best example of The Long Tail -

Naansense and a month in Mumbai.

[ I'm in Mumbai now. All my tech posts like the previous one on search engines will now be on WATblog.Here are my recent posts on WATblog.]

This is the tenth time I'm sitting down to write this. It should have been up about ten days back, but then ten things wouldn't have been added. Then, it would've been tentatively titled 'Tendulkar's tender tentacles'. Now that would've given you a lot of tension. Ah, enough of it.

10. I'm definitely talking about both here - nonsense and the bread - naan. Just that having stayed in Pondicherry for close to five months, it is difficult to shake off the South Indian accent. So that's naansense for you.

Naan, in this case the bread, also makes a lot of sense. With the kaamwali bai bidding us good bye, we're mostly having to eat a lot of naan. Apparently, this not(naat?) so good bai decided to do a lot of buying during Diwali with her bhais. Then while helping herself with baingan ka bharta,she decided to bid us good-bye or was she inspired while attending an RSS baithak and then boycotted us! Ah, that was too much of wordplay!

Now to the more serious mentions,

1. We still haven't found a regular bai. That is indeed unsettling.

2. Mumbai is wonderful. One word which probably describes Mumbai the best is - intense. There are way too many things happenings, there are way too many people on the roads, way too many people in the local trains, way too many scents and odours, way too many sounds and way too many things to be mentioned here. Inspite of all this, there's such sense behind the madness. I'm reminded of this post, where I had mentioned about reading books, watching movies about Mumbai. It feels good to have read those books which once one wishes to read. Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram was the first. It's probably the best investment I've made in my life till now. And it is only apt that I gifted it to Scott while he was here in India and of course, fell in love with Mumbai. Check out the t-shirts he's made. And yes, he's donating some of the proceeds of the sales to PlanetRead. Way to go, Mr. Social Entrepreneur in the making. No wait, he's already one! And yes, here's the documentary we made for PlanetRead. A long way ahead from the days of silly college videos like Over and Out and de Young Basanti. And yes, then I read Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. Ok, the book might not have the depth of Shantaram, but is certainly wide, in terms of the time and geography he's managed to cover in the book. The book certainly justifies the time it took, seven years, and the advance Vikram Chandra got for the book.

And then Suketubhai Mehta in his Maximum City delves much deeper into the chaotic universe that is Mumbai and brings to life more of its intrigues and intricacies. Can't wait for Shantram to be brought alive on screen.

52. What? Shouldn't three follow two? Blame it on my sudden surge of interest interest in random numbers.

So here's another random list of things I've been upto in Mumbai.

23. Kaak, Chinsi, Kenny and another one 'He who shall not be named' (for the simple reason that I do not know his name) were here in Mumbai. We went around South Mumbai, I bought The Perfect Store: Inside eBay and have finished reading it as well. More on the book soon. All I remember is that we walked into Gokul Bar and the rest of it is still very hazy. How we spoke of life being a spiral and not a circle, our journey back to Andheri, how they must be the luckiest people on this earth to have caught a bus back to Surat, is all very hazy. I'm glad such hazy things happen.

24. Movies watched.

Seems like it'll take another three hundred twenty seven years for Hindi movies to be regularly screened in Pondicherry. So starved I was for Hindi movies, read Hindi movies in theatres, that I had to get my dose of Hindi movies when I came to Mumbai. Here's the list - Jaan-e-Mann, Don, Apna Sapna Money Money, Deadline - Sirf 24 ghante and Dhoom 2.

My two cents worth. No wait, I paid more for these. Anyway, here goes.

I'm no big consumer of Dabur products, but I have to say Yeh baat kuch hazam nahin hui to Gulzaar Sahab. There's no comparing Naam Ada likhna in Yahaan to huaan jo zamane ka dastoor hain, woh maane nahi dad naaraaz tha and sirf do hi mahine hai seh lo agar, mera future hai teri kasam, mera future hai jismein piya in Jaan-E-Mann. It really hurts, Gulzaarsahab. Thank God, there's Guru coming soon and it does have some good alfaaz.

Jaan-E-Mann deserves no mention here, while Don was very stylishly made. For all the flak Farhan has received, I congratulate him for taking this risk and coming out trumps. Isn't Don a hit? Guess that says it all.

Dhoom 2? It's got Hrithik written over it all the way. The liplock aside, Aishwarya looks more like, like Sneha Ullal. Bikinasha, Abhishek and Uday just manage to pass the muster, helping us pass pop-corn with ease.

37. Books read

- Maximum City

- The Bachelor of Arts

- The Perfect Store: Inside eBay

- In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India. Makes for an interesting read. Having read India Unbound earlier, this book helped me put the various aspects of India- social, political and economic, in the right perspective. Long way to go before I really understand the dynamics of this mystery that is India.

- The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better by Seth Godin. I regularly follow Seth's blog, and just like on his blog where he simplifies marketing,in the books he provides real life examples to simplify web design.

All books recommended for reading, depending on your tastes and sensibilites.

58. Books to be read

- The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal. Wonder how tasty will that be? Yes, this is in refence to this. Scroll down and you'll come to know why. Anyway, I've developed this strange liking for writers from Tehelka. Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal. The rpm from that book is still very fresh in my mind. Read this to know more!

- Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog. Thought it's time I read some sensible stuff!

57. Some more movies I watched while I was not blogging
- Kannathil Muthamittal
- Pithamagan
- Fight Club(again)
- Full Metal Jacket.

Whenever I walk in the teeming Mumbai crowd, I imagine everyone marching on the road saying - "This is my rifle, this is my gun". If you've watched the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about.


63. Really glad that I'm back to quizzing. Because I'm not a B-school student, for purposes of convenience, I'm a student of NMIMS and Das remains my partner for any online B-school quiz. What's more, it was a heartening return to quizzing as Das and I teamed up to win the second prize in the entertainment quiz by IIFT. Another matter though that Dipubhai and I could not make it to the finals of quiz conducted by Avinash Mudaliar. But then, answers like the Marlboro man, iPod shuffle and more importantly FabIndia will help us take pleasant memories from that quiz. But just one point of bother - do fun and entertainment in a quiz have to include references to balls and let the tongue and cheek go haywire of tongue-in-cheek.

108. Watched Shazia Mirza perform.She was funny, hilarous, outrageous, serious, over the top, stinging all at once. But her honesty and straighforwardness are what make her more appealing and entertaining. If all her gigs are her real life stories, then this woman surely has the nerve!

457. Watched Kashinama at The Prithvi Theatre Festival. Was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Ok, this I have to write. I was standing beside Kay Kay Menon and then I asked him who the performer was. Swanand Kirkire,came the answer. No sooner did I exclaim - Oh Hazaaron, did Swanand began Baanwra Mann, followed by Raat Hamaari toh bowing to audience's request. His Main solah saal ka would be ideal for the short film on social networking I'm planning to make. Plans are to run into him again at Prithvi and ask him for the same. I know it's a tough ask, but I'll try.

3124. Shortfilm reminds me of the documentary/shortfilm Komal and I are planning to make on the recent 'corporatization' of Bollywood covering the latest attempts at
innovative marketing and promotion. We've got the basic framework worked out. All we need to do now is just go out there and do it! Promises to be exciting. What say? Ms. Big shot journalist! [ Ah, how much I'll have to hear for this]

5372. Conversations with Prayas have been educative and enlightening in a sense. We've discussed(a lot) over coffee, some Italian dish I can't remember and dinner. Hopefully, something concrete will emerge out of those discussions. Personally, Prayas has been a great person to spend time with. I shall start contributing for Mumbai Diaries soon and get invloved in the short film competition Prayas mentions on his blog.

6453. Ok, Pandora can read my mind. Talking of music, Mumbai's Rainbow FM is really good. I like it not because it is the only station which plays English music, but because unlike the RJs at Mirchi, Red, One, BIG or City, RJs at Rainbow are restrained and not shouting over the top of their voices.

3241.DesiLassi is up and running. We're still contemplating on how do we position it. Positioning might seem a fancy term, but doing business on the internet is definitely not easy if there's no focus. The DesiLassi blog is up. Promises to be a fun ride. Finished a pilot TV show episode for BookBox. Feels good to have done most of the things by my own - shooting, post, pre and free production and editing!

367532. And finally,

If you find love on the internet, will you say it was love at first site?!
If you work on the internet for a long time, will you be keybored?

Literally speaking!

Everything appears funny when words start taking their literal meanings. It has definitely been a long time since I last blogged. Twenty three days of course is a long time. During a period of twenty three days, I could have grown my hair longer by 7.8642 cm, Pandit could have changed his phone number five times, Sajani Mrinalini Dutta could have lost and found her gawarat in the hinterlands of Gujarat hundred sixty eight times, Bharath could have joined IISc and have interestingly started to get deeper insights into the working of the stock markets and Seth Mota could have started working his way up the political ladder at IIM-K, when not preparing a marketing plan for the ready-to-eat segment.

All of the above have happened except for my hair getting longer. I know 7.8642 is way too exaggerated, but sadly I had to cut my hair short by 4.8173 cm, out of regard for my parents and all the prying aunties in the neighbourhood. But it's just not about the hair. When I think of it now, losing my hair is a very small price to pay for all that I gained in the last twenty three days. Oh, with all the Hair raising tales doing the rounds, I better be careful with the (ab)use of Hair.

Now getting back to the subject of words taking their literal meanings in my life, I'm again not lying when I say I've come a long way since I blogged seriously the last time, or so I'd like to think. I guess I now know why words have started taking their literal meanings.It is because I work to promote literacy.

So while I am yet to digest all that I've had over the last three months, food and otherwise, I'll try to recapitulate and live those wonderful moments through this blog. Everything that happened seems to me to be straight out of a movie. Not surprisingly though, most of those experiences have to deal with movies and people connected with movies.[ Well, it's a little more than that, we had been to a film shoot and interviewed a couple of them. Also came across and met a couple more. More on that in the coming posts. But it was definitely fun asking Pampam Khair to produce more movies like Maine Gandhi ko nahin maara, and sympathizing with him with a grim smile on my face, when he told me that he had to do films like Half key cutterso that he could survive first and then think of producing good movies. [ There you go. Figure out the name of the movie. Rhymes with Half key cutter]. It was also fun complementing Lillette Dubey for her grace and the way "she carries herself so sensibly in her movies", to be returned with as shocked stare, probably wondering which alien from Pluto was addressing her by her first name. But then, more horrible things have happened on this earth than Lillette ji being addressed by her first name. Like, one Mr.Patel at the counter at the State Bank of India, SVRCET Surat branch, having this horrible idea that I molested his daughter. That, I realised in one of my wonderful dreams aboard SpiceJet, which was cut short by the eye-candy air-hostess offering me a toffee, was the reason for him to delay the closure of my account and let me have the money. Of course, I did have my money and I had not molested his daughter. I just hope Jaswanth Singh sees no mole in this whole molestation affair!

Of course, Lillette did take it in her stride and thanked me. They were definitely other well-known actors and actresses, surrrounded by equally great actors and actresses with superficial smiles and greetings. Make up, not to mention was equally superificial. Apart from My.Khair and Madame Dubey, they were plenty of other stars. There was one Mr.Axay Cunha and one Mr.Sue-kneel Chatty. Also present were
Ms.Humeesha Putt-tail and the really high-nosed Ms.Bianca Cobra. More on my brushes with glamour and my powdery thoughts on those later. I think it all began with the fashion show I hosted for G-3 in Surat. While I contiune to enjoy those, I long ago realised that the glamour and beauty is plain skin-deep. As long as there are people who clamour, there will be glamour. Take this incident involving Bipasha Basu for that matter. While that was in New York, I just came across her shooting an ad for a well-known retail chain together with Zayed Khan. She must thank her stars(now, which stars would the stars themselves thank?!) for her shooting being scheduled in Pondicherry. Except for a bunch of young students who were curiously watching and waiting for their autographs, no one was really bothered. The only khan that people here probably know is khaan-a, which the hoteliers have to learn to humour the tourists. And Bipasha would probably be Prakasha's sister or daughter. So, I have all the reasons for being excited at the prospect of watching KANK later this evening. Just hope it is not dubbed in Tamizh. Now would KANK be called TANK if it were dubbed to Tamizh?

P.S. I see signs of my old senseless writing skills returing. These are good signs. Especially the ones with ball pens.

P^2.S. There are a zillion stories/experiences/anecdotes/inside jokes to be told. Do not know why this post took off on such a tangential and ended up just talking about Bollywood and my experiences relating to that.

P^3.S. I definitely need to spruce up my blog. Introduce a bunch of bloggers, change the template, before it is too late start posting more regularly with posts that indeed make sense.

P.^4.S Heartening is that I now seemed to have regained my pathetic sense of humour.
Samples:
1. What will you get if you put spices in Paayasam?
Spaayasam
or this
2. Every girl waits eagerly for a young man, always having these four words on
her lips - Ming, ming, ming and ming. Who is she waiting for?
Prince Char-ming!
P^5.S. It's ok. I'm fine. You can hit me when we meet the next time.
P^6.S. Read in the last month -
India Unbound

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life


Now reading
Eats, Shoots and Leaves"

P^7.S. Watched Corporate, Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota and Anthony Kaun Hai. The only three Hindi movies I've watched in the last three months. I should hang myself twice over for this blunder. Anyway, two of these had Minissha Lamba starring in them. So that starry-eyed feeling of watching lambda, err Lamba come alive on the big screen more than compensated for not having watched atleast 15.8 Hindi movies. Hitesh, I still absolutely adore her irrespective of what you said Yahaan!

P^8.S. Just a mental note of the places, people, events, experiences, inside jokes et al. Very random. Might not make sense, like everything on this blog.

1. Watching WC semi-finals and the finals with the actual citizens of respective countries at Coffee.com in Pondicherry.
2. Going around Dadar,Haji Ali , Worli and Mumbai Central with Harsha.
3. Dinner at Priya's place.
4. Lunch at Kaak's place.
5. "Sir, we have free seating. You can sit wherever you want!"
6. "Anyone order, Sir?"
7. The night with Das at NMIMS.
8. Dinner at Trishna.
9. Scott's departure from Mumbai. Turns out that it is him who is indeed forgetful. How else do you then explain him forgetting his bag containing the passport and the plane tickets? And the sin of forgetting GoodDay biscuits is unpardonable!
10. Scott,
Fellow, missing you big time. No my watch hasn't gottten any bigger. Daily Bread, Kaarthik, #3, St. Louis Street, Pondicherry aren't the same without you. Life is funny. We are even funnier. There's Skype anyway.
11. Stay at IIM-A. The brief meeting with Fidoe and the dinner(s) with Vandana.
12. Rajasthan was one experience which will take sometime to register its fullest impact on me. It will definitely come out on this blog. Life, in its different forms, in its brightest, darkest colours, was thrown wide open, right in my face.
13. The city visits - Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad.
14. "She's grinding millet"
15. Meeting Sidin and Fungus. Find Fungus's article on Hafta here.
16. Visiting home and celebrating Ganesh Charurthi, albeit briefly.
17. The adventure trip to Dandeli with Pandu, Sandy and Raghuram. Wonderful feeling cycling twelve kilometers through the jungle and then going for an actual Safari.
18. Later

Number 2

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Before you start reading this, I want to let you know that I’m very sade.

1. No comments on the previous post?! Don’t Mumbai and books interest you? It’s ok if you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. But if you don’t have one, why not have Mumbai as your jaan for the time being. For my sake, please!!.

2. These days, I spend a lot of time on Orkut talking politics and books. I found that I don’t have a ‘good’ testimonial written by a female or for that matter any testimonial written by a female!!! I have a huge Malhaar complex now. (No problem, medicines from that complex will cure my inferiority complex!!!)

3. Jita tells me that the movies I’ve made with my new handy cam are ‘chu|iya’. Really sade.

Forget it, sarcasm will be in my children’s blood. Don’t know how it entered my blood. Maybe, the effect of staying for 7 years in hostels. Yes, I’ve got a handy cam and have made some really chu|iya videos. But believe me; they only lack a good platform. Ready to watch them?!

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Chhee, you people are so dirty. Not that number 2. My cousin had suggested a better euphemism- five down!

” Whenever there is strong number 1, there is automatically a space for a strong number 2”- roared the CEO/MD of a leading MBA entrance training institute. His recorded ‘Life Transformation Sessions’ are quite a hit among hundreds of MBA aspirants here in Surat. He is very good and can give Sunil Pal or any of the Laughter Champions a run for their money. I’m not mocking, but it is a whole-hearted appreciation of his oratory skills and more importantly his ability to keep the crowd’s interest for close to three hours. I guess the statement he made is true in the context of Pepsi v/s Coke and few other businesses. But he made the statement as if he were the Pope and was laying down the rules of business (Again, this is an appreciation of his skills!)

This post is not about _ _ it, or business or MBA. It is about music. The rule stated by the ‘Pope’ doesn’t apply here. At least when it comes to Hindi movie/album sound tracks. A particular song overshadows other tracks and we fail to notice its beauty, melody, or tune as the case maybe. Maybe, the producers/promoters feel it is prudent to promote a particular song(s). Maybe other songs aren’t publicized because listeners are satisfied with ‘watching’ the song on the promos. Maybe, they don’t buy the album and don’t listen to all the songs. Maybe the countdown charts are just cursory and the producers of these shows don’t go beyond the normal popular fare. Maybe, the audiences aren’t discerning enough. Maybe, I’m making a grand, baseless accusation. Maybe, it’s time to move on.

1.

Forget Summer of ’69. It’s been used and overused so much that it hardly evokes any feeling of nostalgia now. Forget ‘69, even ‘96 has come and gone and it’s ’06 now. Then we have ‘Purani Jeans’. Great song. Conveys the ‘college days are best’ message perfectly. But then it also has been played so many times. Oohoon, no effect. Then come ‘Woh Lamhe’ and came with it the remix in Zeher. Changed the whole essence of the song. Emraan Kissme, aur kitne gaanon ka ghanti bajaaoge? Woh Lamhe, Aadat.What next?!

But why look that far when we have a gem closer home- ‘Gill ‘Te Guitar’ by Rabbi. The song opens with a superb guitar lick by Rabbi and tells the story of Rabbi, his two friends and his guitar. It took me sometime to understand the lyrics. Since then, it’s made a permanent place on my play list. Bulla ki Jaana was path breaking by all means. It helped Punjabi music shed its stereotype image of fully clothed men (head to toe!) dancing with half-clothed women. It gave a new feel, a new look, a new sound and added a whole new dimension to Punjabi music. It’s video no doubt doubled its popularity and indeed was one of the best videos Indi-pop or sufi-rock(whatever you call it) has seen. But I wonder how much a hit Gill ‘Te Guitar would’ve been, had it been given a little more push and a beautiful video shot on it. The college crowd would’ve lapped it up and it’d have become the new generation ‘Yeh Dosti’. The most beautiful lines from the song roughly translated- ‘he called up and said “days pass by easily, but evenings are difficult to pass”. And I find it difficult to pass time on the computer without this song.

2.
Anu Malik is a shocker. Shocker for his blatant lifting of tunes and shocker for the melodious tunes he comes up with once in a blue film, oops blue moon. No wonder he won the National Award for Refugee. But still my favourite song is
‘Panchhi nadiyan pavan ke jhokein,
Anu Malik ko copy karne se koi na roke’

So much flak this man has to face. Most of his music especially of the 90’s and in early 00’s was downright pathetic. With Rahman’s Hindi films releasing once in three blue moons, void left by Panchamda’s demise, Nadeem- Shravan getting too predictable, one had to bear not only Anu’s music but also his voice. Remember Oonchi hai building and Jaanam Samjha karo ?!

But I’m still willing to pardon Anu Malik for one really beautiful composition of his. I believe one of his better works that went relatively unnoticed was ‘Intezaar’ from Paap I asked a friend about this song and with a glint in his eyes and a naughty smile on his face, he replied- “THAT song?!”. Yes, THAT song. The same one in the promos which showed an underwater Udita Goswami’s bare back with two straps. Sadly, it became that song. And the reason is understandable I guess. It is difficult to compete with heavyweights such as ‘Mann ki Lagan’ by Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Ali Azmat’s ‘Garaj Baras’ Let’s enjoy this song till we do ‘intezaar’ for Anu Malik to come up with a beautiful, melodious composition, for we know music is timeless and also that this wait of ours can become timeless.

3.

Me:‘Parineeta’ ke gaane sune hai kya?!
Him: Haan

M: Kaun se?
H: Piyu bole aur woh ‘train wallah gaana’

M: Music director kaun hai?
H: Koi naya hai. Utna toh pata hai. Aaj ka koi music director ka aisa ‘feel’ nahin hai.

Poor Shantanu Moitra, he gives them a different ‘feel’ and yet they don’t know him too well. No worries, a few more movies and his name will be on everybody’s lips as will his music. HKA was a fantastic debut and he followed it up with Yahaan and 7 1/2 phere. The icing on the cake was of course Parineeta, for it was more ‘mainstream’ (read publicity and media coverage) than Yahaan. I still believe Yahaan as an album is his best work. His best single composition is my all time favorite- Baanwara Mann. Simplicity and melody are the hallmarks of his music. Also to be noted is how he gets the best out of his singers. Sunidhi Chauhan and ‘Kaisi Paheli Zindagaani’?!. I didn’t believe it at the first instance. Will write more on Shantanu Moitra later.

The song in question here is ‘ Raat hamari toh’ from Parineeta. The tune is simple as are the lyrics. Swananand Kirkire’s opening haunts you forever and Chitra’s light melody will fill one’s soul. This song somehow has a very calming effect. Parineeta is a complete album in the sense that all songs are equally good, and ‘Raat Hamari Toh’s role in making this album a complete is as much as Saif’s train song or Rekha’s item dance.


4.
I still remember that day. That was the day I wanted to commit suicide. My belief that my knowledge of Hindi music is up to date was under serious doubt. Also my claim that I was a Rahman fan was under serious cloud. Only after lot of persuasion by Bharath did I drop the idea of suicide.

Till that day, I had not heard Khaamosh Raat. I was walking by the corridor of another block and heard a song sounding deceptively similar to Led Zep’s ‘Rain Song’ . (Bharath vehemently denies any connection between the two songs, but isn’t ‘Telephone dhun mein hasne waali’ reminiscent of ‘ Just beat it’?!!!). Still, Rahman is Rahman and we’ll let him get away on this one.

Here again, it was overshadowed by ‘Rang de’ and moreover Tabu and her dance. This song spawned many kindergarten, pre-primary, primary, high school, arts, commerce and law Tabus at their gatherings, school days and fests. Engineering Tabus?!! NO COMMENTS.

Infact another song from this movie was hailed in the promos as a ‘Rahman genius’ -Bheegi Bheegi. The box-office remained cold to such promotions and Thakshak was called a thaka thaka movie. The promoters relied more on Rahman’s music than Govind Nihalani’s direction. Atleast, that’s the feeling one got out of watching the promos. Is Rahman > Nihalani? Isn’t it Nihalani + Rahman = Great combo= equally great movie(atleast that was the expectation, isn’t it?!).

Let me be khaamosh now. I know how good my math is!!


Some more number 2s.

5.
Awaarapan (Jism) - Bipasha and her skin killed this song.
6.
Raat ki hatheli par(Refugee)- Abhishek and Kareena’s debut made sure this song got no airtime. It took a full month for their faces to appear in the promos. Till then it was the white sand and Abhishek’s voice. Of course, Kareena’s lower back too!.

The battle heats up-Microsoft CEO: 'I'm going to f---ing kill Google'

my shift key has a problem, so no 'capitalised'(exactly..that's what one of our teachers said..all keywords in java should begin with 'capitalised')letters and my mind's not working. i donno the reason. is it because of the excess of movies that i'm watching or is it because i'm attending more classes this time!



continuing on the google-ms war, here's a piece i stumbled across on slashdot. it is a great site for people who are intersted in tech-trivia. they call it a site for nerds and i don't quite consider myself to be one. reminds me of one funny incident though. microsoft came calling to our campus for recruitment and i thought my knowledge of msn spaces, the mappoint technolgy would be of some help. and as it turned out i failed to clear the 'written' test which was quite 'technical'. that's ok as i don't quite fancy my chances with things 'technical'. but what amazed me was that even in the interviews that followed, there was not even a single 'hr' question. it was pointers, arrays, data structures, algorithms, compilers all the way. and this idiot thought his hours of meandering around the world wide web would be of some help! how naive of me! sometimes i feel i should have drowned in object oriented programming than spend time deriding bush's objective of occupying iraq. but surprisingly, when pause for a moment,i don't repent what i did! thinking that that one hour test would have made a difference of around 3.5 lacs to my annual salary!!was just wondering what makes the differnce? that duration of one hour of the test or the 'wasted years' (that's also the song playing rt now!, how ironic!!!..f*&k..the song is by iron maiden!!now my mind's working!!). to me it was that one hour that made the difference. my thoughts on placements din't go down well with many people here(like most of my thoughts!). and i hate to talk/write about placements, but couldn't miss this one as it was about ms.congrats siddharth!

google is also planning to come out with an operating system to challenge windows.
(writing 'remember i told you this first' sounds like crap to me now!!)let's see.

will post a list of movies/books that i've drowned in of late. talking of movies, am planning to start a blog on the 'other bollywood' ,the sensible indian cinema, indian movies in english, not the american desi, chai types...my gyaan of such movies is decent enough...and want to 'specialise' in that.just like my photoblog on hoardings, posters and notices!

if anybody can get their hands on cds of the following please write them for me. all freight charges will be borne by me.

war and peace- anand ptwardhan
matrubhoomi- manish jha
is raat ki subah nahin- sudhir mishra
black friday-anurag kashyap