Saawariya & Ranbir Kapoor’s Bum

Am I the only one out there that’s a bit underwhelmed by the Saawariya phenomenon?

I really want to like this movie – award winning director makes a Dostoevsky adaptation enacted by a couple of well behaved star babies supported by two Bollywood megastars. Sounds good. Here’s my money… or maybe not?

The problem is, everything that I’ve found interesting about this movie so far is completely divorced from the actual promos of it. Sonam Kapoor looks lovely and I knew that without the promos. The only other information I’ve been able to glean from the clips so far is that I can expect to see her run a lot (I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked!) and her wardrobe is predominantly made of dark colors.

Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali has an eye for detail and builds gorgeous sets – however, he’s come a long way from his cash-deprived Khamoshi days and has been getting progressively OCD about his sets to the point where they’re no longer settings for his characters but rather, the most compelling character in his movies. Lovers of Black might disagree but I can’t help but remember that the human bits of the movie that I loved the most were mostly close ups of Amitabh Bachchan where I wasn’t distracted by the decor.

I suppose you can posit that this might be a strategy to draw the viewer back to watch the movie again, this time for the actual performance now that the “gawk at the gorgeousness” factor is done with, but that’s really not how I work – if the set is what I remember the most about a movie, then I can pretty much wait for the DVD to see the acting. Others might feel differently but that’s their choice and their ten bucks.

So Saawariya – a rather nice soundtrack that’s grown on me with one song, Saawariya Daras Bina Nahin Chain by Richa Sharma, that I’ve fallen in love with. [Digression: Now hear this, Bollywood! Give Richa Sharma more songs to sing! What the hell is wrong with you people?] Salman Khan showing up as the Id ka chand (heh) and Rani Mukherjee waiting somewhere offstage to make her entrance.

And Ranbir Kapoor. Ai-yai-yai!

Where to begin? I can handle the RK references. The moment Abhishek Bachchan removed the “flop actor” tag from his resume, I saw the writing on the wall and thus know that from now on till the day he retires, young Ranbir will have to talk about his entire khandaan and their many successes. O Celebubaby, Thou Shalt Mention Thy Genetic Foot in Stardom’s Door.

Actually, it’s sort of worse for Ranbir because other starbabies have at most one or two people to pay dutiful homage to – he has a whole army of them crowding at his back. Cousins Karishma and Kareena Kapoor have had to make obligatory references to their grandfather from time to time but their parents were hardly the big stars Rishi and Neetu Kapoor were in their day, so nobody really cared to know what influence they might have had on them as artists. In any case the Kapoor sisters have always presented themselves as entities separate from the larger Kapoor clan thanks to Babita and Randhir Kapoor’s marital separation.

No such luck for Ranbir. Not only are his parents still together but they still make a cutie-pie couple whenever they venture out. Also he has his famous mother’s face and his debut movie has at least two RK references (he dresses like The Tramp and there’s a little Nargis-Raj Kapoor under the umbrella moment in front of a giant RK sign emitting sparks in one of the promos. I wonder if Anil Kapoor asked for a Roop ki Rani Choron ka Raja reference somewhere and got Mr. India‘d for it?]. He even gets to release his aunt’s biography of his grandfather right before the release of his film. Anvils are dropping everywhere.

And one of them apparently dropped right on top of his head while he was shooting the movie and caused severe blunt force trauma. That’s the best explanation I can come up with for the way his characters acts – the head shaking, the dazed nincompoop looks, the extremely fake manic laughter… If Bhansali weren’t such an egomaniac and completely committed to his movies, I’d ask if he had some sort of grudge against the Kapoors that he was taking out on poor Ranbir.

Well, that was till I found out Bhansali’s secret weapon – Ranbir’s scrumptious bum. Who cares what goggle-eyed head shaking goes on above the neck when such interesting things are going on below deck?

Oh, others have taken their shirts off for various movies but how many actors can you remember getting seriously flirty with a towel? John Abraham has given it his best shot now and again and well done to you, sir, but this is in a league of its own. Poor ol’ Shahrukh Khan, toiling away at the gym for a six pack so he looks like all the other young studs out there… and his stunt is already obsolete coz of a white towel.

Such are the cruel ways of life and the movie making business.

 

After Aishwarya Rai, Manavendra Singh Gohil

Prince Manavendra Singh Gohil of the erstwhile kingdom of Rajpipla in Gujarat was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show last week. He represented India in an episode titled Gays Around the World.

The who, the what, the huh? Exactly.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Gohil or perhaps remember him best from tiny articles buried deep within national newspapers identifying him as the Prince whose mother publicly disowned him when he came out to the world in an interview given to a Gujarat daily. In Indian gay circles, however, he is known as a rather prominent activist who not only funds a helpline called Humsafar, but also runs an award-winning non profit called Lakshya that advocates safe sex and works to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS.

While it’s true that one of Gohil’s main attractions seems to be the fact that he is “India’s first openly gay royal”, his story touches upon the larger implications of being gay in India. A lot of people are likely to dismiss gay rights in India as some sort of western scam being pulled on the pure and innocent people of a great nation where such things don’t go on. Hogwash of course, but it’s a polite fiction that most people like to maintain because it’s someone else’s problem. As long as you’re not one of “those sort” of people, why should such things matter to you?

Except we’re not living isolated lives. Repression of sexual identity means a number of LGBT Indians are living double lives that affect more people than just themselves. Gohil himself is an excellent example – married off to a suitable Princess, the marriage was never consummated and ended in a matter of months.

“The last time when she met me, she told me, ‘I’m giving you a piece of advice. Please don’t spoil another girl’s life,’” he recalled. “That short and sweet thing hit me directly at my heart and I decided I’m not going to get married again.”

Sounds like your standard rona-dhona dialogue… just in real life. But first he had to convince his parents that he meant what he said.  That’s right – his parents wanted him to try again. This is the reaction of a family with tons of money and the best education such money can buy. They needed an heir to carry on the family name and Gohil was the only son, ergo he should just lie back and think of Rajpipla.

Rajpipla by the way is my new favorite word. Rajpipla! Raj-PIPLA! Raj-PIP-la! Rajpi-PLA! Okay, okay, I’ll stop. It’s just I never heard it before and I like the sound of it.

Trying to make them understand landed Gohil in a hospital with a nervous breakdown and he finally came out to his doctor. He then came out to his family and subsequently the world upon which his hometown broke into riots and his family disowned him. Gohil went out and organized an arts festival at his pink palace and set about making himself useful. My kind of guy.

Personally, I think that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan looked much prettier when she appeared on the show but I prefer the Prince of Rajpipla – at least there wasn’t any awkward saree tying going on. Just a Mohandas Gandhi-returning-from-South Africa outfit with a fancy turban complete with white feather. Actually, he sort of looks like he borrowed it from Shiney Ahuja in Bhool Bhulaiya

Video clip here

 

Review: Jab We Met

Just two months ago, if you’d told me I’d not only go to see a Kareena Kapoor-Shahid Kapoor flick in a theater but have a good time watching it, I’d have wanted to know what you’ve been smoking. Except that’s exactly what happened and I feel no guilt whatsoever.

Director Imtiaz Ali’s sophomore effort, Jab We Met is a sharper, wittier, better made version of the movies he’s written so far: Socha Na Tha and Ahista Ahista.

***Mild spoilers follow***

Meet Aditya, a young man who appears to be experiencing some sort of trauma as he silently walks out of an angry boardroom to pay a visit to some chick’s wedding reception before winding up where every good citizen of Mumbai eventually finds themselves: Victoria Terminus.

He boards a train for the lack of anything better to do and lapses into a blue funk. Unfortunately for him, he’s chosen a seat next to the ultimate Co-Passenger from Hell: an extremely talkative Punjabi maiden full of grating good cheer who goes by the name of Geet.

Try as he might, he can’t get her to A) shut up and B) leave him alone. Finally, her overwhelming desire to be helpful lands the two of them in a right awful mess that sends them on a road trip to Bhatinda. Geet turns out to be a rather nice girl and we learn that she’s on her way to see her tradition-bound family in Punjab before she runs away to marry her lover. Aditya finally breaks down and confesses that he’s something of a tycoon whose father died last year and mother ran away with some guy a while back. He has Issues.

This is where the neon lights flashing DRAMA! DRAMA! DRAMA! would go off in any other movie but fortunately for us, Geet is a loudmouth and Aditya has a sense of humor so we live to cry another day.

Next up is Geet and her loud family, including a properly forbidding patriarch (a hilarious, scene stealing Dara Singh) and loads of people who manage to sort themselves out in spite of dancing all over the screen. Then Geet runs off to Manali and Aditya accompanies her on her flight so that he won’t face the fallout.

Nine months later, her family sees him on TV and fetches up at his doorstep to beat the whereabouts of their daughter out of him. Aditya sets out once again to find Geet and is shocked when he finally tracks her down. Gone is the eternal optimist who once talked nineteen to the dozen – instead, dumped by her boyfriend and too proud to return home, this Geet is a shadow of her former self.

She teaches school! She lives in a working women’s hostel! Run by nuns! She washes dishes! She doesn’t paint her nails! She wears no makeup! She looks like a washed out rabbit… er, um, I meant to say, hand her a baby in a shawl already coz this is obviously a girl that’s hard done by.

Anyway, Aditya convinces her to come back to Bhatinda with him and tries to play Geet to her traumatized Aditya with mixed results. The movie then hurtles to a not so traditional end in an “I saw that coming” sort of way that’s very entertaining.

***

Groundbreaking, experimental cinema this is not. If that’s what you’re after, then you might want to give Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking, the other release this week, a try. But if you’re in the mood for a well executed rom-com, then this is the movie for you. It’s enjoyable Bollywood fare that doesn’t allow its multiplex roots to lure it away from the fact that this is a Hindi language movie. Annoying posers like Heyy Babyy, with their lamentable trick of using self-consciously delivered English lines to convey major plot points should take a look at this movie.

Imtiaz Ali’s characters are thoroughly average Indians who speak multiple languages, move between urban and rural environments, offer unnecessary advice, feel touchy about their womenfolk, aren’t above a bit of eve-teasing, and listen to each other. When Aditya finally meets Geet’s lover, Anshuman, you can see that class has reared its head – but while Geet and Aditya are on their road trip through rural India, they find a way to relate to each other as equals: she asks him if he’s a Bachchan fan, tells him how to save his money and offers to introduce him to her sister. Couched in your average rom-com terms is the tale of an optimist who has never had her optimism challenged and a man who’s not quite a pessimist but is in a situation where he can’t find any reason to be optimistic.

As the situations reverse in the second half, we’re reminded that resilience is not always reflected by tight-lipped stoicism and life is not merely a biological function. Sometimes, one discovers one’s inner strength with an explosive round of abuse and shared laughter. What strikes you most about Geet and Aditya is their affectionate friendship, their comfort with each other, their recognition and subsequent acceptance of each other’s sadness and failings as an integral part of them. When Geet cons Aditya into taking the fall for one of her problems, his only reaction is a rueful shake of the head – he knows Geet is a bit of hustler.

There were a couple of moments in the film that took me out of it. One was when Aditya returns to face the wrath of his shareholders after going walkabout on their ass and Shahid Kapoor (who otherwise did a fine job here) lapses into his Acting! persona. Watching him trying to convince a roomful of people that although their company, under his leadership, was all but bankrupt, it was nothing that a smile and bit of enthusiasm wouldn’t fix was a bit painful. Thankfully, Ali seemed to get that and glossed over it with as much finesse as he was able to muster.

The second thing that gave me pause were the songs: I think this is one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard all year and it mirrors the film in walking the fine edge of traditional Indian music vs. hip western. But if ever there was a movie that demanded that nobody lip-sync, this was it. But at least the script recognized that need and actively addressed it. Good save there.

In the maybe category falls the director’s decision to cut all “iffy” bits of dialogue. There is no filler in this script, it’s all pared down to a lean, satisfying whole. And while I approved of most of it, like the fact that the ex-girlfriend didn’t get to make the speech that all ex-girlfriends get to make in movies of this sort, I think I’d have liked to hear the mother’s voice. Just her saying “Thanks” or something. Nothing especially profound but just a little throwaway line so I got to hear the character’s reaction to her estranged son.

Casting is perfect – Kareena Kapoor’s natural ebullience, which can turn her into a shrill ham on most occasions, is admirably leashed to perfection; Shahid Kapoor is still five inches tall and has a trout pout but has developed the acting chops to convincingly inhabit the role of a quiet young man; and I’d like Dara Singh to be my grandpa.

I’d like to give a special shoutout to editor Aarti Bajaj – dude, you need to hold editing classes in Mumbai. For the past while I’ve been watching Bollywood movies that are so crappily put together, there’s inevitably some scene left dangling somewhere that makes me wonder if it was some kind of afterthought that someone forgot.

The Scene That Time Forgot. In The Movie I Can’t Wait to Forget.

Happily there’s no such thing in Jab We Met. I’m so happy when I get crumbs like that. Sad, I know. I think it’s a perfect date movie – and it’s even better if you don’t have a date.

PS – Shahid Kapoor has nice hands. And I saw the trailer for Jodha-Akbar and I’m actually interested in it. Do you think I’m coming down with some mysterious illness?

 

Tehelka Over Narendra Modi

On Tuesday I wrote the following about Narendra Modi after he walked off a talk show when quizzed about the Gujarat riots of 2002: I don’t know whether I should be alarmed that a Chief Minister with national ambitions is so utterly wrapped in cotton wool that he sincerely believes only a couple of people think he has blood on his hands or whether I should read something more sinister into what went down.

Well, it’s Friday now and everything’s come out in the wash. Tehelka, the investigative magazine set up by journalist Tarun Tejpal, has come out with a report that squarely indicts Mr. Modi and his fellow partyworkers of orchestrating a sectarian massacre. It includes secret recordings of several BJP and sister organization VHP activists discussing the events of 2002 and the role they and the chief minister, Narendra Modi, played during those three nightmare days. I’d like to caution readers that clicking on the above link is not for the faint hearted. I’m not being glib here, ladies and gents.Many Indians have long held Mr. Modi responsible for the riots. But his supporters have always chosen to shift the blame elsewhere. At various times they have said:

• There is no direct evidence to link Mr. Modi to the riots
• That the riots were an outpouring of public sentiment after a train bogey carrying Hindu pilgrims was set on fire near the communally sensitive town of Godhra.
• Mr. Modi is an excellent economic administrator
• The BJP, under his leadership, has won other elections in the state since the riots, thus proving that the people of Gujarat were behind him
• Mr. Modi’s detractors are stooges of the Congress Party, commies, lefties and other “Macaulay’s children” not worthy of attention out to defame a hardworking official because he is a proud Hindu

And now that Tehelka has come out with these tapes, the BJP points out that this reveal comes just weeks before a crucial election and further alleges that Tehelka, if not directly in the pay of the Congress, is at least sympathetic to the Congress cause.I’d like to say a few words here – although, if you’re of the rightist, particularly Sangh Parivar, persuasion, you might want to save yourself an ulcer or popped vein or two and skip it because you’re not going to hear anything you like. To start in reverse order:

Tehelka is in the pay of the Congress: Leaving aside the much discussed vendetta carried out by the Vajpayee administration against both Tehelka and its comrade in arms, Outlook, during the Vajpayee administration – a charge by the way that (if memory serves me correctly) the editor, Vinod Mehta, leveled to the face of at least one BJP leader in the Barkha Dutt hosted We the People without being met with any denial whatsoever – let’s say that Tehelka and Tarun Tejpal are Congress toadies as alleged by the BJP.

Are the BJP and VHP “activists” interviewed on camera also Congress toadies? Did they somehow switch parties and neglect to inform anyone? Did Sonia Gandhi or her minions courier a truckload of cash to not one, not two but a whole bunch of BJP and VHP members so they’d admit to murder, rape and loot on camera? So that’s where all the Bofors money is going. No wonder the NDA sat on that investigation while it was in office. Ghoom phir ke isi politician ki economy mein aani hai.

Really, there must be some sort of hidden treasure in Gujarat if the Congress is that desperate to win.

You’re not with us ergo you’re with the Congress: Grow up. I was going to make this huge speech about how there are more things on heaven and earth and blah blah blah – but why bother when it all boils down to this: Grow. Up.

I don’t know if they actually believe this “logic” or whether this is the catchiest thing they could come up with for the TV cameras but either way it’s absurd. There are those of us out there in the wilderness that don’t believe in a single thing that the Congress or the Left believes in, that are very happy and proud of their nationality, culture and religion – and feel absolutely no desire whatsoever in campaigning for a Hindu rashtra, feel belligerent about events that went down 800 years ago or want to shoot the next Muslim we meet.

I know the leaders of the Sangh Parivar think highly of Indira Gandhi’s leadership qualities, but take it from me: nobody bought it 30 years ago when she tried to tell us she was India and we’re not about to buy that you’re India either and that voting against you makes us anti-national. Mrs. Gandhi is what is commonly called a cautionary tale, people. She fucking lost her marbles and got booted out of office for it. Ask Atal Behari Vajpayee about it: I’m sure he remembers a few things from that time.

Modi wins elections: I have an option here. I could remind you of some other people who’ve won elections after doing despicable things or I could remind you that a large part of Gujarat, a large Muslim part of Gujarat, has been effectively disenfranchised since the riots. And this is a state of matters that goes on with the complicity of all parties in the state, including the Congress. Hmmm, options, options.

Modi can do business: Yes he can. And your point is? Have we begun to shine so brightly as a nation that economic success will now absolve a person of all crimes? Let’s get rid of laws that target white collar crime then. Better still, let Salman Khan walk free. After all, not only is he doing some great PR work for India by acting in Bollywood blockbusters that screen around the world but his movies rake in some major cash, supporting the Lord only knows how many film technician families in Mumbai.

In any case, Mr. Modi comes with a handicap in the business arena: he can gladhand whoever comes to India or to his state but the diplomatic snub he received from the United States should tell you something: he’s going to find it terribly hard to wheel and deal without the wheel-and-deal-ee being accused of hobnobbing with shady characters.

There’s also the little information that came out recently that proved Gujarat Shining wasn’t immune to the deadly farmer suicide epidemic that’s been sweeping India for some years now. According to official figures released under the Right to Information Act, at least 489 farmers have killed themselves since 2003. Disparity in economic growth really is a national phenomenon.

No direct evidence & public sentiment: Watch the video. Oh wait, that’s right – you can’t coz the Modi administration has blocked all news channels that are broadcasting news of the sting. That’s exactly what a person with nothing to hide would do – if their name was Indira Gandhi. How did that turn out for her again?

Lucky you, chances are, if you can read this blog then you can see the sting played out over the internet.

Finally, can we please put an end to this “party with a difference” tag that everybody’s been kicking around for so long re: the BJP? By now it should be fairly obvious that this is basically the Congress with a Hindutva slant and no Nehru Gandhi clan to give it weightage at the center.

Here was an excellent chance for the BJP to be truly different – take responsibility, apologize, build fences. Instead, it trots out excuses that the Congress first brought into play in 1984. In fact, it’s interesting to read of the Congress reaction. It shows just how similar they are.

 

Standing Alone in Mecca

 

If you look at Asra Q. Nomani as a human being, she is an outstanding success story. Born in Mumbai, she is today a respected journalist who has worked for publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times; she covered Pakistan in the aftermath of 9/11 for Salon.com; she was a visiting scholar at Brandeis University and a fellow at Yale. She was even portrayed by Archie Panjabi in the Angelina Jolie starrer, A Mighty Heart.

If you look at her through conservative Islamic eyes, she is a once-divorced Muslim woman guilty of zina, “illegal sex” i.e. sex outside the bonds of matrimony. The strongest evidence against her is her own son, Shibli Daneel, born to a Pakistani father who abandoned both mother and child because he deemed her too immoral to meet the standards of his family. After all, she slept with him.

The dichotomy appears so stark that it’s almost a no-brainer to say that she would have to choose one identity over the other: she’s either a working American mom or she’s a fallen Muslim woman. Between the two is a chasm with no resolution in sight. Nomani, however, did not feel inclined to let any one part of her wither and die.

Her book, Standing Alone in Mecca – A Pilgrimage into the Heart of Islam, is the result of her efforts to balance the two aspects of her life.

Nomani’s story begins in Mumbai in the 1960s when she migrated to the United States with her parents. Her scientist father and businesswoman mother were fairly liberal and the world was her oyster insofar as she allowed it to be. However, the immigrant experience is bound to have its problems and her earliest struggles were to stay faithful to her parents’ culture while growing up in another.

She went to college and became a journalist, she did not wear the hijab, traveled the world on her own and religion was not a strong force in her life. She had premarital sex and tried to be open about it to her mother. Along the way there were concessions: a natural athlete, she says she gave up her hopes of making the swim team because her conservative grandmother did not approve of the costume. She learnt to live with the segregation of men and women at the mosque and at informal gatherings. When the time came for her to marry, she turned her back on the white American man who loved her and chose a Muslim man of Pakistani origin instead because he was of the right culture and the right religion.

Then came 9/11, her assignment to Pakistan for Salon during the course of which she fell in love with the father of her son, and the kidnapping of her friend Daniel Pearl for the twin “crimes” of being born a Jew and an American.

Shocked by what she’d witnessed, pregnant and abandoned by the man who’d once swept her off her feet, Nomani returned to America and gave birth to a son she named Shibli Daneel in honor of her slain friend and the larger implications of the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. Somewhere in this tumult came a need to examine her own faith, in God and the percepts of her religion. She decided she would go to Mecca.

Standing Alone in Mecca is the story of her trip, but it is also the story of a journey Muslim women have taken over millennia. It is the story of Hajar (Hagar), the slave girl who gave birth to a son of Abraham and was abandoned in the desert with her child. It is the story of women who travel all the way to Mecca for a pretty basic right: to stand equal before God.

If Nomani rambles a bit in her attempt to weave religious history, social commentary and personal narrative into one cohesive whole, I’m inclined to overlook it because it’s a good read that didn’t just give me a look into the life of a modern day Muslim woman but also made me feel included.

I don’t usually throw around words like “universal sisterhood” and I don’t think my strong reaction to her book can be solely explained by my gender – what Nomani does here is something a lot more complex than just ask for empathy. Instead, she relates her experiences with other cultures to the one in which she grew up.

She says her inspiration was the Dalai Lama – a chance encounter made her realize the value of understanding the alien in order to better appreciate the familiar. Nomani, whose first book was Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love, tries to relate her experiences with Islam to the larger experience that we have each had with religion.

Thus, when she writes of parties where everybody sits segregated according to gender, I know what she is talking about – and I can imagine the psychological effects of that invisible line between male and female. Some of us in South Asia still live with that kind of mental-turned-physical barrier, where there’s a distinctly male section and a female section when large groups gather – others have grown up in homes where the older generation, at least, practices this segregation. Her ability to make the reader relate is her strength.

Ever since the book came out and she joined hands with other Muslim women and activists such as Amina Wadud to buck the conservative trend in today’s Islam, she has been the target of death threats, abuse… and a lot of support. Her response? She came out with the Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Mosque, Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Bedroom and sicced the FBI onto the men who were sending her hate mail, trying to stifle her rights as a woman and a Muslim through intimidation when she used the Koran itself to bolster her arguments.

There is a story here beyond the hijab and the honor killings. If you only ever read one book on women in Islam, let it be this one.

 

Narendra Modi Dehydrated by Karan Thapar

I’m sorry, but it must be said: “Yeh haath humko de de Thapar!”

Heh heh heh. Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad. But yes, it wasn’t anywhere near as awesome as what went down on CNN IBN the other day.

For those of you who don’t know, Karan Thapar is a long winded journalist who likes to talk in flowing periods brimming with emotion – while smoothly decapitating you. I have never known whether to be irritated by his blather or admire his balls of steel.

A long while ago, I had the opportunity to see him interview J. Jayalalitha for the BBC’s Hardtalk India (I think) and the phrase “must see TV” was coined just for events of that kind. She came all prepared with a script and then read off it, sticking to her answers irrespective of what he had to ask. Lesser beings might have been cowed by her basilisk glare but Thapar not only called her on her rehearsed answers but refused to back down when she flat out lied to his face that all her answers were spontaneous.

She was so pissed off by the end of it that she refused to shake his hand and said she hated his show.

These days he has a show called Devil’s Advocate on CNN IBN where he puts people through their paces. I guess this is where all the people who want to give the impression that they’re an open book with nerves of steel go to talk. I have a feeling they end up talking a bit more than they want to because he has perfected this technique of posing questions that start in Tokyo and land on the moon after taking the scenic route through a parallel universe.

You know what, I can’t really explain his interviewing technique. You’ll just have to see it for yourself sometime. Just take my word for it that it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Anyway, so he got Narendra Modi on his show the other night and I’m so incredibly sorry I missed this interview:

Karan Thapar: Mr. Narendra Modi, let’s start by talking about you. In the six years that you have been the CM of Gujarat, the Rajiv Gandhi foundation has declared Gujarat to be the best-administered State. IndiaToday on two separate occasions declared that you are the most efficient Chief Minister. And despite that, people still call you to your face, a mass murderer, and they accuse you of being prejudiced against Muslims? Do you have an image problem?

Narendra Modi: I think it’s not proper to say that there are people. There are two or three persons who talk in this terminology and I always say ‘God bless them.’

KT: You are saying this is the conspiracy of two or three persons only?

NM: I have not said so.

KT: But you are saying it is only two or three people.

NM: This is the information I have. It’s the people’s voice.

[snip]

KT: I’ll tell you what the problem is. Even five years after the Gujarat killings of 2002, the ghost of Godhra still haunts you. Why have you not done more to allay that ghost?

NM: This I give it to the mediapersons like Karan Thapar. Let them enjoy.

KT: Can I suggest something to you?

NM: I have no problem.

KT: Why can’t you say that you regret the killings that happened? Why can’t you say that may be the government should have done more to protect Muslims?

NM: What I had to say I have said at that time, and you can find out my statements.

KT: Just say it again.

NM: Not necessary that I have to talk about, in 2007, everything you want to talk about.

KT: But by not saying it again, by not letting people hear the message repeatedly you are allowing an image contrary to the interest of Gujarat to continue. It’s in your hands to change it.

NM: (Modi takes mike off)
I’ll have to rest. I need some water.

KT: Paani (water).

NM: Dosti bani rahe bas (Friendship should be maintained, that’s all). I’ll be happy. You came here. I am happy and thankful to you. I can’t do this interview. It’s ok your things are. Apne ideas hain aap bolte rahiye aap karte rahiye (These are your ideas, you keep talking, keep doing). 3-4 questions I’ve already enjoyed. Nahin please.

I don’t know whether I should be alarmed that a Chief Minister with national ambitions is so utterly wrapped in cotton wool that he sincerely believes only a couple of people think he has blood on his hands or whether I should read something more sinister into what went down.

Modi is, after all, the man whose trip to the United States had to be abandoned shortly after the Godhra riots thanks to human rights activists of Indian origin who lobbied hard against him. And the issue of the riots is something that I would guess he has to face on a daily basis once he moves past his protective politician barrier.

What protective politician barrier? You know, the one created by sycophants that every politician carries? That one.

But something must have pierced through that wall of smug sometime. This can’t be the first time someone’s asked him the tough questions. Can it?

Thapar himself remains puzzled. I guess he has plenty of time to figure things out – I wouldn’t think he’s on a lot of people’s guest list. No?

 

Kareena + Saif = $$$?

We really need to come up with a cool international symbol for the Rupee. At the least it’d help me out in situations like the above title. Oh well.

What I really wanted to do though, was inquire if you’re one of those people out there who watch a movie based on who the lead actor/actress is currently dating. Personally, I’ve always thought if you’re so invested in a stranger’s lovelife that you’re willing to spend money on it, then you need to stop and examine things a little. While reclining on Dr. Somebody’s couch.

I mean, if you’re a (and I say this with the utmost affection) Brangeloony, then your idols are only a click of the mouse away – you can see them drop their kids off at school and pick them up again all you want for free. You can see them grab each other’s ass on red carpets around the world and look gorgeous doing it. If their security wasn’t so good, you’d probably have seen them brushing their teeth every morning. So really, why would you go to the movies, fork over the ticket money, then pay extra for stale popcorn and extremely overpriced candy (always of a brand that you’d never buy anywhere else) and watch them act? Especially when someone somewhere in cable-land is always playing Mr and Mrs Smith?

In any case, didn’t the whole Bennifer craziness that surrounded Gigli pretty much prove that tabloid frenzy doesn’t equal box office success? Even Ben Affleck seems to have understood that. And he’s the guy who decided it would be a great idea to star with his girlfriend in her music video at the height of Bennifer mania. Take that paparazzi! Who’s sorry now?

But then DNA has this to say on the recently confirmed Kareena Kapoor-Saif Ali Khan hook up:

But will the chemistry translate on-screen as well, or will it go the Shahid-Kareena way? Says trade analyst Amod Mehra, “Audiences will not make the switch as quickly as Kareena and Saif have. They still picture Kareena and Shahid because they have been going around together for the last three years. It will take some time for the fact to sink in. I feel producers will be cautious and gauge their chemistry on-screen in ‘Tashan’ before giving them any price they want.”

Wow, I didn’t know I was so invested in the Kareen-Shahid Kapoor relationship. It must be why their last few outings at the boxoffice together bombed: somebody forgot to inform the audience that they cared so deeply.

Irony of ironies though, I’m actually looking forward to Jab We Met. I guess it took me three years and a break up to open my eyes. Or maybe I just like good writing and Imtiaz Ali has been on my watchlist ever since I saw Socha Na Tha.

Hmm, I don’t know which of the two to cop to. Am I a crazed fan of a B-list ex-couple or do I just like bad movies with the potential to be so much better?

Anyway, next on the Kareena-Saif plate is Tashan from YashRaj. With Omkara under their belt, they’re already doing much better than Kareena and Shahid ever did. Aw, poor itty bitty Shahid. Cheer up, maybe the movie will now do well.

Source

 

So Dumbledore is Gay

Gay subtext has never been hard to find in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. You wouldn’t have to search very hard to come up with a lot of nudge-nudge wink-wink stuff about boys with wands. But that’s fanfic and idle speculation. The books themselves, though racially representative and thematically complex, never offer anything more explicit than the odd bit of “snogging” between hetero couples.

And then Rowling answered a few questions at Carnegie Hall in New York and…

“I always saw Dumbledore as gay,” Rowling said in answer to a fan’s question about whether the wizard ever found love.

The crowd of about 2,000 hardcore Harry fans, who had won tickets through a nationwide drawing, exploded in screams and applause at the news. Rowling moments later joked, “Oh my God, the fan fiction now!”

Lady, you’re so right! Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore gay? In love with Gellert Grindelwald, the dark wizard he defeated in a wand fight? The stories, they are being spun. Feverishly.

Elsewhere on the internet, the news brought on a Wiki War. Gadgetopia reports:

Some people apparently ran right to their computers and edited Dumbledore’s entry. This was considered obvious vandalism by some who hadn’t heard the news, so they reverted the page. So for a while, it was a war between the informed and the uninformed, with edits and reverts flying… The page is going on 150 edits just this morning.

I love wiki-heads! I’m also looking forward to more critical analysis of what this means to the Harry Potter world. There’s this student, for example, who posits that Dolores Umbridge was raped by centaurs based on Rowling’s mania for research and Umbridge’s reactions in the book. I can only imagine the theories that Dumbledore’s outing will bring forth.

And let’s not forget the crazies! The haters! The ones who’ve been running around for years trying to get Harry Potter banned for being a piece of ungodly trash that seeks to convert innocent little children to the evil ways of witchcraft and thus Satan. Now they’ve got a old gay guy in flowing robes to add to their list.

He’s not just a Satan worshiper. He’s a gay Satan worshiper. Save our children! Watch out for the protest march outside the multiplex that will screen the next Harry Potter movie.

 

Dropping the F-Bomb

“Well, I’m not really one of those feminist-type people, you know.”

Actually, I don’t know. I’ve heard the above statement from (what seems to me) legions of people on and off the internet and I don’t know what they’re talking about. What are they trying to tell me, that they’re against gender equality? That they think their mothers are somehow less than their fathers and they hope their daughter will one day live as a second class citizen in her married home?

There are, of course, people out there who do feel that way. They might not come out and say it in so many words (although there are exceptions to that rule) but when someone says to you: “I’m against feminism because I don’t see the need for it. Here in the [insert appropriate nation / region / religion] we treat women with respect. These rules that restrict women’s [mobility / agency / rights in general] have been formulated for their own protection. We respect our women so much, we like to protect them.”

The fact that this whole “protection” business rests on the character of the male involved i.e. whether he is genuinely invested in guarding the best interests of the women he’s related to or whether he’s just a petty domestic tyrant is kind of lost here. Besides, of course, the deeper and more fundamental problems with their stance.

Point is, I expect the “I’m not a feminist / I’ve never thought about it” sidestep from people who’re innately opposed to gender equality for whatever reason. But when I hear someone who identifies herself/himself as separate from that category of people trotting that line out, I admit I lose my patience a trifle. I get the fact that radical feminism isn’t something that everybody can throw their weight behind, but there’s a handy little cliche that addresses issues like that: don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It is perfectly possible for human beings to recognize nuance in an argument.

By the grace of God, I was born into a family that has always been on the liberal side, by custom as well as bent. I have never faced any discrimination based on my gender (well, when I was little, my brothers would banish me to the other side of the room when they were all bonding over dirty jokes but I’m not sure that counts) within my family or outside. I have the right to vote, wear what I choose, say what I like and live exactly the way I want as long as I don’t physically or financially harm somebody. Life is pretty darn good. Perhaps yours is too.

And I think every human being should have the rights that I do, irrespective of race, gender, class, nationality and sexual orientation.

I guess that makes me a flaming social liberal and I’m proud to be one. That also makes me a feminist and I’m proud of that too. Which is why I’ll be one of the bloggers sending in an entry to Apu when she hosts The Carnival of Feminists this October 24th.

I’m not going to tell you how to spend your free time or what to post on your blog – but I will say that this is an opportunity to ignore the “ism” and concentrate on the “feminine” part of “feminism” and see how other people react to your ideas. You won’t get any dreaded feminist cooties on you by thinking about what women or being a woman means to you. I promise. And I, for one, would love it if some male bloggers decided to write a little something. Your mom, your kindergarten teacher, the movie star you fell in love with, the woman who cleans your apartment, your college professor, the woman who sat next to you on the bus…

It doesn’t have to be supportive of the “cause”… I just think that more of us should spend a little time thinking about the Other in our lives. And gender is a pretty basic Other. Natalie Bennet, who set the ball rolling, says:

I’d say that a “feminist” post doesn’t have to directly address what is commonly defined as “politics” – as we all know the personal is political – but there should be some sense in a post addressing women’s place in the world. Posts should also be more than a collection of links, and include substantial original content.

Posts that celebrate women’s lives and contributions to society – either current-day or historical – are particularly welcome. Posts will usually have been made in the period since the last carnival. (Only one nomination per blog please.)

And if any of you feel men and men’s issues are being ignored, then why don’t we have a Carnival for Men sometime? I’ll contribute. I have so much to say.

 

RIP: Deborah Kerr

I didn’t know her name when I saw her perform for the first time or even understand what was going on – but I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Her name was Deborah Kerr and the movie was From Here to Eternity. I was six or seven years old and refused to go to bed until I’d seen it to the end. I remember how shocked I was to find out later that Frank Sinatra, “that guy who acted in the Deborah Kerr movie”, was such a huge star.

Remember when Sleepless in Seattle came out and re-introduced the world to An Affair to Remember? I wasn’t one of those who needed re-introducing because I’d watched it over and over and over again, ever since I’d first seen it. (Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr? Come on!]

This was an age before the internet and I’d only heard about The King and I when I read the book it was based upon. I loved it – but not as much as I loved the movie. The stern critic in me noticed the departures from the book a bit disapprovingly but the viewer didn’t care a bit. I went on to see the original black and white adaptation, Anna and the King of Siam, and the Jodie Foster version – but they both lacked the magic of the Rodgers and Hammerstein one.

You’d have thought she and Yul Brynner would have made a ton of movies after that kind of success, but in actual fact they only made one other movie together: The Journey. It’s one of my all time favorite Yul Brynner performances and I’m still bitter that it ended the way it did. And a little fangirly too.

This post is in danger of becoming one long list of her movies, so suffice it to say that I am a huge fan of hers. There is nothing about her that I didn’t love. Not one performance that made me feel that I’d been robbed.

She died on Tuesday at the age of 86. She will be missed by more people than she ever met. Rest in peace.