Monday, August 20, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Chak De India
On field, we have the Indian cricket team back to its winning ways. And on screen, we have an Indian women's hockey team making waves. These are good times indeed. When two of my major passions, cricket and Bollywood, are in such fine form, what else can you say but Chak De India?
After the overseas one-day win against the powerful South Africans, India was rather impressive in notching up a Test series victory against England. And please let's not quible over the margin of victory or the inexperience in English bowling ranks. You can only play against the side that is fielded against you, and not those who would have made the squad if they were not recuperating from injuries.
We must learn to celebrate our successes, and not find reasons to dilute our achievements. I can't ever remember reading a post-mortem of an Australian victory in which it was said that the Australian success was any less because it was achieved against a side that was perhaps not as strong as the Australians.
In an ideal world, Indian armchair cricket analysts would prefer we prepare greentops at home, and then beat the visitors, who, on account of either lack of form or owing to injury, should not be missing anyone of their star players. Later on we should visit other countries who would prepare pitches to suit the home side, and again under those circumstances, Indians would win. And then, and only then, we would celebrate our victory.
It is simple. A win is a win, just as a loss is a loss. Just as the hammering we took in the 2003 World Cup finals doesn't become any less palatable if you concede that a young Zaheer Khan was feeling nervous in the biggest match of his life, similarly you can't take away the success of an Indian side which made it to the finals after notching up eight successive wins.
Ok, enough about cricket. Now on to hockey, our sadly neglected national game, that is now the flavour of the month in Bollywood, thanks to the eminently watchable Chak De India.
I am not a great fan of Shahrukh Khan, yet I must confess his performance in Chak De was very, very good -- almost as good as he was in Swades. Very restrained, not at all over the top, and very effective.
I watched the movie with my 73-year-old Dad and 3-year old son for company. It was a first of sorts -- three generations of Chakravartys at the movies. Dad thought it was a bit too long and my son liked it the most. On 15th August, when my mother was explaning to Ritwik the three colours of the Indian flag, he gave her a wide grin and said "Chak De India". Pop patriotism is clearly here to stay and explains, to a great extent, why the movie has caught the public imagination.
I am sure everyone in the YashRaj camp would heave a huge sigh of relief with the production house's first big hit of the year, and even as Shahrukh Khan's performance earns him rave reviews, I think not enough credit for the film's success is being given to its young director Shamit Amin. He impressed everyone earlier with Ab Tak Chhappan. And Chak De just confirms we have another young, very talented director in our midst.
And while we are in the Chak De spirit, I think it's high time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh just chucks out the Left. Congress may find itself short of majority in the Parliament if the nuclear deal issue came to a vote and may even lose power. But it is as good a time as any to call the Left bluff and seek the voters' mandate from a moral high ground. Methinks Congress would come back with a thumping majority and would not have do deal with the daily dose of Left blackmail.
For that to happen though Manmohan Singh would have to bite the bullet and go where no Congress leader has gone before. That is, give up on power that his party is only tenuously holding on to, and seek greater glory through the ballot box.
In 2004, still regarded by many as an "outsider", Sonia Gandhi took the smart decision of opting out of the prime ministerial race and immediately earned the nation's sympathy and approbation. The Indian prime minister, who enjoys serious goodwill as a man of integrity, can take a leaf out of that book, and call for fresh elections. I dare say he will find more supporters than he thinks he has.
For all his posturing, we all know Comrade Carat loathes elections almost as much as General Musharraf. The Left's expertise lies in post-poll manoeuvering and during elections the central leadership is overly dependent on Bengal to provide the numbers in the Parliament. This time the Bengal Left leadership, may not be as willing to toe the party line -- a difference of opinion that could cost the party at the hustings.
In any case, if we do have elections anytime soon, Messrs. Yechury and Karat can mull over the combine it would choose to support -- either the rightwing Hindutva forces led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, or the motley group which calls itself the Third Front, the only grouping which is perhaps even more opportunistic and politically irresponsible than the Left.
More I think of these mouthwatering combinations, more I see myself as a prospective Congress voter.
C'mmon Manmohan, Chuck De Left nu.
After the overseas one-day win against the powerful South Africans, India was rather impressive in notching up a Test series victory against England. And please let's not quible over the margin of victory or the inexperience in English bowling ranks. You can only play against the side that is fielded against you, and not those who would have made the squad if they were not recuperating from injuries.
We must learn to celebrate our successes, and not find reasons to dilute our achievements. I can't ever remember reading a post-mortem of an Australian victory in which it was said that the Australian success was any less because it was achieved against a side that was perhaps not as strong as the Australians.
In an ideal world, Indian armchair cricket analysts would prefer we prepare greentops at home, and then beat the visitors, who, on account of either lack of form or owing to injury, should not be missing anyone of their star players. Later on we should visit other countries who would prepare pitches to suit the home side, and again under those circumstances, Indians would win. And then, and only then, we would celebrate our victory.
It is simple. A win is a win, just as a loss is a loss. Just as the hammering we took in the 2003 World Cup finals doesn't become any less palatable if you concede that a young Zaheer Khan was feeling nervous in the biggest match of his life, similarly you can't take away the success of an Indian side which made it to the finals after notching up eight successive wins.
Ok, enough about cricket. Now on to hockey, our sadly neglected national game, that is now the flavour of the month in Bollywood, thanks to the eminently watchable Chak De India.
I am not a great fan of Shahrukh Khan, yet I must confess his performance in Chak De was very, very good -- almost as good as he was in Swades. Very restrained, not at all over the top, and very effective.
I watched the movie with my 73-year-old Dad and 3-year old son for company. It was a first of sorts -- three generations of Chakravartys at the movies. Dad thought it was a bit too long and my son liked it the most. On 15th August, when my mother was explaning to Ritwik the three colours of the Indian flag, he gave her a wide grin and said "Chak De India". Pop patriotism is clearly here to stay and explains, to a great extent, why the movie has caught the public imagination.
I am sure everyone in the YashRaj camp would heave a huge sigh of relief with the production house's first big hit of the year, and even as Shahrukh Khan's performance earns him rave reviews, I think not enough credit for the film's success is being given to its young director Shamit Amin. He impressed everyone earlier with Ab Tak Chhappan. And Chak De just confirms we have another young, very talented director in our midst.
And while we are in the Chak De spirit, I think it's high time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh just chucks out the Left. Congress may find itself short of majority in the Parliament if the nuclear deal issue came to a vote and may even lose power. But it is as good a time as any to call the Left bluff and seek the voters' mandate from a moral high ground. Methinks Congress would come back with a thumping majority and would not have do deal with the daily dose of Left blackmail.
For that to happen though Manmohan Singh would have to bite the bullet and go where no Congress leader has gone before. That is, give up on power that his party is only tenuously holding on to, and seek greater glory through the ballot box.
In 2004, still regarded by many as an "outsider", Sonia Gandhi took the smart decision of opting out of the prime ministerial race and immediately earned the nation's sympathy and approbation. The Indian prime minister, who enjoys serious goodwill as a man of integrity, can take a leaf out of that book, and call for fresh elections. I dare say he will find more supporters than he thinks he has.
For all his posturing, we all know Comrade Carat loathes elections almost as much as General Musharraf. The Left's expertise lies in post-poll manoeuvering and during elections the central leadership is overly dependent on Bengal to provide the numbers in the Parliament. This time the Bengal Left leadership, may not be as willing to toe the party line -- a difference of opinion that could cost the party at the hustings.
In any case, if we do have elections anytime soon, Messrs. Yechury and Karat can mull over the combine it would choose to support -- either the rightwing Hindutva forces led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, or the motley group which calls itself the Third Front, the only grouping which is perhaps even more opportunistic and politically irresponsible than the Left.
More I think of these mouthwatering combinations, more I see myself as a prospective Congress voter.
C'mmon Manmohan, Chuck De Left nu.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
A Disturbing, Disconcerting Journey
Finally I am back from a rather long, gruelling, educating, and in the end, humbling shoot.
Three weeks of criscrossing India, three weeks of Delhi belly, three weeks of conning yourself to believe today is going to be less hot and humid than yesterday. Three weeks of asking myself there must be another, even easier, way of making a living. Three weeks of bonding between three people that will hopefully last a lifetime or at least another such shoot.
Three weeks of watching and chronicling, from rather close quarters, the inequities of Indian caste system, an evil that is so difficult to uproot simply because it is so widespread.
They were also three most memorable weeks of meeting some awesome people working in the most awful conditions. Paul, Arun, Wilson, Manjula, Satish, Indira, Durgam and many, many others. Meeting any one of them is a very special experience. Meeting all of them in a span of three weeks was rather overwhelming.
At the end of such an experience, it is difficult to measure -- or even choose -- what are you taking home with you. For me, and I suspect with my two friends as well, it will be a pair of eyes that belong to a seven-year-old boy we met in Patna.
A boy who has my father's name and reminded me of my son the moment I set my eyes upon him. A boy who was locked up in a dark, stinking toilet for a whole day by his own school teacher because he, son of a musahar (rat eater), had dared to use the school toilet!
His innocent, haunting, traumatised eyes have followed me the past few weeks. Until someone somewhere finds an answer to the unasked questions those eyes haven't yet quite articulated, I would be ashamed to use words like "great" or "modern" to describe a nation that still condemns, simply by virtue of their birth, 160 million of its citizens to a life of untouchability.
Three weeks of criscrossing India, three weeks of Delhi belly, three weeks of conning yourself to believe today is going to be less hot and humid than yesterday. Three weeks of asking myself there must be another, even easier, way of making a living. Three weeks of bonding between three people that will hopefully last a lifetime or at least another such shoot.
Three weeks of watching and chronicling, from rather close quarters, the inequities of Indian caste system, an evil that is so difficult to uproot simply because it is so widespread.
They were also three most memorable weeks of meeting some awesome people working in the most awful conditions. Paul, Arun, Wilson, Manjula, Satish, Indira, Durgam and many, many others. Meeting any one of them is a very special experience. Meeting all of them in a span of three weeks was rather overwhelming.
At the end of such an experience, it is difficult to measure -- or even choose -- what are you taking home with you. For me, and I suspect with my two friends as well, it will be a pair of eyes that belong to a seven-year-old boy we met in Patna.
A boy who has my father's name and reminded me of my son the moment I set my eyes upon him. A boy who was locked up in a dark, stinking toilet for a whole day by his own school teacher because he, son of a musahar (rat eater), had dared to use the school toilet!
His innocent, haunting, traumatised eyes have followed me the past few weeks. Until someone somewhere finds an answer to the unasked questions those eyes haven't yet quite articulated, I would be ashamed to use words like "great" or "modern" to describe a nation that still condemns, simply by virtue of their birth, 160 million of its citizens to a life of untouchability.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
