Category: Columns

Categories
Overdose

Relation ships that sail

Jatin Sharma ponders on the frailty of modern-day relationships, and says that love is the heart’s responsibility, not the mind’s.

“I am constantly in love, it’s only that my lover changes,” said Lord Byron, a poet, who was criticised constantly for his conduct in public, and termed as a Casanova in the 19th century. He was considered as a stigma on the British literary society for his flirtatious behaviour.

Who knew that come the 21st century, and most of us will find Lord Byron in us. The more you look around, the more you will see that people are happy changing their relationships like they change their clothes. And that’s because the heart has been replaced  by the mind.

I remember the old movies and I’d fall in love with the love playing out on the screen because it was so pure. Two individuals liked each other and could do anything to be with each other. It was an unspoken love – touching the girl’s hand was an achievement for the boy, their kiss would be depicted by a bee sitting on a flower, flashes of lightning always made them draw closer, albeit accidentally. They wanted to be with each other, but they always exercised caution.  That was a time when love was constant and no lover changed. Lovers died or lovers sacrificed, but love never died.

These days, love dies a natural death every day like the beggar on the street who has not been fed for days. Love has become the last priority in a relationship. Lovers are chosen with ‘fastest fingers first’ being played. And now the smarter we have become, we have also segregated love into several categories: Rebound Love, Time pass Love, Lovable for two months Love, Lovable till I stay in Mumbai Love, Love who I love because he/she is loved by others, Love that is not love but Chalta Hai Love.

‘Chalta hai’ is killing love. We are so confused and so lonely nowadays that we would like things to be chalta hai. We don’t love our lovers, we actually appoint them. Whether she is good looking, whether she dresses well, whether she is considered hot by my friends, whether she is rich, whether she is ‘happening’ – all these questions and more eclipse our very own decision to fall in love.

Plus chalta hai has made that simple kiss a simpler one. We now have such things as a ‘friendly smooch’, a ‘one-day smooch’, a ‘drunk smooch’, and others.

So it is safe to say that relationships are not a big deal anymore. We are so conveniently adding so many words to the dictionary of love, that finding the real meaning is becoming difficult in this book.

Also, we live in an age of ample options. And this realisation of ample options has just made us indecisive and egoistic. We can’t adjust nowadays. We fight and we leave each other. Earlier , if a TV didn’t work properly, people would call someone to repair it, now they just replace it. And we are just reflecting our times and not repairing our relationships, because we feel there are lot of options available. But in the midst of all the options, we forget that for once, we will have to make a choice, rather than rejoicing about all the options we still have. For once we would need to think of ‘us’ and not I. The moment we fall in love and think ‘us’, it’s sorted.

For once, we all need to understand that rather than falling in love, we have to rise in love. Not think so much about it, feel by our heart and not our mind. Because if it’s a heart’s KRA (Key Responsibility Area) to like or not like someone; your mind will make the wrong decisions most of the time.

Jatin Sharma, 26, works in the media and says he doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will become like everybody else.

Categories
Enough said

A tryst with Gulzar

Gulzarsaab talks to Humra Quraishi about writing in Urdu, ageing and what gave him a complex when he was young.

I always bond with the emotional. Probably that explains why every time I have interviewed Gulzarsaab,  it’s the emotional poet in him that has left an impact on me.

Once, during the course of an interview, I asked him about the Kashmir valley. I was taken aback to see tears roll down his cheeks, and he took some time to answer. Overcome by his emotion, he said  that  the Kashmir valley fascinated him and Raakhee (film actor, who he was married to for a while) so much that they’d chosen it  for their honeymoon. He’d said, “Kashmir is an integral  part of my emotions, it’s a region  that is close to my heart. I was planning to make a film on Kashmir earlier. I’d  even named the film, it was to be titled Is Vaadi Mein and it was based on Krishna Chander’s short story collection Kitaab Ka Kafan, but then the Kargil War broke out.” He said that for now, he was only focussing on his writing.

“In fact, my colleague Salim Arif is keen to make a film on the Kashmir valley. If he decides to go ahead with it, I could do the script and story for that film,” he told me then.

True to his word, Gulzarsaab is focusing only on writing these days. But ask him if he would be penning  his autobiography, and he says, “Kahaan gunjaish hai! You journalists have already written  every single detail of my  life. Nothing’s hidden. Also, a few years ago, my daughter Bosky has written a book on me,” he smiled.

And he is one of those rare Bollywood personalities who still concentrates only on Urdu, reading, writing, and conversing in Urdu. I asked him, “In the times we are living  in, is it tough to speak in Urdu? Did you ever suffer a complex on account of this?”

“No, never. I have always been very comfortable with Urdu,” he replied. “In fact, the only thing I’ve suffered from a complex from was the fact that I couldn’t complete my graduation. This bothered me for a long time, as in those days, a degree meant a lot. But I couldn’t complete my graduation because of financial constraints. And perhaps to make up on that front, I took to reading and  writing.” He added, “Writing has the capacity to absorb all upheavals, shocks, pains, and the  conditions you’re going through. It is like driving along a road which could be rough or uneven or bumpy, yet you somehow manage to go along.”

And I simply had to ask him this: “Gulzarsaab, you haven’t aged in all these years. How is that?”

He simply smiled. “Of course I have…the hair is thinning. But if you insist on knowing the reason, then it is the joy brought into my life by my grandson, Samay. Every evening, I play with him, take  him to the park. Being with him is so rejuvenating, so very joyful…”

Humra Quraishi is a veteran journalist and author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Absolute Khushwant. 

 (Picture courtesy Amit Kanwar, www.hillpost.in)

Categories
Patrakar types

Who’re you calling fat?

Rolls of fat all along the abdomen and jiggly arms – is this your definition of a curvy Indian woman? So really thin is healthy, I suppose?
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

I am seriously annoyed when women at the gym call me thin. This is not false modesty. I am genuinely irritated when I get called thin. Because that observation is generally followed by this statement I am still not able to understand – “Why do you need to exercise? You are so thin!”

And this pronouncement is followed by a quick, sad little look at their bulging abs and/or thunder thighs.

I am not thin. I am underweight. I am 33 years old and I weigh lower than I used to when I was in college. But people think that because I have a thin waist and because my jeans sit loosely on me, I don’t need to exercise. So why do I need to exercise? Because there’s a history of diabetes in the family. At the wrong side of 30, I don’t want to develop cardiac disease, or have painful joints, or something worse. But there is still the problem of being underweight.

Then there is the other extreme comment, generally from women who are overweight but who possess some insane confidence that makes them think that they are not fat, but curvy. They talk of Vidya Balan and Beyonce. Sometimes, in some dim moment of despair, they think they should lose a little weight. But mostly, they seek consolation from pictures of pudgy celebrities, who openly declare that they celebrate their curves, and that they would never go under the knife because they love their bodies, blah blah blah.

Hey, please love your body, wobbly bits and all. Also love it if you’re eating as much as you should, but you’re still rail thin. But do something about that extra fat you’re carting around, and don’t pretend to love it. There’s nothing to love about something that gives you cardiac problems, that puts you on the path to diabetes, that makes you heavier on your knees than you should be. And there is nothing sexy about carrying fat around, just like there is nothing remotely beautiful about being bones in a skirt.

After a recent interview that a now-rotund Vidya Balan gave to an entertainment paper, about how ‘Fat is sexy’ (she can get away with saying that, she has a National Award backing her sentiment) and which Kareena Kapoor rebutted two days later with the bitchy comment, “There’s nothing sexy about being fat. Anybody who says so is just lying,” I saw pictures of Vidya in the same paper yesterday. Lying or not, Vidya Balan is the poster girl for the wrong kind of pudginess – why are we celebrating a woman who is simply bursting out of her backless sari blouses? Is it just me, or does anyone else think that she is deliberately not changing out of her saris – is there another dress option for her left? I’m not saying she would look ugly in a dress or a pair of trousers – I am just saying that that is probably what she herself thinks.

I don’t think fat is ugly. I think skinny is ugly. But there’s a need to choose the right role model for your body type. And what’s more, whether you choose Vidya or Kate Moss, you still need to exercise and eat right. That’s what I’m doing. Because underweight is just as dangerous as overweight.

Vrushali Lad is a freelance reporter who has spent several years pitching story ideas to reluctant editors. Once, she even got hired while doing so.  

(Picture courtesy www.healthmeup.com)

 

Categories
Overdose

Fooling the Gods

Jatin Sharma wonders why people are taking the convenient route to celebrating festivals. After all, our rituals mean something, right?

So did you dance to Aye Ganpat, Chal Daru La while getting your Ganesha idol home?

Or did you re-tune Beedi jalaile to Agarbatti jalaile during Mata ki Chowki in Navratri?

Or were you the one who made the rule that during Shravan , you wouldn’t eat non-vegetarian food ONLY at home? Having non-vegetarian food outside was fine.

If you belong to one or more of the above categories, or know someone who belongs to one, welcome to this column.

I was recently at an arti during the recent Ganpati festival, when I heard this exchange of thoughts.  “Mera Ganpati dekh, poore gyarah hazaar ka hai,” boasted a man. “Kanjoos, paap lagega! Mera Ganpati dekh, maine Siddhivinayak se banvaaye hai, poore pachchees hazaar ek ka hai,” replied the other. Listening to them and seeing that price tags were being attached to a God, was quite amusing, and at the same time an eye-opener for me. People are not interested in devotion but are only interested in the promotion of how good their arti was, or how their idol was more expensive than others.

Convenience is this generation’s favourite word. ‘If it is inconvenient, it does not stay with me,’ is what we believe. And the poor Gods have to bear the brunt of this thinking, too!

We are the i-generation. We feel deeply only about ‘i’, and mend and break rules laid by the society and the Gods according to our own ‘i-book’. Take the example of the Ganeshotsav. People are supposed to bring the Ganesha idol home, and do seva of Lord Ganesha for 11 days, but now they have shortened the duration of his stay as per their convenience. The stipulated 11 days first turned to one and a half days, and now we see variants of three days, five days, seven days and nine days.

Also during the Ganeshotsav, people are supposed to not eat non-vegetarian food and not drink alcohol. But people have referred to their i-book again, and now they eat non-vegetarian food and drink alcohol if they are not doing so in their house where the Ganesha idol is kept.

Also, visarjan. Earlier, people danced to Ganpati songs  and would take the beloved God to the immersion site singing songs about his valour and bravery, but now Ganpati is bid adieu in the midst of a cacophony of Sheilas and Munnis and Jalebi bais.

Hindu culture also has myriad rituals to help people prosper and garner wealth. And such rituals are a sight, too. Pandits with their proficiency in Sanskrit, but an apathy towards explaining what they are saying, have successfully managed to change all these rituals into a good business. They have shortened the rituals in order to let businessmen feel good about conducting the poojas, while being able to attend their business meetings on time, too. Also, several artis these days are performed thus: the arti plays out from a music player, and then a septuagenarian ambles along to say a few words that make some religious sense.

The Navratri festival sees many people organising Mata ki chowki. Nine days of celebration have, these days, just turned into one big round of dress up. No one reaches for the arti on time, in fact, no one even knows where the idol of the Goddess is during the Navratri. And the songs are more about someone’s jawaani and someone else’s dil that has been broken, rather than the goddess who saved the world.

The plot is being lost. I am not talking about religion. But I feel that there is a purpose behind these rituals, and I think we are losing the purpose somewhere. We talk about making our festivals more entertaining and thus, more acceptable, but are we doing that by doing all this? We have become far more superior than our ancestors, but does that mean that we mock at everything that has been created by them?

I am not questioning people and their choices. They are free to do whatever they want. But I do feel for these festivals. I do feel that when we are not honest with the world around us, even when God is in our midst, it just pollutes and corrupts the future for everybody.

Jatin Sharma is 26, works in the media, and doesn’t ever want to grow up, because he feels that growing up will make him like everybody else. 

(Picture courtesy goindia.about.com) 

 

Categories
Enough said

Long live the King

Humra Quraishi is heartbroken over Yash Chopra’s death, and has given up looking for a man with Guru Dutt’s eyes.

Ever since I heard the news of director Yash Chopra’s death due to dengue, all I kept muttering to myself was, “Yash Chopra’s dead…He’s dead…the king of romance is gone…”

I didn’t know Yash Chopra personally. But sometimes, you don’t need to know somebody on a personal level to feel the loss when they’re gone. Most of those who are mourning for him didn’t know him either, but we’re all shaken by his death. I think what bound me to Yash Chopra was that he personified all that was romantic in film, and I am a diehard romantic in real life. But I count myself lucky, because unlike the scores of people who could idolise him only through his films, I actually had the opportunity to see him up close.

I saw him in person just once, at the New Delhi airport. He was with his wife, and though they were together, his eyes darted about restlessly, like he was mentally somewhere else, looking for someone. Even at a distance, his personality did leave an impact…he wasn’t good-looking in the conventional sense of the word, but he had a definite personality. I thought he was tall and dark, but not really handsome, but there was something about him that would make you notice him in the crowd, turn around for a second look, even on a crowded airport.

The restlessness in his eyes probably stopped me, or rather, the journalist in me, to go right up to him and talk to him. I still could have spoken with him, and I’m sure he would have been cordial enough to answer my pleasantries and my questions, but I thought  it  would  be  wrong of  me  to  intrude on his thoughts and bother him.

And   as  I  saw  him  boarding  the  same flight  to  Srinagar as I was on, I  was  more  confident  of  going   up to  him, if nothing else, then for  one of those unplanned  interviews that journalists are sometimes lucky enough to get. But  by the  time  I  could  muster enough  confidence to approach him, he was almost  mobbed  by  his  co-passengers. After that, I settled back in my seat and resigned myself to glancing at him at regular intervals, and I could clearly see his smile and his set of fine, good teeth. And I could also hear his distinct voice, and snatches of the sentences he spoke rather quickly.

On the evening of his death, as I mused over losing Yash Chopra, I was actually surprised that I still remembered all these details of so long ago, after so many long years. The only explanation I  can  offer for my fond memories of Yash Chopra, are that the romantic streak in him and me brought about a strange connection of sorts. Yes, romantics  do connect in these rather bizarre ways.

And when I ponder on romance, I remember Guru Dutt and his lovely eyes. After him, no other man conveyed the kind of want, the yearning and a subdued passion of love. Guru Dutt was probably the only man in cinema whose eyes touched a chord with you across a cinema screen, that made love to you with a single glance. I am still looking for eyes like his, but I have almost given up hope. Where am I going to find such a pair of eyes, in these fast times and in an age where pelvic thrusts denote love in cinema, that will be emotional, in love and full of yearning?

Today’s filmmakers would do well to understand why Yash Chopra and Guru Dutt made romance so special. They understood that romance was about an abundance of emotions, exploding in a dazzling display of colours and tears and heartbreak and ecstasy. They understood the difference between love, romance and sex, and also that romance remained with the viewer long after the sex was done with. Their films underlined this wonderful line from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of  My  Melancholy  Whores: ‘Sex is the consolation one has for not finding enough love.’

Humra Quraishi is a veteran journalist and author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Absolute Khushwant. 

(Picture courtesy www.deccanchronicle.com)

 

Categories
M

Will Bollywood ever get a Bond?

Or at least a super-successful series of spy movies? We’re not asking for much, if you really think about it.

by M | M@themetrognome.in

With James Bond’s 23rd instalment around the corner (releasing next week), I started to think – will Bollywood ever get its own series of good spy movies? We are the second largest film industry in the world, but we are still light years away from Hollywood in terms of owning a super-successful franchise that the world will watch.

I really don’t get why we haven’t been able to do it yet. We obviously have the talent – no, I am not counting Salman Khan or KJo – and we have reasonably good actors and directors. So why aren’t we there yet?

The last attempt at making a spy thriller was Agent Vinod. It was nowhere close to the savoir-faire and panache that even the less-thrilling Bond movies carry. Saif Ali Khan as an undercover agent was the worst casting choice made in the history of cinema. I know many who liked the young baddie more in the film.

A series of spy films might be too much to ask for at this point, but a few good ones that bring us to the edge of our seats would suffice. So, what does it take to make a spy thriller? Let’s break it down.

The James Bond series can be primarily credited to its creator, writer Ian Fleming. The compelling stories were adapted into gripping screenplays that captivated the audience. Fleming’s style of writing and a set of characters so well-defined and well-embedded  in the audiences’ minds, ensured that plotlines outside of the novels he wrote are still being explored – and Skyfall is a case in point. This simply means that James Bond is not about to holster the gun any time soon. Thank God for small mercies.

Lack of compelling stories keeps Bollywood from making good movies. Not. Recent whatever-you-call-it Student Of The Year proves this amply. We’ve already got great Indian spy stories that we have not tapped into – consider the magnificent detective series Feluda written by Satyajit Ray. The series of short novels and stories is a fascinating combination of Sherlock Holmes-style detection and Bond-like execution, and has all the ingredients for a Bollywood masala film – suspense, drama and action. There are a couple of films and telefilms based on detective Feluda, but these hardly translated into commercial success. These stories are denied of the distinction that they deserve and someone should re-visit them at the soonest.

Plus, the Bond films have the most admirable cast. All of the Bonds thus far –  Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and now Daniel Craig – have had one enduring quality each, and some were dreamier than others. M and Q, with Judi Dench playing the former and Desmond Llewelyn as the latter, have done a splendid job in each film. And what can be said about the Bond girls? With each film, they are just making temperatures soar higher. Even the bad guys are in a league of their own.

Okay, so Bollywood doesn’t have too many options for a James Bond-inspired character, but I would still think Akshay Kumar is worthy of a chance. And we have stacks of bombshells to play his lady, or we can always import them.

Is it the money that keeps us from replicating a successful formula? I don’t think so. Hindi film-makers are never shy of blatantly copying foreign films, even if it means bringing in the crew of The Matrix or The Terminator to reproduce the exact same scenes.  Ra One and Robot established that there is no scarcity of money in Bollywood. Bollywood films may seldom have a storyline, but exotic locations are exploited only for songs and dances and not on any pathbreaking scenes. Obviously, budget is not an issue for us.

I think the real problem is direction. I cannot remember the last Bollywood film that showcased the work of an outstanding director. The current crop of directors who film sequels largely comprises failed actors (Pooja Bhatt, who directed Jism 2) or directors who refuse to quit directing (Vikram Bhatt for everything he’s ever made). We can only come up with a Farhan Akhtar who would take up the challenge of directing a spy thriller and do a decent job of it.

Dear Bollywood, man up and get cracking. Give us meaty spies, let our adrenaline flow, entertain us, and in the bargain, get acclaimed for making good cinema. Of course you’ll make money, dummy!

 

Exit mobile version