Almost Always Wright

It is interesting that India is still viewed as a land of great religion and mystic charm, while she has produced a generation of Godless beings such as myself, and yet, we aren't running amok tearing our hair out, because we have something equally mystifying - cricket. The game may have started on the cold English green lawns, meant to be enjoyed amidst polite cups of tea, but it has certainly evolved into a passion of the pajama, as can be read on the sleeves of a billion people. An important figure in this evolution, at least, from an Indian perspective, along with Sourav Ganguly, is the quiet, resilient Kiwi opening batsmen of yesteryear - John Wright. Over the years, we have always heard media speculation about him, with almost no returns form the man. Professional to the core, he chose to do it in his book, after retiring. Written with the help of Sharda Ugra and Paul Thomas, his autobiography "John Wright's Indian Summers" is mostly excerpts from John's diary and is a very straightforward and realistic account what actually happened in the golden years of Indian cricket and the profile of a much loved lonely man.

The book begins with the end of John's cricketing career and talks about his body telling him to stop, but his mind not agreeing, leading him to his coaching career. He started off with the English county team Kent and produced results. After failing to land the job as the Kiwi coach, John landed arguably the second hottest seat in world cricket. The Kent job couldn't have been more different from the India one.

From the outset, the decision to hire a foreign coach was met with a lot of resistance, especially from ex-players, who thought they could do a better job. However, John did make friends as well, in Raj Singh Dungarpur, and was also, in Jagmohan Dalmiya's good books. He doesn't talk about Ganguly all that much, treating the relationship as more professional than personal. Kaif seems to be a favorite of his, along with Javagal Srinath, VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble. According to the book, he was very drawn to players who weren't from the big cities.

I think the most important reason that his tenure as coach worked was that he recognized the fact that cricket was a religion in India, and identified answering the hungry public with results, as one of his action items. There are passages in the book that talk about people lining up for hours in small towns to wave at the tinted windows of the passing bus with their heroes in it, and rendezvous' with the cab driver, or an enthusiastic teenager, who had grave justification for shuffling the batting order.

He also recognized that each player needed different one on one coaching, such as Tendulkar needed more direction, while some of the younger players needed more technical tips. He was the first coach to push for and succeed in getting the Indian team a trainer and a physio. One of his regrets is not being able to manage a bowling coach. I am sure he is glad that since his departure, that has been taken care of.

The Pakistan tour receives more attention than others in the book, not just because of the Indian team's astounding success there, but mainly because of the off-field activities, like the warm hospitality or the affinity in culture that John observed. What makes this book appealing to even non-cricket enthusiasts, I would imagine, is the lack of cricket data and an emphasis on the emotions and the little humorous anecdotes of the players while on tour. The great Aussie series at home is mentioned, but again, Harbhajan's state of mind is discussed more than how many wickets he took. Ganguly waving his shirt at the English is discussed but not how much he scored. John doesn't talk about the statistics from the disastrous Kiwi tour, but instead chooses to talk about his chagrin at having to play on crazy pitches and defend his team in front of his friends. The ambition of the man comes to the fore as he calls the World Cup campaign mostly a failure by citing the crushing defeat to the Aussies in the final.

The media often showed John to be a meek man. This is far from the truth and nothing but a revelation of the myopia of the media in failing to recognize professionalism. John says he tried to maintain his grim face during games, and after a while stopped caring about the media reports calling him cold. He accepts mistakes like loosing his temper with players initially, with the maturity reflected by gray locks.

The depressing parts of the book deal with internal politics in Indian cricket, mostly in selection committee meetings, about how, real talent is getting overlooked at the grass root level. He was also very lonely during the weekends in India, when all the players went home, but he couldn't. He spent a couple of Christmases alone - a quiet meal, a lonely beer, the same hotel room, and also lost his father during his tenure as coach. The loneliness ultimately got to him and he quit after transforming the team in six years.

Marlboro Incense Ad

A film-noir style advertisement for an imaginary product.

The Flying Feather

I want Forrest Gump's feather to flow and glide and go where my GPS tells it to go. Forget gravity for a while, and stop telling me that it can't move like that when there is no f@#kin' wind, that it's a feather, that due to its weight and the atmospheric conditions of the place at that time of the year, it is bound to fall limp to the ground. And stop introducing mechanical fans that would cause the feather to fly like I want it to. If feathers really did that, why would I put them on celluloid?

I am not painting the feather with a million colors and making it chase other garish ones around trees, nor is it dodging bullets. You want the feather to tickle you, or to soak up your tears, or live its predictable life of failing twice to make the Queen's bathrobe, but finally succeeding. The feather has to be cut to the size of your liking, and has to make decisions about whether to join a boa or be a bookmark. If the feather goes crazy and decides to turn itself into a tortoise shell, you decide it is way too out there to alter, but you cannot stand a free floating non-existential feather.

It doesn't matter that the feather is politely suggesting that you leave your shell and let yourself float like itself, that you are a feather, that we all are, and more like you are making us believe that we are just tortoise shells, not feathers, by introducing unromantic things like gravity and fans. The feather's not forcing you, because celluloid is made from freedom, is it not? Or am I completely naive to dream about free-spirited feathers blowing in the wind of magic realism?

"Married Life" from "The World of Apu"

This Indian Bengali film was directed by Satyajit Ray in 1959. It is the final part of a trilogy. Ray was ahead of his time. While most of his peers were still making escapist cinema, he, influenced by Jean Renoir and others of the New French Wave cinema, concentrated on realistic films. I picked this scene because in my opinion, it is the best scene in Indian cinema that depicts love in its true subtle form in Indian society of the time.

The scene starts off with a shot of a curtain blowing in the window, and dollies back to reveal our characters in bed. This separates them in their own little world, from the outside world and the gentle breeze suggests happy times. The sound of an alarm clock shatters the peace, which is a recurring cathartic theme in the trilogy.

Aparna gets up from the bed to turn the alarm off, but her saree is tied to Apu's quilt. She unties the knot and slaps him on his back in mock anger. Apu wakes up slowly and pulls out one of Aparna's hairpins from underneath her pillow and gives it a longing look, as if he is already missing her. All these elements – the tied saree, showing their connection, the little gesture (slap) and longing look show the subtle love on screen, at a time when censorship was very big in Indian cinema. The camera lingers on Apu a tad longer than usual, transporting us, the audience to our mental state when we wake up in the morning.

Aparna is framed up in a wide shot through the doorway, making her appear very small in the frame, alluding to her having to cope with worldly matters such as married life at such a young age. A train can be heard approaching. Trains are also a recurring theme in the trilogy and Apu has a very bittersweet relationship with trains, since he lost his elder sister at a young age, with whom he would run after trains. The note in the cigarette pack is also another plant to show subtle love.

While Aparna deals with the cockroach, Apu is playing a flute in the background. This outlines the differences in their characters. Apu is the dreamer, while Aparna, probably forced by circumstances, is more worldly. The train's whistle is unpleasantly loud for Aparna, and she moves away from the terrace. A melancholic Sitar tune strikes up as Apu feels guilty for subjecting Aparna to hardships. There are black crows flying – another sign of negativity.

Apu is engulfed in smoke as he steps on to the terrace – from the trains and from the clay oven, reflecting his clouded and anxious state of mind. The blocking here is key. Soumitra Chatterjee, the actor playing Apu is staged so that it appears the trains' smoke is coming out of his head. There are a series of lamp-posts in the background, signifying the road Apu and Aparna have to travel together in life.

When he comes back into the room, she is framed extreme right while he is more centered, but still to the left. He is unclear about exactly how she is feeling. There is a little doll in the background, which signifies that mentally Aparna is still a little girl. There is an inverted triangle shape behind Aparna, which traditionally signifies the divine feminine. When Apu leaves the room, we see a topor, a Bengali traditional wedding hat on the wall, which provides a stark contrast to the doll.

When Apu comes back to the room, he asks Aparna to step aside, exactly the same way she asked asked him a few minutes earlier, again showing their bond. Aparna walks up to Apu and places her chin on his shoulder reassuringly. Not only is this one of the most aesthetically pleasing shots of Bengali cinema, it suggests her support for her husband, and is a silent promise to be at his side when the going gets tough. Here we notice that the vermillion on Aparna's forehead is slightly smeared, thus showing a coming of age maturity, previously unseen in her by the audience. Sharmila Tagore, the actress playing Aparna, looks like the Goddess Durga here with the vermillion and her luxuriant dark hair open, who traditionally protects her followers. It may not be a happy accident that she has a slightly protruding chin, making her face almost an inverted triangle. As opposed to taking up another tutoring job, she asks him to quit his current tutoring job so that she wouldn't have anything to repine about, thus answering his question, and also creating another pointer to subtle love.

In the international film circuit, the film was nominated for a BAFTA in '62 and won the Sutherland Trophy in '59 and the NBR Award in '60. Satyajit Ray received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscar's in '92 on his death-bead after Kurosawa pushed for him and Scorcese threatened to boycott the Oscars if Ray was denied the award.

Note: I couldn't find the entire scene on Youtube, but this is the very end of the scene and a little bit after.

The Rules

Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. I own the DVD and have watched it on multiple occasions, notably when I have been down and wanted to reach out to anger and violence to justify my rehabilitation. Before you lean back in your chairs to ready yourself for a movie review, let me go ahead and disappoint by saying this post isn't about the movie, or the brilliantly written book. It's about cinematography, and no, not cinematography of the movie.

Last week we learned to use the 35mm camera and our guest teacher had this attitude of a rocket scientist, thus holding my attention. He had this enviable arrogance about his job as a DP, about the sacredness for the camera. It was almost as if he removed his shoes mentally before he touched the camera, and took his time - something that only a perfectionist can appreciate. And then, as he was telling us how to load the 35mm film on to the camera in the dark changing bag (so as not to expose the film), he said "Loaders are clean people. They cut their nails regularly ...", but by then I was somewhere else, mentally.

It was like Fight Club man. "Cinematography was a reason to cut your nails, have showers, manage your facial hair." Discussions during the break with fellow classmates, who were also Fight Club nerds, revealed that haircuts could also be thrown in, but the hippie in me revolted. Maybe, hair-nets, like the people who work in the grocery store. And lots of alcohol - to keep the fingernails clean, of course.

However, unlike Fight Club, the first two rules are to recruit more people. If you get stuck, you can't stop. You can't leave unless you finish it. Only one person in the bag. One role of film at a time. No watches that glow in the dark. Loading will take place as long as it has to. If you are a student and you haven't loaded, you gotta do it once.

A Silver Sliver of Emulsion

Since time immemorial, I have always been a fan of History. The only instances of our armed conflict were the eve of my History exams, back in school, but academic interest aside, we have always been more than friends. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that I fell in love with "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" since it combines her and the pretty object of my current passion - Film. This biography of Hollywood of the late 60's - early 80's by Peter Biskind talks about the birth of what we can look back today and call "independent cinema".

The book starts off chronologically with "Bonnie and Clyde" and how along with other films like "The Graduate", it ushered in a decade and a half of measured studio independence, thus producing some classics, that literally, as the full title of the book suggests, "saved Hollywood" . It transitions into an introduction of the cinematic enigma - Warren Beatty and sets the tone of the book - an ensemble cast of the up and coming directors at the time, much like a film. Peter Fonda's life before "Easy Rider" is also chronicled. Biskind talks about Pauline Kael, a hippie movie reviewer, who had a huge hand in the revolution, encouraging these new age films.

Biskind establishes the bravado of my all time favorite American director - Francis Ford Coppola early. He was a born leader and a role model for other directors like George Lucas and Spielberg. He had already directed a feature by the time he was in his late 20's (as he had vowed to do before he hit 30) and was no less than a demi-God for the fresh crop of film school graduates. Coppola wanted to move away from the studios to San Francisco and empower his later to be made Zoetrope Studio as the alternate umbrella for the artists (filmmakers) everywhere. His laissez-faire attitude is evident in films that he later produced for his friends, like Lucas' "American Graffiti".

Before Biskind talks about Easy Rider, he introduces BBS - a brainchild of Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner, a bunch of rich hippies, which was born within Warner Brothers and allowed to operate autocratically, as long as the movies it was producing cost less than a million. Dennis Hopper is also talked about, as a sort of long flash in the pan. The colorful anecdotes in the book involving Hopper paint a very eccentric genius, who was ahead of his time, and horrible to work with.

Robert Altman is profiled, as a man who did TV for ten years and then translated that into film, successfully initially. Peter Bogdanovich's film nerdy character, that someone like me would identify with, is exposed through his wide eyes as he arrives in Hollywood and meets his boyhood heroes like Howard Hawkes and Orson Welles. It is interesting to note how accessible Hollywood was back then. I cannot even imagine getting probably close to Coppola's outer entourage today.

Coppola's struggles with the studios is mentioned as he made "The Godfather", while Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and Robert Towne worked on "Chinatown" at around the same time. Not many people know this, but Nicholson initially came to Hollywood to make it as a writer, but not seeing much success, he switched over to acting. The "character" with whom I identify the most in this book is Hal Ashby - a benign, passive aggressive, workaholic hippie editor, who started directing and won some actors and actresses their Oscars with his direction, and more significantly, crisp editing. His personal life, like that of most of his peers, was in shambles and unfortunately, he died by the late 80's.

Billy Friedkin and Gene Hackman are introduced - the former, sadly staying a two-hit wonder and the latter, one of the most underrated actors of all time, who got into it late. Friedkin was from Chicago and shared Bogdanovich's Hollywood awe, but as his films show, his dark side refused to acknowledge it. Collaboration was very prevalent with filmmakers roping in their peers who were friends, on a project and awarding them small percentages of the amount the film eventually made. "The Director's Company" was founded on the same principle by Coppola, Bogdanovich and Friedkin, but failed to stand the test of its founders' individual successes.

The book then glides into its next segment. It is the mid-70's. The hippie movement is dying out. The Vietnam War is long over. Some people are tired of intellectual cinema and want to see something entertaining again. This segment is dominated by the talented circle of friends - Spielberg, Scorcese, De Palma, Lucas and Coppola. Coppola was the daredevil leader, De Palma the intellectual, Lucas the nerd. Scorcese was the dark paranoid and Spielberg was the entertainer. Each one was different. Each one was successful, and yet, each other had personal demons. Coppola wanted to be an auteur like some of the European directors, and wondered if he would have had success had he not agreed to do Mario Puzo's celebrated novel. De Palma made the thinking man's movies, but most of them weren't commercial successes. Spielberg was the blue eyed boy of the studios and the exact opposite of De Palma. Lucas was similar to Spielberg, but hated working with actors. Also, his life was modeled on Coppola, the father figure he badly needed. Scorcese missed home in NYC initially and as a result, was too caught up in drugs to enjoy most of his early success.

Scorcese met a writer - Paul Schrader, an even more dark individual with a violent upbringing, and the results were the DeNiro starrers "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull". Almost an entire chapter is dedicated to my all-time favorite movie "Apocalypse Now" and the trials of the shoot and how Coppola, Brando and Martin Sheen came back as different men from the Philippines. This really kicked off the end of the era, coupled with the box office bombing of "Raging Bull" and increasing drugs in Hollywood.

The last chapter is aptly titled "We Blew It" - uttered by Captain America (Peter Fonda) to Billy (Dennis Hopper) towards the end of "Easy Rider". The sequel to Chinatown (without Polanski from the outset) was shelved after crew and cast showed up on set on the first day of shooting. Spielberg and Lucas initially wanted to make blockbusters so that they could nurture and produce the independent work of their more intellectual peers, but the inertia of success is a terrible thing. The book ends on a whimpering note - the death of Hal Ashby. At the end of the day, it was too much sex, too much drugs and too much arrogance, coupled with some commercial failures and ensuing insecurities.

An interesting parallel that I took from the book is how similar the late 60's in Hollywood are to today's Indian cinema. I think it will take ten more years for the talent to be fully realized, for more sensible producers to sit up and take note. I believe we are at the cusp of Indian cinematic history. The ball has been set in motion by some directors. I just hope, like Hollywood, we don't blow it.

Arrrr...

A friend of mine randomly messaged me on the chat feature of Facebook the other day urging me to watch "Steal this Film" and then blog about it, before returning to her usual set-building. At the time, I was clueless as to her apparently random passion on the subject. However, now, having seen both parts of the documentary, it makes as much sense as the diet of an athlete. She probably chose me since I am a filmmaker, and was interested in my take on the whole piracy issue.

So, here's the deal folks. I don't really care about piracy. If someone copies my film and puts it on the internet, it is nothing but a stroke of my artistic ego. The "someone" obviously thought the project to be good enough to share with millions of others. It only helps to strengthen my reputation as an artist. The Hollywood studios seem to be thinking only in terms of business and overlook the artistic side completely (as expected). All those ads you see of people fed by the industry asking you not to copy stuff is absolute hogwash. All those people are salaried, including the biggest of directors, and the only people who really "loose" money are the already bourgeois studio executives.

Also, the studios have this totally pessimistic view of things. If the product is really really good, the audience will flock to the theaters to watch it a second time, because no matter what anyone says, comparing watching a film in a theater to squinting into differentiating pixels on your forced perspective computer monitor, is like comparing eating a Brazilian steak to consuming a packet of Knorr or Campbell soup at home. And I am not just saying that because I am a film fanatic, and would watch any decent movie in a theatre, and that my laziness doesn't allow me to look for fullproof torrents online and that I am more likely to be found haunting electronics stores going out of business (read SirKit Seetee) for discounted DVD's.

The filmmaker in me cannot but help analyze the documentary film. Firstly, it is too long. I kept loosing interest and hallucinating about future Oscar speeches, especially when they went down this long winded history lesson on the printing of the Bible. Also, they kept harping on the same points (which, don't get me wrong, are good) for far too long, thus underestimating the intellect of the target audience, trying too hard to impress. Having thrown all the dirty linen at you first, let me say that the ending of the second part was as clear as a sunny sky after a night full of rain. It talks about the limiting nature of anti-piracy laws on one's creativity and the shadows it casts on one's innate goodness. I was also impressed by the haphazard structure of the documentary, as if to say, there isn't really a structure to creativity.

Jobless on a Sunny Saturday Morning

It's a luxury I haven't enjoyed in a while now, but the optimist in me (like most protagonists in Ray's movies) knew that bad times don't last forever. Kishor's Kahan Tak Yeh Man Ko flashes though the head and Youtube makes a reality out of what a friend had once said was the reason for the banality of life - the lack of live playback music, like in escapist Indian cinema. The luxury, by the way, is wondering what to do on a sunny Saturday morning.

Talking of Indian cinema, just saw Slumdog Millionaire, yeah yeah, I know it was actually a British film set in Bombay, but you get my drift. I liked it, but didn't think it is the #44 top movie of all time as IMDB and most people are making it out to be. I was pissed off with all the dirt shown initially, bringing back memories of arguments with "fundamentalist" friends about the ongoing propaganda of the West to show only the dark side of India, but I thought it was paid off well in this film towards the end. The ode to The Man was amazing and my American friends raised eyebrows as I told them that an non-fanatic like me would also entertain such thoughts at that age if He was around. "Yeah Police Station Hai, Tumhare Baap Ka Ghar Nahin". Wah! Wah! Also, what emotionally stirred me was the way the whole country stopped and got behind the protagonist as he was on the threshold of everything he hadn't dreamed of.

I'll stop before this turns into a rambunkcious movie review. It's probably cliched and like most Indians, I am genetically programmed to appreciate Ravi Shankar after a certain age and subsequently use the sitar in my films, and get panned by critics, but I can't get over his "Essential Ravi Shankar" that I just bought in Calcutta's College Street. I like the fast, happier numbers. The sarangi is more adept in doling out sad melancholism IMO.

Sometimes I just want to run away to the French countryside and make Indian New Wave cinema. Just saw some Jacques Tapi (sp?) films in Calcutta, and they all reinforce what Trauffaut and even a modern film like Amelie suggest about French cinema - beauty in simplicity, much like our own Hrishida, but with better lighting and better camera work! A regret in life - to be Hrishida's DP.

The Farewell Gift

This is what has been keeping me busy for the past month or so.

A Knife Trick

Heart to Heart

This is based on the following scene from Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket. Of course, completely, different scenario.

EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS. DAY

Anthony and Mr. Henry are jogging along railroad tracks in
the warehouse district. Anthony wears a blue T-shirt and
shorts. Mr. Henry looks like a boxer in grey sweats with the
hood up and a crisp white towel wrapped around his neck and
tucked into his sweat top. He's wearing black Chuck Taylors.
They've both got smooth running styles, though every twenty
yards or so Mr. Henry rolls his shoulders and gives a quick
flurry of punches. An older woman rides a bicycle across the
tracks. She's not pretty, but she's got a strong face.
Pioneer stock.

                       MR. HENRY
          Look at that woman. She's what?
          Fifty? Fifty-five? But she hasn't
          let herself go. I appreciate an
          older woman who has a commitment to
          her body.

                       ANTHONY
          So do I.

They watch her ride down the street.

                       MR. HENRY
          Tell me something. What the hell
          kind of name is Dignan?

                       ANTHONY
          I'm not really sure. I think it's
          Irish. Or maybe --

                       MR. HENRY
          I guess what I'm trying to say is
          what the hell kind of person is
          this Dignan?

                       ANTHONY
          What do you mean what kind of
          person? He's a good person.

                       MR. HENRY
          Sure, sure. He's a great person,
          and I'd call bullshit on anybody
          who said differently. But I wonder
          if the kid has the goods
                 (taps his temple)
          up here.
.                         ANTHONY
                 (long pause)
          I don't think you're giving him
          enough credit. I know sometimes he
          doesn't think an idea through. He
          gets too excited. But --

                       MR. HENRY
          As far as I can tell he hasn't
          thought his life through. He'd be
          fine cutting my grass or parking my
          car. But business?
                 (looks at Anthony)
          You I can work with. You I could
          groom. Dignan's not going to make it.

Anthony stops running. Mr. Henry stops ahead of him and
looks back, jogging in place.

Rise and Shine

Floydian Joker

The Lunatic is in my head. The Lunatic is in my head. That's probably why I want to do a little short about the Joker with Brain Damage playing in the background. It all started a week or so ago when I chanced upon Brain Damage on the radio. It was love at first, well, sound. Didn't know the song was called Brain Damage. Had to send a Morse Code across the Atlantic to Red and he helped with the name armed with only some amorphous information as words like "the lunatic" and "grass". Have been listening to it since then, trying to make sense of it.

Fast forward to the day after Halloween. The New York Film Academy grapevine had it that one of the acting students who I have worked with twice in the past already dressed up as the Joker and did a damn good job of it. Our next assignment is the Mood Film, where the story isn't really important and one needs to set the mood using the camera (visual stuff and all). To use an analogy I heard again recently, 2 times 2 times 2 made 16 in my head.

I don't have a script yet, but I have the actor booked with makeup and wardrobe for next week. The music is locked. All I need to do is figure out what the Joker will be doing. Torturing a little insect like an ant with fire is what I initially had in mind, but looking for an ant seems too trivial and flippant at the moment. Plus, it itches like a bitch when they get helpless and bite your giant fingers.

Fall

"Expecting to Fly" - A Mujik Bhideo (Updated)

The First Day of October

I am tired. Got home at 11:30 to a cold, frozen dinner, hearing the refrigerator's song after 14 hours. You see this is Hollywood and everyone has talent here. Our refrigerator is no different. So, she tries her hand, or should I say, voice, at singing once in a while at frequencies only attainable by her kind, especially, when the rest of the house sleeps. Shyness and these amateurs, I tell you! I am sure if we had a dog like the rest of the neighbors, it would dance to her song. Whatamadhouse, as if the tenants themselves are pinnacles of sanity!

But but but, I am not unhappy. I am tired yes, but hunger didn't distract me as I realized everyone else had left the editing lab as I was trying to sync up my actors' griefs to Buffalo Springfield's "Expecting to Fly". The music video should be ready tomorrow. I am finally making this mockumentary that I had wanted to make for a long time, albeit with a few tweaks, mainly from the perspective of the Balaji character. They are all American of course - Stan Garibaldi. B&W, no dialog; only voice over are posing minor challenges, but will soon be ironed out. Almost went to Vegas tonight. This other crew from my class is planning to shoot the next one there. So they went location hunting and I was to tag along with the blissfully calm aloofness of a hitchhiking vagabond. My impulsiveness almost paid off but my well-known inherent laziness could not pass up on the huge bait to sleep in late tomorrow.

I taught my American crew member this dialog (obviously in its original angry young version) today, and even he agreed the original sounded way cooler than the translation. I think I miss those you know. Having that someone who is still bound by that invisible umbilical cord. The desi theater is only 30 minutes away, but without a Shotgun occupant, it seems farther away and I haven't gone for a while now. I was craving Indian food the other day. It's been almost a month and even here, in the US which boasts of "Authentic Indian Cuisine" at every intersection, that is strange. So, my new gluttonous friends and I are checking out the lunch buffet at the Bollywood Cafe 2 on the only Sunday off since the first weekend.

Saw Kairee by mistake yesterday and somewhat quelled my fears of Amol Palekar's directorial skills after Paheli. SuGu had recommended Shwas to me and the name somehow got mixed up in the cobwebs of my mind along with juvenile characters in both movies. I really recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the so-called parallel cinema movement. Also, saw the well made Dylan biography - I'm Not There where 6 different actors play Dylan, portraying the different phases of his life. Cate Blanchett as the Dylan who visited the UK with the Beatles was awesome. I think I got 70-80% of the movie, which in itself is a decent achievement, considering the complexity of Dylan's enigma that loomed large on the extremities of the American psyche, like a hang over two days later, for around four decades, inspiring the last post on consumerism. Reading Walter Murch's "In the Blink of an Eye" - recommended by my editing teacher, who looks like John Cussack and talks like Conan O'Brien. Murch is probably history's best editor (Dulal Dutta was unassumingly up there). He edited such Copolla masterpieces as the second and third Godfathers and my all time favorite film Apocalypse Now. He started out as a Sound Designer (as well as Editor) of the critically acclaimed Gene Hackma-Copolla project 'The Conversation'. Interesting stuff. Trying to incorporate it as much as I can in my work in order to enhance the overall quality, but I guess you'll have to be the judge of that.

Till next time ...

We Shall Overcome

Have the robots won? Have the worst fears of crazed, paranoid Sci-Fi writers come true? Are we shielded from the good ole' organic truth? Or has the unreal simply been enlarged and "enhanced" so that it is a giant in comparison. No? Then why is the natural stuff hidden somewhere in a little corner among the neon signs. Hah! It's almost ironically poetic - like some archaic pot of gold in an ancient fable that you have to go through at least a couple of hundred pages before you discover lying, waiting for you to sample and brand as the elixir of life, thus doing nothing, but playing into the mechanical hands of those very robots, that has turned your existence into a quest.

Or are there short, pudgy, red, sweaty fingers that are pulling lesser fingers to pull cables on those mechanical arms - kind of like the Godfather poster, but not as subtle and not as well back lit? You can't cut them off since that would only force them to multiple. Asexual reproduction I am sure. Machines, or even fingers that control them are not capable of love you offer yourself as consolation. But maybe, they have bought out the subtly as well. Artists need to drink too.

Don't give me any of that world hunger crap! If you think these fingers care about that sort of thing deep down inside, depression will drown me. You are a brother - albeit a sleeping one, blissfully unaware of mechanical arms, wallowing in your Utopian dream sets. Heck these arms have a hand in our dreams too nowadays. Even Bobby D would agree that is meddling of the worst kind. And like most sleeping young things, you are beautiful and we are ugly, but beauty is the last thing on our priority list at the moment.

We will not bow down without a fight. We will fight from our dark corners, wide awake that we are, and be the change we want to see in the world. We will wake you up with our darkness so that you may help us prepare a tomorrow as pure as the new, young sleeping things that will arrive unannounced. Maybe I will not live to see it happen, but as Pete Seeger said, "We shall overcome some day".

Guilty Prey

A Helping Hand

The theme was exchange and it had to be silent and B&W. Shot this in an hour and a half.

Hitting the Nail on the Head

Why do nails grow as fast as they do? I mean how much can one's teeth take, right? And those of you prim and (sic) propah ones don't give me that crap about it being bad manners and all. I think it is a sign of a thinking being. If I had my way, I would recast The Thinker to portray him biting his nails. It's almost as if Rodin (according to Wiki) wanted to do it that way (notice how his fingers curl towards his mouth), but then the purists threatened to start burning his effigies and declare his wife a witch or something and for the sake of martial bliss, The Thinker is what it is today.

If only the same applied to hair! Yeah, yeah, I know, those of you who have hair growing out of the middle of your foreheads and shampoo everyday and shake your mane in slow motion like some newbie, eager-to-impress shampoo model, every time you go into an inhabited room, tell me how expensive barber shops have become these days, but I would rather be poor and good-lucking than well, whatever the opposite of that is.

Don't base your image of me from the now infamous cult Mimicry video. That seems (sic) light years away at this point in time. I had an extreme haircut soon after and have had plenty of shaves since then. As a result of the uniformity of the extreme haircut in all directions, hair is now growing out of the sides like spaghetti out of the dish of some overestimating Italian housewife when she calls guests over. A hat (cap for all you British English freaks) makes me think I possess the curls of a Greek God (not the European ones, but American fraternity brothers), and then I need to start biting my nails again, to appear more intellectual (scratch the more).

A simple question for all my nail "biting" (notwithstanding the content of this blog on most occasions) readers out there? Is it just me, or do all/some of you love to nibble on the area where the skin transforms into nail. I assume it's a lot like visiting Kanyakumari (which by the way is a super sexy name; I always envision a lady with a dark Mermaid-type body, with luscious lips and a South Indian accent when I hear the name) - the southern most point of India - you just wished you could go further (no vulgar pun intended, only the clean type in this case).

At most times, I am blamed and subsequently reprimanded (yeah yeah even now, just the people have changed from one generation of family elders to the next and now to Ms. R) for something as blase (I don't' know how to get the accented 'e' on Macs and I am too lazy to look around) and general as "biting your fingers" when in fact, I am striving for a bit more in Kanyakumari (again, only the clean type of pun intended) or just stoking my "exploristic" ego by caressing my naturally manicured nails with the edge of my teeth. Think about it. It is like taking your greater sensitive index finger and actually going over the borders of the Deccan Plateau on a 3-D terrain map of India. Actually, when people say they need some alone time, or for the pinker ones "me time", I suspect they just want to, yes, touch themselves, but only on the ridge of their teeth.

I will leave you with a question that I am sure will shape your nails and file them too. If Columbus or Magellan had ever been stopped in their tracks such, do you think GPS companies would be naming their products after these guys today?