The fact that Ganesh pandals have sprung up here and there in Chennai is good evidence of a singular lack of imagination. As a primarily Maharastrian custom, it is not too popular here. Nevertheless the State units of the more ‘nationalistic’ political parties labour on every year in the hope of generating mass hysteria and cutting through to the vote base of the Dravidian parties. As most of their other laughable ideas, this has also not worked too well so far.
One of the Ganesha pandals I managed to pass by this year was an example of why these State units should seriously consider dropping the idea. The pandal owner had neatly come up with various avatars of Ganesha depending on what had caught his fancy. I noticed a ‘nut’ Ganesh, a ‘grass’ Ganesh, a fruity Ganesh, a coconut Ganesh and turmeric Ganesh. In case you are reaching out for your Penguin book of Hindu mythology, let me assure you that all these are definitely not sanctioned avatars of the elephant god. Clearly an overactive imagination had been at work. The only problem was that the level of competence had clearly not matched the level of enthusiasm. The turmeric Ganesha was alright, merely looking like he was suffering from an advanced case of Hepatitis B. The nuts and fruits Ganeshas were also reasonably fine. The grass Ganesha looked like a mutant child of a union between Ganesh and an Ent from Lord of the Rings. What really took the cake was the coconut Ganesha. The statue was embossed on all sides with empty coconut shells all covered in a fine layer of mud. The effect was of watching Ganesh suffering from some unspeakable disease, no doubt contracted by being promiscuous with the Apsaras. Just looking at it made me want to shut my eyes and sing songs to calm myself down.
I am not the one to quibble about Ganesh being given new forms. Infact, assimilation of new ideas is probably the cornerstone of a religion’s survival. As a child I had heartily applauded when I saw Ma Durga riding a dinosaur in a pandal in Kolkatha (Jurassic Park had just been released that year). However I do protest against my aesthetic senses being offended like this.
The irony was that despite the stark ugliness of the whole range of Ganeshas, devotees were still passing by them in a steady line, touching the feet of the statues. Boy, religion sure sells!
By,
Anita B (more by her on http://royalvilla.blogspot.com)
Monday, September 24, 2007
Reality Weekend
Thanks to a TV addicted family, and multiple sms from my mother telling me when to watch TV, I ended up spending three hours this weekend watching reality shows on TV. This post is an attempt at catharsis.
My reaction to ‘Nach Baliye 3’ can be summed up thus – ‘cut the cr**, get them on stage and start the dancing’. I am just not interested in what Kashmira said (intentionally or unintentionally) about Rakhi Sawant’s silicon (or lack of it), neither in whether the ten couples think it fair to include Juhi and her yet-undiscovered-Baliye in the competition. ‘Yeh Na Socho Sirf Nach Hoga’, they warned us in the posters, but they did not disclose that what we in for was more ‘Big Boss’ and less ‘Nach Baliye’.
I want foot-tapping music, entertaining dancing and good, wholesome drama – all of which ‘Nach Baliye 1’ delivered. For instance, there was Varun Badola dancing to ‘Khaike Paan Banaraswala’, a version far superior to the Shahrukh Khan one that was in ‘Don’. Remember Varun and Rajeshwari dancing to ‘Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai’ – the salsa / tango they did was amazing ! And there were the comic numbers – Archana Puransingh and Parmeet Sethi dancing to ‘Dariya kinaare ek bangle hoga’ where Archana did a hilarious take-off on a woman applying make-up, and Parmeet dancing to ‘Koi Kahe, Kehta Rahe’ in shorts and a bright yellow shirt. There was tons of drama and emotion too – Archana and Parmeet brought their kids along for almost every episode and always addressed them on-stage after their performance or blew kisses at them, Poonam and Manish cried after every decision – irrespective of whether they were praised or criticised, Saroj Khan added to the drama content by making a 100 rupee note a symbol of success, Delnaz Paul showed us what sycophancy was every time she spoke of Saroj Khan etc etc. There was no dearth of drama ‘in Nach Baliye 1’ but none of it was crass (at least, not that I can remember). ‘Nach Baliye 3’ would do well to incorporate more elements of ‘Nach Baliye 1’, though avoiding crassness might be a wee bit difficult for some amongst the current set of contestants.
Immediately after ‘Nach Baliye 3’, I switched channels to watch an hour of ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’, and I must admit, it seemed to promise much more energy, fun and D A N C E than ‘Nach Baliye 3’. From a loyal ‘Nach Baliye’ fan, I may switch to ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’. (Makers of ‘Nach Baliye’, please note, I grant you a grace period of one more episode to get your act together.)
Sunday night I devoted to watching the ‘Indian Idols 3’ final. One hardly got to hear Amit and Prashant sing – most of the time the other contestants, judges, guest stars etc were on stage. It seemed more like a dance programme than a singing programme – are all the ‘Indian Idol’ final episodes like this ? All the dance numbers chosen were recent tapori hits – less melody, more noise - so I didn’t enjoy those much. Alisha chose to appear in medieval-queen-whose-split-personality-is-a-whore outfit – it was just awful. The last straw was Mika appearing on the stage for a number – I switched off the TV then and decided to read about the results in the newspaper. I will leave comments about the merits of the winner to Aqua, for a loyal Prashant supporter like her will definitely blog about it (link to Aqua’s previous post about Prashant - http://aquadreamer.blogspot.com/2007/07/prashant-rocks.html).
By,
Zenobia D. Driver
My reaction to ‘Nach Baliye 3’ can be summed up thus – ‘cut the cr**, get them on stage and start the dancing’. I am just not interested in what Kashmira said (intentionally or unintentionally) about Rakhi Sawant’s silicon (or lack of it), neither in whether the ten couples think it fair to include Juhi and her yet-undiscovered-Baliye in the competition. ‘Yeh Na Socho Sirf Nach Hoga’, they warned us in the posters, but they did not disclose that what we in for was more ‘Big Boss’ and less ‘Nach Baliye’.
I want foot-tapping music, entertaining dancing and good, wholesome drama – all of which ‘Nach Baliye 1’ delivered. For instance, there was Varun Badola dancing to ‘Khaike Paan Banaraswala’, a version far superior to the Shahrukh Khan one that was in ‘Don’. Remember Varun and Rajeshwari dancing to ‘Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai’ – the salsa / tango they did was amazing ! And there were the comic numbers – Archana Puransingh and Parmeet Sethi dancing to ‘Dariya kinaare ek bangle hoga’ where Archana did a hilarious take-off on a woman applying make-up, and Parmeet dancing to ‘Koi Kahe, Kehta Rahe’ in shorts and a bright yellow shirt. There was tons of drama and emotion too – Archana and Parmeet brought their kids along for almost every episode and always addressed them on-stage after their performance or blew kisses at them, Poonam and Manish cried after every decision – irrespective of whether they were praised or criticised, Saroj Khan added to the drama content by making a 100 rupee note a symbol of success, Delnaz Paul showed us what sycophancy was every time she spoke of Saroj Khan etc etc. There was no dearth of drama ‘in Nach Baliye 1’ but none of it was crass (at least, not that I can remember). ‘Nach Baliye 3’ would do well to incorporate more elements of ‘Nach Baliye 1’, though avoiding crassness might be a wee bit difficult for some amongst the current set of contestants.
Immediately after ‘Nach Baliye 3’, I switched channels to watch an hour of ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’, and I must admit, it seemed to promise much more energy, fun and D A N C E than ‘Nach Baliye 3’. From a loyal ‘Nach Baliye’ fan, I may switch to ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’. (Makers of ‘Nach Baliye’, please note, I grant you a grace period of one more episode to get your act together.)
Sunday night I devoted to watching the ‘Indian Idols 3’ final. One hardly got to hear Amit and Prashant sing – most of the time the other contestants, judges, guest stars etc were on stage. It seemed more like a dance programme than a singing programme – are all the ‘Indian Idol’ final episodes like this ? All the dance numbers chosen were recent tapori hits – less melody, more noise - so I didn’t enjoy those much. Alisha chose to appear in medieval-queen-whose-split-personality-is-a-whore outfit – it was just awful. The last straw was Mika appearing on the stage for a number – I switched off the TV then and decided to read about the results in the newspaper. I will leave comments about the merits of the winner to Aqua, for a loyal Prashant supporter like her will definitely blog about it (link to Aqua’s previous post about Prashant - http://aquadreamer.blogspot.com/2007/07/prashant-rocks.html).
By,
Zenobia D. Driver
Monday, September 10, 2007
Review of 'Apna Asman'
I watched ‘Apna Asman’, a film by adman turned film director Kaushik Roy (currently President-Brand Strategy and Marketing Communication at Reliance Industries). The film is about an autistic child and the trauma and he and his parents undergo. The film is about a teenager's journey to be loved and admired for what he is rather then what his parents want him to be.
The movie is set in the city of Mumbai and is a modern insight on a young couple’s desires and aspirations, true of any modern day parent today.
The story is of Ravi Kumar (Irrfan Khan) his wife Padmini (Shobhana) and their teenage son BuddhiRaj (Dhruv Piyush Panjwani). Khan works for a plastics company and runs the family financially. Padmini his wife who is a classical dancer quits dancing after marriage to take care of the family and her son.
The couple is heart broken when their son is detected mild autistic and a slow learner. Buddhi’s only connection with the world is through his paintings. But his parents are not willing to accept his short comings and encourage him in his paintings. His retarded condition leaves his father broken with guilt and his mother who was looking for a bright future from the boy. The film maker has brought out the frustrations of the parents very well. So much so to the extent that they get carried away by a fake doctor who claims to cure brain disorders with an injection he has invented.
Despite being warned by their doctor (Dr Sen played by Rajat Kapoor) not to use their son as a guinea pig, the father manages to get the injection for the boy and in an inebriated state injects the medicine into the boy.
To their utter amazement the boy recovers and is normal. But the normalcy comes with its own set of consequences. From here the story takes some drastic turns. The boy who returns to normalcy is shown to have changed so drastically that it is a little too much to take.
The boy turns to be a big celebrity mathematician magician and is called ‘Arya Bhatt’. He is shown to become nasty having forgotten his past, he thinks his parents are imposters and are after his money. This is where I felt the film needed better treatment as the director goes a little overboard in showing the change in the boy. But finally all’s well that end’s well.
The casting is brilliant with Irrfan Khan, Shobhana and Rajat Kapoor having performed brilliantly. Dhruv Panjwani is good as an autistic child but I did not like his performance when he changes to be a normal teenager.
More than its portrayal of how a couple copes with their autism-affected child, the film touches a chord with its message on parenting. Apna Asmaan takes this story line “How far would you go to make your child a genius?” The film-maker gives it the sensibility of an urban thriller and has tried hard to make it an entertaining yet thought-provoking film about parents and their demands of their children.
Inspired by his own son ‘Orko’ Kaushik Roy’s first attempt to deal with a serious and intense subject of this nature is fairly good. I think it is a must for all parents to watch and learn from it.
Umang Pahwa is the producer of the film. Barun Mukherji is the head of the cinematography department and director Kaushik Roy has conceptualized and penned the story of the film. The music by Leslie Lewis is good.
The film that was released on September 7th has been screened at several international film festivals and has won the ‘The German Star of India’ at the Stuttgart Festival.
The film has been distributed in India by Sony Pictures.
The film might not be commercially viable but it could appeal to the serious film goers.
By,
Anusha
The movie is set in the city of Mumbai and is a modern insight on a young couple’s desires and aspirations, true of any modern day parent today.
The story is of Ravi Kumar (Irrfan Khan) his wife Padmini (Shobhana) and their teenage son BuddhiRaj (Dhruv Piyush Panjwani). Khan works for a plastics company and runs the family financially. Padmini his wife who is a classical dancer quits dancing after marriage to take care of the family and her son.
The couple is heart broken when their son is detected mild autistic and a slow learner. Buddhi’s only connection with the world is through his paintings. But his parents are not willing to accept his short comings and encourage him in his paintings. His retarded condition leaves his father broken with guilt and his mother who was looking for a bright future from the boy. The film maker has brought out the frustrations of the parents very well. So much so to the extent that they get carried away by a fake doctor who claims to cure brain disorders with an injection he has invented.
Despite being warned by their doctor (Dr Sen played by Rajat Kapoor) not to use their son as a guinea pig, the father manages to get the injection for the boy and in an inebriated state injects the medicine into the boy.
To their utter amazement the boy recovers and is normal. But the normalcy comes with its own set of consequences. From here the story takes some drastic turns. The boy who returns to normalcy is shown to have changed so drastically that it is a little too much to take.
The boy turns to be a big celebrity mathematician magician and is called ‘Arya Bhatt’. He is shown to become nasty having forgotten his past, he thinks his parents are imposters and are after his money. This is where I felt the film needed better treatment as the director goes a little overboard in showing the change in the boy. But finally all’s well that end’s well.
The casting is brilliant with Irrfan Khan, Shobhana and Rajat Kapoor having performed brilliantly. Dhruv Panjwani is good as an autistic child but I did not like his performance when he changes to be a normal teenager.
More than its portrayal of how a couple copes with their autism-affected child, the film touches a chord with its message on parenting. Apna Asmaan takes this story line “How far would you go to make your child a genius?” The film-maker gives it the sensibility of an urban thriller and has tried hard to make it an entertaining yet thought-provoking film about parents and their demands of their children.
Inspired by his own son ‘Orko’ Kaushik Roy’s first attempt to deal with a serious and intense subject of this nature is fairly good. I think it is a must for all parents to watch and learn from it.
Umang Pahwa is the producer of the film. Barun Mukherji is the head of the cinematography department and director Kaushik Roy has conceptualized and penned the story of the film. The music by Leslie Lewis is good.
The film that was released on September 7th has been screened at several international film festivals and has won the ‘The German Star of India’ at the Stuttgart Festival.
The film has been distributed in India by Sony Pictures.
The film might not be commercially viable but it could appeal to the serious film goers.
By,
Anusha
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