startling banals
23 August 2007
No Smoking
Anurag Kashyap's next movie (releasing on Oct 26) promises a lot. Starring Ranveer Shorey, Paresh Rawal, Ayesha Takia, John Abraham.
hmm produced by Vishal Bharadwaj
A fundoo link from Passion For Cinema.
Anurag Kashyap's interview - 'Don't think of doing it. Do it!' part1 and part2
hmm produced by Vishal Bharadwaj
A fundoo link from Passion For Cinema.
Anurag Kashyap's interview - 'Don't think of doing it. Do it!' part1 and part2
21 August 2007
The Blue Umbrella (Chatri Chor)
Pankaj Kapoor plays an endearing role of a tea-biscuit stall owner 'Nand Kishore' in a quaint Himachal village. Based on a Ruskin Bond story. A beautiful movie by Vishal Bhardwaj. Halo by Santosh Sivan was also a very good childrens' movie.
15 August 2007
A morning
Guru Dutt and his talented team made beautiful movies - Sahib Bibi Aur Gulam, Mr & Mrs 55, CID, Pyaasa, Kaagaz ke Phool and Aar Paar. Chaudhvin ka Chaand was bad. But everyone makes mistakes. Johnny Walker played his best roles here. 'Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan' from CID is the immortal song that defines Bombay even today. 50 years ago my grandfather was 35 and my grandma 33, my parents were kids. This song was shot in the city they lived in. Great art that effortlessly transports us in time.
A day I will never forget. In school we used to write essays on this subject an unbelievable number of times. Everyone came up with patent lame false stories. But now I believe that such days exist. Days you recall with clarity, insignificant days having no particular life-altering events. I remember one such morning in 2004. It was a pleasantly cool Sunday, the day after Diwali night - a grand finale of loud crazy firecrackers all over the city. I had some work near Marine Drive at 9. Thanks to a night-out at the hostel, I reached VT at 7. To pass two hours, I decided to take the longer route via Fountain - Churchgate instead of Azad Maidan - Fashion Street, at a very relaxed speed.
I walked in a dream. On the entire stretch from VT to Fountain I saw ten people. Zero traffic on the roads - only an occasional speeding almost empty BEST bus screeching to a halt at a bus stop in a well rehearsed swift short symphony played by the conductor driver duo.. ting, brakes, halt, ting-ting, first gear, speed, second gear and away. Even at Marine Drive the regulars were missing. Very few people from Nariman Point to Girgaon Chowpatty and even beyond. Lovers, people in shorts walking their dogs or on their morning walk, sea-gazers, tea sellers on cycle, time-pass peanut vendors - they had all mass-bunked. Meanwhile, Silence paid a courtesy call.
A day I will never forget. In school we used to write essays on this subject an unbelievable number of times. Everyone came up with patent lame false stories. But now I believe that such days exist. Days you recall with clarity, insignificant days having no particular life-altering events. I remember one such morning in 2004. It was a pleasantly cool Sunday, the day after Diwali night - a grand finale of loud crazy firecrackers all over the city. I had some work near Marine Drive at 9. Thanks to a night-out at the hostel, I reached VT at 7. To pass two hours, I decided to take the longer route via Fountain - Churchgate instead of Azad Maidan - Fashion Street, at a very relaxed speed.
I walked in a dream. On the entire stretch from VT to Fountain I saw ten people. Zero traffic on the roads - only an occasional speeding almost empty BEST bus screeching to a halt at a bus stop in a well rehearsed swift short symphony played by the conductor driver duo.. ting, brakes, halt, ting-ting, first gear, speed, second gear and away. Even at Marine Drive the regulars were missing. Very few people from Nariman Point to Girgaon Chowpatty and even beyond. Lovers, people in shorts walking their dogs or on their morning walk, sea-gazers, tea sellers on cycle, time-pass peanut vendors - they had all mass-bunked. Meanwhile, Silence paid a courtesy call.
14 August 2007
Karen Blixen again
From the story 'The Old Chevalier' in 'Seven Gothic Tales'
I was so young then that I could no more than other young people give up the deep faith in my own star, in a power that loved me and looked after me in preference to all other human beings. No miracle was incredible to me as long as it happened to myself. It is when this faith begins to wear out, and when you conceive the possibility of being in the same position as other people, that youth is really over.
We sat down to supper, Nathalie and I, high up there in my warm and quiet room, with the great town below us and my heavy silk curtains drawn upon the wet night, like two owls in a ruined tower within the depths of the forest, and nobody in the world knew about us.
06 August 2007
The magic of latex ;)
The Fugitive Cat
Just take care while you write. Don't let anyone guess you are a psycho. Let them think you are normal and write logically. No controversies. Just plain apolitical and normal-guy stuff. All topics carefully filtered out. Cute observations and mainstream fun. Sound sorted-out, well-informed and confident. But don't overdo it please. No normative judgements. Only objective-sounding statements supporting the status-quo. Its time to project a new you. A conformist and post-modern you.
Don't tell them things like the scene you just saw. That you saw no humans in your university tonight when you went to the lab at 12 (Don't tell them that!). Instead for the first time in Boston you saw a cat on its own. A few hours past moonrise. They have such efficient animal-control here. This Indian-looking white cat with brown patches. And what was the cat doing? Walking close to the buildings with graceful proud strides that accentuated its long white legs. Yet walking in the shadows like it had escaped from jail. Looking suspiciously at you as it sneaked away. Don't even mention that you thought of calling security to take it to a shelter. That would have been treacherous. Robbing an animal of its freedom to be "well-treated" in an appropriate secure environment. But if humans the dominant species can't live as they want to, how can a cat expect such liberty. It should also learn to fit in. Like me.
The Cat That Walked By Himself
Don't tell them things like the scene you just saw. That you saw no humans in your university tonight when you went to the lab at 12 (Don't tell them that!). Instead for the first time in Boston you saw a cat on its own. A few hours past moonrise. They have such efficient animal-control here. This Indian-looking white cat with brown patches. And what was the cat doing? Walking close to the buildings with graceful proud strides that accentuated its long white legs. Yet walking in the shadows like it had escaped from jail. Looking suspiciously at you as it sneaked away. Don't even mention that you thought of calling security to take it to a shelter. That would have been treacherous. Robbing an animal of its freedom to be "well-treated" in an appropriate secure environment. But if humans the dominant species can't live as they want to, how can a cat expect such liberty. It should also learn to fit in. Like me.
The Cat That Walked By Himself
05 August 2007
Mysteries by Beth Gibbons
04 August 2007
Is living outside the system more difficult today than it was in the past? Is the "abundance of opportunities and jobs" today nothing but the shrinking of alternatives?