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.