Friday, September 27, 2013

The headless chickens

I love Andaz Apna Apna! Amar (Aamir Khan) is the one who has the ideas, constantly changing his tune and plot to woo Raveena (played by Raveena Tandon, who pretends she is Raveena but is actually Karishma). Prem (Salman Khan) on the other hand mostly improvises and mimics what Amar does, first to outdo him and later to support him. Somehow he loses to Amar's tactics and yet ends up winning the race to Raveena (played by Karishma Kapoor who pretends she is Karishma). The climax is especially funny: Amar acts as the diabolical villain who planned the whole thing, until Prem reveals sheepishly that the revolver is empty. They then beat each other before beating everybody else, much to the audience's delight!

If you did not follow the above hackneyed plot or if you enjoyed it, it may be playing out in real life! And that makes the plot both funny and sad at the same time.

The Prem in real-life is the Congress party. It runs around, plotting something and then changing its plot, both for reasons and objectives unknown (they, like Prem, are also very bad actors). Somehow they end up winning elections in the end, much like Amar-Prem, because they have no competition in stupidity. Amar in real-life is Rahul Baba, morphing between the clueless, refreshingly smart and stereotyped. In the latest climax of this story, the Congress party did a U-turn on its stand on the ordinance, after "Rahul Baba" came out vociferously against it.

The fun probably won't stop here, but it didn't start here either.

The ordinance itself is a template of shamelessness. "For political reasons" the Congress party decided that it is not OK to ban convicted people from holding seats in power. The party had the epiphany of making public and official what was always a tacit practice. Like a group of misguided school children, they then proceeded to attack the opposition saying "everybody does it! Why are you opposing it?" They devoted their entire media machine selling this, acknowledging that it is both against what the Supreme Court said, and any argument of logic and morals.

Then came the dissent, culminating in the revered Rahul Baba coming out against it. Within minutes, the entire party reversed its stand saying "its probably not a good idea". Even headless chickens may be more nuanced at navigating!

The whole thing is so mind-numbing and stupid, it almost looks staged. Much like the plot of Andaz Apna Apna-- "we will kidnap Ram Gopal Bajaj, and then we will rescue him becoming heroes in his eyes!", this may well be an exercise in showing the world how sane and fair Rahul Gandhi is. First commit a gaffe, then have Rahul Baba come out favoring morals over party, and then take it back.

Reason and logic tells me that a person can be extremely self-centered, cunning and even sociopathic, but personal pride trumps all. Which is why I am confounded about how our Prime Minister and the Congress party spokesman must be living with themselves. How loyal does one have to be to label oneself as #$@%! on national tv and print media? At least our poor PM has mastered the act of being mum most of the times with occasional flashes of pathetic platitudes. The spokesperson on the other hand has the unenviable task of wearing a "gadha idhar hai" poster on his chest.

But who are Karishma and Raveena in this sad comedy? Unfortunately it is us voters. Who we are continuously confuses those who seek our votes (are we intelligent, are we so dumb that we will let anything pass, can we be distracted like babies so that they can get away with anything?). Before the election we are Raveena, the daughter of the filthy rich man, after the election we're Karishma, the munim's daughter worth nothing.

But the comparison doesn't end here! Guess who "Crime master Gogo" is? That role has to go to the BJP. For mysterious reasons the ruling party fears them. Gogo is after the same prize that everybody else is. Like the climax, Gogo, Amar, Prem and everybody else take potshots at each other while puzzled Raveena and Karishma look on...

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

News sources: please show and allow discretion

This morning with my son in my lap I briefly accessed my favorite news website. And was instantly disturbed by its main headline. Struggling to get it out of my mind...

I hope someone in the news media is reading this. Please show some discretion in what you put in your headline, or in the short blurb below it. Unsuspecting viewers like me who would never click on such disturbing news don't even get a chance to make that choice and walk away. Its right there staring us in the face...on websites that overall, we trust.

There are millions of viewers who would read such stuff and not be bothered by it. Many times its me too. Yet I'm not sure why this particular item disturbed me, which is the problem. My only choices are to live with the possibility that this may happen unpredictably, or wean myself off the website totally. I don't like either option: I'm sure the news media don't like them either.

We know advertising is important, and traffic is important to sustain it. But it is unbecoming of someone aiming to be a respectable source of news.

Friday, September 13, 2013

The doppleganger bhajans

Here it is...Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram "disco style". The newest song on the filmy block, from the movie Krissh 3. I just saw it yesterday.

This particular line of the bhajan has been morphed 3 ways in the last two decades.

1. The half-bhajan half rock song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
2. The call for agitation version from Satyagraha.
3. The disco song from Krissh 3.

Its not so much religious or moral blasphemy as it is musical harakiri. I'm not outraged, I am just disappointed. It is like the concept of "Christian Yoga": one is outraged for what it stands for (supposed Hindu proselytization), and yet one uses it in name and spirit for marketing purposes (why else would you continue to call it yoga?)

I'm hoping the song actually has a viable context that justifies the use of "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram", but I'm not waiting with bated breath. Why use the popular line of a song if one means to present it in a completely different context and tempo? I have nothing against dance music and thumping beats, and am awestruck once again at Hrithik Roshan's warp-speed dancing. But its difficult to find a reason other than cheap marketing that they used this line.

The reason I'm disappointed with this is the same reason I'm disappointed with most remixed songs. Similar to how we remember legendary tunes in their context, the remixed sounds become the new context. For some listeners, "Dum Maaro Dum" may now be the song that has the phrase "...potty pe baithe nanga", "Tumhi ho bandhu sakha tumhi" is a beach song.

But even those who don't know the bhajan, here is the new context to this line: the lyrics of this song from Krishh 3: http://www.lyricsmint.com/2013/09/raghupati-raghav-krrish-3.html.

Compare that to the lyrics from Satyagraha: http://www.lyricstaal.com/satyagraha-title-song-lyrics/

Both start from the same line: one morphs into a party song, the other into a call for agitation. Which context do you think is more faithful to the spirit of the original one? And why should we care about faithfulness? Because most listeners associate a song with the context set by its words, music and what they were doing when they heard it. "Mere Desh ki dharti" is an unabashedly patriotic song even though I have never worked in a field, "Airanichya deva tula..." is one of my favorite Marathi songs not because I was once an ironsmith, but because I heard that song most often and saw that movie at my grandparents' house.  Presenting an existing piece of music in a completely different context does more than making it accessible to the current generation. It renders that accessibility meaningless because the context is garbled.