Something I wrote on Mumbai

The narrow by lanes of Mumbai are in complete contrast to the image of the city, which has space for everyone. Getting out from the Dadar Station, you will come across a deluge of hawkers, vegetable vendors, sweepers, coolies – all are tyring better than their best to make a living. And, they don’t pretend otherwise; for instance if you try to negotiate with the coolie at any station, he would reply back saying that much as you come to Mumbai to become rich, so has he. And, this is the very fact, which makes this city different from hundreds of other cities, or glorified villages, which are trying hard to be called a city. In no story, no novel, would you find mention of man, who went to become rich to any other city in India apart from Mumbai. And as for Mumbai, you can spend your life counting such examples – the legendary actor Dev Anand was once working for the postal department, and then went on to leave his job to become what we know him as, and who can forget Dhirubhai Ambani, the once petrol pump attendant who went on to become the owner of the mighty enterprise called Reliance Industries. Or, Zeenat Aman, who once used to work in the magazine called Filmfare and later went on to become a film star herself. Similarly, growing up in the crowded suburbs of Chembur, Anil Kapoor would never have thought that one day he would be a part of world renown film called Slumdog Millionaire, which revolves around the same city, he has grown up in.

A city of such a great divide and the divide is more mental than physical. In the history of humankind, there would hardly be a more dividing line than the western railway line of Mumbai. On one side of the line is eastern part and on the other western and therefore every suburban area has an eastern and western part of it, like Andheri East, Andheri West. The disparity is to such an extent that you can easily come across people attending their nature calls in morning on the railway track itself for the lack of space and sanitation facilities and a few kilometers from these seemingly third world conditions are the bungalows of Bollywood stars in Bandra suburbs of Mumbai – stars who are the icons of millions of fans across the world. For those stars, they have Carter Road running parallel to sea on one side, and bungalows, luxurious flats, hotels on the other side. For the commoners, the roads on the eastern side of Bandra never fall shy of giving smell of rotten fish, garbage or various kinds of miscellaneous filth. There are numerous such startling differences in the mega metropolis of India. Driving up from Taj Hotel to Malabar Hills on Marine Drive, you could spot a constellation of rising buildings on the hill, before which the Arabian Sea is spread. And, one of the closest railway stations from Malabar Hills is Grant Road, the notorious original red light are of Mumbai, crowded as hell with people as diverse as different animal species in Africa. You can see women with layers of cheap make-up, who want to make a difference by their appearance so that the customers can locate them from a distance and often one among those customers would be a rich businessman, broker or estate agent. That Malabar Hills is costlier than the costly places of New York and Grant Road is filthier than the filthiest red light areas of third world itself shows that there is no dearth of variety in this city.

Guns, Germs and Steel

Currently, am reading a book called Guns, Germs and Steel. The book gives a history of almost everything for the last 13,000 years. The book contains surprising facts like:

a) None of the big mammals Africa is so much famous for, originated there. Their origins lie in eurasia.

b) The people of Madagascar are similar to those in New Guinea and this has baffled archeaologits. There are theories that all the continents were one land mass, which kep onb drifting apart resulting in creation of continents. However, what is not explained is if New Guienans mixed with natives of Madagascar, what stopped them from mixing with the inhabitants of East Africa.

c) Aborigines of Australia were still hunter gatheres when europeans arrive in Australia.

d) The direction of the spread of continent is an important factor. If the spread is more from north to east, like Africa then climatic conditions will vary significantly making the survival of things in North difficult in South and vice versa. This was the reason that so many plants and animals which thrived in North Africa could not survive in South Africa. On the other hand in eurasia, the spread is more east to west, therefore climatic conditons remain same making the movement of plants and animals much easier.

e) All domesticated crops like wheats, barley, rice have a wild ancestor which could have been posinous. Humans have changed the crops in thousands on years making them suitable for them. The latest fruit to be domesticated is apple because the process of change from wild to domestic was an extremely complex one. Have we ever realised its difficult to trace apple orchards. In India, only Kashmir and Himachal are famous for apples, I dont know of any other place.

f) Surplus food production is the bed rock of all human development. It leads to settlement at one place. Post that a certain section of society thinks that benefits are larger by controlling the production of food grains than by growing them themselves. This section become the rulers and beureaucrats. This is not possible with hunter gatheres, though they too have leaders but those leaders have to find food on their own and have too little time to rule.

g) Fertile Crescent is the name of the place where today we have countries like Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and etc. This was the place which had plants and animals of different varities. Hard to imagine today!

Khamoshi

Last night, I watched Khamoshi, a movie released in 1968, forty years back. Its a srory of a nurse, Radha, who helps Dev Chatterjee, a patient, in coming back to terms with life after his girl friend ditches him and he is on the verge of being declared mentally retarted. In the course of treatment, Dev sees his mother, wife, girl friend everything in Radha, and is oblivious of the fact that what impression his behaviour is having on Radha. Radha in turn falls in love with Dev. The movie actually starts with Radha standing in the room emptied by Dev, who has just gone back to his home from hospital after recovering fully. Radha says that she was not acting after all, which she was supposed to do. She decides that such kind of care-taking can have lasting impact on her and is unwilling to take up similar case again.
Right then, an identical case of Arun Chowdhury comes, who has been ditched by his girl friend and now hates even the image of a women. Radha's boss pleads her to take care of the new patient, which she turns down. However, when Arun loses the control to an extent of being life threatening to hospital staff, Radha decides to take up the case. She sees Dev in Arun and Arun finds his lost love in Radha. Radha is completely broken as she is always with Dev in her sub conscious mind, however physically with Arun. Arun loves her, but Radha is in her own world. Towards the end, Arun returns to normalcy but Radha falls prey to the very ailment she was helping patients overcome. She loses her mental balance and has to be admitted to the same hospital, where she worked just few days back as a nurse.
It is beyong any words of appreciation that the movie is made in a era - which our elders often claim to be far more innocent and simple, for if this movie is to be re-made today, it will be as complex as it was 40 years back. What the audience of today will find suprising is that the movie is made in black-white and technically seems very old, which makes the real complexity and confusion of the characters much lesser apparent. For instance, an intense scene today, will be with dark shades, deep red color, and heroine shedding tears which damages her make-up and all this is done intentionally to make the scene more realistic. However, in Khamoshi made in 1968, such things are absent, yet the message is far more powerful. Also, for a script writer and a director to think of a character like Radha a full two generations ago is superb. It actually shows that certain sections of society were far more modern then as compared to the Gen X and Gen Y of today. The direction is subtle, as Dharamendra, who plays Dev is not shown facing the camera. The director has clearly made an attempt to show Dharmendra like an impression which Radha carries. So, you can see Dharamendra sitting on a chair with his back to audience, or at best you can only see his profile not his face. Dharamandra in 1968 was at the peak of his career, the director might have foccussed more on him thinking it will help his movie in doing good business. However, the director preferred rakim him for his acting abilities and not for his super stardom. The directors and technicians of today's cine world have a lot to learn from this movie.

Beauty and the lack of brains!!!!

Barrack Obama finally becomes the 44th US President. I know, the headline of tomorow's newspapers already as its not everyday that it is so easy to get the front page story idea.

I was wondering for a change why dont a paper comes with a headline saying "The World will Miss Ms Palin". In the last few months of the presidential campaign, she has made news for all wrong and funny reasons. Like, when asked about the concerns of energy deficiency in US, she said we would support Iraq. When asked about the link between the two, she replied everything is connected. Either she is a great economist of the likes of Adam Smith who thinks everything in the world is inter related and without us knowing invisible hand does it trick or she is a complete dumb.

She was also in news for spending few million dollars on her attire after she was nominated as a Vice President campaign. It had its results too. Pakistani PM Asaf Ali Zardari was so much taken in by the beauty that he found it difficult to leave her hand in a handshake. It has surely maligned the reputation of men from Indian Subcontinent, who often forget to "draw a line"

On her Linkelden profile, she has absolutely murdered the english language. Look at what she says “Join our cause and help our country to elect a great man as the next president of the United States. And I thank you, and I - God bless you, I say, and God bless America"

We will surely miss the entertainment!!!

Language Glorification

"We are investors not traders" said my boss in my previous company, when someone enquired whether we can do intra-day trading. While, he said that he was in awe of 'investing' as investors are supposed to be more patient and are bestowed upon with foresightedness. The recent market turmoil and the clueless experts has actually shown that the experts are often clueless when they are needed the most! So, why do we say "I 'invest' in stock market", why there is so much stress on the word 'investing'. I think it is just because it sounds better than merely saying "I buy shares", "I trade", by saying investing, we are using language to glorify our ordinary actions..

Similarly, in India, when someone has just got engaged, people ask with a sheepish smile "aur, when are you marrying". In simpler words, they want to say "When are you having sex", this is assuming that there is high probability of finding an unmarried virgin in India than outside as pre-marital sex is considered to be a sin by religious and conservative people.

Another instance of language glorification, few years back I went to post-office. In a queue, a young woman was standing and chatting with an old man. The man asked "what do you do". She replied "I am a MBA professional". I think the word "professional" does not mean anything beyond having a job in a decent private company and its a trivial matter whether you copy paste the data there.

Background Music

I watched "A Wednesday" yesterday. The movie was about one man who plants four bombs in Bombay and then informs the Commissioner of Police. He asks for release of four terrorists in return. Finally, it turns our that the man who had planted the bombs actually was a common man and wanted to kill those four terrorists as he was unsure of the quality of administrative and legal machinery of India.

I read the reviews before going for the movie. Critics said Naseeruddin Shah had given amazing performance. I think he has given far better performances in his career. What annoyed me was the use of loud background score. The same was the case with Mumbai Meri Jaan. The background music was capable of giving me a migraine.

Various directors have used such background music effectively in movies. For instance, Varma in Satya and Company. Yash Chopra in Darr and who can forget that heavenly background music of Sippy's Sholay. On contrast, we have directors of modern age, who use background music when they are sure that their script writers have either written awful dialogues or are totally incapable of writing. For instance, I read somewhere that Ramu had to fill music in "Sarkar - Part1" as he was unhappy with his scripwriter. In the sequel, Sarkar Raj, even Ramu used stupid kind of loud background score.

Bombay Multiplexes

There is new trend visible across multiplexes. Eating outlets at multiplex try to sell their stuff during the show time. I went to watch 'Rock On' last saturday and this guy was selling popcorns to a lady. Suddenly, a man turned and told him that you are disturbing the audience and he was right in saying so.

I think it must be a really frustating job for someone to sell a cold drink, samosa or pop corn in the dark theatre, when hardly anything is visible. Moreover, the voice has to be really low, if it reached the ears of audience, then this fellow is fucked.

On the other hand, it shows that those who run such theatres care a damn about the audience's comfort. They dont realise that when there is hardly any space left for people to walk, they have their own guys selling cold drinks and making the space even more cramped.

The court has ruled it illegal to debar audience from carrying outside food in theatre. In light of this, a shop which was just next to Thakur Cinema has stopped selling bottled water and Thakur Cinema's hand in such kind of arrangement can not be ruled out.