Ramblings of a pricked mind..

It is all so insane..It is all so disrupted..
It is all about thwarted desires..It is all about discouraging dreams..
It is when we miss a rung of the ladder; and come tumbling down..
it is when we hit the ground hard.
BLOOD.. RED.. GORE..
That is all we have seen..


It is about sexless lives.
It is about prurient souls.
It is about perverts and nymphs.
It is all about the score.


It is all about those tablets.
It is about mashed leaves.
It is not so much of exhilration,
as much it is of a psychic disorientation.


Deviation..
Society shuns deviants..
It ghettoises religious, moral, sexual, political deviants.
Isolation and exclusion is the only key to our society...

Flesh..Soul..Drug..Blood..
It is all about money..
It is all about 'being on top'...

Adiga's 'Darkness'

Arvind Adiga, in this year's booker prize winning novel The White Tiger has talked about the dual space within our border that we all reside in. To elaborate on that point, he talks about how some of us live in One India while the rest of our underprivileged compatriots live in perpetual 'Darkness' in the Other India. Though in his much overtly exaggerated and highly cynical and biased view of our country in his novel (which has virtually won him the booker, as the narrative isn't remarkable but his anglophile sycophancy is stark), Adiga has actually made a very important point. That we all may speak of unity for all we may want but we, The Citizens of India, live in two spaces which are totally different in every possible way. The 'Darkness' and the 'Light', as Adiga rightfully calls them, are not just different in their conditions but they have two totally different kinds of people, people with diametrically opposite aspirations, views, way of living and personality. And the most dangerous part about these two Indias is that they are not separated by any tangible borders, these marks of separation are so blurred and deeply buried in our subconscious selves, that we might live in a totally differnt India than someone my age in the slum 'right at the back' of my building. Though there are apparent links between the Light and the Darkness but they are so inconsistent, that we in Kolkata might choose from one moment to the other whether we want to listen to people in Kalahandi or Sonagachi. They are completely at our disposal, we who live in the Light. The word Darkness which Adiga often uses in the novel and he hatches a biased (towards the westerners view of India lying in the gutter) plot out of which genuinely meticulous narrative outline of this one individual who makes out of the Darkness only by taking recourse to devious, unlawful ways. I don't comply with the smucky, overtly cynical view of us as a third world nation, upheld by Adiga in his novel but i certainly don't disagree that somewhere down the line, he does make a point. And a quite pertinent one at that, which is very important at the crunch of time we, as Citizens of our country, are in today. We are all in a constant state of denial of the Darkness. It is not as worse as it is made out to be in Adiga's novel but it is still extremely disgraceful for each one of us to allow people who have an equal right to all the privileges that we all enjoy, to live under terrible conditions where they are denied the basic rights of proper sanitation, food, health facilities, water and education. This could be within one kilometer radius in the area we all live in. We all enjoy this and we would certainly keep them slogging in the 'Darkness' as that is what establishes our supremacy over them as 'Better Indians' and gives us the harness to rule them through vote-bank politics. After all if everyone moves to Light wouldn't us who have created the 'Darkness' would run into loss? But i guess we can afford it no more. Now in post-26/11 Indai we are talking about change in the system, which can only come with a change in our attitude towards our society. It is time we have to push these people out of 'Darkness' by rehabiliting them in 'Light', thereby extending the space of light. We need to practice a policy of inclusion, if we were to do away with Dual Indias which could be extremely dangerous for us when we are going to fight against the sluggish system which is only in place because of their exploitation of the 'Darkness'. And we are responsible for this, as we keep on voting these people to power. The 'Darkness' is created by us, and it can only be done away when each one of us in 'Light' extend our hands to our counter-part in 'Darkness' and pull them out of the social quagmire they all live in. It is only by standing together then, that we can actually make a CHANGE.

Lawless chickens

Has anyone even tried wondering at the fact that why in our country security lapses happen over and over again? Why does concerned officers with prior information do not take any affirmative action and end up becoming a passive party to mayhems like the one we witnessed on 26th of last month? The answer is essentially simple. It is because of we, The Indians, are by and large lawless individuals. We end up negating the law on the most petty to the severly grave issues, that we possibly can. We think it is okay to dispense a chips packet on the road as much as we think it is okay to drink and drive. If we have gotten over the elitist politician bashing, i think it's time to introspect. Why do you think even after the coastal guards informed our intelligence services of possible infiltration through the seas, they ignored the report? Because our RAWs are made of people like us who tend to take our law and order enforcing system a bit too lightly like the rest of us. It's almost like us when we park our cars in places we are not supposed to and bribe out of the problem. And they we go on to blame our system, our Police Services of corruption. Ironical, i must say. Much of the reaction to the recent Bombay (Mumbai for Fascist Senas) attacks has refelected this lawlessness in ecah one of us. People are talking about abandoning democracy, taking up arms and breaking into vigilante groups and pesudo-patriotic (youngistan is the synonym for it) jingoism. We all want immediate solutions beyond a speck of doubt as we have had enough but they can't be achieved in any way whatsoever by destroying the law and order mechanism of our state. So if someone asks me, what is the primary yet the simplest way we can help the current security crisis in our country is by being a lot more law abiding than we are today. You might talk about the oppressing laws which effectively subjugate a section of the society, like the draconian laws in place in our Northeast and in Kashmir which effectively ghettoise the minorities. The Muslim Law Board is one such isolating factor which has kept a large chunk of Islamic people in our country within an impervious, middle-aged framework of personal law which has variously impaired them and their social and cultural exchanges with other communities through all these years. Article 377 of our Penal Code which criminalises homosexulaity exemplifies another devious law of our legislative framework. But can these oppressive laws be repealed by gun-toting and flouting state law and order? The answer is a resounding NO. In a constitutional democracy like ours there are certain legal procedures in place which can only defunctionalise a redundant law. You might question the fallaciousness of our legal system then, quoting how time consuming a case is and the commonplace interference of the various bodies in Judiciary but my answer to that would be with my vote. I would see to the fact, that my vote goes to someone who would take care of these matters, if it doesn't help or if there is no one, then we always have PILs and non-violent protests to take final recourse to. As violence in any form is never a solution. It is time we start honouring our Constitution more than our National flagor religious texts for that matter. I would end this article (which might seem a boring harangue to you guys) with a very recent event in International Polity which has received a lot of media attention. U.S President George W. Bush on his final visit to Iraq as a President was hurled with a shoe by one of the journalists of the state media. We have all gloated at this and have wished how we would cherised to be a part of such an event. I agree that President Bush committed the most gravest diplomatic follies which resulted in the demise of millions of people in Afganishtan and Iraq and he should be effectively tried in International Court for that. I can so empathise with the man who threw the shoe at President Bush, given the horrible times Iraq have been going through for the past 5 years. And if i were in his position, i probably would have done the same. But the crux of the matter does not lie in what we would have in such situations, it lies in what should have been the right thing to do. People often do not do the right things when they are angry but people who are not in that state of passion and in a position of judgement should not endorse such unlawful and undemocractic acts in expressing our agitation against someone or something, as guys we need to set a precedent that we can be angry yet composed. As passion translated in the vocabulary of sanity and propriety is the first step to an effecive change.

Calcutta Reacts to Our 9/11

I was returning home from college today and on my way i took the metro. After i bought my ticket i was expecting that the cops deployed at the spot would search me or my knap-sack (and i would have been extremely assured and relieved if they had done so) but they didnt,as i passed by and one of the cops kept looking at me as if he had scanner in his eyes, because of which he gave me a clin-chit. This incident sums up the mood of what Calcuttans feel towards the recent Bombay Terror Strikes. Even after such gross mayhem such callous, aloof and lackadaisical attitude shows that how
1.Apathetic we are towards the people who have died in the attacks. How heartless we are towards the Cops,NSG,Army,Navy and ATS personnels who have laid down their lives to rescue hostages from the clutches of terrorists.
2.The current theory which is doing round in Calcutta is that since the city has not had a terror strike record. It can never happen to us.We are so complacent, that our contentment has made us it almost hostile towards the Bombay 26/11 attack.
3.Calcutta loves cliches.Like the much exploited,over-done,over-said Bombay spirit.We love our 'cholche cholbe' attitude and we think a magic wand swung by some heavenly creature would continue to guard us against such security lapses and we just lie in our couches and discuss whether Manmohan Singh should stay or go. Moreover, wearing black to express silent (read fashion) protest has become style statements. I get messages wear this colour to college, join this group in some social networking site.
My question is WHEN CAN WE STOP BEING JUVENILE AND SHALLOW?
Who cares what one should wear, when there are important tings to worry about? We should stop investing our time in such mindless, inconsequential activities and should do something which would coerce the government to get into some serious action. I agree as students we are in some ways restricted to do so but in more ways than one we are so liberated. We are the most unprejudiced voice in our society.We who are not tainted with any political hue,are capable of doing this my writing incessantly to PM so that we he is deluged with letters and would thereby notice how the young public opinion is against his government and the minute he sees, us the new franchises disabused with the UPA,he would be left with no option but to take action.I ask all of you,to write one letter each to the PM.Please do it.
The another cliche is we need to stop glorifying the deaths of our brave heroes. People like Hemant Karkare,the pride of our nation whould be celebrated across the social,cultural,political spectrum but their demise shouldn't be romanticised.We are proud of them but not of the fact that they are dead.So stop chest-beating quoting their demise.
The disillusionment,disgust,wrath towards the political class is extremely justified and understandable under the prevalent circumstances but that shouldn't be a deterrent for us not to vote in the next elections.I know we will voting for the lesser of two evils in the next election but we need to make a statement with our franchise and a resounding one at that the political clas who will mess around with us would not appreciated for that.
Action is the call of the day we should focus on that not on trivialities whether our protest against Congress will align us with BJP. I ask who cares when people are falling on the ground like a pack of cards. We should look into whether action is being taken or not, should keep us updated with the developments in the political scene.
We Kokattans think that change would be created overnight, if there is a military dictatorship or one-man autocracy. We need to do nothing as our relatives have not started dying. We can sit back in the couch and express plastic remorse at what's going on in Bombay. We dont understand that change in the political and national mindset, if we only take our voting, our country seriously. You dont have to be political to be aware and a responsible citizen of our country, you can be aware and apolitical at the same time.
And lets not talk about the role of CPIM and our honourable chief minister. Buddha Babu doesnt realise that if the security level is so lax as it were today when I entered the platfrom with policemen mutely looking at me and with usrestrained infiltration from Bangladesh we are not very far from Kolkata's first and the most decisive tryst with terror. So Kolkattans keep sleeping, keep writing symbolic poetry and keep discussing politics in CCD.

Enough Is Enough

I am totally disgusted with how everytime after a terror strike on our soil our redundant home minister Mr.Shivraj Patil gives a speech written by his secretary and then goes to bed and wakes up when the next terror strike occurs. He is a useless man and once the hostages have been freed from the Taj and Oberoi hotels and the terrorists nabbed or eliminated he should resign if he has an iota of shame in him or we should impeach him by a countrywide referdum. In 5 years of UPA rule we have had so many terror attacks across our country, i have lost their count. Still the government hasn't learned, do they need another Prime Minister to be killed, to wake up and smell the coffee. This government's initiative in handling terror is repugnant. The Prime Minister has been talking about formulating a federal terror tracking institution since the 2006 Mumbai Train Blasts, I don't know when he will actually formulate such a body, probably when there is an atom bomb dropped on the Indian Parliament. I don't know why we pay millions and millions of money as tax to the government, when it can't do the basic service of protecting for which they are supposedly taking our money. Has the National Security Advisor sleeping all along. I'm sure evn in Lebanon, they have intelligence services who are atleast aware of the suspicious elements moving through their country. And in our country for all the democarcy and the next super-power chest-beating, one fine day 20 terrorist land on the Mumbai dock from an inflatable boat and cause this mayhem. What are Raw and the auxilliary intelligence services for i just don't get it. Slight vigilance on the government's part could have averted this disaster, if they were surveilling our country properly. How can the governemnt not have ships patrolling our borders on the sea. I shirk in ignominy when these people talk about the spirit of Mumbai and politicians coming together after this, making it look like 9/11, when all the US politicians across all parties came together to fighting terror. Why do these people take the resilience of Mumbai for granted? And the spirit could be everything we might call it who have not suffered losses but what about those who have lost near and dear ones. And if BJP and Congress are sticking together to fight tjis crisis out, oh they are not doing us a favour they ought to do so for a longtime. People who we owe everything for our security are the Army, navy, commandoes, NSGs, Cops like Hemant Karkare who have laid down their lives or are risking their lives for our sake. This shows that our country doesnt not lack people to execute properly etched out security measures and policies but it lacks policy makers. Mrs.Gandhi spoke about country's reputation being tarnished beacuse of these attacks, i say country's prestige can go to hell, what about the innocent people who have been killed, held hostages and brave cops and commandoes who have laid their lives down. We have had it. I have had it. Though i had somehow made my mind to vote for UPA in the next general elections on the basis of the developmenal policies formulated by the govrenment and its secural character as compared to the BJP. But I am seriously considering to go against it. What will I do with this sham development, if I don't live to enjoy that. I think if the UPA government doesnt formulate a proper federal institution handling terror in the last few months of its tenure and if there is any terror strike in the meanwhile, I AM NOT VOTING FOR UPA, after that. And i think we all should do it and whichever lesser evil we vote to power, if they keep on being slack and careless with or security we would vote them out of power. And once UPA is voted out, i am sure the other parties would have to shut up and listen to our message, that they should stop playing around with our security and our lives and get to some serious action.

The Culture of Ban

In the wake of the Maharashtra Government slamming a ban against 'Deshdrohi' a Bhojpuri film about the plight of migrants from Bihar in Bombay (i refuse to say Mumbai) in the age of Goonda "Raj'. The state government explained its action on the grounds of avoiding further clashes between the Biharis, UPites and MNS (Maharashtra Navanirman Sena). Pragmatically speaking no one should have any problem with such a step as the state government had to take such a step to prevent any retaliatory, violent attack by the Raj Thackeray and his bunch of delinquents. But i guess this is one of those rare cases where i would choose idealism over suitability. In country which calls itself a democracy and has freedom of speech expressed as one of the basic tenets of its constitution would have to resort to the culture of bans, embargoes and muffling. A society which uphelds the freedom of expression should protect any kind of discourse, however derogatory or inflammatory it might be, as gagging a particular speech in anticipation of social instability,is rather myopic. It is the case of a mother who always thinks that her child is not old enough for sex education until the child comes back home with a lethal STD. We might think of protecting our society from any kind of disharmony by banning The Satanic Verses', Parzanias, Bandit Queens, Fires, M.F Hussain paintings but by curbing a particular discourse and not allowing enough space for independent speech to occur we are basically damaging the democratic fibre of our society. As Voltaire said-I might vehemently oppose your speech but i shall protect your right of making that speech with my life. If a frenchman could say this in the 18th century, why we still can't seem to get it? We must understand that the trend of censorship would not take us a long way, as our society would become increasingly intolerable. I detested every speech given by Narendra Modi on how he thinks that Sohrabbudin should have been killed anyway because of him being from a particular community during the last year's Gujrat elections but i would always stand up for his fundamental right in a free society to make such a speech regardless of its provocative contents. We must allow our people to grow. Why do we underestimate the intellectual capability of our men and women? Why do we think that they would not be able to take a point of view which opposes theirs? As a contradictory standpoint can sometimes enlighten us and moreover we are intellengent enough to shun provocative harangue of Narendra Modis. These days everyone seems to have a problem with any work of art in the subcontinent. We have suddenly become so 'oversensitised' that we can ban a film on the basis of a line in the lyrics of one of its songs. The culture of hooliganism and vigilante moral policing by right wing politicians negates our constitutional right of expressing our ourselves in whichever way we want to. Though i believe in a certain amount of personal restraint and self-censoring as that is the best tool by which free speech can be accomodated in the truest sense in a society. For that to happen the regulatory body setup by the central government to censor films has to go. Everyone should have access to read, watch, listen to, whatever they want to as right of choice should not be taken away from us. Moreover banning is extremely sensationlist in a way. The popularity of a work of art increases by leaps and bounds once an embargo is laid upon it. So lets not trivialise our freedom of speech, lets popularise it.

Layman's key to the cinema conundrum

In India we tend to categorise films in a very complicated fashion. For us there is parallel cinema (the arty films) , there is mainstream cinema and now there is crossover cinema. Often i wonder that why can't we call a spade a spade and just divide films into two subjective categories-Good films and Bad films, as that would be the most simple yet the most universal yardstick to judge films. So what are good films? And how do films become bad? Are the two major questions that we will be accentuating through the length of this article. The soul of the film lies in its story, the rest are embellishments. To make a good story, we need to have an ingenuous, non-stereotypical, non-judgemental, pragmatic take on any occurence of social, political, cultural or personal relevance. Such a story would not only uproot established prejudices in telling a story but will also make us look at mundane things in the most interesting manner. We need individuals who would not show fornicating spouses in a tainted colour, thus one would neglect the inherent prejudices of the human psyche in order to do justice to his or her characters by not taking anyon's side or even when he or she has to take a side it should be on the grounds of humanism and practicality not on the grounds of the twisted concept of morality. The next is the form. Though an embellishment, the form of a film is extremely important. A story has to be crafted ( read plotted) in an innovative, unconventional( in experimental, avant garde cinema) while scripting so that the elements constituting the story does not become loose or fall apart at any point. It is very important to write a taut script, unravelling at a consistent pace so that it doesnt incite boredom. One does not necessarily have to go about screenplay writing following any established format such as one with a proper beginning, middle and end ( as negated by the films of Jean Luc Goddard), one should allow the story to unravelling in whichever way it wants to, as that would make a perfect script for a particular story. Form is also about the syntax. Like literature, contrary to popular belief in India, films do have a certain language which according to me can be primarily expressed with the innovative, out of the box and expressive use of camera. If the camera is stopped getting used as a recording machine and is used rather as an extension of the eye of the omniscient spectator (filmmaker or cinematographer), we would see elements in front of the camera conveying a meaning contrary to what it usually does. If the camera is used as a participatory device in the filmmaking process, one tends to view things differently as the motifs of the story (psychoanalytical as well) are reflected through the language of camera. for example if you are shooting Mamata Banerjee's political rallys a mid shot of her standing on the dais or a long shot of the stage does not really convey the sense of her rallys really well. It is when you have her wide lens (please pardon me the use of one technical term, the use of this lens would make her face seem on the screen as it is getting fulled from all the directions) close-up would resonate the essence of her rallys which are basically a lot of people creating ruckus. Now the mise-en-scene (sorry these film courses just stuff you with these terms, so that whenever you open your mouth, it seems to come incessantly), which the way you set up the surroundings. That would comprise of first, lighting. Its very important to colour a particular shot with the right colours as that would essentially reflect the mood of the film. This would be an interesting construct to express the emotional tone of the film through the surroundings. Like the use of the colour dark green can efficiently reflect the evilness of certain vile man or woman in a particular shot. Second would be the establishment of certain setup which would reflect the content. For example to express how a claustrophobic protagonist feels in a film, we can use a setup of rooms with low ceilings, close walls painted black, cramped furniture and without windows. Yes the set designing is very important. The third important part of a film is the performance. It is the responsibility of the filmmaker to extract a certain quality of performnace from the actors by making them be the characters, rehearsing with them with recording camera and sniping their inhibitions out. So any budding, 'in the closet filmmaker' can get working on a story of their choice to make a film in whichever way they want and does not have to be the way i have delineated as filmmaking is free and open space, one can accomodate anything in whichever way he or she wants it, as it is because of the lack of use of this space that we still have to watch films like Rock On in this country. You must be wondering that how come i answered the first question and did not go into answering the second questions regarding bad films. i think there is also no film which is bad, it is just that they are not made by the right people.

P.S: Henceforth i pledge that i would not skip my blog for a single day even if a cataclysmic event strikes Calcutta.