Banno Outtakes

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you

1. are wondering what the hell happened to it
2. know friend-of-the-blog Banno from Banno, Dhanno and Teja in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land

And while you’ll have to keep wondering about the blog for a little longer, I’m happy to share that I interviewed Banno for Women’s Web and we discussed things like how awesome she is and how difficult it is to be an indie filmmaker in India. No, seriously, check it out! And once you’ve read it, come back to read the outtakes.

Yes, of course there are outtakes! The interview was done in my usual expansive style, after all. I have been away a long time if you can’t remember how I like to go on and on.

Thanks, Banno!

***

Amrita: Let’s talk about India Reborn.
Batul: India Reborn was a series for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. One of the episodes was on the Indian economy, and I worked on that as the Indian producer. An international documentary crew is typically very small, a director, a cameraman, a sound recordist, and a local producer like me. This one had a producer their end as well. My job usually is to help with finding stories, research, interviews, apart from the logistical co-ordination. I loved this job because after a long time, I worked with people who were still old-school journalists, we travelled through the country, and I learned so much about the Indian economy.

Amrita: I know from your blog that one of your British documentaries affected you deeply on a personal level.
Batul: The Slumdog Children of Mumbai came in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire‘s success. It was part of a year-long programming by Channel 4, UK. This was one of those jobs where we worked for long months, also the only job I did which was entirely during the monsoons. We had the tiniest crew: Nick Read, who was the producer, director, cameraman and sound recordist and me, working as an associate producer, conducting the interviews, etc.

It was physically grueling, the combination of rains and slums made things very, very difficult to bear at times, and I did come out of this experience traumatized.

Amrita: Any war stories?
Batul: I think the day I landed in Bhuj after the earthquake on Day 2, is the single most devastating day of my professional career. The dead bodies, the smell, the destruction of the entire city, people’s homes, and in the midst of it all trying to get a story. At that time, I was working as an associate for a cameraman who was shooting the International Rescue Corps.

I learned the gruesomeness of news in that one day, and in many ways, my own docu-feature 150 Seconds Ago was a back answer to that.

Amrita: Tell me about that experience.
Batul: 150 Seconds Ago was based on the lives of a few people in Bhuj, over the span of a year after the earthquake there in 2001. The people I followed included a rickshaw-wala, the erstwhile Maharajah of Bhuj, a doctor, a school teacher, and so on. It was very observational and exploratory, with no fixed narrative. The film travelled to many prestigious festivals including the Cinema du Reel, Paris, and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan. The Yamagata Festival curators then included the film in their traveling festival package and showed it around Japan for a year.

 

Old Fab

My new(ish) post on older actresses in Hindi film:

…just when they reach their truly interesting period, nobody wants to make movies with them anymore because conventional “wisdom” holds that the audience doesn’t care to fantasize about older women, especially if they’re someone else’s wife. Thus begins the slide back into mediocre cinema and eventually retirement – either offscreen or into thankless roles as the white-haired mothers of their former male co-stars.

[D]espite all the fuss people make about older actresses, it is interesting to note that they’re hardly revolutionary even in an industry as conservative Hindi film-making.

Read more at the newly revamped Women’s Web.

 

Masala Zindabad

Yup, it’s up and running.

We kick things off with a podcast featuring MemsaabStory – part one of a wide ranging discussion about the largely forgotten/ unknown/ nameless character actors of Hindi cinema. The feed is in the sidebar.

I swear we aren’t on meth. That’s just my poor editing skills at play. We did our best to follow the advice of all you lovely people who wrote in; I hope it worked.

Thanks for listening!

[pic]

 

Presenting!

People who sound like narcoleptic chipmunks with a bad cold have no business participating in a podcast, which is why I never did. Until now.

As I slide down the other slope of my 20s towards 30, I’ve decided the time has come to stretch a little. This involves doing things I would rather not, such as talk. There’s nothing I hate more than talking – I’ve been taking John Wayne’s advice to speak slow and seldom for years without even realizing it – but I do love to listen. Left to myself I’d communicate in grunts and gestures but it’s kind of hard to convince people to have a conversation without saying something once in a while.

Thank God, then, for Beth! My partner in crime who is charming, articulate and very kind. The story of Masala Zindabad: The Podcast that Ought to Have Been a Book, our new project, is a long and not very interesting one but the topics it was to cover and the people involved are the opposite. Unfortunately, it was one of those things that just wasn’t coming together, hence our decision to present it in this format.

You can follow it here. I’ll warn you up front that this is about the most DIY amateur production ever (and it nearly killed me setting it up – so fiddly!) so if you know your way around an effort of this kind and want to share tips, they would be most welcome!

This is an example of our test run:

 

PSA

NSFW-ish

I have absolutely nothing to add to Sue’s excellent post about contraception except to reiterate that your sexual health is absolutely your responsibility – and a partner who does not respect that, is not someone who deserves the privilege of sharing your bed.

And make no mistake, sex is a privilege. You can talk all you want about it being a bodily function and joke about notches on your bedpost, but you’re basically discussing the most invasive act your body will ever perform, short of childbirth, which 50% of you will never experience anyway.

I think I’ve linked to this calculator before but either way, it’s a good detail to keep in your head.

Speaking of respect, find a doctor who will treat you and your concerns with the same. If that’s not your family doctor, find a new one. You’re not paying her/him money for a moral lesson; you’re there for a medical opinion.

PS – remember to wash your hands. Before, if not after, but try for before and after. Of all the parts of your body, your pee-pee is the one you most definitely want to keep happy and fresh.

 

Rakhi Sawant for Prime Minister

Although the time on her clock reads well into the 16th minute, Rakhi Sawant is still going places – like the unfamiliar pages of Filmfare. The interview, a rare one from a magazine devoted to its upscale Not-Your-Mummyji‘s-Gossip-Rag brand, starts off with Rakhi flipping out at the sight of the Louis Vuitton outfit and Ferragamo shoes the team has arranged for her photoshoot.

Not in the way they were expecting though:

“Which godown have you picked up these chindis (rags) from? There is no red, green, blue, purple, no glitter. My fans will think I’ve become a bhikhari (beggar) if I were to wear such clothes.”

I think I’m supposed to laugh at her, but honestly, I’m laughing at the magazine because they just got served. Whatever her faults, Rakhi clearly isn’t a brand-fucker. Eventually they seem to have got her into an oversized Diesel tee, and a Just Cavalli top paired with shorts from Mango. Couldn’t make her let go of her pancake though. One look and I already know this is going to be the best interview Filmfare has landed in ages.

Sure enough, she talks a little about hosting her version of Judge Judy, which seems to be more Jerry Springer going by the promos, and then launches into talk of how she’s let Jesus take the wheel:

Being an item girl doesn’t mean I dance around all the time clad in a ghagra-choli. I am a good human being, a God-fearing girl. Before taking up any work, I take permission from Jesus. If it requires me to expose, I refuse it. Like I refused “Meethi Chhoori” and Ram Gopal Varma’s “Phoonk 2” because I didn’t want to expose or be part of a horror film.

God hates slags! Just in case you didn’t know. Various other meditations follow: she’s come to realize she’s a heavenly alien “here on a transit visa” after she read the Bible. Other things the Bible taught her –

• don’t be a bitch
• pay taxes to God (10% flat rate)
• it’s better to be God’s kid than a star kid. Who’re all miserable failures anyway (especially that loser Hrithik Roshan who needs his daddy to make him movies)
• be nice to your mom and she will ask for less money
• don’t have “dirty sex” with drugs and booze when all you need is Viagra – “alcohol is Satan’s mouthwash”
• the Devil is behind all the hate that comes her way
• she’s now a national icon on the level of Amitabh Bachchan
• Shahrukh Khan’s decidedly un-Christian antics at awards shows is proof that the world is biased towards educated elites.

Well, really. Who could argue with any of that? My head throbs just thinking of it.

Q. What about your love life now?
A. I am madly in love. I am married. Jesus is my husband.

Just call her Fraulein Maria. Jesus is her Captain but if some nice, clean-living teetotaler with perhaps no money but definitely much piety were to cross her path, she’d marry him. Not that she really needs him because, let’s face it, Jesus is a tough act to follow.

In fact, she’s writing a show about the life of Jesus Christ – she’s got about 50 episodes written already – but not a single channel will put it on because they’re all temples of sin, devoted to carnality and destined for Hell. And furthermore, if Ekta Kapoor wants the honor of working with her on this project, which might save souls unlike her usual sinful stuff, she can just approach Rakhi herself!

After all, is God visiting Ekta in her dreams to advice her about the sins of plastic surgery? Nope! That would be Rakhi Sawant, thank you very much. Who is now much more famous than this Mallika Sherawat person (lurking sadly in the pages of this very issue, saying outdated things like: “Obama is a stud!” Yawn.) who is only known for taking her clothes off.

Q. Where do you see yourself after five years?
A. I see myself in Lok Sabha as a clean politician. Without wearing khadi, I’m doing a lot of social work. But you also need power to make a difference. However, everyone wants me nanga (nude) on screen. But I won’t wear a bikini or short dresses. I’m not dying to do films, I’m doing reality shows.

Well, of course! Why didn’t any of us see this coming? Get ready for Prime Minister Rakhi Sawant in 2020. She’ll be the one in a spaghetti strap handloom saree at the United Nations General Assembly, mediating a Middle East intervention where the Israelis and the Palestinians get to bitchslap their differences out on live camera. Eventually, she’ll step in and make peace based on the hard-won experiences of her tragic life, after which they will all dance together to the tune of a Bollywood item number.

Oh, you scoff now but you’ll remember this post one day.

In other news, if you hear blood has started pouring out of the eyes of a Virgin Mary near you, please don’t be alarmed. Just hand her a hanky. It’s not every day a woman gets Rakhi Sawant for a daughter-in-law.

 

Prizes to be Won, etc

I feel like I really try to keep my mind open to new information – if not for anything else, then because it gives me something to write about – but every so often, the universe will lob a nugget my way that totally takes me aback. A recent example emerged in the weeks of hoopla and controversy surrounding the release of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Freedom, when I learned that men apparently don’t read books written by women.

Call me oblivious, but it had never occurred to me that gender played a role in determining readership. But this too makes sense statistically, since women read more books than men and as male authors continue to appear on bestseller lists, it’s a fair bet that women like myself must not mind reading books written by men.

Perhaps it’s also because I’m an Indian and I grew up in an environment where everyone read Enid Blyton when they were little, graduating to Alistair MacLean and Agatha Christie in their teens and hiding beat-up, much-shared Sidney Sheldon novels in their schoolbags when they got a little older. Content was king, the way I remember it, not the gender of the person who wrote it. I guess I do live in a bubble of my own as my mother has often observed. And I’m getting on a bit in years as my mirror now observes. Who knows what the crazy kids do nowadays. Look at J.K. Rowling, for god’s sake!

Anyhoo, all this is an elaborate setup to announce to you, dear readers, that Women’s Web is running a “My Favorite Female” competition. Now I know what you’re thinking and I just want to say, chee-chee!

Okay, cheap laughs aside, this is the deal:

Pick any female character from a novel, that made you sit up, that made you go wow, that made you laugh or cry, that got you angry, that got you thinking, that made you fall in love – in short, a character that made you feel, ‘I wish I had written that!’ Tell us what you liked about this character in a blog post. Your entry must be dated between 12th Oct and 22nd Oct, 2010.

Click here for more information on rules, prizes, word length, submission, etc. I know there are those of you here who don’t blog and they have a submission option for you too. Or I’ll host your entry as a guest post for you if you’re especially shy. Bottomline is that I can think of at least a few of you lovely people from the comment pool who ought to give this a shot. Men included.

I think this is a conversation I’d like to see, don’t you? In the light of this post, I think I’ll write about my favorite female character written by a man.

[Plus: The Female Character Flowchart & A. S. Byatt Interview]

 

Rare Rat

Sammy Davis Jr. was always my favorite of member of the Rat Pack – Frank Sinatra was way too capo di tutti capi-ish, Dean Martin’s good-humored alcoholic act makes me impatient, Peter Lawford creeps me out, and Joey Bishop… I’ll tell you what I think of him as soon as I remember who that is, poor man.

Sammy Davis, however, is my idea of an icon.

But one thing they all really did get right was style. Everything the original Ocean’s 11 lacked in terms of cinema, it almost made up with its stars. Here are some previously unpublished photographs from that era, courtesy Life. I do not understand why they were never published because the four of them featured here look way more yumsicle than I have previously seen them pictured.

If you had to click over to just one site today, make it this one.

“Raise your glasses, please, ladies and gentlemen, may we all live to be four hundred years old, and may the last voice we hear be mine.” —One of Frank Sinatra’s favorite ways to say goodnight to an audience.

“Boy, I was so loaded last night that when I fell down, I missed the floor.” —The typical Dean Martin quip.

“Sammy has that young-in-heart attitude, but he’s getting close to 40. He goes to the refrigerator for a snack, opens the door, and when that light hits him, he does 45 minutes of his act.” —Frank Sinatra describing his friend to LIFE in the profile “Sammy Davis,” 11/13/1964.

“Jack was always so grateful to Frank for all the work he’d done in the campaign raising money. He said, ‘Maybe I’ll ask him to the White House for dinner or lunch.’ I said that Frank would love that, but then Jack said, ‘There’s only one problem. Jackie hates him and won’t have him in the house. So I really don’t know what to do.’ Here was the President of the United States in a quandary just like the rest of us who are afraid to upset our spouses. We joked for a few minutes about stuffing Frank into a body bag and dragging him around to the side door so the gardeners could bring him in like a bag of refuse and Jackie wouldn’t see him.” —Peter Lawford, from Kitty Kelley’s 1986 book His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra.

[via ONTD]

 

Things I’d Try

If only I had the time. I’m afraid it doesn’t really work in Bollywood though, as you can see from the above. A few of my favorites:

 

Kangana Once Upon a Time

The best part of Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai is that it brings us Kangana Ranaut interviews. This is a commodity we need more of because someday girl will realize the meaning of the words coming out of her mouth and then we will all be sad as we watch her turn into your average mealy-mouthed successful starlet.

The process has already begun (in the pages of my favoritest tabloid, no less!) as you can see:

I am in Mumbai because here I have freedom. If I have to be told what to do I would rather live in Manali, with its social pressures… Trust me I am exercising my freedom but because I am surrounded only by married guys, I don’t get a chance to go on dates. Freedom is not about walking into a club and saying hey, I’m single. I always say that I am late by 10 years in the industry because all our best heroes, directors and producers who I deal with daily are married and have children.

Hmmm! I’m going to give that an A for effort. The effort at completely forgetting her much-reported relationship with the very skeevy Aditya Panscholi, incidentally married to the mother of his children for many years. He is now a “genuine friend” with whom she shared a  bond that “can’t be given names and explained.” Mostly because those names and explanations are likely to be rather unpleasant, I suspect.

Reassuring glimpses of the real Kangana are still visible, though! As when discussing God’s plan for her:

During Gangster itself I realised that I am exceptionally talented. So now I don’t underestimate myself…I know that if Gangster had flopped, then, despite my performance, I would have never been given another chance. But I am God’s favoured child so no one can do anything about it. I have a success percentage of 99 per cent which sometimes surprises me too.

Kangana Ranaut, ladies and gentlemen. All self-deprecating lady people kindly take notes. There will be a quiz when you apply for your next job. Even more impressively, this is not an attitude fueled by success – long, long ago, when the short-sighted officials of an unnamed beauty pageant kicked her out for unspecified reasons, she “thought ‘These people are stupid.’ And that’s how I feel today.”

She also knows how to take care of what’s important:

I totally ignore people who are negative. When I am low and my father tries to be supportive and says, “You don’t need to do this. Why are you crying and feeling bad? Don’t forget we have a beautiful house, we can go back to it” I am like, “Can you please go from here?”

You know, I totally want to try that with my father the next time I’m low and he tries to be nice to me but I’m afraid I’m completely spoiled and I don’t think I’d like to be disinherited and kicked out of my family home. So pass!