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Mahaaaaaaabharata

I was reading this piece the other day about the renewed interest of many Bollywood film maker's in reconstructing a piece of mythology by making Mahabharata come alive on the big screen. The chance of exploring these age old epics in their own fashion offers tremendous opportunities to these film makers and it would surely be exciting to see how they tell this mother of stories on the silver screen. I have always had this secret wish of directing a movie someday too and coupled with my love for fantasy drafts I decided to jump into making a wish list of actors I would want if I wanted to make Mahabharata for the 70 mm screens too. Now my knowledge of this epic is limited to viewings (and repeat viewings) of its TV adaptation by B.R. Chopra so my choice of characters might be biased by the way they were projected on TV and also might have led me to come up with this wish list of only the characters that stayed with me even after the TV series was over.

The good guys
Yudhishthira: Ajay Devagan has done this bit before playing the guy who has truth on his side, the righteous one who treads the path of truth in the face of all adversities.
Bhima: The role requires an imposing physical presence, a gentle giant who often lets his anger get the better of him making Sanjay Dutt perfect for the part.
Arjuna: Who better than the best actors in the industry to play one of the important and my favorite character from Mahabharata. Aaamir Khan would be perfect perfectionist for this part that requires a certain degree of integrity to reflect in the person to play the character convincingly.
Nakula and Sahadev : I don't remember much about these twins but the record says that Nakula was extremely attractive so I went with Salman Khan for his sheer star power and also so that he doesn't have to act too much to dent this monster of a movie.
Draupadi: This is one of the toughest calls to make choosing probably the only important female part in a male dominated flick. To play a woman who is the object of affection of five important parts in the movie and to effectively play a woman who is so scorned that she is the underlying reason for the biggest baddest battle ever fought, Kajol heads my list followed closely by Rani Mukherjee and Aishwarya Rai with Vidya Balan being the wild card.
Krishna: Who better than Krrishh to play the second most important parts in Mahabharata. The person chosen has to project an aura and charisma very critical for this part while being a very good actor to be able to mouth those heavy lines without sounding cheesy hence the choice of Hrithik Roshan for the part.
Abhimanyu: One of my favorite characters again he shall win all the audience sympathies after his tragic death. I decided to go with either Shiney Ahuja or Abhishek Bachchan with their youthful looks and ability to play to the galleries with their eventual and tragic deaths.

The baddies
Karna: Probably the third most important character in the movie I decided to go with Shah Rukh Khan to play this guy with the heart of gold who sides with the baddies because his word is more important to him. Also casting SRK brings to the screen the dream pitting of Khan vs Khan which is a guaranteed crowd puller.
Duryodhana: For this part I decided to go with Akshay Kumar, an actor who has improved by leaps and bounds and has displayed a mean evil streak in previous movies. Saif Ali Khan could be good too as he displayed with his mean streak in Omkara.
Shakuni: For this small but very important part I went with Boman Irani, for those who think he is only good at comedy revisit Khosla Ka Ghosla and Being Cyrus.

The character actors
Bhishma: The easiest choice of all choosing the Big B to play the Big B of Mahabharata. He will easily do justice to this character who bound by oath undergoes a lot of torture but still sticks by his word Amitabh Bachchan.
Kunti: I just had to cast Raakhee as the mother of the Pandavas and who undergoes a lot of grief fully knowing that the battle will not end without at least one of her sons dying in it.

I had a rocking time coming up with this list which went through a few revisions the more I thought about it. You guys help yourself and engage in some fantasy fun too while I think about coming up with an all time list from all decades from Bollywood.

Just a thought

I heard creating perfectly happy existences was a thankless job, I won't be one to break tradition but I am just glad they picked the right man for the job.

The apple tree

A trip back to India is always a learning in more ways than one. You look back at times you have spent in your motherland, you reflect at what has been and what has shaped your life to the point at where you stand on that day. You look around at places and people who have also had a formative influence on your life and you try and put them against the mental pictures you had of them before. You find out a lot of people have actually changed, but maybe its just you who has. Maybe you have matured and gained a different perspective of them or maybe its just them. A lot of questions remain and a lot of questions remain unanswered. One of these people you get to observe quite closely is your parents, one of the most important things in your life, people battle hardened in life's war, people to whom you speak to almost everyday but who still are separated from you by the physical distances. However you notice how these holders of your genetic pool are really splitting images of yourself split only by spaces of time and a generation. You slowly notice uncanny similarities at they way they handle situations, the way they react, the way they handle people. Its scary at first to finally notice these things which you might have missed when you were less mature. But at the end of the day I realized it was a learning curve. Its a time to pat yourself on the back for the good things you have imbibed and admire in your parents and on the other hand its a time to consciously bring about changes if you think need be, on things which make you incompatible with people while you still can because you are still in a position to do so. Which way you look at it I think if you look hard enough it will be there for you to see that the apple never falls too far from the tree.

DELHI .... from the back of an auto rickshaw

India on my mind

SAD at what I leave behind
UPSET at what could have been a longer stay
APPREHENSIVE of changes beyond my control
BUMMED at my cover of my surprise landing being blown away
CONTENT that I leave behind my nascent footprints on my career
SURPRISED at how it still hasnt sunk in
HAPPY I have India on my mind now
ELATED I shall have India running through my lungs in a few days

Yours truly anonymously

Blogging for many people has for long been a release from their routine life. A space where they hang loose venting out their creative energies or as an overflowing pot for their emotions. For a lot of people it has been the diary they have never kept or have been too conscious to keep one. For many others it has been a shout out to life in general, from a budding storyteller, a wannabe poet, a seeker of truth, or even from a frustrated individual trying to give meaning to these series of unfortunate co incidences in his/her life. Many people have raised their voices anonymously while many others have chosen a more open route attaching faces to their voices. Personally for me it was never a big deal, it was as simple as filling out my name on any for I would fill out. I have a picture up on my blog simply because there was a tab on the blogger form that asked for it, nothing more nothing less to it. A lot of people have asked me whether my family knows about this blog of mine and the answer to that is not really because I don't go hoarse advertising my blog from the rooftops. Its one of those things that they would so easily find out about if they googled my name but till the time they don't I guess I do enjoy a certain degree of freedom about my blogging subjects. Somewhere down the line this made me appreciate to a small degree, the overenthusiastic zeal with which some bloggers protect their identities. Whether they do it to add enigma and mystery to their real life persona's ........ not really, but whether it helps them stay in their comfort zone as they blog about a variety of subjects ....... quite possibly and understandably yes.

Alvida

Main hun woh musafir
Rehguzar kinara hai jiska humraahi
Bas ek hai duvidha
Kya kah paaunga main
Is humrahi ko alvida
Kyunki meri manzil hai us paar

Where were you when ..........?

Lakdi ki kaathi, Kaathi pe ghoda (Masoom): Trying to sing along as a toddler only getting the 'takbak takbak' part right and trying to get a free horse ride from almost anyone to everyone.

Aaja shaam hone aayi (Maine Pyar Kiya): Trying hard to convince my mom to buy me a 'Friend' cap, cmon cut me some slack I was 7 or 8 years old and thank you Mom for not submitting to all my silly demands

Ek do teen (Tezaab): Hoping and praying my neighbors across the road would play the song on their cool new stereo system so that the kids could groove to the song again

Oye Oye, Tirchi Topiwaale (Tridev): Just trying to find places all over my street which were playing the song so that I could just go and dance over there

Jumma Chumma De De (Hum): Humming that song very very consciously under my breath all day for the fear of my Mom catching me singing it (damn that song was catchy)

Choli ke peeche (Khalnayak) / Tu cheez badi hai mast mast (Mohra) : Trying to find safe corners to sing the songs before a tap on the shoulder and a pair reproaching eyes told me it wasn't such a good idea

Chaiyya Chaiyya (Dil Se): Discovering cargo pants were indeed cool and Arbaaz Khan's only redeemable quality (for the uninitiated he married the angel grooving in the video of the song)

Aashiq Banaya Aapne (Aashiq Banaya Aapne): Blasting the number all over the streets of New Jersey on my IPod

Kajra Re (Bunty aur Bubli): Doing the Kajra re step and falling in love with Aishwarya Rai all over again :)

They say songs define a generation but for me songs can easily define my life till now, each of these numbers clearly demarcating the point of time I have stood at, with them in my life, acting as one of the most sweet sounding and very cherished time scale. So where were you when these numbers were burning up the charts?

To the one

To the one who knew so much about nothing
To the one who knew so much about the one who knew so much about nothing
To the one who knew so much about the female mind
To the one who thought he knew so much about the female mind
To the one who wrote a nothing about nothing

Remakes .......... Naaaaaaaaah

As media persons and dailies waited with their bated breath for Ram Gopal Verma to reveal Gabbar's new look for his version of Sholay, or for the 20th Oct release to see what Farhan Akhtar's done with Don or what J.P.Dutta ha s done with Umrao Jaan, I was once again left exasperated at the futility of the whole situation. Ever since Devdas was redone and redux'ed by Sanjay Leela Bansali to rake in the big bucks lot of the filmmakers have been looking at remakes as an easier option to rake in the big bucks. Film making has for long been an art form meant to be an extension of your creative juices flowing on a 70mm screen. And that is exactly why remakes don't exactly do the trick for me. Remakes are almost like music remixes, in which a certain nobody piggybacks on a geniuses' back onto the road to fame and glory even though they don't or might not have a single creative bone in their body. I mean sure enough you will get people curious and talking when you announce a remake of a past flick but that is not curiosity being generated because of your talent. The real reason is because people identify and connect with the past flick and you shouldn't be getting any free buzz just because of that or any credit for that. And sure enough people will watch your movie because they know your story, scenes, dialogues and scenes from your movie making it a big success, but is that why you picked up a camera in the first place? Whatever happened to that little voice in you which asked you to make movies just because you loved to make em so that you could translate your little ideas and make them unfold of the big screen to make people root for your characters, laugh and cry with them, and take back with them a little piece of movie magic firmly stamped across their minds with them?

Although

Elation is elation, painted
Sarcasm is sarcasm, serrated
Reputations are reputations, tainted
Co-incidences are co-incidences, slated
Strangers are strangers, aquainted
Chances are chances, fated
Passion is passion, jaded
Goodwill is goodwill, belated
Memories are memories, dated

Memorable quotes from a not so memorable movie

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.' From the movie Coach Carter

So this is how it ends

For those who wanna play catch up
1, 2, 3a/3b

His last few days had been a blur. He had thought and thought and then thought a little more about the infinite possibilities that might possibly lead him to meeting her again. The crazy part was he didn't really even know what he would do if he even did meet her but still he spent a major part of time wondering if he could somehow will fate to give him one more meeting with her. He drove on to work past the cafe where he had met her last and his eyes scanned the floor more out of hope than anything else. She had stopped showing up for work there 2 days after he had last met her there. he drove on once again late for work not helped by the piling morning rush hour traffic. He suddenly noticed some free room in the right most lanes and he jumped lanes happy to catch some breathing room and revved up his car. Suddenly as he caught some speed he caught something from the corner of his eye and he braked as hard as he possibly could. His car went out of control skidding between his lane and the pavement. The cars behind him went into a crazy tailspin but managed to stay clear of each other and the traffic. Meanwhile oblivious to all this he tried to gain some degree of control on his own car but he soon realised it was futile. He braced himself for impact however miraculously it never came. His car finally after swerving 180 degrees managed to come to a stop exactly beside where his corner of eyes had been transfixed.

Sally: Some show you are putting on today, pretty impressive
Harry: Oh cmon overlook the technicalities, hop into your ride
Sally: Presumptuous as ever, do you feel lucky today punk?
Harry: More like the luckiest man in the world

phoenixrizes.blogspot.com

As bloggers all around the world celebrated the first anniversary of his independence he looked back at the empty blogger window trying to surmise the changes his life had gone through. He recalled the days when he had taken his first fledgling steps as a medical student overjoyed at having gotten into one of his dream med schools. He recalled the days of getting bullied by his erstwhile seniors and now best friends. He recalled how he had sat up late nights waiting for the night mess to open up during exams dying to grab that cup of tea in the Delhi winters. He recalled how he had warmed to the first rays of the sun in the courtyard of the hostel. Those had been good times where he had stepped out of the shadows of his overachieving siblings and found his own voice in this world. It was sometime during those days when a combination of spare time and unlimited internet at his hostel had led him to open his own blog. The blog was an autobiographical diary of his life lived surrogately by this guy called Phoenix. He always had a knack of writing which was lost somewhere during his teenaged years buried under the weight of his medical ambitions. He wrote about his life, his daily routines lacing it with dollops of humor giving people the lowdown on life's fundaes at the same time. The blog initially caught on amongst his friends who loved the inside scoops of one their closest friend's life. They said his style was fresh and vibrant and they liked it because they always felt a real connection with the writer. Soon the blog caught on with friends of his friends and their friends till it caught on a life of its own. Soon it became quite a rage in Delhi as people discussed, argued, debated, hated and fell in love with every single word written out by him. He became the voice of the youth who began identifying with him as he became the faceless darling of thousands of people. He could never convince himself totally that he didn’t enjoy all the attention but it was sometime during these days that he noticed that his health began to suffer. His health about which he mentioned about far and between on his blog became a subject of media speculation and it was only after extensive checkups that he was diagnosed with AIDS. His life fell ripped apart around him as he struggled to come to terms with this harsh truth. They gave him 18 months at the maximum before he would succumb to the inevitable truth. Being a public figure made it even worse as he had a tough time at his college due to the stigma attached with the disease and soon enough he was made to quit. That was the last straw and even though love and sympathy continued to pour in through his thousands and thousands of readers he made a public announcement that he remembered as clearly as the day he had typed it out on his blog. He announced that he didn’t want to go out crawling out of this world that had given him so much. He said he would live his life to the fullest for one whole year and then exactly a year after then with the support of his relatives and friends take his life with the aid of an injection. This announcement had been followed by a pent up media frenzy and channels all across the world discussed this unprecedented announcement by this voice that had been heard by millions around the world and reopened the age old debate about euthanasia. The government was riled up too in this matter as many debates and public interest litigations requesting thwarting any such suicide attempt. The local police under orders soon issued an arrest warrant on his name so that he could be protected from attempted any such thing and he was asked to be put into protective custody. This order was again followed by outrage by all the fans of his blog who asked him to be left alone saying it wasn’t fair for a dying man to be meted out such treatment. He had however kind of anticipated such a step by the authorities and had with the help of his friends managed to escape to an undisclosed destination in Europe. As he had lived his life in hiding for the past one year he had done whatever his heart had desired while still logging all these details onto his blog. And that is how he had retained his connection with all his readers who gave him their whole hearted support and some so far as came forward with financial support to fund his stay in Europe. But al this time away from home he had had plenty of time to think and he slowly had realized that his public announcement had just been a knee jerk reaction to the anger he had built up due to the shock and his helplessness at the situation. He had acknowledged that this past one year had been the best time of life and he had realized how much he wanted to live everyday left of his life till he had no more. He announced on his blog that he was no longer interested in ending his life; instead he said he wanted to go back to a country which he had called home for all these years. This announcement was met by varied reaction, some were happy he had decided to live on with the gift of life, some said he was a big cheat and had been perpetrating a fraud at the behest of some blogging company for free hits while others simply braced themselves for welcoming him back to India. He smiled content at this outpouring of love; he smiled because the phoenix has once again risen from its ashes.

P.S. The seed for this story was sown by Saggistica a while back on the comments tab of one of my posts, thank you

Celebrate Munna Jayanti asap

Every once in a while a movie comes along that makes you think long after the empty soda glasses and popcorn bags have been trashed and refuses to fade away after the credits do. These movies do turn out to be the subject of widespread debates and water cooler conversations and the characters get taken home along with the movie audiences as popular lines from the movie get thrown about in regular chitchats. However these movies require original script backed by crisp editing and an air tight screen play. That is why these movies are few and far between and that is why 2006 has been such a great year for all Bollywood buffs. It began with Omprakash Mehra's very very original and fresh Rang De basanti, was followed up by Vishal Bharadwaj's Shakespearean’s adaptation Omkara and has been recently jazzed up again by Lage Raho Munnabhai. Three films which in terms of style and content could not be more different from each other but all of which have become cult classics and all of which I have enjoyed equally.

However this post has been triggered by the latest of the three movies. Sequels have an odd way of going down slope after people follow up on their wonderful first time efforts. The people making them get drunk with their own success at the same time remaining fearful of a follow up failure. So most sequels are not made from the heart and always with an intention of pleasing a particular target audience and often lack the soul which is buried under tones of gloss and style over substance cinema. And that is exactly why Lage Raho... comes across as such a shining star in this year that is already crowded with sequels from the Bollywood stable. The movie blends humor with a message without ever getting too in your face or preachy. It brings back two very lovable characters from the first part while changing the setup around them and keeping them away from their mannerisms and afflictions. As RDB brought back very relevant messages about India and Indianness LRB does the same but from a very different and fresh Gandhian perspective. There is a constant thread of humor running through the movie which tugs at your every muscle and gut till you can laugh no harder. The humor is also very situational and natural without having to resort to loud gags and getups. I watched the movie over the weekend and I can’t wait to catch it again asap so all you people who haven’t done so I have just one piece of advice 'Jaldi dekh ke aa naa Mamu, ekdum mast picture hai'.

Passing thought cing

You don't need a Nobel everyday to make your day

P.S. An Oscar might be handy nontheless ;)

DCH

DCH means a lot of different things to different people (btw if the alphabets D, C and H put together means nothing to you there isn't any point reading on). It has clearly been one of the most universally acclaimed films from the Bollywood stable and one of the freshest splashes by a first time director. I am sure people hold the film close to their heart for different reasons but today with this post I wish to point out the lessons in life it hands out as to what kind of person one ought to or ought not be to gain universal acceptability in the society. The 'what not be's' are littered all across the movie and serve as classic examples to all of us. Right from the overpossesive and brash Preity's boyfriend, to the bumbling 'timetable' geek, to the 'I've got you by your skin' girlfriend played by Suchitra, to the lost puppy in love wannabe 'Aaaaaaaa.....kaash' girlfriend, these are all people we encounter in life and are left with the feeling with a 'wish we hadn't' feeling at the end of the day.

Now moving over to the principal characters of the movie I am sure a lot of us identify with at least one of three characters Akash, Sid or Sam brilliantly played out by Aaamir Khan, Akshaye Khanna and Saif Ali Khan respectively. Between the three they cover most kinds of people that we encounter in our lives. I am sure if one really wanted they could easily pick out the Akash out of a party, or the Sid amongst a group of friends or the Sam on a dance floor. In the movie Aamir plays a happy go lucky kid who is always the life of the party but a person who cares very little for other people's emotions. Saif plays a die hard clueless romantic who is always the most gullible and gets picked on by most of his friends as he goes on lovingly bumbling through his life. Akshaye plays the moony eyed deep introvert thinker who doesn't care for much outside his own comfort zone. But through the emotional roller coaster ride of the movie we see that all 3 characters change in their own ways. Thus Akash earns to care, he learns to love and he turns into a bit like Sid's character in the end forced to be more empathetic in life. Sam turns into a bit of Akash as he learns to be his own man and make decisions for himself. Sid turns into a bit of Sam learns to open up to people like his mom and the woman he falls in love with as he is forced to let go of his emotions not fearful anymore of getting hurt emotionally. Just like the movie I think we all too in some way start out as one of these individuals in our lives. But just like the movie we all change for the better. We mature to be better individuals.

Just Do It !

Most current bloggers start off as readers of other's blogs. They develop their favorites gradually intrigued by the concept of putting their thoughts down, some even developing a tiny lil tinge of fascination for particular styles of writing. Some start of as just readers moving on to be anonymous commentators, some moving on to be regular bloggers but this post is not about them. Its about the others who still sit on the sidelines telling themselves they think they should get themselves a blog someday. However be it out of sheer laziness of a supposed shortage of time they never do. Sometimes they just keep trying to convince themselves that they don't have the necessary skills to write a broadly entertaining blog. However they need to realize that no one really starts off as an expert when writing blogs. That probably explains those awkward first posts. Lots of blogs get stuck on that first post but the trick is to keep on writing. The posts slowly and magically get easier to pen down. Personally I don't even think anyone really gets better. Its like being asked to walk butt naked down a fashion show. You could really never get good at it but if you do it 4-5 times you get more comfortable in your skin. And besides writing blogs has never been about becoming the next big thing in the world of writing, its but a very personal means of expression and all of us being inherently different from one another can irrigate a bunch of thoughts previously unwritten. Blogging has never been about creating the next masterpiece. I blog whenever I feel like I have something to say, to put up and that's why when the fun goes out of it someday I will walk away, just like that. But this post is not about me, its about all of you who really deserve a blog for themselves, its time you got yourself one. In other words to quote one of the most famous tag lines in advertising history 'Just Do It!' and when you do please drop me a line.

Reflections

People are inherently different from one another and that's one of the primary things that makes life so interesting. You never really know who you might meet everyday and even if you know who you don't really know what new side of them you will see that day. When two people meet they are brought together by common likes and dislikes, intrigued by varied tastes and pulled apart by seemingly lofty standards they set for others in the lives. These two forces battle out in the playground of the mind till they discover redeeming qualities that binds them in a bond for life, splits them apart by an ever widening gap or wedges a wall of indifference between them. The former for obvious reasons is the most memorable as it connects people on many levels. They get used to each other forming friendships and layering out strands of history between them. Then people go their own ways probably never to meet again but those friendships stand as does the history. And when time and a bunch of inexplicable reasons and fortuitous coincidences bring them together no ice breakers are required. They stand together on level plains on mountains of history and they need no ice breakers. All they mutter are muted thank yous.

P.S. I dont really know where this post was headed. It was one of those times when I was really happy and wanted to mark it with a blog but really ddidnt know how to. This post is reflecting back on the past month when I met up and caught up with many of my close friends from both school and college back from Delhi. People I thought would never meet again but I did, out in a place thousands and thousands of miles away from where I had first met them.