The 90s was an exciting time in India. Liberalisation was making the kind of sweeping changes that would enable a whole generation of B-School grads to start off with double-digit salaries. The license Raj was disappearing, sectors were being thrown open and everywhere we were ascending new heights. Except Bollywood. If there is one era that can be pointed out as the worst in Bollywood’s history, it must be the early 90s and Raja Hindustani was perhaps some sort of a flashpoint in this nadir. I watched the promos of this movie as an 18 year old and wisely stayed away from it.
Then again, you grow older, more sentimental and foolish. After all, the 90s were my days, and frankly no other sane human being would preserve the cultural heritage of this fine generation. It is up to me and my ilk to inch up TV ratings to ensure 90s songs and movies don’t totally disappear from mainstream media. So saying, I settled down to watch Raja Hindustani on Sab TV the other day.
What a movie it turned out to be ! Reading like a competent doctoral thesis on ‘successful elements in a 90s pot boiler’, the movie has everything – poor hero, rich heroine, scheming step mother, communication gaps, hero defending the heroine’s honour, high society birthday party where everyone stands around and politely nurses a drink while the rich family members sing sad songs.
Arthi Sehgal (Karishma Kapoor) comes to Palanpet (or Palanpur) to celebrate her newly straightened hair and ponder on the exact mathematics involved in getting thin eyebrows. She hires Raja Hindustani’s (Aamir Khan) car and going by the irrefutable Laws of Bollywood ends up falling in love with him. Enter father (Suresh Oberoi) who wants to take Arthi back home. Raja drives them to the nearest airport. On the way, singing the worst superhit song of the 90s ‘Pardesi pardesi jana nahi’ Raja persuades Arthi to stay back and marry him. The couple marries and proceeds to sing even more horrible songs in the hillside. Step ma-in-law (Archana Puran Singh) enters the fray and separates Arthi and Raja. Raja goes back to Palanpur and sings sad songs during the course of which Arthi has a baby. At this point, the villains wake up and decide to do away with Raja and the baby. Baam Bish Doom. Raja and baby emerge unscathed. Arthi and Raja reunite and sing more songs.
At first glance, you may want to go ‘blech’ and throw up after listening to the story. It takes a talented viewer to notice the subtleties that made this movie a super hit. Here they are
The Kiss: This movie finally solved the mystery of what happened when the hero and the heroine brought their faces together and then the camera swiveled to give a view of the back of the hero’s head and the top half of the heroine’s face. Curious teenagers did not have to wait for Emraan Hashmi to give them lessons in hitting first base.
The Stepmother: The evil stepmother wears vamp-like clothes. But no one immediately equates this sartorial preference with lurking evil. Hindi movies finally moved beyond associating scantily clad women with a lack of moral fibre. Of course, as informed viewer, you have known right from the beginning that ma-in-laws showing some skin must be evil and can barely suppress yourself from saying ‘I told you so’ when events prove you right.
The Surd: One could easily dismiss Johnny Lever as the worst type of Sikh stereotyping. Especially when he walks around squatting and screaming ‘balle balle’ for no good reason. But no. Carefully notice how he does not sport a beard.
The Cross dressers – Early prototypes of Bobby darling, the female does a volte face and marries the surd. In just one quick scene, she sprouts a long pigtail worthy of a good Bharatiya Nari. I am not sure which shocked the audience more – the change in preferences or the quick hair growing lotion.
The movie is actually one of those wonderful bridges between the old and the new – the halfway house before kissing on screen, transvestites, and every song repeated atleast twice in the movie became standard Bollywood practice. And really, the fact that it wants me want to scream even after 11 years is just a testimony to its consistent legacy.
By,
Anita B.
(read more of her posts on http://royalvilla.blogspot.com)
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Old Favourites - Part 2
And in keep with the old old favourites theme, here in another of mine.
It started with two poems being run on the poetry site called the Wondering Minstrels ( http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1763.html and http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/83.html) - one each by William Carlos Williams and F.J.Bergmann.
And then Anita and Rohit joined in too.
All the poems are reproduced below :
The Red Wheelbarrow
-- William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
"An Apology"
-- F. J. Bergmann
Forgive me
for backing over
and smashing your red wheelbarrow.
It was raining
and the rear wiper
does not work on
my new plum-colored SUV.
I am also sorry
about the white
chickens.
Inspired by 'An Apology'
by Anita. B
forgive me
for overtaking
and grazing
your red scooty
it was raining
and you were
at the blind spot of
my green scratched esteem
I am also sorry
about that guy
at the adyar signal.
Rohit's Reply
-- Rohithari Rajan
Forgive you?
I was in a hurry,
And that was a NEW scooty!
I was getting soaked
while you blindly (bull)dozed
in that ghastly green thing
(A blow, I say, to anyone's esteem)
But don't worry about that guy
I never really liked him anyway.
It started with two poems being run on the poetry site called the Wondering Minstrels ( http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1763.html and http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/83.html) - one each by William Carlos Williams and F.J.Bergmann.
And then Anita and Rohit joined in too.
All the poems are reproduced below :
The Red Wheelbarrow
-- William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
"An Apology"
-- F. J. Bergmann
Forgive me
for backing over
and smashing your red wheelbarrow.
It was raining
and the rear wiper
does not work on
my new plum-colored SUV.
I am also sorry
about the white
chickens.
Inspired by 'An Apology'
by Anita. B
forgive me
for overtaking
and grazing
your red scooty
it was raining
and you were
at the blind spot of
my green scratched esteem
I am also sorry
about that guy
at the adyar signal.
Rohit's Reply
-- Rohithari Rajan
Forgive you?
I was in a hurry,
And that was a NEW scooty!
I was getting soaked
while you blindly (bull)dozed
in that ghastly green thing
(A blow, I say, to anyone's esteem)
But don't worry about that guy
I never really liked him anyway.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Old favourites - 1
Now that this blog is almost two years old, have decided to select favourite posts from the past and run them again. Today's is 'Fairy Tale Phobia' by Rohit Grover, which I have read again ang again and over again, and continue to enjoy.
Do mention your favourite posts - by commenting or emailing - and those will be run too.
Our blog is almost two years old. Yippeee !
Fairy Tale Phobia
Now that I am a father, who is regularly called upon to read stories to his daughter, I have developed a very healthy dislike for fairy tales. I am okay with bears that talk and discuss the matters of the day, such as how the porridge is so much hotter nowadays than when they were little bear cubs, thinking nary a thought but those of porridge at just the right temperature, not cold and congealed, not so hot that it would burn the roofs of their mouths, just right. I can imitate barnyard animals till the cows come home -- mooing and snorting and clucking come to me like fluorescent lamps to the energy conscious. Zoo animals -- oh yeah, bring those on.
But fairy tales I hate. I can't stand the message I'm sending to my kid. Everytime I read 'Sleeping Beauty' I think of how vacuous and shallow the whole thing is. The fairies give her gifts of beauty and a singsong voice and, presumably, more gifts of a similar nature (maybe an hourglass figure, two well-defined eyebrows, and the like). No one gives her gifts of intelligence, the ability to do math, solve quantum mechanical problems, solve analytical mechanics problems, to see beauty in biology, the ability to tell fact from fiction, science from religion, not to mention the ability to kick the freaking prince who will later come up and kiss her without so much as a how-do-you-do.
If my daughter is to marry a prince, or an heir to a vast fortune, so be it, but I hope she will at least google the guy, pay some agency to do a background check on him, and spend enough time with him to figure out if it's really worth the trouble.
All the stories about evil stepmothers? How about some stories about kind stepmothers? Let's balance things a little, shall we? My daughter might have to be a stepmother some day -- I don't want her to feel like a failure if she doesn't have a hooked nose with a wart on the end, a cackly laugh, and a propensity to do evil. So I just avoid those. Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White will have to wait. Other stories I find myself changing on the fly.
Fauna, Flora, and Merriweather give gifts of being good at math, feeling relaxed during examinations, and an independent streak, but not one that leads Sleeping Beauty (how about calling her Aurora, her given name, for chrissakes) to do drugs or tobacco. Aurora gets into an accident on her way home from the art academy (she was straying from the path of science). Because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, she goes into a coma, but a very intelligent surgeon saves her, and when she finally wakes up, he mentors her and she becomes a neurosurgeon herself. Then they get married and have kids, because let's face it, I want to make sure that message is conveyed so that my genes should get passed on -- that's my evolutionary right.
The miller who had a beautiful daughter who couldn't really spin straw into gold? How come the king gets to decide if he wants to marry her -- doesn't the girl get any sat? There are many versions of that one. The simples? It was a foolish miller, who's daughter packed an AK-47, and when the evil ruler tried to make her do stuff she didn't want to, RATATATATATATATATAT. That story ends rather fast. Then there's the one where she does the spinning of straw, but turns him down and goes to law school and proves that the monarchy is not right and introduces democracy to the country and becomes the first president (She shoots Rumpelstiltskin when he tries to kidnap her first-born kid).
The three little pigs -- actually, I like that one. But after having read it out loud a few hundred times, complete with the song about the big bad wolf, you want to end it sooner, so sometimes the wolf wins and has ham sandwiches for breakfast the next few months.
You get the picture.
I also hate tabloids and celebrity news magazines. I hate Aishwarya Rai, Lindsay Lohan, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Britney Spears. I want someone to publish a magazine with, say, glamor shots of Madame Curie's experimental apparatus (maybe Madame Curie also, but in opaque, sensible clothing). But that's another rant.
By,
Speck 42 ((speckfortytwo)(at)(gmail)(dot)(com))
Do mention your favourite posts - by commenting or emailing - and those will be run too.
Our blog is almost two years old. Yippeee !
Fairy Tale Phobia
Now that I am a father, who is regularly called upon to read stories to his daughter, I have developed a very healthy dislike for fairy tales. I am okay with bears that talk and discuss the matters of the day, such as how the porridge is so much hotter nowadays than when they were little bear cubs, thinking nary a thought but those of porridge at just the right temperature, not cold and congealed, not so hot that it would burn the roofs of their mouths, just right. I can imitate barnyard animals till the cows come home -- mooing and snorting and clucking come to me like fluorescent lamps to the energy conscious. Zoo animals -- oh yeah, bring those on.
But fairy tales I hate. I can't stand the message I'm sending to my kid. Everytime I read 'Sleeping Beauty' I think of how vacuous and shallow the whole thing is. The fairies give her gifts of beauty and a singsong voice and, presumably, more gifts of a similar nature (maybe an hourglass figure, two well-defined eyebrows, and the like). No one gives her gifts of intelligence, the ability to do math, solve quantum mechanical problems, solve analytical mechanics problems, to see beauty in biology, the ability to tell fact from fiction, science from religion, not to mention the ability to kick the freaking prince who will later come up and kiss her without so much as a how-do-you-do.
If my daughter is to marry a prince, or an heir to a vast fortune, so be it, but I hope she will at least google the guy, pay some agency to do a background check on him, and spend enough time with him to figure out if it's really worth the trouble.
All the stories about evil stepmothers? How about some stories about kind stepmothers? Let's balance things a little, shall we? My daughter might have to be a stepmother some day -- I don't want her to feel like a failure if she doesn't have a hooked nose with a wart on the end, a cackly laugh, and a propensity to do evil. So I just avoid those. Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White will have to wait. Other stories I find myself changing on the fly.
Fauna, Flora, and Merriweather give gifts of being good at math, feeling relaxed during examinations, and an independent streak, but not one that leads Sleeping Beauty (how about calling her Aurora, her given name, for chrissakes) to do drugs or tobacco. Aurora gets into an accident on her way home from the art academy (she was straying from the path of science). Because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, she goes into a coma, but a very intelligent surgeon saves her, and when she finally wakes up, he mentors her and she becomes a neurosurgeon herself. Then they get married and have kids, because let's face it, I want to make sure that message is conveyed so that my genes should get passed on -- that's my evolutionary right.
The miller who had a beautiful daughter who couldn't really spin straw into gold? How come the king gets to decide if he wants to marry her -- doesn't the girl get any sat? There are many versions of that one. The simples? It was a foolish miller, who's daughter packed an AK-47, and when the evil ruler tried to make her do stuff she didn't want to, RATATATATATATATATAT. That story ends rather fast. Then there's the one where she does the spinning of straw, but turns him down and goes to law school and proves that the monarchy is not right and introduces democracy to the country and becomes the first president (She shoots Rumpelstiltskin when he tries to kidnap her first-born kid).
The three little pigs -- actually, I like that one. But after having read it out loud a few hundred times, complete with the song about the big bad wolf, you want to end it sooner, so sometimes the wolf wins and has ham sandwiches for breakfast the next few months.
You get the picture.
I also hate tabloids and celebrity news magazines. I hate Aishwarya Rai, Lindsay Lohan, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Britney Spears. I want someone to publish a magazine with, say, glamor shots of Madame Curie's experimental apparatus (maybe Madame Curie also, but in opaque, sensible clothing). But that's another rant.
By,
Speck 42 ((speckfortytwo)(at)(gmail)(dot)(com))
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Review of 'Blue Umbrella'
'Blue Umbrella'--- a film that will make you smile
I was glad when I got a personally autographed copy of 'Blue Umbrella' from Ruskin Bond last year when I met him to do an interview. I was excited once again like a kid when I got an invite for the premier of the film 'Blue Umbrella' based on the same Novella and directed by Vishal Bharadwaj.
Set in a small town in the hills of Himachal Pradesh it's as idyllic as it can be. If you have seen Malgudi days on TV you can relate to the settings of the film very well. It is this small, happy and harmonious village where everyone knows everyone else and nothing is hidden from one another.
The film 'Blue Umbrella' opens on Nandkishore (Pankaj Kapur), an unkempt shopkeeper lying on his charpoy with headphones plugged into his years and listening to a robot telling him his fortune. The mechanical voice assures Nandu that he will become a rich and famous man like 'Bill Gates', and when asked by one of his cronies who 'Bill Gates' is Nandkishore promptly answers that like India Gate there must be something called Bill Gates.
Nandu is this shrewd shopkeeper who wants everything that he likes and looks to make money out of every little thing that he can. Just as everything is normal in the village, a little girl 'Biniya' (debutante Shreya) is gifted a 'Blue Umbrella' by a group of Japanese travelers. They exchange the enticing Blue Umbrella for a Bear Claw locket that is supposedly a lucky charm for Biniya.
Biniya takes the Blue Umbrella that is so beautiful and the entire village is in awe of that umbrella. Right from the Village School Teacher's wife to Nandu everyone wants to have the Blue Umbrella. While she shares the Blue Umbrella with her friends, Biniya is clear she is never going to part with the beautiful acquisition that she has made recently. Nandu attempts all to entice her - free choclates and biscuits and even a paltry sum of Rs. 50 for the umbrella, but she refuses. Then finally one day the umbrella gets stolen.
Not just Biniya, the entire village is upset. Everybody tries to pacify Biniya but Biniya decides to investigate the robbery on her own along with the village police. There are several twists and turns from here on in the story. I would not want to reveal the whole film to you. All I can say is that there are emotions and issues of ostracism, loss, longing and loneliness that are brought out well.
Finally, all's well that end's well. It's a happy ending. The film is shot brilliantly, the photography is amazing. The cast has done a brilliant job. A low-budget production ‘Blue Umbrella’ deals powerfully with snow and nature, at the same time superbly highlighting the umbrella. In fact the director Vishal Bhardwaj treats the umbrella like the main protagonist of the film.
All in all the film is lovely and definitely brings the child out in you and makes you smile. I liked the film better than Bhardwaj's earlier children's film 'Makdee'. One must go and watch the film.
By,
Anusha S.
I was glad when I got a personally autographed copy of 'Blue Umbrella' from Ruskin Bond last year when I met him to do an interview. I was excited once again like a kid when I got an invite for the premier of the film 'Blue Umbrella' based on the same Novella and directed by Vishal Bharadwaj.
Set in a small town in the hills of Himachal Pradesh it's as idyllic as it can be. If you have seen Malgudi days on TV you can relate to the settings of the film very well. It is this small, happy and harmonious village where everyone knows everyone else and nothing is hidden from one another.
The film 'Blue Umbrella' opens on Nandkishore (Pankaj Kapur), an unkempt shopkeeper lying on his charpoy with headphones plugged into his years and listening to a robot telling him his fortune. The mechanical voice assures Nandu that he will become a rich and famous man like 'Bill Gates', and when asked by one of his cronies who 'Bill Gates' is Nandkishore promptly answers that like India Gate there must be something called Bill Gates.
Nandu is this shrewd shopkeeper who wants everything that he likes and looks to make money out of every little thing that he can. Just as everything is normal in the village, a little girl 'Biniya' (debutante Shreya) is gifted a 'Blue Umbrella' by a group of Japanese travelers. They exchange the enticing Blue Umbrella for a Bear Claw locket that is supposedly a lucky charm for Biniya.
Biniya takes the Blue Umbrella that is so beautiful and the entire village is in awe of that umbrella. Right from the Village School Teacher's wife to Nandu everyone wants to have the Blue Umbrella. While she shares the Blue Umbrella with her friends, Biniya is clear she is never going to part with the beautiful acquisition that she has made recently. Nandu attempts all to entice her - free choclates and biscuits and even a paltry sum of Rs. 50 for the umbrella, but she refuses. Then finally one day the umbrella gets stolen.
Not just Biniya, the entire village is upset. Everybody tries to pacify Biniya but Biniya decides to investigate the robbery on her own along with the village police. There are several twists and turns from here on in the story. I would not want to reveal the whole film to you. All I can say is that there are emotions and issues of ostracism, loss, longing and loneliness that are brought out well.
Finally, all's well that end's well. It's a happy ending. The film is shot brilliantly, the photography is amazing. The cast has done a brilliant job. A low-budget production ‘Blue Umbrella’ deals powerfully with snow and nature, at the same time superbly highlighting the umbrella. In fact the director Vishal Bhardwaj treats the umbrella like the main protagonist of the film.
All in all the film is lovely and definitely brings the child out in you and makes you smile. I liked the film better than Bhardwaj's earlier children's film 'Makdee'. One must go and watch the film.
By,
Anusha S.
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