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Anurag Basu, Ranbir Kapoor and Kishore Kumar

Anurag_Basu_Ranbir_Kapoor

Somehow I believe Anurag Basu is born for greater things than Barfi, not that Barfi was any lesser. I have seen Life…in a Metro, Gangster and Murder, each, more than once. I saw Barfi in the plane while returning from USA and noticed how Anurag has got the best out of Ranbir Kapoor.
I am looking forward to his movie on the life of Kishore Kumar which will have Ranbir playing the role of the mad-genius Bengali. I think he is the only actor who can play KK with his quick changes of expression, a great sense of humor and a little crazy-fast way of talking.
It is easy for me to visualize Ranbir talking to the plants, like KK used to do or to play a tabla on the bald head of a producer asking for dates without settling the old dues or better still, waiting in his car outside the famous bungalow of Amitabh Bachchan for exactly three minutes, getting sore, return and vow never to lend his voice to the megastar.
Or to see Ranbir bashing up the girl who would play Madhubala, as KK used to do or to woo Yogita Bali, marry her and then divorce because the girl was extravagant or how he married Leena Chandavarkar the widow of Sidharth Bandodkar and many other incidents.
A tidbit: Anurag was to direct my biography of Meena Kumari – Simply Scandalous. It didn’t happen because the producers who were in the process of signing him found that he had hiked his rate after his ‘Murder’ became a hit!
It would have been nice to see a Manisha Koirala humming the lines Meena Kumari wrote:
Ek markaz kii talaash ek bhatakti Khushboo/ Kabhii manz kabhii tamhiid-e-safar hotii hai.
Or to have a Kangana Runout talking to her collection of rocks and referring to each rock with a name!

The Selective World of ‘The World Before Her’

Nargis Dutt once accused Satyajit Ray of selling Indian poverty to the West. And every Bengali, his nephew and neighbor got up in protest. How could a film actress question the motives of the great Ray?
Thousands of Indians have, since, done what Nargis suspected Ray of doing – damning the image of India.
Canada based Nishi Pahuja is one of them and The World Before Her is one such documentary.
I am glad that showing what is not a regular film has become possible and three cheers to Anurag Kashyap for picking it up, supporting it and presenting it. He even risked annoying The Times of India which runs the beauty pageant in India. This shows a healthy trend in Indian film market.
But the film is something else again.
You have camera getting into the Durga Vahini and probing the mindset of the right wing fanatics. You find yourself embarrassed to belong to the same religious group. But not surprised. Hindus in India, like the Muslims, the Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and others are a blend of different segments and thoughts.
Talking to two and half Hindus belonging to Durga Vahini, trapping the Hindu father into saying embarrassing things (“She is my daughter. I have absolute right over her life.” “I took up a hot rod and burnt her foot as she had lied. Beti dikhaao vo nishaan.” “She will have to get married. How can she not marry?”) and daughter (“He has a right to beat me. He produced me! They kill the girl at the time of birth in a traditional family but I am grateful that I was allowed to live.” “Mahatma Gandhi‘s non-violence emasculated Hindus.”) is selective reporting on the sly.
Inserted statements like ‘Some believe that Hindu terrorism is more dangerous than Islamic terrorism.’ along with news-clippings of two terrorist activities of Durga Vahini, mention of stray instances of moral policing (not by Durga Vahini but by another rather unimportant Hindu right wing group Ram Sena), shots of riots in Gujarat and mixing them with unconfirmed figures of the killings of daughters and girl children is clearly biased. Biased because of the choice. Nisha Pahuja doesn’t take the mindset of Muslims in India, doesn’t take her camera to Madrasas or the camps of Islamic terrorists. She goes for the soft target – Hindu right wing.
This traditional Hindu mindset is juxtaposed with the girls participating in beauty pageants. The desperate struggle of girls to make it big, to be selected ‘Miss India’, the training, cosmetic surgery, forcing the insecure girls to get botox injections and dermal fillers, use of creams and chemicals to make them fairer and again an effort to show how India treats the girl child form the content of this Paschim against the Purab of Durga Vahini.
My quarrel is with her approach.
If the theme is to place modern Indian woman against the Indian woman of another, older era the women in Durga Vahini could have been excluded. They don’t fit the bill. The mothers of the candidates as the contrast between the two might have been a better choice.
If the idea was to examine the mindset of the orthodox Hindus – this minority of semi-educated Hindu fanatics – should have been contrasted with the mindset of the orthodox Muslims in India.
The only connect between the two world is that Durga Vahini was against India hosting the pageants and forced ABCL to cancel it and incur a loss of over 20 crore.
In fact, it was not Durga Vahini but Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha’s (KRRS) that was responsible for the violent protests against the pageants managed by ABCL.
It is easy to ask leading questions with a bogus empathy to open the ignorant members of the vahini and then delete them is making a documentary with an agenda.
Nisha has an eye for catching the right moment, right expressions and making every frame say much more than in an average documentary. I see a great documentary filmmaker in her if she be bold, ventures into unexplored territories without fear. Camera is your ticket to the world the others aren’t allowed to see. Use it, honestly and bravely.

*****

#SumitraMahajan ko kabhi gussa nahin aata!

A TV anchor interviewed the new speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
He asked her about her reputation of ‘never getting angry’. She smiled, grinned happily, turned and twisted with “Main puri koshish karti hoon ke log pyar se samjhen.”
“Ma’am, aap ki reputation hai ke aap kabhi bhi gussa nahin kartein?”
Mahajan answers humbly, “Haan reputation to hai.”
Journo grins.
“Lekin aap ko kabhi to gussa aata hoga?”
“Nahin, kabhi nahin.”
Wider grin.
“Apne ghar walon par bhi nahin?”
“Apne parivaar ke saath kya jhagda karna. Main unhein pyar karti hoon aur woh mujhe.”
“Kabhi padosiyon ke saath koi jhagda?”
“Nahin, kabhi nahin. Padosi hi to samay par kaam mein aate hain.”
“School college ke friends ke saath koi anban?”
Bored. “Never, bhai, never. Doston se kya anban. Aap ek hi sawaal baar baar puch rahen hain.”
“Party ke doosre netaaon se koi takraar?”
(A little irritated) “Nahin, woh to party ke sadasya hain. Aap koi aur sawal poochhiye.”
“Aur aapki party ke senior members ke saath koi argument?
(Sore) “Phir? Apne seniors ke saath kyon argument karna?”
“Ab Congress opposition mein hai, kal ruling mein thi. Kabhi unke saath haathapaai?”
(Trying to control her temper with difficulty) “Politics mein kuch personal nahin hota. Main aapko baar baar kah rahi hoon…”
“Media ke log jab aap ko betuke sawal poochhte hain tab aap ko gussa aata hai?”
Picking up a flower pot to break it on his head Sumitra Mahajan runs after him shouting, “Maine bola na mujhe gussa nahin aata!”

(Inspired by a scene in an old Bollywood film after seeing #RajatSharma interviewing #SumitraMahajan)

Religion in our caps?

We would wear the skull cap while passing from Muslim localities and shift to the Maharashtrian cap in Hindu areas. Religion was no more in our hearts. It was only in our caps.

During the tense days of Hindu-Muslim riots, we would keep two topis in our pockets. One would be a Maharashtrian cap and the other would be a skull cap. We would wear the skull cap while passing from Muslim localities and shift to the Maharashtrian cap in Hindu areas. Religion was no more in our hearts. It was only in our caps.
There once used to be Hindu paani and Muslim paani on railway platforms. This practiced was discontinued.
I thought those days wouldn’t last. But there is no changing the mind. There is a Hindu mind and there is a Muslim mind?
The young IT graduate Mohsin Sadiq Shaikh who was bludgeoned to death during the protests in Pune over the morphed pictures of Bal Thackeray and Chhatrapati Shivaji had nothing to do with them.
He was killed only because he was a Muslim.
And his killers belong to Hindu Rashtra Sangh led by Dhananjay Desai. He and his organization has been in existence for a decade. They may not have killed a Muslim but they have bullied them, have extorted money, resorted to blackmail and assaulted people.
This must stop!
Announcing Rs 5 lakh as compensation is not the end of the story. First, often it is just an announcement. Money doesn’t reach the victim. Second, this is public money that you’re giving to shift the focus from the failure of governance.
What are you doing to erase this pathetic hatred from the minds, from the Hindu minds and the Muslim minds, from the Sikh minds and the Christian minds?
Blending the good thoughts of all religions, Moghul Emperor Akbar started Din-E-Ilahi. It didn’t work. I’d have told him to banish wearing religion on the head, on the chest.
Your religion is your private commitment to the Almighty. There is no need to flaunt it. There is no need to use it as a pressure group, as a vote bank.

*****

On Mithun Chakraborty and Vanishing Ideologies

We have seen all shades of #Marxism, from mild socialism that was hijacked by Congress to the agenda of Naxalites, and all are the result of power struggle. Mithun Chakraborty was a Naxalite hunted by Bengal Police when he returned to family fold and came to Bombay to become an actor.
Now he is a millionaire-actor and has filed the nomination for Rajya Sabha as a Trinamool candidate. I know for a fact that he would have been as happy to be in Rajya Sabha nominated by Jyoti Basu.
The people and the parties with ideologies vanished long back, finished on the altar of opportunism. There was no ideology, only self-interest when Indira Gandhi split Congress. And there only was ego when Sharad Pawar quit Congress. Else, he wouldn’t have had any truck with Sonia Gandhi.
BJP, I believe has come to power in spite of the agenda of Hindutva. It was the plank of Development that worked for a lot of people.
I would even say that splitting the states too is because of politicians’ greed for money and power. No state has been better governed because it is small.
In a way, I don’t see parties as fanatical; not even #ShivSena. It is the person who may be a fanatic and he may still be in a secular party. SanjayNirupam seemed a radical Sainik till he joined Congress. It was like leaving an editorial job from a party mouthpiece to join a mainstream newspaper. In fact, now the journalists change their points of view even in the same organization.
Leaders and politicians who find themselves trapped in dynasty-ruled Congress and who have burnt their bridges with other parties have only one option left now.
A new political party!
It can make a beginning in Bombay.
Milind Deora, Priya Dutt, Gurudas Kamat and Sanjay Nirupam – are you listening? Even those not happy with radically communal agenda in the right wing parties can join them.

Mukesh Ambani, Modi and Media

I start my blog on the first Sunday after Narendra Modi has become the Prime Minister and the Gandhis have become irrelevant.
Some of the Modi critics have changed their tunes, some are singing a new song and many are blaming their contact lenses or spectacles for not being able to see the writing on the wall.
Mukesh Ambani has acquired Network18 Media & Investments and TV18 Broadcast (TV18) for Rs 4,000 crore. This includes In.com, IBNLive.com, Moneycontrol.com, Firstpost.com, Cricketnext.in, Homeshop18.com, Bookmyshow.com and broadcast channels like Colors, CNN-IBN, CNBC- TV18, IBN7 and CNBC Awaaz.
I remember a line I wrote in one of my columns in the early nineties. My line was: if they can’t buy the journalist or the reporter, they buy the editor and if he is not for sale they buy the newspaper!
But much before that, even before Deepak Neogi the Chief Reporter of Free Press Journal joined Ambanis – I don’t know where he is now – Dhirubhai Ambani had asked me about the economics of running a Daily newspaper. I didn’t know anything about the business side of the newspapers. For that matter, I didn’t know the editorial side either and realized that unlike freelance writing, editing a newspaper or a magazine for that matter was like walking a razor’s edge.
And I knew The Razor’s Edge only as a short story by Somerset Maugham.
This is why I never got to be the editor of Sunday Observer, the paper Ambanis brought out.
To be fair to Dhirubhai Ambani, Sunday Observer was a good and non-partisan paper. Vinod Mehta even published my grilling interviews of Sharad Pawar and Ramarao Adik who had to resign after he was accused of molesting an airhostess while travelling under the influence of alcohol.
Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghosh have resigned – or will be resigning soon – and some others will do the same.
This doesn’t mean that they are more honest than the others. You can be dishonest while supporting UPA and you can be crooked while supporting the Modi Sarkar too.

*****

Nuclear button and Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi asked everyone to shut up, became the kabhi garam kabhi naram face of BJP and led the party to victory with absolute numbers. He invited all the heads of the neighboring nations to witness his swearing in ceremony indicating a new era in India’s relationship with its neighbors.
Traditionally, BJP has always had two faces – a hardliner and a soft-liner. But Modi took up both the roles in this campaign. Now that he is the Prime Minister, the preferred face seems to be of a soft-liner.
Is the role of the hard-liners being delegated to the others?
Two days after BJP won the mandate, talking on ‘Headlines Today’, Nitin Gadkari, now a minister in Modi cabinet, for a round of interaction with the Pakistani strategic affairs expert Tariq Pirzada said, “ I want to ask my Pakistani friend, does beheading our four soldiers and taking their heads away look good on part of the Pakistani military?”
He went on “We have zero tolerance of terrorist organizations. Pakistan ne agar yeh bandh nahi kiya toh Pakistan ko iski keemat chukane padegi— Pakistan will have to pay the price if it doesn’t stop this.”
Rahul Kanwal commented, “That’s a very interesting response from the former BJP President! You can’t behead our soldiers and expect us to sit back!”
Pirzada returned, “If Mr Modi, or the BJP, come up with a strategy of launching a strike into Pakistan under a false pretense… I can tell you one thing: Pakistan is a nuclear state too.”
Gadkari retorted, “Agar aapkke paas nuclear weapons hain, toh hamare paas nahin hain kya?” (If you have nuclear weapons, don’t we also have?)
Pirzada countered, “… Our nuclear strength is equal …”
Gadkari said, “Aap yeh dhamki Manmohan Singh ko dijiye, humko math dijiye…” (Give this threat to Manmohan Singh, not to us.)
Finally Pirzada backed out, “Nahin, nahin, yeh dhamki nahin hai! Yeh… No, no, this is not a threat.”
Falling for the Congress trap (Congress spokesman Sachin Sawant said that it was expected that Shiv Sena would make its stand clear on presence of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif but its silence shows that its earlier anti-Pakistan stand was just for political convenience.) Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray reacted immediately and said that Narendra Modi will have to use the ‘Nuclear Button’ if Pakistan refuses to mend its ways. Thackeray even said that Modi’s government has been brought to power ‘to settle the issues of national security, terrorism and infiltration, once for all’.
This statement comes a day before Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to visit the country to attend Modi’s swearing-in ceremony for the post of Prime Minister.
Both India and Pakistan are nuclear weapons states and have close to 100 warheads, each.
India has pledged ‘no first use policy’ against only non-nuclear weapon states.
On the other hand, Pakistan is yet to sign the ‘no first policy’ but it has reiterated that it would only use its nuclear weapons for its defense.
Be that as it may but to talk of nuclear attacks appears a little churlish, when Narendra Modi seems trying to open a Vajpayee chapter with Pakistan and to improve India’s relationship with all the neighbors.
But will ‘the hardliners’ allow him to do it?

*****

Manoj Kumar, Modi and my ‘Tantrik Woman’

I am again in touch with Manoj Kumar. Spoke to him. He is excited about Narendra Modi becoming the Prime Minister of India. And happy.
Manoj Kumar is an apolitical person who loved Bhagat Singh and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Now, he admires Modi.
Maybe the time has come for someone to stage my controversial play – set in emergency period –
Nehru and the Tantrik Woman. BJP’s K R Malkani was intrigued and fascinated with the theme and Manoj Kumar even wrote a song for my play!
I had always admired Manoj Kumar and loved his films. But I didn’t realize that he would casually ‘write’ the theme song in an half an hour chat on phone.
Here is the song:

Aate aate ghari wo aayee
Churidaar se churi takrayee
Tan se tan yun takraya
Bharak uthi ek jwala

Prem ka baadal aisa barsa,
Beh gayee man ki jwala
Phir sadhvi bani kaamni
Yun chale ke ho gajgamini
Kuch aise kadam uthe the,
Un rahon pe chale the
Jo rahen thi anjaani
Wo thi kitni deewani

Khudaai hai mumkin aaj ki raat
Ke chiraag jal chuka hai andhere mein /
Janam ho raha hai us maseehe ka
Jo apni tawnaai se waakif hai.

*****

BJP, don’t turn filmmakers into bhaands!

On the surface, the idea of having a wing exclusively for developing and promoting films ‘themed on Indian tradition’, as announced by Mithlesh Kumar Tripathi, the convener of the art and culture cell of the BJP seems harmless. But, as a writer, I’m wary of any interference / influence on cinema or for that matter, any other mode of expression.
BJP is not the only party that wants to propagate Indian values in its cinema. Congress and Marxists have used the cinema in pursuit of similar goals with their private agenda. Jawaharlal Nehru encouraged Raj Kapoor to propagate his brand of socialism that glorified Soviet Russia. Lal Bahadur Shastri asked Manoj Kumar to turn his slogan (Jai Jawan Jai Kissan) into a movie and Upkaar was born. Nehru was also instrumental in getting Haqeeqat a propaganda film made by Chetan Anand; a film that puffed up India’s defeat at the hands of China in an avoidable war.
Mrs Indira Gandhi got Manoj Kumar to start work on Naya Bharat to justify and glorify the draconian emergency. Kumar got Javed Akhtar to write the script. Fortunately for Manoj and Javed, the emergency was lifted much before the film could be made.
Keep your hands off the content of the films!
Encouraging any form of art with grants and awards, incentives and facilities is encouraging the culture of bhaands.
The big filmmakers who make films like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, who are making pots of money, don’t need these grants and awards. The smaller ones would find themselves compromising, towing a particular line to woo the awards.
If you, as a government want the Indian filmmaker to compete with his counterparts in other countries – provide an infrastructure. Free him from the clutches of the distributors who control the theaters, and therefore the filmmakers. A good film by a small maker can’t reach the audience as the multiplexes control the screens. They have their own interests to look for. It is easier to make a pile from simultaneous release on 3000 screens even from a third class film with a couple of stars. All they need is the right marketing and publicity; content be damned.
These distributors and exhibitors have created another culture of bhaands; the filmmakers who just cater to the lowest common denominator making films like Grand Masti.
A government run chain of small theaters, each with a capacity of 300-500, spread all over the country would give a chance to the small, independent filmmaker – a chance to make good cinema, a chance to compete at the world level.
Whatever these filmmakers – other creative people – make is going to be a part of Indian culture.
Knowing how the over-enthusiastic and often culturally uneducated wannabes hijack ideas, it is important to analyze the idea of ‘Indian tradition’ and ‘Indian culture’. If the idea is to have a conservative presentation of women or a military boot on depiction of erotic scenes, the BJP and its art and cultural cell will have to do a rethink. I’m also writing with reference to the U turn of the Central Board of Film Certification in the recent times. It is slowly returning to the dark days of stone age.

The Censorship has never been a Hindu idea!

Hindu is a free thinking, all accommodating religion. There is no place for censorship in Hindu religion.

Continue reading “BJP, don’t turn filmmakers into bhaands!”

Rakhi, Mirchi and NOTA

Campaigning is hard work. Real tough.
My friend Sunil Dutt was the most tireless campaigner. He would do long padayatra. He even walked from Mumbai to Punjab to draw attention to ‘terrorism in Punjab’. I remember seeing the bruises on his feet as he lied on the hospital bed in Breach Candy Hospital. He had returned after giving his observations on terrorism in Punjab to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and how the Congress-led government could tackle the problem.
Dutt never lost an election.
Sanjay Nirupam is another hard working politician. He has risen from the rank. He was a journalist with ‘Indian Express’ when Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackrey spotted him and got him to edit ‘Dopahar Ka Saamna’. Thackeray also nominated him to Parliament. While other journalists who have been nominated – Khushwant Singh, Pritish Nandy and many more – have never contested and won an elections. Sanjay Nirupam is the only exception. But then he is also a rare Bihari from Shiv Sena who made another successful transition to Congress.
He is a three times MP who is looking at the fourth term.
He lives in my constituency but is the candidate for Mumbai North.
Rakhi Sawant is the candidate for my constituency – the Mumbai North-West constituency. And she is the Vice President of a new party called Rashtriya Aam Party (RAP). There are 1563 parties in India – only 53 are recognized by the Election Commissioner – and RAP is among the latest additions. By a quirk of fate, the HQ of this party is near the building, where I’ve my den. I invited Rakhi here.
Neither Rakhi Sawant nor Krishan Lal Hans, the President of the party knew that I was a journalist and over the last 30 odd years, have met scores of candidates and scores of politicians. But then I know more about Gurudas Kamath (Congress), Gajanan Kirtikar (Shiv
Sena), Mahesh Manjrekar (MNS) and Mayank Gandhi (AAP) than about Rakhi.
I have known Guru since the time he was the President of Youth Congress. I covered his campaign in 1984 and have noted with interest that he has represented Mumbai North-East 5 times and Mumbai North-West the 6th time.

If he wins, this would be the 7th time that he would go to Parliament. He has represented Mumbai North East constituency of Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha five times (1984, 1991, 1998, 2004, and 2009).
Continue reading “Rakhi, Mirchi and NOTA”