THE GREAT INDIAN ENTERTAINERS : PART 2

Recap:- We started with the classification of movies and discussed about various schools of modern Indian cinema . Many people call the Indian Film Industry as Bollywood. Even I hate Indian Film Industry to be called as bollywood, we should not be copying the name from Hollywood by placing a B for Bombay in front of it and silencing the ‘visarg H’ (people who know Sanskrit will understand, rest just leave it, it is not that important). We have an independent film industry which has its own large infrastructure and the only thing(s) we took from Hollywood are the scripts, music, screenplays and action sequences, rest all is thoroughly original. Oh! I forgot this is the TV episode so let us continue……………………..

Unlike movies the evolution and growth of Indian television is new and started in late seventies. So like Himalayas this is a young source of entertainment. But like movies evolution of Television also followed an adventurous journey. When it started Doordarshan was the only source of entertainment. DD Metro was only for Metro cities. Chitrahaar and Rangoli were the only source for Film songs. VIBGYOR on your TV screen and ‘Rukawat ke liye khed hai’ were quite common scenes.

With the advent of cable networks and private television channels the entertainment industry at home has seen a 180 degree phase shift or I should say ‘face shift’. It was comparatively easier to classify modern cinema in various schools but TV is typically more complex. I was once going through an interview of a great Indian television face lift pioneer Ekta Kapoor. As per her if Cinema is for men, then TV is for women who spent most of the time at home. So as I suggested earlier it is comparatively difficult to classify Television because of the complexity of its audience (no offence intended). But still let us try to classify the modern Indian television with the simple approach.

Broadly the Television scene in India can be broadly classified under following heads
1) Soap
2) Reality
3) NEWS

Soap – Till the beginning of 21st century soap was used for cleaning ourselves and clothes, these days it is used for ‘brain washing’ as well. Quoted earlier as well this culture was introduced by none other than Ekta Kapoor who is the God Mother of Indian drama dailies. There are certain very unique features of these soaps.
a. Watch any of the show from 6 PM to 11 PM on any channel. If you are a first timer you will not be able to differentiate if the show has finished and a new one has started.
b. Mother in law is the deadliest creature ever existed in the history of Earth. Even deadlier than Velocy Raptors.
c. Also derived from Karan Johar school of cinema and everything applies here as well (nobody is poor, everybody is very rich and even if anyone is poor by chance, he does not look like one. They have other complicated issues.)
d. Who says we do not have enough GOLD in country?
e. The bad characters can be identified by the makeup. Specially bindis and sindoor.
f. There is no one like male protagonist. If there is a male counterpart for the leading lady he is the dumbest man alive. Generally a guy with six pack abs who does nothing except being bluffed and weeping.
g. Story is written for first 2 episodes (used as pilot). The story writer is later fired.
h. When you think that the show is going to end someone dies.

Reality – Now this one is the youngest kid on the block. Started with shows like Indian Idol, Roadies etc Reality has reached another height in today’s television scenario. Reality can further be classified under various heads
a. Talent Reality – Usually singing and dancing shows. One of the contestants is for sure from a poor family. All the judges adopt that contestant. One of the contestants for sure perform when he/she is either ill, has sore throat or a broken leg/rib. Nobody among the readers of this post votes for the contestants still vote count is always in millions.
b. Adventure Reality – Mostly a show with participants on journey facing challenge of elimination. Everybody is crook. Use of slang is the USP. Judge/host of the show is more dangerous than your school principal.
c. Reality of leisure – This is the youngest breed of reality television. This is for the actors, sports persons, advocates, and singers etc who are out of work. They will either go inside a house for 40 days or go to a village leading village life or to a jungle. Anyway it does not matter to them as they really have nothing else to do. As there are Soap actors we have different set of actors called Reality TV actors that will keep returning through new shows.

NEWS – This is the oldest surviving entertainment medium. Earlier it was part of regular TV channels interrupting the entertainment, Cricket matches etc. These days they have a separate bandwidth for interruption. As a medium for contribution to information, these channels spread maximum awareness. Some of the examples are cited below:-
a. It is because of these channels that our parents(specially mothers) know that using Credit Card can lead to total robbery of your Account. Mobiles can boil eggs and many other informative bytes.
b. Channels like Aaj tak and India TV convince the people that Earth is going to be destroyed.
c. Aliens also know the benefit of Cow’s milk and they are not lactose intolerant.
d. 4o feet tall mummy of ghatotkach was actually found.
e. The issues like CWG, Ayodhya, Indian defeat in World Hockey can be sorted out by having a discussion panel consisting Chetan Bhagat, Jaipal Reddy, Javed Akhtar, and the likes.
f. Arnab Choudhury and Prabhu Chawla are the journalist to whom you should not go for interview (if you are a celebrity) because they do not let you speak.
g. Rakhi Sawant should not be invited to any show.
h. A Cat unable to step down of a tree is a breaking news.

As I stated earlier even after writing more than 1000 words about television, there is plenty more left to be written. We will however restrict our study to this point only. In the final edition we will return with Print Media, Advertisements and some more of News.

No One Picked Ganguly!

One of the New Year resolutions for me was that I am not going to give air to any controversy this year, but we are all born with our destinies. This weekend I saw two great movies. One was No One Killed Jessica the other being “NO ONE PICKED GANGULY”.

The IPL auction going live this year was equally an extravagant and entertaining event as IPL itself. Money poured, players became super rich and drama was at its all time high when suddenly a name appeared from the sack of players. ‘Opening Bid for Sourav Ganguly is 400000 USD, any takers’. What followed was ‘SILENCE’, a dark deep silence, and the verdict player remained unsold. The story remained same the next day as well, no takers for probably pioneer of aggressive cricket in India.

There are a lot of debates going on across the country, on television, streets, offices, colleges and name any place in your mind. I am not going to be judgmental whether it was correct or not for the teams to not pick Ganguly. All the franchisees are matured enough and have their strategies and homework done before going to Auctions. The point of concern here is how it is going to be taken in the Bengal Tiger’s own city. I learned today that already a community of KKR haters has gone online in Facebook, twitter is flooded with anti KKR pro Ganguly comments. The risk is high because we have already witnessed what happened at Eden Gardens during 1996 World Cup (and to me what forced me to take the resolution).

Ganguly has been an exceptional player during his tenure and certainly there is no doubt about that and as an Indian cricket fan and left handed batsman myself, even I felt a little moved by the decision. But practically thinking he is not playing much cricket since last 2 years and he is out of touch, teams had to bid for next 3 years and would have weighed their respective prospects before going into the bidding. Ganguly, Dravid and Kumble raised their base values from 200000 USDs to 400000 USDs before going into the auction. Kumble stepped out of auction and joined the RCB selection committee at the last moment; this is what I would say a graceful way to make the exit. Rahul on other hand had a slow start in auction but finally he was picked, reason might be he is still playing at international level.

This has certainly been a problem with Ganguly’s career that there is always a controversy blown out of proportion when he is taken away from the game. Mat Hayden and Gilchrist retired when they were at the peak of their batting form, Steve Waugh on the other hand forced to step down even when he was performing great. This happens to everyone at some point in their careers. Looking into the present scene could Ganguly have made a way more graceful exit from International Cricket scene and from IPL itself?

The positions are still empty for uncapped players and all the franchisees still have a lot of sum remaining in their budget. He might still be picked by any team, but will it be any more satisfying for him as a player? The problem with the fan base will however persist because we as a nation are still idol worshippers, only the faces of Gods have changed.

The year that was 2010

December 31st 2010 will mark the end of the first decade of 21st century; it is big, isn’t it? We are lucky enough to witness the changes through a century. We have seen the world changing, our own country changing and most important of all the perspective of the individuals as the citizen of India changing. A lot has been said and written about the technological growth, fast developing R&Ds in various aspects of life, medicines etc. but what is important is that we witnessed all of them happening in front of us.

The year 2010 has been special to me as well in various ways. Most of the people who know me and are reading this post might have thought one or two reasons and are smiling already. One of the most important events for me was the start of blogging. As a blogger, I understood it is quite difficult to write continuously as we tend to get drained of ideas pretty soon and has to back up our knowledge with continuous reading, thus it is a cyclic process. The best moment for my blogs was the post City of Joy as it actually increased my reader base over night. There is one thing I have always experienced that as an individual we like making fun on a lot of things, but we haven’t really learned to take a joke on ourselves. We are growing and I guess by next decade we will learn that as well. However, City of Joy actually led to the popularity of the other posts which went unnoticed earlier.

Taking on 2010 again, this year has been exceptional as far as NEWS is concerned. The year gave a lot of material to the news channels to air the BREAKING reports throughout the year. We had Sachin making the first double ton in One dayers, Sachin again making 50 test tons, Saina Nehwal winning Badminton tournaments on a regular streak, Sania marrying Shoaib, Kalmadi cashing CWG, A Raja giving away 2G spectrum for peanuts, Neera radia a proper political lobbyist, Apple becoming cheaper then onions once again, Assagne being charged for leaking out truths, Lord Ram finally getting a place to settle down, Trains schedule changing because we cannot do anything to suppress the Maoists activities at night, etc.

We complain about a lot of things, that’s human nature and we cannot change it. As per one of my great philosopher friend as an individual we love to procrastinate. We are unsatisfied and will always remain to be, if everything listed above were not there for whole year we would have found out our own reasons to be unhappy (This applies to me and my philosopher friend as well). In this modern age of communication where we have innumerable mediums of information exchange and the velocity of information travelling is very high. The faster an information travel, the quicker it distorts and the residual damage increases exponentially. I am not vouching for the fact that whatever corruption and malpractices have been reported are false, but the inferences we draw and the time frame for which we have our reaction is wrong for sure. As an audience we have a very short memory, it is like a RAM which erases every opinion and inferences the moment we have a new piece of information. I still remember when AIIMS students and staff were on strike in 2006 and the NEWS was over night replaced by Rahul Mahajan’s drug overdose case and after few days people forgot that there was any strike.

Cheers for all of us for all the good NEWS of 2010 and a little bit of introspection for all the mishaps. Whenever a corruption is reported there is a lot of buzz around it and Media goes on a spree of debates with expert panels, which is actually food for the common ma’s thought. I do not hold anything against any working class of the society, but do you really think that people from entertainment industry or advertising or corporate are qualified enough to share an unbiased opinion. On a very different context, we always blame the politicians and the political outfits for all the forgeries, scam and scandals. Do you really think they have enough brain to pull out such heists or they have a huge chain of bureaucrats, officers, lobbyists and a trail of people which are never spoken of?

To conclude I am still not supporting any parties involved in the crime neither I am being judgmental for any one of them. It is just a question to ask ourselves, are we really this stupid that we cannot see it happening around us until one day it airs on National television or overcrowd facebook and twitter.
Just hold a breath before the year ends and think a li’l.

How it all started..

My first album as a lyricist released from US on 10th December. The album named Shades of Love is already creating a buzz in the US market in Asian pop album genre. However the only thing which i wanted in the whole project was my name on CD covers and i got that. It is a beautiful feeling when people listen to your work and appreciate it. I am new to lyrics writing and still considers that it might not happen next time when I have a new music piece. All of this started back in 2007, when I wrote a poem and one of my colleague who was performing with a Band sort of liked it. He took the poem with him and called me back asking if we can sit together and fit the poem into proper song format. A lot of modification were made on the original version of the poem and what came out was an excellent song(the one closest to my Heart till date). Today I am sharing the poem with you all which actually gave me a chance to explore this wonderful area of creativity.

याद

एक अजनबी राज़ का एहसास है मुझे
इस भीड़ में भी वीरानियों की तलाश है मुझे
फितरतन हर मोड़ पर ढूंढ़ता हूँ तुझे
इन खामोशियों में तेरी आवाज़ की तलाश है मुझे

हवाओं का रुख तेरी याद ले आये
खुशबू से तेरी ये आलम महक जाए
सावन की बारिशों में भीगा तेरा बदन
शोख सी वो तेरी अदा याद है मुझे

आने से देर पर वो रूठना तेरा
मनाने पर वो बात बात पे हस देना तेरा
मुस्कान होठों पर और आँखों में गुस्सा
मनाने रूठने के वो सिलसिले याद है मुझे

आते थे मुझसे मिलने को डरते हुए सनम
बैठते थे मेरे साथ सबको देखते हुए
होठों से ज्यादा आँखों से होती थी बातें
मुलाकातों का वो दौर भी याद है मुझे

मेरे हर पैगाम को रखना सहेज कर
तारीखों की अहमियत का समझाना मुझे
कसमो से बाँधना वो हरकतें मेरी
मेरे लिए उनकी परेशानियाँ याद है मुझे


जलना वो उनका देख कर मुझे किसी गैर के साथ
मूह फेरना गुस्से से और बात ना करना
खोजना फिर बहाने मुझसे बात करने के
यु छेड़ना महफ़िल में उनको याद है मुझे

ज़िन्दगी आगे बढ़ गयी कई कारवां गुज़रे
चलता रहा मैं भी मंजिल की तलाश में
अब नहीं है वो फिर भी क्यूँ नहीं पता
राहों में उसकी मौजूदगी का एहसास है मुझे

This original version went through lots of modification to yield a superb Rock number later renamed as "Teri yaadein".

The Hot Curry

This is the shortest time interval when I have posted two consecutive posts. It is less than 24 hours when I am typing this post. So for them who have not yet read the last post on Communism, the post is still open for comments. Most of you might not have noticed that the name of the blog has changed from Chaos Theory to The Hot Curry. The name Chaos Theory sounded a bit geeky and always sent a message that the post here ‘might’ be serious kind of stuff. So it was definitely intended for the persona change of the blog. Moreover last few posts have spiced up the whole blogging scenario for me and a suitable name was always on the list. I initially thought of ‘Schezwan Biriyani’ as a name but ‘Masala Noodles’ is already a name of a blog on TOI and moreover I thought using ‘Biriyani’ might trigger some level of sentimental issues.

I was once having a lunch with few friends. We were all ordering something or the other; I ordered my regular Indian course with Chapati and a non veg side dish. When I was about to eat last few bites of my roti I ran out of the side dish. Ordering a new dish would have been a waste of food and money as well. So I resorted to eating last 4 bites of my Chapati or Nan I do not remember exactly with Chicken Manchurian. What followed was a good one hour speech on food habits, Cuisine should not be mixed, food etiquettes etc. I would like this forum to appeal to all people to come out of their set of rules, try new things, some day you might discover a new taste. By not doing this you are going against nature of continuous exploration and discovery. Remember when it all started there was no food etiquettes and that’s why we reached where we are today. All said but still I have my reservations against Aloo in Biriyani, I guess it’s an experiment gone bad(no offence).

So here it is the new name to the blog ‘The Hot Curry’

There was another reason for this post. Yesterday I found a nice Google application, Google Transliteration. It converts whatever you write to the language you specify and I am not talking about translation, it is direct transliteration. So I experimented with the application and converted one of my poems to Hindi script. Here is the poem for all of you, though I am a bit shy sharing my poetry work in public and it might be the first and last poem I have dared to share but still all the reviews, criticism and advise are welcome.

क्षितिज
दूर कहीं क्षितिज पर आसमा झुकता हैं
धरती से मिलने को लम्बा सफ़र तय करता है
देख नहीं पाते दोनों को हम मिलते
पर हैं यकीं कहीं न कहीं
धरती से आसमा मिलता है

अपनी हर सोच को हम क्यों सपनो का नाम दें
हों नहीं सकता यह हमसे क्यों मन में मान ले
जब हैं पता हमें भी की दूर ही सही
कुछ दूर जाकर तो
धरती से आसमा मिलता है

हैं नामुमकिन कुछ नहीं मुमकिन यहाँ सब कुछ है
बस सपनो में खोजने की अपने लक्ष्य को ज़रुरत हैं
सपनो में ही हकीकत की मंजिल का निशान मिलता हैं
आखिर कहीं न कहीं तो जाकर
धरती से आसमा मिलता है

Communism: The Marx’s way?

Communism – it’s a pretty strong word, isn’t it? Now honestly ask yourself a very simple question. How many of you really know what Communism is? This applies for those people the most that vouch for the communist parties or are influenced with their philosophy or agendas. In fact I could not have thought a better place to trigger the debate then on the land of Hammer, sickle and star. The last time I wrote something, it aroused immense level of interest among the readers and the blog visits shot overnight. Thus it’s a disclaimer that this post is not judgmental.

Communism as a subject of social studies was an idea conceived by Karl Marx and it is a very well known fact. What is a lesser known fact is that it was brain child of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels in the early 19th century and how it came into application almost 70 years later in the dawn of 20th century. It is irony of the human history that very few of the great historians, mathematicians, scientists, poets or even actors received their due credits while they were alive and what is even more ironical is that we write a great account of them after their death. Karl Marx died in 1883, till then his work was only a text with a theory of communist society. His theory stated that Capitalism will one day be overthrown by socialism as feudalism was replaced by the former and finally it will be the ‘stateless, classless society called pure communism’. Karl Marx stated that one day the ‘proletariat’ (the working class) will overcome the ‘bourgeoisie’ (owner of Capital). Unlike science it is relatively easier to devise a theory in Social Science as you have extremely less constraint that stops you from doing that. Thus, Communism was also just a theory till Karl Marx died and even after that.

So how did it all started, it started somewhere around 1917 when Vladimir Ilyich Lenin started the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Lenin inspired by the writings of Marx thought of implementing a theory to overcome the capitalist’s undue advantages over working class. When the mass people are suppressed and their tolerance level has reached a peak, any kind of revolution or better quoted ‘ray of hope’ drives them to take the extreme measures. This resulted in the overthrow of the capitalist regime in Russia ending the rule of Tsars. The government was formed but it was not the efforts of Lenin that took Soviet Russia to the height. Like Physics Inertia applies to real life as well, post revolution people were not willing to accept the new policies of the government and it was then the second hero for Russia rose. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the man responsible for the practical implementation of the Lenin’s theory. By force or by will it was the government’s policy that prevailed. This was the dawn for the communism and it started taking its real shape, but the point that should catch your interest is that Marx’s theories nowhere suggested the use of force explicitly in his text.

The other prominent figure which cannot be missed if we are on communism is Mao Zedong. People’s Republic of China, the country with the largest population in the world and only a single political party, this could not have been possible without a large force which kept all the uprisings and revolt aside. Mao Zedong’s theories and its practical implications are well known to the world.

Soviet Russia fell in 1991 as it was not able to cope up with the international fiscal changes with the existing communist policies. China is still high and progressing as they have adopted some theories of communism and a large portion of it added by Mao which can always be debated on humanitarian grounds.

The question here is the framework of communism what we see in the country like India with diverse topographic and demographic constraints is really communism? If yes do we require it? Are the political parties keeping a word communist in front of their names are really communist? Are they really communist?

I conclude this piece with a question for you, just think a bit, is it really necessary to abide by a theory written 150 years ago or formulate a plan keeping present in mind?

THE GREAT INDIAN ENTERTAINERS : PART 1

Remember the days when there was only Doordarshan, there were movies only on Saturdays and Sundays. When out of boredom you even watched movies in regional languages with sub titles. The whole concept of watching Television followed a time table, there were time slots for NEWS when children finished their homework, there was nothing known as Daily Soap, Sunday was the best day of the week. The Entertainment industry has changed in past 20 years and the change is drastic. This change spans across the whole entertainment cloud encompassing Films, Television, Advertisements, and Print Media.
Since the topic will be spanning over variety of entertainment, we will try to address each and every parts in detail, thus this post will also be in series.
In the first installment let us try and classify the Indian Films as per current standards:-
Today Films (By Films I am strictly talking about the Indian Film Industry) can be classified under various heads. The very basic classification suggests films to be of two types:
Commercial and Non Commercial Cinema. A Commercial cinema is one which does fare amount of business at box office and vice versa. If we further try to classify the Indian Cinema we will get following sub categories:-
a. Yash Chopra school of Cinema: - Predominately love stories shot mostly at the locales of Amsterdam and Switzerland. Hero generally wears bright clothes (Red Sweaters, White shirt with Beige colored chinos) or designer wears (Harley Davidson, GAP, Gucci etc.), Female leads are unnaturally beautiful. Everybody is rich.
b. Karan Johar school of Cinema:- This is derived from the Yash Chopra school. Shot mostly in USA(especially NY). Again nobody is poor, everybody is very rich and even if anyone is poor by chance, he does not look like one. They have other complicated issues.
c. Ram Gopal Verma school of Cinema:- Shot without lights. Whenever a film goes to floor, nearby hospitals goes out of stock for blood. Heroes (if there are by any chance) have moustache. Over 60 people are hired to scream while recording. Generally have 5 sentences per 15 mins.
d. Vishal Bharadwaj school of Cinema:- Mostly adaptation from Shakespeare, with a lot Indian slangs. Female leads specifically use slangs. Weird Camera angles, sometime it looks as if you are sitting on a merry go round and viewing the movie upside down.
e. Anurag Kashyap School of Cinema:- Kalki Kochelin or Maahi Gill is surely in cast. Songs are either folk or rock or both. Protagonist is either the biggest rascal or the dumbest person alive in the world.
f. Abbas Mastaan school of Cinema:- Again Adaptation but not from novels but from DVDs. Too many plots tied together. Hero knows scuba diving, car racing, shooting, karate etc in general. 7-8 Cars goes up and down in the movie.
g. Priyadarshan school of Cinema: Paresh Rawal is surely part of movie. There is always confusion. Tom and Jerry kind of climax sequence.
h. Bhatt school of Cinema: Songs or singers are imported from Pakistan. Promos excite kids less than 18 years of age. Script writer is not required. Script is mostly written on DVDs rather than on paper.
i. Farah Khan school of Cinema: This is Manmohan Desai school of Cinema with no changes.
j. David Dhawan school of Cinema:- Slap stick comedy. Almost every character insults the other characters. Songs appears from nowhere and you cannot even guess from where the background dancers came. The Background dancers are same for all the songs only costume changes.
k. Benegal,Gulzar,Nihalani,Jha school of Cinema:- will shoot daily activity of a person and tell us it is a movie.
These are the general categories in which we can classify the Indian Film makers. I have very high regards for Indian Cinema and everything written above is just for fun. No Offence is intended to any party. In next installment we will try to cover the various school of TV shows.

“Kyunki Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost…..”