My tribute to MJ..

After a long time I had found a seat in the local bus to Dhulikhel. I was enjoying my time watching the lady beside me in a deep sleep. The bus driver was a man in his forties and that’s why I concluded he had the radio on-tuned to some F.M station.

Two kids got on the bus from Sallaghari. The sister was irritated for no reason with the little brother. She didn’t get a seat and was standing. The bus jolted and she nearly feel down. ‘You should hold the iron handles’ he told her. ‘Hey! Why should I do what you ask me to do’ she retorted. She was a lot older than her little brother and taller. I couldn’t comprehend why she was irritated. The bus drove on and the news from the F.M station came to an end. The news reader repeated the headlines.’King of pop:Michael Jackson dies at age fifty ‘.Oh!

Tormented

before it burns out

It’s the tip of the iceberg.
It’s an old memory.
It’s the Beatles.
It’s while my guitar gently weeps…….’
It’s ‘across the universe’
It’s an ant song.
It’s about immigrants.
It’s about voices.
It’s rhetoric.
It’s the meaning of hermeneutic.
It’s the rose in my desktop.
It’s that damn music the neighbors play.
It’s about writing.
It’s about filling pages and pages.
It’s not plagiarism.
It’s an idea.
It’s ‘Finding Nemo’.
It’s philosophy.
It’s a stream of thoughts.
It’s a chain.
It’s about choices.
It’s leaving.
It’s the subconscious.
It’s an advice.
It’s a glass of water.
It’s an action shot.
It’s a relationship shot.
It’s propaganda.
It’s cynicity.
It’s a syringe.
It’s half a dose.
It’s ‘Mister Durand’.
It’s that idiot box.
It’s the first shoot.
It’s the eyes.
It’s in erasable.
It’s in the pages.
It’s the hot summer nights.
It’s the 60’s Indian music.
It’s technology.
It’s Kishore Kumar.
It’s superficial.
It’s a piece of the chunk.
It’s the weekends.
It’s the newspaper.
It’s a murder.
It’s revenge.
It’s crime.
It’s the fear of repetition.
It’s the price of paper.
It’s the price of a journey.
It’s the heat in the head.
It’s the fat in the body.
It’s a slogan ‘use and throw’.
It’s- hurried foot steps.
It’s not pretty shoes.
It’s power.
It’s independence.
It’s fear.
It’s time in passing.
It’s blood.
It’s a tool.
It’s reversal.
It’s late in an idea.
It’s hard work.
It’s money.
It’s flying.
It’s drowning.
It’s wet footsteps on the sea beach.
It’s not leftist.
It’s no revolutionary.
It’s life.

Birthday Blues..

Sahidgate, Kathmandu

They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated like ghosts even from our pity.
After a moment Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whisky in the towel.
“Want any of this stuff? Jordan?…Nick?”
I didn’t answer.
“Nick?” He asked again.
“Want any?”
“No… I just remembered that today’s my birthday.”
I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous menacing road of a new decade.
………………………………………………………………………………

Thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.

……………………………..
So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.
(Excerpt from ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F.Scott Fitzgerald/Page 126)

Acronyms

To be or not to be? The statement drags me down a corridor of memories, a long library, beautiful books, yellow dusty ones illustrated with wonders I fail to recall now. In a corner, a huge beautiful green trunk, someone sits in the dark flipping and flipping, finding and losing, searching and searching.

A test -one of many, many among one. You must me in another space learning all the chemical equations, calculating the sums. You escape as always to find hope- to hang on to a strand of faith. It won’t be the same day. You only pray to a picture and cry silently. You sleep after a little stupid indulgence-very stupid.

Do what I tell you. It will cost you your marks. Prepare for the test and bring me the report. What do I make out of half finished sentences, acronyms that I have never heard, a somebody’s face I don’t have a picture. Lie to myself, teach myself half ricks and play the game.
It’s a game you play to lose. If only you played to win….

नेपाली

म नेपाली, नेपालीमा लेख्दैछु।

That summer

Something happened that summer
The rains didn’t come nor did the birds
Slowly I lost it, slowly I crumbled
Details vanished so did the rhythm
What little I had I lost it to the storm

Letters were forgotten, faces erased
One fine day I woke up and saw not myself
A phantom in disguise
I thought of the convictions I had
Searched them in the drawers
My notebooks, my sharpened pencils
In the line of books I proudly possessed

They were all gone
I cried in agony, cursed myself
I stopped asking, I stopped praying

But silently time healed my wounds
In between pages I found happiness again
Now I walk through a ladybird path
They die crushed under by feet
I walk away shuddering to a point on the horizon

What brings me here?
She calls it a twist of fate
Sighing she says
Who knows how much suffering is written in your part?

Indi-watch

The past months have been bad for Bollywood Box office. There has been no major release and ‘faltoo’ films have been staying too long. Gajini was still running in Gopi Krishna.

DEV-D
Direction:Anurag Kashyab

Starting with ‘Dev D’, the movie as critics and viewers alike voted was good. It surely collected more than ‘NO Smoking’ did and Anurag Kashyap is basking in its glory with ‘Rajuben’, his new venture in the small screen. Sadly, I haven’t seen the movie but it looks good and Abhay Deol has caught the eyes of many directors. I am waiting to watch Sonam and Abhay’s pairing in the Indian version of ‘Emma’. It already sounds like a hit.

Delhi dilema

Hats off to Slumdog millionaire

Amitabhs helicopter is on its way..

Since its release, Slumdog Millionaire has spread like an infectious disease among viewers and critics alike. If not rightly for its content, it has got its heart at the right place. It’s a masterly directed piece of art with fairy tale characters plotted in the reality of Mumbai slums.

Dev Patel shines through out the movie and Anil Kapoor makes a mark as the show host of ‘Who wants to be Millionaire’. Every other cast has been aptly chosen to play their roles.

A.R Rehman’s music adds to the transition of the story and the excellent camera work cum editing is too good to miss. Each scene is layered with an event from the past.

Dear Salim peeks out from that ill fated van..

Precisely, I would call it a must watch for everyone who lives in the Indian sub-continent. The film might have been directed by an English man but he’s got the eye of an insider. It won’t be surprising if the movie sweeps half the number of Oscars it has been nominated with. S.M might not change the lives of thousands of children languishing in the slums of Mumbai but at least it has told their stories.

‘Amitabh Bachhan’ the ‘Shahansa of Bollywood’ however has expressed scorn at the movie’s content outlining the intention of western directors to sell poverty of undeveloped nations. He might have his reasons but the Indian film industry needs to learn to give audiences more than ‘escapism’. Hits like ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ and ‘Singh is King’ are a turn down to many sensible viewers. Why can’t directors blend reality with entertainment? ‘S.M’ has done it, so why can’t they?

Bollywood might have a countable number of movies that touch the global audience but our film industry is ages behind. Cheesy dialogues like ‘My heart is a temple and only one God can reside in it’ are used to advertise movies. If only our directors here took inspiration from one aspect of the movie audiences would be emancipated.

Personally, S.M touched me both cinematically and emotionally- from the first scene when the police men come in their scooters shouting ‘Private land’ to the last dance in the train station .The innocence of little Jamal, Malik and Latika , the faces of the slum goons ,Arvinds eyeballs and the song by Surdas haunted me for days

Lastly here’s my favorite scene: Jamal meets Arvind in an alley and he’s singing ‘Darshan do Bhagavan….’ He hands him a 100$ note and asks about Latika. Arvind recognizes Jamal and asks him who is on the note. Jamal does not know his name but Arvind does. It’s Benjamin Franklin. He thanks him and tells him Latikas address. As Jamal runs away, a man is spraying something (probably pesticide) on the entrance and Arvind shouts back ‘Now I will sing, only when performing your death rites (Ab to teri mayat me hi gaunga)’

What’s your favorite scene??

G for Ghajini, S for Short term memory loss

Ten days into watching Ghajini, I still can’t get over its tunes. I want ‘Guzarish’ as my ring tone but I don’t have the original version. The movie has grossed 100 crores in its opening week in the box office and has become the no 1 movie of 2008.

Ghajini turns out to be the re-re make of ‘memento’, its south Indian version was also ‘ Ghajini’ and Asin was in it too.

If you thought Bollywood was loosing itself without heroes fighting a dozen ‘gundas’ with the power of his biceps, heroines and heroes had stopped dancing around and there was no item song thrown at you for no reason- don’t turn away: ‘Gajini’ has it all.

Amir and Asin make a great pair. It’s only Amir who can make you believe he can ring a dandy’s neck with a swift punch and if you are a depressed lover with a short term memory you act like a mad bull.

I enjoyed the movie thoroughly (pura paisa wasool jo hua). There’s action, comedy, tragedy and romance all in one. Murgados has made a great directorial debut, Jiah Khan’s done her part by shouting ‘SSSSANNNJAY’, Asin’s the next big thing and Amir proves he’s can shine in both commercial and critical cinema. The villain’s(Was he Aswathama from Mahabharat?) dialogue delivery was impressive ‘Short term memory loss, tu mujhe samjhayega?’’

The script fits the plot and the action scenes are marvelously directed. But questions can’t be stopped:
• Who writes personal diaries now a days?
• Are we allowed to carry notes of One Lakh thirty five thousand bundled in jet planes(Oh!private planes…but??)
• Why does Amir never eat in the movie?
• Where does all that power come from (just from exercising??)

Besides these futile questions there’s no reason why you shouldn’t watch ‘Gajini’. After RBJ any movie could do the trick but Gajini is the chosen one.
I am looking forward to watching Asin in ‘London dreams’ and Amir in ‘Three Idiots’. A number of off the beat movies like ‘Dev D, Dil Kabbadi, Oei Lucky Lucky Oei, Luck by chance and Delhi 6 will be my priorities after the exams. For now I must go back to my books.Enjoy the upcoming weekends:Chadini Chowk to China is on its way.