Youth films and the Rajwade kids

I have an axe to grind with most Indian films about young people and youth - most of them seem obsessed with young romance as if it were the most profound thing in the world. I am not against young people hooking up. I envy people who find their life partners at a very young age and manage to stick to the relationship and build a life together. Envy, because it is such a rare occurrence. I know exactly three such couples in real life, and the beauty of their stories lies not in the meeting or falling in love, but in the years of growing up together, navigating the challenges of adulthood and the needling doubts that are bound to crop up. Those are stories we almost never get to see in the movies. What we get is the kind of films Alia Bhatt has made her own.

Her debut movie has her torn between a rich guy and a poor guy. By the end of the movie we are told she has managed to stick it out with one of them. Her second film had her running out on her own wedding. Her most successful film till date is about how she goes about getting married to the guy she met in college. She is one our youngest actors who actually looks young, and I am yet to see her in a role where marriage isn’t one of the major themes. She is much more fun to watch in pimple cream ads and YouTube videos.

This is the one of the unique features of Sachin Kudalkar's new Marathi film Rajwade And Sons. Despite the presence of four good looking single youngsters and one good looking single Atul Kulkarni, the film is refreshingly unconcerned with love and romance. Exactly one character has a romantic sub-plot, and the paramour in that story has all of one scene and no speaking part. For the rest of its runtime, the characters in the film have their hands full trying to balance the expectations of the older generation against the aspirations of youth.

I have not read any of the reviews, but from what I heard, the film has been accused of being slow with not a lot happening. That isn’t something I strictly mind in a film that can engage me in the slowly unfolding little stories of interesting characters, and that is something Rajwade And Sons does quite well.

Briefly, the ‘story’ follows three generations of a very affluent family in Pune as they move out of their ancestral mansion, which they have assigned to redevelopment. They briefly settle into four separate flats in one of those swanky apartment buildings that have been popping up in the city’s fast growing outskirts. During one of their last visits to their old house, they receive an unexpected guest - Vikram, the prodigal son who had run away from home almost two decades ago.

Vikram’s arrival is most warmly welcomed by the four 20-something kids of his older siblings, who are fascinated by his ‘cool’ life. He is a globe-trotting investment consultant with seemingly loads of cash, a South African wife and a no-strings lifestyle. One by one, he catalyses questions and introspection in each member of the family, lending an ear, offering a suggestion, gently prodding the youngsters along to follow their dreams instead of settling into the family business like the generations before them.

One by one, the youngsters rebel under the gentle patronage of their lost-and-found uncle. Sachin’s daughter Shweta pursues her dream to travel the world rather than get married, Mrunal’s daughter Ananya moves to Mumbai to pursue a modelling career. Her brother Virajas chooses to stay with the family business, and is handsomely rewarded with a plum position and a new car.

The middle generation gets interesting character arcs too. Sachin Khedekar, the oldest son of the family patriarch realizes with a sigh that his life is set. He is a simple Marathi man, as he puts it, who has never thought beyond the life path set out for him by his father and now, with his own apartment without the foreboding eyes of his stern father over him, the best he can do with the new-found freedom is to take the occasional swig of beer in his own drawing room.

The sister, Mrunal Kulkarni faces up to the fact that she gave up on her dreams of being an actress under family pressure and due to an early marriage. However she also realises that it may not be too late for her daughter. Atul Kulkarni plays a widower who too, like his older brother and sister, married young under the orders of his father, but the film reveals some fascinating aspects to his character that I won’t spoil here.

Rebellion however is not the point of the film. The film is mercifully bereft of the kind of melodrama you would generally expect in this kind of a story. It also avoids judging anyone, not even the stern patriarch or Mrunal’s somewhat uncouth small-town husband. The grandmother played by Jyoti Subhash is a delight to watch. The lady demands prompt wi-fi connection in the new house so she may skype with her old friends, and pulls out an iPhone as soon as Vikram shares his Twitter handle. Incidentally she is the only character who voices that popular old grudge about a changing Pune.

The revered Marathi author and humorist P L Deshpande (Pu La, as he is fondly called in Marathi) once remarked that in order to become a Punekar, you should learn to complain about how Pune is not what it used to be. The city of Pune gets a starring role in this film, with leisurely night-time drives along FC Road and panoramic views of the city and its changing face. Pu La is also referenced by the grandfather - his habit of recalling the beloved author is one of the humanizing touches in a somewhat unsympathetic character.

When the character of Vikram first appeared with his swanky suitcases, I braced myself for a Bawarchi rehash, but thankfully he does not play a preachy, magic-wand-wielding influence here. The people in the family mostly figure things out for themselves - the wheels are set in motion much before we meet them. I suspect they would have made the same choices even if Vikram never came back in their lives. His presence here, and the endearing scenes he shares with his nephews, nieces, siblings and mother only make the proceedings more interesting cinematically.

All in all, it is a warm and endearing couple hours with a bunch of likeable people and general doses of Pune. It has been released with English subtitles, and is worth a watch even if you don’t follow Marathi. The specifics may be very Pune-centric, but the characters and themes have a very universal, very modern appeal. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon at the movies.

**Edit: An earlier version of this article wrongly cited the name of the actress playing the grandmother. Thank you Manali, Snehal and Abhimanyu for correcting me.

Tu Hi Re: no surprises!

The short story Neither A Song, Nor Fiction by Sindhi writer Popati Hiranandani very endearingly narrates the growing insecurities of a young woman married to a woefully unromantic man. Being thwarted at every attempt to infuse a little romance in her dry domestic life, she starts harbouring fears of losing him to another woman. The husband's staid, even boring personality makes it easier for the reader to empathize with her emotions.

The writer and director of Tu Hi Re could take a leaf out of the late Sindhi author's book. The film tries very hard to make you worry about Nandini (Sai Tamhankar) and Siddharth's (Swapnil Joshi) marriage, but I did not buy it for a second. Not when the film's nominal bad man, the evil politician Kamlakar Bhanushali (Girish Oak) offers Siddharth a load of cash to leave his wife. Not when said wife learns about her husband's past affair with Bhanushali's lovely daughter Bhairavi (Tejaswini Pandit). Not when the sweet and simple Nandini goes out of her way to afford Siddharth one more meeting with the earstwhile object of his affection. Not when an excruciatingly loud Sad Song burst my fragile eardrums goading me to worry about Siddharth and Nandini's 8 year old marriage. Not even when their little daughter voices Nandini's worst fears. I just could not get myself to worry. Or to care.

In the aforementioned short story, it is the husband's personality and the dynamic of the marriage that make the wife's fears seem plausible. Here instead we have a saccharine sweet first half of watching the couple coochie-cooing all over the town. We are given no reason to doubt Siddharth's dedication to his wife and kid. And you can't blame the movie too much. Popati's hero would not be as multiplex friendly as the ever smiling Swapnil Joshi. But then in 2015, can we really get ourselves to worry over such a trivial issue as a husband's long forgotten college romance?

The premise of Tu Hi Re would have made a compelling watch in the 90s. Not just because that generation would make a bigger deal about such an issue, but perhaps a Marathi filmmaker of that time would be able to tell this story more honestly. This story belongs in a quintessentially middle class setting, where marriages are arranged, romance belongs in the fictional world of the movies, and subjects like past girlfriends are not discussed. The couple in this movie is too urban, too polished, and too 'cool' to sell its central conflict.

This seems to be the bane of mainstream Marathi cinema of late. In its attempt to be at par with mainstream Hindi films, it is losing its middle class roots. The SRK-Kajol chemistry of its lead pair can wring a few smiles from you, but it cannot keep you at an edge. the role of Siddharth needed the broodiness of say, a young Amitabh Bacchan or the seriousness of Vijay Anand from Kora Kagaz. To cite more Marathi examples, given my limited exposure I can only think of Dilip Kulkarni in Chaukat Raja, the family man with his very understandable discomfort over his wife's growing closeness to her retarded friend.  This is a man who can surprise you, and before the film ends, he does. Or Manohar Joshi in Tu Tithe Mee as the retired gent who has been so busy tending to his duties as the provider for the family that his wife seems unacquainted with his gentle loving side. In one of the film's most touching moments, the wife mentions a letter she wrote him decades ago, early in their marriage, pouring her heart out to her young husband for the first time, that he never bothered to answer. On reply, the old man pulls out a tattered piece of paper from under his pillow - it is the same letter, which he had carefully preserved all these years, and which he now recites word for word. He has always felt very deeply for her, he explains, only never been able to express.

These are stories driven as much by personalities as by circumstance. I have always found Marathi films most adept at exploring the psychological aspect of these simple yet deeply personal stories. Getting inside the heads of your characters can lead to some of the most intense and affecting moments in film - like Amitabh's outburst in Zanjeer when he feels suffocated by his resolve to keep our of harm's way for the sake of the woman he loves. It can also get messy, and you cannot be emotionally honest while looking pretty.

Perhaps it is Swapnil in the role of Siddharth that's the problem. The dude is just too... nice. There's nothing dark or mysterious about him, no hint of secrets. He is believable enough in the flashback scenes of candy floss romance around a plush college campus. But I could see no difference between the freshly graduated Siddharth of the flashback and the much married Siddharth of the present.  I wonder what someone like Sandesh Jadhav might have made of this role.

There is a moment in the film where the wife registers surprise on hearing of the escapades of a young Siddharth. Like most emotions in this film, I could not share in her surprise.

Questioning Modi

In an interview with Newslaundry in 2012, Justice Katju made a very interesting point. In a democracy he said, the traditional hierarchy of power gets reversed. Instead of political leaders ruling over the public, now the public, at least in theory, sits at the top of the power hierarchy, and the elected representatives at the very bottom. The statement was in the context of a larger argument regarding the liabilities of public figures, but it was this point about the reversed hierarchy that I find very thought provoking. It also provides the clue on the state of public political discourse in the country at the moment, such as it is.

If democracy has placed the power and superiority with the general public, it would seem most members of the public have not received the memo. For we continue showering our leaders with the kind of reverence, loyalty and dedication formerly reserved for monarchs.

For the longest time since the country gained its freedom, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty enjoyed this loyalty by sheer virtue of bloodline. The most blatant display of the monarchical nature of Indian politics was when after the death of Indira Gandhi her younger progeny, a pilot, wholly inexperienced in politics or administration, and having never served a public office, was promptly pressed into service as the new Prime Minister. I was too young to recollect the genesis of that event, but there you have it, the Prime Minister with the Most Number of Things Named After Him, a person who got there with no merit to speak of.

Our political landscape is teeming with noble families headed by Lords and Ladies who enjoy the unwavering adulation of their people, and when the time comes, step aside and hand over the reins to the next generation. This holds true across state lines and political affiliation, and enough has been written about dynastic politics that I don't need to repeat here.

To the credit of the electorate, they did not allow our Central Cercei to plant her Joffrey on the Iron Throne nearly as easily. A good part of the credit for keeping little Joffrey in check goes to our current Prime Minister, the former Warden of the West who promised to change the paradigm. This man rose through the ranks on merit, and has over a decade of heading a State to show on his CV. That in itself is more than some of our former Prime Ministers could claim. And for what it's worth, we don't have any Modi-kids to worry about.


Yet this is not the end of monarchy in India. In an ideal world, the very people who threw their weight behind Modi's BJP and gave them an unprecedented clear majority in the parliament, should now be holding this government accountable for every one of their moves. Some of them are doing just that. So we had army men holding the government by the collar over their OROP promises. We have students of the FTII refusing to allow their institution to be given away like a piece of candy to a party loyal unworthy of its chairmanship.

If more of us thought of themselves as the masters in a democracy rather than as subjects, the tone of political discourse in the country would have been very different and very encouraging. Instead, we have a large and vocal segment of the public clinging to the new government with the kind of fierce loyalty that Congress once commanded. You see them everywhere - in drawing room discussions, social media, news debates, and overlong WhatsApp messages - people who continue campaigning for Modi.

They jump to the defense of Modi and his government every time someone questions either. They viciously attack those voices as if questioning Modi were the equivalent of supporting the Congress. It is not. Most liberals who view Modi with a degree of skepticism have no illusions about Congress or the Gandhi family either. Nobody in their right minds is taking Rahul Gandhi seriously, not even within the Congress. So chill. A lot of people who question Modi, simply do not want to let him or this government to get away with the kind of crimes against democracy that Congress did. Regardless of which party is in power, what their political leanings and convictions, however noble their intentions, constant and unforgiving public scrutiny of a government is always a good thing.

Darlings, put down the campaign banners. The Elections are over. Modi has won. You've done your service to him, by voting for him, by speaking up for him, by drumming up support for him when he needed it. Now let him serve you, like he promised.

(Sorry for the Game Of Thrones references. The bug does get you.)

Tangy chicken broth recipe

I was tempted to name this dish Lemony Snickets, since it was born out of a series of unfortunate events, the details of which I'll spare you, dear patient reader. Let's just for a dish that started out as one thing and ended up as quite another, I could do much worse.

This is a very mild-flavoured dish - those with a preference for the sharper Indian curries may find it bland, but I prefer the subtle flavours from the ingredients I used rather than the overwhelming effects of turmeric, onion, ginger, garlic and green chillies, those staples of every North Indian gravy that I completely ignored in making this. The broth gets a triple tang from lemon, yoghurt and tomato - again, keep their effects in check by adding just enough lemon, and the freshest yoghurt and tomatoes you can find. Another departure from the Indian style is to add the tomatoes in the end instead of putting them in the tadka, so that its pieces float about in the watery broth instead of assimilating. The resulting broth is tangy, creamy, and messy with lots of things floating around like in a clear soup. (I may have to work on making my descriptions read more appetizing,)

Anyway, so I started out with half a kilo of chicken including one leg piece (you could use two leg pieces), washed it up, removed the fat, and kept the liver and some of the bony bits separately in a pan with 1 1/2 cup of water. I placed this pan on heat, brought the water to a boil, then removed the pan from the stove and kept it aside.

Then I marinated the remaining chicken in the juice of a single teeny tiny lemon, a tablespoon of butter, a handful of crushed mint leaves (just tear the leaves with your hands, don't grind), about a teaspoon each of freshly crushed black pepper and allspice, and enough salt to suffice the entire broth. After coating the chicken nice and proper in this mix, I tucked in a couple of pieces of cinnamon and star anise and a tej patta in its folds, covered the marinated chicken, got busy with my phone and merrily lost track of time.

About 40 minutes later, I drizzled a tablespoon of dark soy sauce over the marinated chicken, heated a dollop of butter in a kadhai, and dumped the chicken in it as soon as the butter melted. You want to add the leg pieces first to give them a little more time to cook. In a couple of minutes, all the chicken turned from pink to an opaque white, at which point I started assaulting it with some Indian flavours - two tablespoons of fresh yoghurt, a spoon each of red chilli powder, coriander powder and cumin powder. I strained the liver-water and added it to the kadhai, followed by a finely chopped fresh large tomato. I raised the temperature to bring the mixture to a boil, and after letting it bubble for a minute or so, lowered the heat to 120 degrees, covered the pot and let it simmer. With nothing more I could do to help the chicken, I cleared up the kitchen and scrubbed my hands of all the spicy smell, contemplated the human condition for a minute, and returned to the simmering pot.

This last step is mainly to let all the flavours come together really nicely. The broth now ready, I served myself a generous helping in a large soup bowl, sprinkled some coriander to get better results on Instagram, and consumed the fruit of my labour with some brown bread, though I couldn't quite stop myself from scooping up some rich spoonfuls of the tangy, creamy, watery broth before reaching for the bread.

Like I said, as accidents go, one could do far worse.

In case you're wondering, yes, I do occasionally cook and some friends have asked me in the past to share some of my recipes, so trying my hand at food blogging for a change. I'm starting to feel it's not my forte.

Random rants on Drishyam

It has been brought to my attention that reading my 'reviews' of films does not tell readers whether to watch the film or not. While that's mainly because I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your time or money, let me clarify this at the outset: do watch Drishyam. It's an engrossing little thriller that you can enjoy with your family, and that's all you need to know. 

For the rest of this post, I'm going to indulge in more unintelligible ranting about the film that in no way should inform your choice to watch it or miss it.

1. Before the film started, I started a little game with my sister - we would apply the Bechdel Test as the story unfolded. Surprise, surprise! None of the women in the film ever talk about anything that doesn't have a penis. And we're talking about two women who are complicit in murder. They don't fucking talk to each other while covering a murder. Not even, "hey, remember that murder we're covering up? Pretty cool, huh!"
2. Shriya Sharan's character has to be the blandest, dumbest and most personality-devoid accessory to murder ever projected on a big screen. And I'm including Mamta Kulkarni from Sabse Bada Khiladi in my sample size. Hell, Nirupa Roy in the worst of her weepy momma roles has more personality than Shriya Sharan in Drishyam. 
3. We did a thought experiment with the film, around the time our hero takes it upon himself to save his ladies from an impending murder charge and sets about vanishing all the clues to the disappearance of a young boy that could potentially lead the trail to his doorstep. What if there was no 'hero', no father figure here? What if we were dealing with two women who end up killing someone and must cover their tracks? What if it was about some women doing all those awfully clever things we saw Ajay Devgn doing in the film? Something similar (the murder part - not the cover-up part) happens, to spectacular effect in the Spanish film Volver starring Penelope Cruz as a mother protecting her teenage daughter in a vaguely similar situation. But then, that was Penelope Freaking Cruz. This was Shriya Sharan.
4. Another thought experiment - what if there was no Shriya Sharan? I know, I'm sounding like I have something against her now, but seriously, was her character written so unimaginatively, or was the director unable to use her acting skills, or is she simply a bad actress? Anyway... so picture the film without the mom... the plot, the story, the murder, the cover-up... everything remains pretty much the same. She does not even strike a flicker of terror in the teenage boy who was not expecting an adult at his rendezvous with a schoolgirl. Seriously, my mother would be more terrifying than Shriya Sharan in that shed.
5. All this seems weird in a film that boasts of its writing being its biggest strength. And it is, to much of an extent - the plot is well-baked, the loose ends are neatly tied up and all that. Except for an annoying little scene at a quarry in the first half, the pacing is generally good. Only the editor in me could not help but wonder if the chronology of the story could have been played around with. What if we, the audience, did not know about the murder before-hand? What if we approached the mystery from Tabu's viewpoint? What if the secretive family came across as a bunch of creeps covering a vital link to the disappearance of a young boy? 

So many possibilities.. so much fun.. only because the story as it is, is essentially a good one. So do watch Drishyam. If nothing else, it's a good little film to stroke your imagination. We don't get too many of those around here.


One final thought - how come everybody is so okay with the morality of the whole thing? I mean, we all just watched an entire movie dedicated to the art of dodging justice and getting away with murder. And it's all justified because the murder victim was a blackmailer? Hmph.

Ma, I won't marry

Accidental or idiopathic - welcome to Womens Liberation, 21^st Century filmi edition

Way back in 1975, the film Aandhi treated us to a rare kind of character for a Hindi film - a father who wishes expects his daughter to carry forward his political legacy, and feels let down by her choice to instead settle for marriage and family like millions of women everywhere. (A framed picture of Jawaharlal Nehru with a young Indira stands in the backdrop of the Big Confrontation scene between father and daughter to drive the point home.) Exactly 40 years later, this kind of a parent, whose expectations from the girl child comprise anything but marriage remains a rarity.

One of the recent revisits to the subject of pushy parents was of course Dil Dhadakne Do, where Priyanka’s achievements as an entrepreneur are merrily ignored by both her parents and her in-laws, everybody more eager to hear the ‘good news’ from her. Is it more of an indictment of our society, or of the failure of our stories to evolve beyond the tired old clichés that when it comes to parents and daughters, the only plots we ever get to see have to revolve around marriage? Could cliched expectations of narrow-minded parents not involve boring and banal career prospects - become a doctor or bank employee instead of an artist or journalist - or are those kinds of pressures only reserved for the boys?

The splendidly crafted Masaan is another rare exception, where a widowed father - a Kashi pandit to boot - has to confront the issue of his daughter’s sexuality. His only mild attempt at steering her to do something right (according to his jaded worldview) involves getting a low-paying but respectable job. Some middle-aged ladies at the multiplex where I watched the film kept murmuring about this being a ‘festival kind of a film’, meaning this kind of a film is allowed to do things a little differently. One of Madhuri Dixit's late-career roles in Wajood had her father trying to push her into his business, and her act of rebellion in the film was to become a journalist. But hardly anybody watched that film.

The theme of young women going their own way against the path prescribed by their parents and society has been a recurrent one in the last 15 years or so. But barring some frustratingly few exceptions, this path is usually to get married and settled, and more often, to marry a guy picked by the parents. This applies to the works of some of our directors unfairly accused of creating some strong female characters, mainly those of Imtiaz Ali and Anand L Rai.

I have often wondered about all the accolades Imtiaz earns for his heroines - who belong to a group I like to call the Accidentally Liberated Women. Most, if not all of his heroines seem to be engaged to somebody or the other parent-nominated bloke, and the girl’s own aspiration of freedom seems to be limited to doing something wild for once in their life before settling into that life. It is on those let-me-try-this-once adventures that they usually meet the hero and their life changes forever. And by ‘changing forever’ I mean they marry this guy instead of that one.

Consider his first film Socha Na Tha - Ayesha Takia’s character in the film is an orphaned girl raised by her loving relatives, who are keen to dispose of their responsibility to get her settled at the earliest. Knowing her fate is sealed, she chooses to go on her one wild ride, getting inappropriately involved in the romantic fate of strangers Abhay Deol and his girlfriend, just so she gets to hang out in Goa for a few days along with those girls and boys (none of whom seem to suffer from parental control that badly). And then Ayesha and Abhay fall in love, things get messy, but love triumphs all. Or Geet in Jab We Met - her idea of going her own way is to elope and marry her college sweetheart instead of the sweet ol’ guy her parents wish for her to marry. Along the way, she bumps into a rich guy, things get messy, they fall in love, it gets messier, but in the end love triumphs all.

Whether it is Heer in Rockstar or Alia Bhatt’s character in Highway, the girls never seem to be dealing with any greater challenges in life than a pre-ordained engagement. Once again, is it a reflection of our society or lack of imagination on part of our writers that our heroines seem to be stuck in an era where saying ‘no’ to prospective grooms in arranged marriages is never an option?

Even the much-celebrated Queen belongs to this group of accidentally liberated women - none of that self-discovery on a solo Europe trip would have happened if the man in Rani's life hadn't dumped her. Women who willfully push the boundaries, like Konkona's character in Wake Up Sid, exist only in the recesses of the stories of male protagonists, much like Konkona's character in Wake Up Sid.

Coming to the more problematic matter of Anand L Rai. Now his Tanu and his Zoya are a different kettle of fish. They are rebellious alright, but what exactly they are rebelling against, or what they plan to achieve is anyone’s guess. And that’s not a stray observation - in Tanu Weds Manu, the film keeps underlining the fact that this girl is a rebel without cause, in exactly those words, with her friend Payal playing Greek chorus throughout pointing out the absurdity of Tanu’s many absurd choices in case the audience hadn’t noticed. I could write an essay on the puzzle that is Tanu (I actually have, but will spare you) in both films. Zoya is even more frustrating. What the hell is the girl thinking, when she does one thing or the other? Does she have any internal logic at all? Or is that the whole point of Anand L Rai films, that the actions of these enigmatic, fluttery young women, the only kind of women his protagonists will find attractive by the way, do not have any underpinning logic or consistency, because… bitches be crazy?

I ask these questions because I belong to the generation of women who have been slowly, patiently and often painfully subverting expectations. Like any middle class girl from small town India, I had my life cut out for me - study hard, graduate, get a cosy job, get married before 25 - only I didn’t. I spent my 20s hopping jobs, changing career paths, living in different cities away from the safety net of family and community, until I found my groove and felt ready to commit to marriage. I can say I am at present in a place where I want to be, but this comes at a cost - the cost of being the last one of my friends to settle, the only one to not have kids yet, and the uncertainty over future that is always looming around the corner.

I know a lot of young women whose stories are even more complex and proportionately more inspiring - women who have followed their heart, got burned multiple times along the way, spent the best years of their lives negotiating boundaries and ambitions with their families and society at large, and who stand tall at the end of it all, battered and bruised but proud and independent. And in most of these cases, families, instead of being hurdles to be overcome, turn out to be pillars of strength, often confronting their own set of challenges and paying their own cost for standing by their children in a brave new world.

Much like the poor old Sanjay Mishra in Masaan.

P.S.

Even in films that aren't necessarily about the woman, the very existence of a woman in the main cast usually has to be justified by having her hook up with one of the boys. Nowhere does this stick out more sorely than in Happy New Year - isn't Deepika's function in that ragtag group of robbers as their choreographer who helps them sneak into a major dance competition substantial enough, that she has to be given a most unconvincing romantic arc with the repugnant SRK character in the film? Or coming back to Konkona in Wake Up Sid, isn't her role as the catalyst to Ranbir's transformation strong enough, that the pair has to be given their kiss-in-the-rain climax? How wonderful it would have been if the film had let the pair be friends and pursue their own romantic interests while remaining important influences in each other's lives. Again, a nod to the notable exception in this regard goes to Gouhar Khan's part in Rocket Singh. The girl is supposedly married, and the husband plays no part of the proceedings. Her value to the group of entrepreneurs is purely in terms of what she contributes to their business venture.

It's not patriarchy, it's technology!

Women's equality has a new champion these days - laundry people.

Everybody from detergents to washing machines of late have been advertising themselves as the new liberators for women's cause. Cheer up ladies, because technology has finally evolved to a point where your well meaning husbands can man up to the super tough job of putting clothes in a washing machine.

*Waits for orgasmic round of applause to die down*

Yes, in case you were wondering, it was only our forefathers' primitive technology that prevented men from sharing the load. That, and your own bloody high standards. As accurately depicted in the ad where the husband shares how he graciously offered to help out after the couple had a baby, so that the wife could go back to work. Awwwwwww....

But the wife, grateful as she was, could not take him up on his offer because... Of the bloody detergent that just didn't do its job right! Because we all know a woman's hands are fitted with special detergent glands, shooting extra detergent like spiderman shooting out webs from his wrists, and so when the detergent doesn't work it's only Laundrywoman, the original superhero who can save the day. This, by the way also explains why so many women have to give up on their career once they start a family. IT'S THE BLEEDING DETERGENT!!!


Speaking of women's magical hands...

So cheer up girls, now even your dad can share the load, as the poor darling always wanted to but was constrained by the lack of powerful machine-special detergents in his generation. It had nothing to do with a patriarchal sense of entitlement, and his belief that women are somehow better at laundry is totally accurate and the scientists at Surf Excel have secret labs where women's hands are harvested in pods to extract their mojo to make better detergent.

So now you have detergents that actually work, detergent with mommy's-hand-mojo... Now if only you had a machine that men could operate...

And voilà!

There now. So ladies, if your husband refuses to do the laundry, it's not his fault you've just been using the wrong machine, or no machine, or the wrong detergent. So go out and fix it.

If technology is kind to you, you'll soon be blessed with unisex gas stoves, unisex chakla-belan and vegetables, and the day will finally come when the good men at home will be able to help you with all the difficult duties that at present cannot be cracked without estrogen, and the world will be an equal place!

*wipes single tear rolling down left cheek*

Aisa Yeh Jahan - The conundrum of being earnest

Ever so often, a film comes along that you really, really want to like for all the things it does right... or all the right things it sets out to do. Aisa Yeh Jahan, the first Hindi venture by writer-director Biswajeet Bora is easily one of those.

The film addresses some important issues that don't often find voice in mainstream Hindi cinema very often, and wraps it in a heartwarming story with children at its gooey center. And it serves it all with a generous dose of some stirring Euphoria music. All that, with solid performances by grown-ups Palash Sen, Ira Dubey and Yashpal Sharma, and of course the kids - Kymsleen Kholie in an astounding debut as 12-year-old Pakhi and Prisha Dabbas as four-year-old Kuhi - these are reasons enough to stop reading this bloody review and go watch the film before the weekend is out. Oh, and the whole carbon-neutral thing. Fact of the matter is, small, well-meaning films like this one rarely survive the weekend, carbon neutral or not.

Aisa Yeh Jahan tells the story of a nuclear Assamese family in Mumbai - middle aged couple Ananya (Ira) and Rajib Saikia (Palash) with a four-year-old daughter Kuhi (Prisha) and her pre-teen nanny Pakhi (Kymsleen), brought in all the way from their native village in Assam.

Ananya is ambitious beyond her means and forever struggling to leave behind her humble roots and blend in with the cosmopolitan crowd of the city. Her aspirations are understandable  - wanting to quit a thankless job right after she figures out a way to own that elusive 3BHK in Goregaon East (yes, they're that middle class). And the lengths she would go to achieve her ends make for some easy laughs at first, before driving you to worry for the husband and child caught in her schemes. Rajib in contrast is better educated and well-adjusted in this milieu, but couldn't care less about city life, his heart set firmly in his little village. He gets a perfect in the film's first, imminently hummable song Sautela Sheher.

This juxtaposition of an old-world order against the brisk day-to-day reality of the big city is a running theme in the movie. Caught between the two is little Kuhi, at times sharing her father's and Pakhi's fondness for nature, and at times getting caught up in the trappings of city wealth - at one point, an iPad takes over her attention from a humble plant she had just begun to cherish. A part of the first half is spent in the idyllic old village in Assam, and the camera keeps reminding you of the contrasts. Tiny apartment vs large estate. Dirty stream vs serene river. Dancing amid concrete buildings vs dancing in the fields. Drinking in a pub vs drinking under the stars.

A mango sapling named Pom, improbably growing out of an old dustbin in the city apartment's balcony comes to symbolize that constant push-and-pull between opposites.

At the beginning I mentioned the film does a lot of right things. The environmental message is only one of those. It also addresses the theme of alienation faced by North Eastern Indians in their own country quite deftly (except for one  in-your-face outburst) by making it a story about North Eastern people - I don't remember the last time we had Assamese protagonists. That may of course have something to do with Bora himself being from Assam. At the screening* I attended, Palash mentioned that Rajib is an outright stand-in for Bora himself. The story also goes beyond the issue of casual racism directed at Pakhi to delve into her own longing for home, something anybody with provincial roots and living in a big city can relate to. Yet, the message here isn't to demonize the city either, rather to embrace it as a new home and strive to make it a better place.

All of these things drip of earnestness. As is often the case, the earnestness does not entirely translate into great filmmaking craft. The film juggles with many threads, that somehow don't come together very convincingly towards the end. The whole subplot about Kuhi becoming a child model feels very forced, and rather hypocritical when you consider that the artiste playing Kuhi might have gone through the same grind to land this role. I'm also not very comfortable with Pakhi's arc - we are let on her back story, how she lost her father and Rajib's parents shipped her off to work for their son in Mumbai. Why her new guardians, even the good-hearted Rajib, choose to keep her uneducated and servile, is never addressed. That they come to her defense when a drunk friend makes some insensitive remark, and refer to her as 'beta' or a member of the family doesn't make me feel better. Rather, this highlights the deep-seated status quo concerning the treatment of domestic help in India. There is also a disturbing suggestion early on that this girl is given to expect an occasional beating at the hands of her employers. Whether all this is done to draw attention to a serious issue, or if the director does not see the problem, remains unclear.

As good of a performance the adults turn in, and as much of a delight Ira Dubey is for every second she gets on screen, I wish the grown ups had receded a little more into the background to hand over the show to the kids. While Kymsleen leaves nothing to be desired in her portrayal of Pakhi, Kuhi who undergoes the most conflicting arc remains something of a cypher. Her shifting loyalties between nature and glamour are never quite explained from her viewpoint.

And that was one viewpoint I would have really loved to explore in this story.

* The film got its first-ever screening, a low-key premiere of sorts, at Lost The Plot, a very endearing rooftop bar-cum-cinema in Aundh, Pune. The director, producer, and some of the cast members appeared to interact with the welcoming crowd, and we enjoyed the film over rounds of drinks and good food, with a nice view of hills in the backdrop. LTP is the brainchild of one Nikita Naiknavare, and the team has been doing some commendable work in bringing the film club experience to a bar near you. If you are in Pune, do pop in for an evening, even if you don't drink. Here's to more such venues in cities that have the right kind of audience looking for the right kind of bar.

Why no good TV?

In her latest piece for Newslaundry, my frenemy* Rajyashree Sen fondly reminisces on the hugely popular Mad Men, and on what makes the show great. And then she goes on to… compare it with Indian (read: Hindi) TV shows. Without taking anything away from the points she makes in the article - which you can read here - as of 2015 pointing out the poor quality of television content in India is a lot like saying there are potholes on Mumbai roads. Great observation, Sherlock!

These days it seems anyone writing an opinion piece on Indian TV shows has pretty much the same thing to say - it was good in the 80s, somewhat good in the 90s and then Ekta Kapoor. Yes, we get it. A certain kind of daily show hijacked prime time television and we all bleed for Buniyaad. Why is nobody talking about why things are the way they are? It’s no rocket science - the reason is glaringly obvious, and so is the solution.

We need to kill the daily format.

Cover me up quick!

Last year during the FIFA World Cup, I toured Brazil for a month with my husband. Since coming back, I've developed the subtle art of slipping in a Brazil anecdote in to most conversations. Like during a chat about office attire, I mentioned how cool and liberating it was to roam around in my shorts everywhere in Brazil, even in public transport. There was the whole body image thing - in India, even in a place like Mumbai, only girls with perfect bodies wear skin-baring clothes. The heavier girls and women, like me, favor long shapeless outfits that modestly cover the butt. In Brazil, women carry themselves proudly, wear comfortable clothes, wear their hair pretty. Rubs off on you.

And then there was the.... absence of staring. Wearing shorts in the sweltering heat seemed like a very natural, sensible thing in Brazil. Nobody cared if your thighs were showing. I mentioned this to my colleagues, as a very practical matter of dressing as per the weather. And one colleague contributed this little gem of wisdom -

"You try dressing like that on public transport here in India, and you'll be raped before you reach home."

Yeah, this isn't about Brazil or fashion - this is about rape and victim-blaming. But I had to slip in Brazil in that conversation.

Anyway, here, in no particular order, are things I've heard/read over the years.

Woman in my office, in the wake of Delhi gang rape:
 "You should see the way those women dress. What else can you expect?"

Senior (female) in my college, spotting me on walk back to the hostel:
"What the hell were you doing on that road? You'll get raped and come home crying."

Prominent Godman (now behind bar on rape charges) on Delhi rape victim:
"Should have called them Bhaiyya, pleaded with them."

Random well-meaning older woman, commenting on my dress:
"You should be more careful, you know. Apni izzat apne haath mein."

My mother, about the center spread in fashion magazine:
"These are the women who provoke."

Amitabh Bacchan (cop) to Zeenat Aman (complainant in eve teasing case) and 300 random extras (party guests):
Badi Khoobsurat Haseen Ek Ladki
Jawani Ki Dhoon Mein Chali Ja Rahi Thi
Fakat Naam Ko Usne Pehne The Kapde
Ajanta Ki Moorat Nazar Aa Rahi Thi
Koi Manchala Usse Takra Gaya
Mere Doston, Kuch Karo Faisla
Khataa Kiski Hai, Kisko De Hum Sazaa?

Question on Quora:
Rapes in India: Are we hypocrites when we say girls can wear whatever they want, but we keep our wallets in front pockets as a precautionary measure?

My friends, the first time we watched images of Mangalore bar assault:
"Come on, the TV channel will hyping this now. I'm sure this is not the complete story. Those guys must have found out something about these girls."

My friend in class 9, about Navratri in our hometown in Gujarat (they used to dance till the dawn before the time constraint laws came in):
"I can never imagine my mother letting me go out like this. I mean aren't these girls' parents worried?"

Guy in my class, when I confessed I'm sometimes nervous walking home alone because some of our senior girls got harassed recently:
"See, 'normal' girls don't get teased or harassed. It's only when girls try to be something more..."

Girl in class 8 to another girl who had picked a fight with one of the guys:
"Just calm down and don't mess with the boys. You never know what they could do to you."

Renowned female gynecologist in book on women, 15 to 65:
"End of the day, it's the women who suffer and bear the scars."

Senior (male) colleague, on the Tejpal scandal:
"Well I never take these stories on face value. You don't know what a scorned woman is capable of." (I told him the longer version of the story, the version not reported in mainstream media. He took his words back.)

Rajyashree Sen on Newslaundry, about American girl's article on her traumatizing experience of India:
"I’ve lived on my own in Mumbai and Delhi ever since I was 22 years old. It’s not that anything untoward has not happened to me because I’m blessed and born under the right stars or safe because I don’t have red hair, blue eyes and white skin. It’s because I’m very careful in the way I behave and dress in public, on the streets. This is the price you pay for living in India – especially as a single woman. You must be constantly vigilant."



*****


None of the people quoted above is a rapist, to the best of my knowledge. But sure, let's ban the documentary. What was it the rapist was saying in the video, again?

*****

Bonus - 7 politicians whose rhetoric beats that of Mukesh Singh:
http://www.thepoliticalindian.com/indias-daughter-documentary/

Open letter to AIB

Dear Ashish, Tanmay, Khamba and Rohan,

I have been debating whether or not to write to you for the longest time - after all, we are not friends. You guys don't know me, and I don't know any of you personally. I'm just a fan, a fan who didn't show up for your Big Night because the ticket prices were too steep. I kept meaning to catch the video on YouTube until it was taken down, and then I couldn't watch it (and I would never, EVER watch an illegally streamed copy online, 'coz that would be, you know, illegal).

So what business do I have writing to you, pretending familiarity? And then it hit me - AIB is no longer the obscure podcast I used to listen to at work, pretending to transcribe interviews. AIB is Big. AIB is Famous. I can write an open letter to you guys now, because apparently open letters are quite a thing now.

So here I am, a fan who does not know, and perhaps now, will never know (because I've still not seen the video, pinkie swear) what all the fuss over the Roast is really about. I do know your comedy.

I hold the dubious pride of having known AIB Before They Became Famous. I latched on to Ashish Shakya's HT column before there was AIB, before he even started with stand-up. I watched the first video he posted online of his stint at an Open Mic evening - "Speaking of assholes, I'm North Indian." Over the years, I have followed the growth of adult stand-up comedy in India, always meaning to catch a live show in Mumbai, and religiously tuned in for every update from AIB.

So it was totally, absolutely unsurprising for me that your show was filthy. What actually surprised me in fact, was how dumbstruck it left a lot of people, the fact that a bunch of comedians can get up to a podium and make lewd jokes. Not that I'm a fan of dirty language in my own interactions with anyone - I still get a big adrenaline rush if I so much as let the f-word erupt from my mouth, and when I do it, I do it deliberately, calculated for effect. The f-word does not come naturally to me, not as part of everyday conversation.

But it always felt natural to your comedy. What surprised me more than everybody else's distaste at the content of your show, was the sudden realization that I had been consuming all of this content for all this while without remembering to get offended. And I'm usually quick to take offence. Maybe it didn't affect me because of the inherent understanding that the language of your productions was always just part of the package. I just took it as another layer of the humor, like Mehmood in a 60's comedy speaking in a faux-Hyderabadi dialect, hoping that everything would sound funnier in Hyderabadi. Or like Navin 'Pehchan Kaun?' Prabhakar always talking like a Bar Girl. Or like Munnabhai prefixing each of his pop-philosophical pellets with "bole to...", because everything sounds funnier in bhai-boli. Or like PK speaking in Bhojpuri, because how funny would it be if an alien meted out generic opinions on earthlings in a Bhojpuri accent?

My point being, I always took it for granted that the language was just packaging, and rather beside the point. You guys are performers, and every performer has a persona. And I was always fine with it, because I agreed with the point you made. Okay, not always agreed with everything, but I have at least appreciated the earnestness of your opinions, and the fact that you have never taken the lazy route to dish them out.

In all of the material I've seen coming from any of you guys, whether on your blogs, twitter, YouTube or the original podcasts, you've never accused people of agenda beyond facts in public domain. You have never been degrading to women that I remember of. You have always backed your opinions with facts, not platitudes. You have never posted any sleazy shots of women. You stood on the right side of the Deepika-Times tussle, and took a stand against victim-blaming on the issue of rape. And you have always made yourself the butt of your own jokes more than you did anybody else. The worst sexually explicit image I've seen coming from you has been of four guys having a group orgy. Just the four of you.

Those are the things that matter to me, the gaalis and sexual innuendo notwithstanding. And perhaps you checked some right boxes for a lot of people in the film industry too, to enjoy their support the way you did. Which is perhaps why so many actors, directors and assorted industry-wallas have been so generous with their time to work on your videos, laughing at themselves along with world. This is what has set you apart from other comedy channels on YouTube. The fact that the butt of the joke was in cahoots with you.

I now hear that you have been accused of insulting people - I thought that was the idea. As a contrast, another channel posted a sketch featuring a duplicate Raghu Dixit along with the real Ayushmann Khurana. Raghu was the butt of jokes. Did any of the writers, cast and crew see what was wrong with this? You guys, you had Raghu on your panel to take all the trashing in person. That's the difference.

And funnily enough, a certain respected actor disappointed at you for the content of your show has, just like me, not seen the Roast. Well neither have I. But I have seen your other work. And I can swear upon my honor that you guys are anything but violent. Pinkie swear.

Love,

A fan.

P.S. Not sure if I need to mention this, but I completely and wholeheartedly support AIB, no matter what the outcome of all this madness. Be safe and be strong.