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.

Student Politics or Student Slug-fest

Student Politics reached its all time low yesterday when a supporter of the BJP's student wing ABVP entered the hall of Delhi University campus, where SAR Geelani, a professor of Zakir Hussain College who seclaim to fame(or should i say defame) was when he was tried as an offender in 2001 Parliament attacks though he was acquitted later by the Supreme Court. Yesterday he was invited by the varsity to give a lecture on Democracy and Communalism, when a group of approximately 50 protestors of ABVP along with their vociferous leader Nupur Sharma entered the campus and started ransacking the place. Just then one of their supporters went near Geelani's dais and spat on him twice. When later asked by the media that what actually happened and whether the act of spitting should be condemnable or not, Miss Sharma said-that the protest was basically 'peaceful' but they haed just pelted a few stones hear and there and continued by refusing to confirm that the offender was from her party said that she sees no need of an apology and refused to express remorse as she would done the same and went on to say that the whole country should spit on such a person, who according to her jurisdiction is an offender of the Parliamentary attack and was only let off on lack of technical evidence. The reason for such an act of violence as upheld by Miss Sharma was that Mr.Geelani was allegedly spreading communal discord by spreading anti-'Hindutva'(which is very secular according to them!) pamphlets. For a moment lets be generous with Miss Sharma, the lady who came on a television channel and made her voice hoarse in proving the fundamental, vigilante, mobocritic and right-wing ideologies she follows,anyway i grant her that the person who spat wasnt from her party, Geelani was trying to preach communal disharmony etc. But my argument is even if she is granted all the right in the world to be infuriated by Professor Geelani, should she be left alone for supporting the despicable act of spitting on a person or anyone for that matter? The answer is a resounding No. We could have all the right in the world to agitate against something but should the freedom of expression of one's anger could ever be the derogatory act of spitting? It is against the basic tenet of humanity ( i grant her that as she has the mean streak of a fire-brand Indian future politician) and is the most unparliamentary and ignominable way of expressing herself (which i don't grant Miss Sharma as she is a law student). Moreover, being a law student she should respect the verdict of highest court on our land and should not demonstrate against anyone on pure whim regulated by her fundamentalist Hindu ideals granered in her by ABVP (whose protestors a few year back had killed one professor in Uttar Pradesh as the elections were called off by him). But i can't blame her much because our country has had the legacy of people taking law into their hands and not turning a deaf ear to what the court has to say. Since we have bred our children in a culture of persistent delinquency, a bunch of MNS and Shiv Shena supporters can always beat up taxi drivers from UP and Bihar as a part of their chest-beating over the Marathi Manush, Raj Thackeray can always spread disharmony among people by engineering lingisutic divide( we can't blame him either, like uncle like nephew). We don't care about court verdicts, we think the judgement of our personal court should rule the land. I agree that the common man is disillusioned about the tedious judiciary and has become impatient and they have every reason for it but instead of breaking into a law-breaking ruckus a properly etched out PIL and protest regarding the reformation of judiciary in terms of introduction of more judges and mobilising the process of imparting a jurisdiction over a partivular case would help us in the long run, as mobocrisy can only lead us to a dystopian, undemocratic world in which anyone can do anything without being brought under the purview of law. We also need to learn how we should protest. A proper and effective agitation cannot tend to get violent as then we confuse the cause with personal emotions and the basic tenet of every constitution and democracy abhorrs such violence. And when an African American has rose to the status of a liberal leader and is all set to usher an age of positive change by imbibing gandhian values, i don't know why we are lagging behind and why can't we learn moderation in demonstrating the way we think. So ABVP had no ground of protesting against SAR Geelani as the man has been acquitted by the highest court on our land long back and unless there is substantial proof to distrust him, any further agitation will lead to victimisation of Geelani is reprsents his community, so if that happens we cannot be disgruntled about the Muslims not considering Indian polity to be less accomodative of them. And even if i consider that Geelani was trying to spread communal discord (a) there is a way to protest against it and (b) the reason given by Miss Sharma that he was spreading anti-'Hindutva' pamphlets is not a very suitable argument for one's defense which Miss Sharma (and the supreme leader of her party should know before their campaings for general elections nosedives before its launch) as a future 'lawyer' should know as the idea of Hindutva is not a very secular ideal either. As a closure to this discourse all i have to say is that the spit on Geelani didn't actually scathe him with any humiliation yesterday, it created a blotch on the parliamentary politics that all of us who are involved with student politics in colleges across the country are supposed to follow. So while he virtually spat on him and his party, the whole nation needs to apologise to Professor SAR Geelani. And for Miss Sharma all i have to say is that, i hope she gets a job after she passes out as given the precedent and her lack of knowledge about parliamentary affairs and judiciary, would seriously not fetch her brownie point in the job market in the age of a global recession.

Booked for Forty Years

I finished reading 'the best novel written in the english language in the last forty years' and still can't get over it. It took me a tedious yet interesting 3 weeks to finish the book. By the time i finished the book, (this might sound an exaggeration) i had got so well acquainted with the protagonist and even after i started with a new book, the characters in the latter one seems hugely distanced for me. So lets not beat around the bush and start head on that why the book in question (a way of refering to something as emulated from the author of this book) is so intriguing and what made it win the booker of bookers twice. Yes the book in question in Midnight's Children. The novel is essentially about how Saleem Sinai's, the protagonist, life and the life of his father and maternal grand father is linked with the pre-independence, independence and post-independence era of the subcontinent. The story spans a period of approximately 60 years starting from Jalianwallah Bagh massacare as witnessed by Saleem's maternal grandfather and ending with Saleem's experience during the emergency. The book is rich in its historical content as it talks about everything from 15th of August,1947 to the 1965 Indo-Pak war and from political turmoil in Pakistan after the independence to the freedom movement of Bangladesh. Rushdie being the beacon of magic realism in contemporary literature uses allerogical narrative, most important being Saleem born at the stroke of midnight on 15th of August,1947 is vested with the special power of reading one's mind and can hold a conference in his head between all those children who were born at and around Midnight on that fateful day which they call Midnight's Children Conference. Since the book covers a barrage of topics and has a battalion of characters there are numerous sub-plots which at times becomes a bit unnerving. It debilitates the linear flow of the plot. Moreover, the humungous amount of writing constituted in the book tends to be to tedious at times to be read. But the content of the book and the structing of narrative devices is so strong that it negates rather overpowers these shortcomings of the book. Saleem Sinai is a collection of those people who have crippled by the failures of our nation or it could be vice versa as the protagonist claims at times. There is a strain of melancholy hopelessness in the story of his life and that of his father and grandfather all of them tried to do something big but ends up in a totaly opposite direction. Why Midnight's Children keeps on rivetting readers and thinkers all over the world even though its history does not bear any direct implication to our society, is obviously because its protagonist resembles everyone who is trying to make his way up the ladder. And it is not just the economic or social ladder, it is also the realisation of one's personal growth, it is about overcoming an identity crisis. Roughly a decade ago people were interested in filming the book and Rushdie penned down the script but the project got marred at the last moment as the Indian government did not allow it to be shot in India. Though a play on the book by Tim supple has been doing rounds all over the world for sometime but it is necessary to cinematically retell the story. It is not just because of his innovative narrative plot and cinematic appeal (surrealistic in essence) but because the story speaks for a lot of people who are scattered across the subcontinent restricted by the borders. These people not only belong to the lower rung of the social ladder but they cut across every social and economic group as self-realisation has got nothing to do with one's income but it has a lot to do with his or her won country. I think there could be a no better time than this to tell the story through a film as the subcontient is going through a major transmutation. India emerging as the next nuclear power though torn apart by terrorism and communal (new lingiustic, thanks to the Thackeryas) forces, Bangladesh going through an extremely unstable political setup and becoming the next breeding of terror and then Pakistan where Democracy has been turned on its head and the country is on the verge of being held hostage by fundamentalist Islamic forces and terror groups. Though i wish Midnight's Children is my first directoral venture but i would be exhilarated to see any prudent filmmaker to take on this project, as the former would take time and i want the story to reach the masses when it can be heard the best.
P.S-I am looking for the screenplay of Midnight's Children penned by Salman Rushdie, if anyone can tell me how I procure one, i would be extremely glad.

It's not really 'Gay'!

Situation 1:
I was watching Fashion the other day in a movie theatre. There was a scene when Sameer Soni who played a gay fashion designer professes to this young model played by Mughdha Godse that how it was so difficult for a gay man in India to come out with his relationship and how the society would never accept it and how does he would have to leave incognito about his sexual orientation for the rest of his life. Would you like to know what happened in the hall when this scene was getting played? The whole theatre was rolling with laughter.
Situation 2:
The first Afro-American president of the world's oldest democracy in his first speech as the next president of his country talks about how he is a president of the gay and straight people of his country and how he has got his mandate as the gay and straight stood together imparting the essence of 'Unitedness'.
I know the two situations would not sink in properly with many of you all. But lets be pragmatic here. Do you think Manmohan Singh or in that case 'young blood' Rahul Gandhi would dare give such a media byte? The answer is no and we really cannot blame the politicians for this. When majority of our population still think that individuals of same gender professing their love to each other is a target of perverse sexual innuendoes, i should not have been surprised when the movie hall was soaring with laughter. The problem lies with the so called moral authorities of our country like the Sangh Parivar, Bajrang Dal who would go to any limits to stop this 'culture of perversity' on our land from burning down a theatre running a film about lesbian lovers to vehemently opposing the nullification of Article 377. Indian people, i believe, can be extremely accomodative and benevolent if not influenced otherwise. So may ask what does not alter their largly homophobic mentality? The answers to that questions are many and i will venture to elaborate on a few. The Indians are basically people by the family and of the family. So they feel that the basic constitution of this family structure with a father, a mother and a child is threatened with the mass level acceptance of homosexuality. Moreover, for all we may try to project ourselves as women emancipators, we at the heart of it are a ruthlessly patriarchal society, so the thought of two women efficiently forming a family (which is the only area where Indian women need Indian men today) and asking the men to **** off, does not go down well with many of us. On top of that the thought of two men living together as a happy family leaves them without a woman to trample over. There is also the nature card that many tend to play. How same sex love is against 'nature'? What is wonder is the people who drop these statements conveniently imbibe all sorts of wonderfully illegal traits into their 'nature' and reduce their country into a big cess pit as they have today! The biggest example being the Kandhamal massacare, cash for M.P exchange and so on and so forth. The last but the most interesting point is the 'morality' factor. People in our country consider it amazingly moral to kill female foetuses and infants but crib when it comes to the acceptance of same sex love. But instead of further introspection into our societal prejudice we should ponder upon how do we achieve the unity of our masses regardless of their sexual orientation as talked about by Obama. The first step towards such a task would be by the revocation of Article 377 which bans any sexual act which is not carnal and thereby makes homosexuality illegal in India (though i think it should also concern straight people as the archaic victorian clause also lays an embargo on certain acts committed with the buccal cavity and private parts). The government's argument in uphelding this embargo is that the revocation of the article would imputinise paedophiles. Paedophilia is a grave and obnoxious crime which should be dealt with the strictest laws and regulations to prevent anything like Nithari and the way it can be achieved is my introducing a new law right after the revocation of Article 377 that would deal with paedophiles with the harshest of sentences. The next step would be by facilitating more dialogue between the 'straight' and the 'bent' groups through social awareness campaigns and an effective tool in this regard would be the AIDS campaign which is creating havoc in both the communities in India presently and lastly individual effort which is most important. We should try and understand how would it feel if we were to live from tomorrow in the denial of love for our girlfriends would we feel nice the answer is a resounding No. Such a situation would suffocate the expression of our personalities. So can we hope for a day when our elected Prime Minister would thank the straight and the gay people for giving him or her mandate for the highest post in our country in his or her first primeministerial speech? Yes but can we see it in our lifetime. I am sceptical.

A Lesson To Learn

While the world's largest democracy elected their 44th president today, i thought the world's biggest democracy had a lot to learn. With the 2009 general elections knocking on the door, we better understand the way the U.S Presidential race has been conducted. After a long time we saw Policy taking over Polity. This election was mainly about how national policies effect people (in the context of economy, recession), how ethical standpoint on a social issue (like race) are more imporatant than the political tug-of-war. Though the election slightly got tainted with this murk in the last phase with the entry of Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential Candidate from the Republican side, the selection procedure of their supreme national leader has been extremely fair and square. The U.S electoral system fascinates me as the whole system of primaries and caucases through which candidates from both Democrat and Republican side has to go through to prove themselves worthy enough to lead their State. It is not exactly a party based election(like in India). It judges an individual from a particular political side in the light of personal capability, intellect, his or her stand on matters of social, economic and cultural significance and decisiveness in devising policies. Indians have a lot to learn from such an elctoral system. I completely agree that every country has its own way of selecting their candidates to lead their nation but what we can learn from the current U.S example is that how politics is never more important the people of the nation. This might sound very romantic and jingoistic but the U.S Presidential race has proven this word by word. When the Dow collapsed like a pack of cards and George W. Bush declared a $700 billion bailout, Barack Obama had every oppurtunity of first rebutting the government for which an economic crisis and then for shelling out so much money to the banks but he did not do so. He gave vent to his concern not by jeering and throwing jibes at the opposition but by addressing the grave situation with outmost sincerity of a true leader. I wish the Left and the BJP would have set such a precedent when India soared with inflation. When Barack Obama's pastor made counter rascist comments, the former did not take sides or did not venture into giving a sitting on the fence stance but went on to give one of the best discourses on history whiich would go down in history. I wish the people who have made their voice hoarse shouting the Hindutva mantra(people who cause Kandhamal,who object against the banning of Bajrang Dal and who want the operationalisation of POTA), people who are fascinated with regional(read linguistic) chest beating, people who play their Dalit card conveniently to cosy upto the Race Course road and the muslim appeasing (read people who support the archaic Muslim law board and obstruct the banning of SIMI) have a lot to learn from this African-American. In a country where Political Leaders sigh off from facing the media on one-one basis about policy matters, to convince the franchisees that why they should vote for them(political leaders), the presidential and vice precidential debates in the U.S should be watched by them. Can u imagine Sonia Gandhi andMayawati standing on the same pedestal and not making the discussion a total slug fest? Political leaders need to rise above mere party politics. There should be better communication and co-ordination between parties to support an important deal to be passed on the floor of the parliament. We certainly saw the amazing way the 123 agreement was passed in the Indian Parliament! The sight of the unscruplous politicians waving papers with the Mahatma's face on in the august house of the Parliament. Such a sight is no less a blotch on India's democracy as the emergency or the Gujrat or Bombay riots were. Moreover the election here is conducted in perhaps a clandestine manner where a party can go all the way without having a Prime Ministerial candidate or changing one if they have so at the last moment without asking for peopl's mandate. Don't we have the right to decide who should lead us? When a person so far away from home is championing Gandhian values, why we are continuously assassinating our very own Mahatma every day???