The only Thamizh film I am looking forward to! ;)

Kerala Cafe

Dear Anwar Rasheed,

I hope you are doing great. And why wouldn't you be. You have just made a film like no other. I want to let you know that it has been more than a week now since I saw 'Bridge', and I still cannot get it out of my mind.

When I went to the theatre on that Friday night with family and a friend to watch 'Kerala Cafe', I had bargained for different cinema. I had bargained for 10 short films. For the kind of story telling that has endeared me to Malayalam cinema over the last two decades. I had bargained for 2-3 good ones out of the 10. I had even bargained for a bunch of films that would reflect the rot that has set into Malayalam cinema of today.

What I did not bargain for, was a bulldozer of a movie to hit me head on and change the way I would look at cinema forever. I had not prepped for that and I was not ready. May be thats why I dont remember much about the 3 films that were screened after 'Bridge'.

It was the second movie after intermission I think and I had just taken another big swig from my cold coffee, when I noticed a peculiar opening shot of the camera panning down from a height, closing in on a school boy in a red hood, running on a bridge, clutching a pendant. Even in those few seconds, I could tell that this was a different kind of film. And over the next ten minutes, I did not move. I just sat there, taking in frame after frame of meticulous composition, cuts that blended with my pulse, performances that brought a lump to my throat and a music score that went straight to my head.

I did not know that it was your film, Anwar. Even after the end credits, as they were in Malayalam. And when I googled the film later on and saw your name, I was shocked. Because I always associated you with a horrible film you once made called 'Rajamanikyam'. Mmm...how we judge a book by the fist few pages!

Anyway....It is difficult to review your film Anwar, as I still have not recovered from it. May be I'll be able to do it in a month or so. But suffice it to say that it was one of the finest I have ever seen on the silver screen.

Thanks for rekindling my fires. Thanks for making me fall in love with Cinema all over again.

Ant & the Elephant

Do you like mysteries? Is there a King Solomon or an Indiana Jones hiding inside you? Is your favourite book "Treasure Island"? Have you ever contemplated Sudoku over Sex? Did you like Nicholas Cage better in "National Treasure" than "Leaving Las Vegas"?

If you answered 'yes' to at least 3 of the questions above, pack your bags, book a Kingfisher Red and relocate to Bengaluru. This is your kinda place.

wanna know why?

Bengaluru is a book of mysteries waiting to be solved. Take her roads for example. Road names are the best kept secrets in this city. You could be at the junction of 4 major roads, but there might not be a single fuckin sign telling you which is which. Moments that bring out the Sherlock in you - in every walk or drive. Magical!

Or consider the traffic signs. What is, is never what it seems to be. Take this sign for example.

What do you think it is? No Turn? That may be the right answer from 100 mts away, but as you draw closer.....

Voila! Welcome to Neverland! Its a 'No Free Turn' sign. Subtext, My Dear Watsons!! Those finely painted white letters that are visible only when you are 2 feet from the sign!

If you think it is all about just magic tricks, think again. Bengaluru also respects history. You might find a million cities in India that are modeled on Paris and Rome - stupid white-ass licking wannabes! Why look outside for inspiration when you have so much history & tradition in our own country? Bengaluru is the one and only, patriotically inspired city of our times. It is modeled exactly after Harappa & Mohenjadaro. The most striking similarity is the drainage. Just like those twin cities, Bengaluru has adopted an approach of having open gutters running along roads, for miles together. Be it the airport road or the more populous church road. Even the unbearable stench will not deter the city from its single-minded goal of following history. Bravo!

Puzzles! Did I mention them? Oh they are wonderful. Take a traffic light for example. In normal cities, you will have road signs before you cross the signal, so you choose your route. What a nonsensically boring thought! But Bengaluru is different. The signs are on the other side of the signal and so small that by the time you are close enough to reading it, you have already crossed the signal, made your decision and committed yourself to a road. Just by this one bright idea, Bengaluru makes every single commute an eventful journey that you will never forget in one lifetime.

If that doesnt excite you, there is more. Did you know that there is only one road in India, where you have to drive on the right? I will let you in on a secret - It is right outside the Garuda mall. Keep your eyes open, o' traveller, coz there are no signs and you might miss it. And if you do and keep driving on the left, you might just get mowed down by a truck and you will miss all the magic! And that would be tragic!

Oh, I can go on for another 10 days, but I would'nt want to break the surprises to you. They are meant to be enjoyed in person. So travel, one and all!!! and make that journey of a lifetime.

How did it all start? Most people say that the city became a wonderland only after corporates invaded it in the last decade. I dont know about that. I just like to think of Bengaluru as this lucky ant that a huge elephant made love to. A love that continues to charm the Ant.

The magic of cinema

This is an excerpt (My most favorite part) from the book "Conversations - Walter Murch & the Art of Editing Film" by Michael Ondaatje - author of The English Patient. It is long & calls for TREMENDOUS patience, but trust me, it is totally worth it.

(FYI, Walter Murch is the first guy ever to have been credited for 'Sound Design' and he is the editor of films like Godfather - I, II & III, Apocalypse Now, THX 1138, English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley, Conversations & Unbearable Lightness of Being).

Murch: There's a great game--I forget whether we've talked about it--Negative Twenty Questions?

Ondaatje: No, we haven't talked about it.

Murch: It was invented by John Wheeler, a quantum physicist who was a young graduate student of Niels Bohr's in the 1930s. Wheeler is the man who invented the term "black hole". He's an extremely articulate proponent of the best of twentieth-century physics. Still alive, and I believe still teaching, writing.

Anyway, he thought up a parlour game that reflects the way the world is constructed at a quantum level. It involves, say, four people: Michael, Anthony, Walter, and Aggie. From the point of view of one of those people, Michael, the game that's being played is the normal Twenty Questions--Ordinary Twenty Questions, I guess you'd call it. So Michael leaves the room, under the illusion that the other three players are going to look around and collectively decide on the chosen object to be guessed by him--say, the alarm clock. Michael expects that when they've made their decision they will ask him to come back in and try to guess the object in fewer than twenty questions.

Under normal circumstances, the game is a mixture of perspicacity and luck: No, it's not bigger than a breadbox. No, you can't eat it....Those kinds of things.

But in Wheeler's version of the game, when Michael leaves the room, the three remaining players don'tcommunicate with one another at all. Instead, each of them silently decides on an object. Then they call Michael back in.

So, there's a disparity between what Michael believes and what the underlying truth is: Nobody knows what anyone else is thinking. The game proceeds regardless, which is where the fun comes in.

Michael asks Walter: Is the object bigger than a breadbox? Walter--who has picked the alarm clock--says, No. Now, Anthony has chosen the sofa, which is bigger than a breadbox. And since Michael is going to ask him the next question, Anthony must quickly look around the room and come up with something else--a coffee cup!--which is smaller than a breadbox. So when Michael asks Anthony, If I emptied out my pockets could I put their contents in this object? Anthony says, Yes.

Now Aggie's choice may have been the small pumpkin carved for Halloween, which could also contain Michael's keys and coins, so when Michael says, Is it edible? Aggie says, Yes. That's a problem for Walter and Anthony, who have chosen inedible objects: they now have to change their selection to something edible, hollow, and smaller than a breadbox.

So a complex vortex of decision making is set up, a logical but unpredictable chain of ifs and thens. To end successfully, the game must produce, in fewer than twenty questions, an object that satisfies all of the logical requirements: smaller than a breadbox, edible, hollow, et cetera. Two things can happen: Success--this vortex can give birth to an answer that will seem to be inevitable in retrospect: Of course! It's the ----! And the game ends with Michael still believing he has just played Ordinary Twenty Questions. In fact, no one chose the ---- to start with, and Anthony, Walter, and Aggie have been sweating it out, doing these hidden mental gymnastics, always one step ahead of failure.
Which is the other possible result: Failure--the game can break down catastrophically. By question 15, let's say, the questions asked have generated logical requirements so complex that nothing in the room can satisfy them. And when Michael asks Anthony the sixteenth question, Anthony breaks down and has to confess that he doesn't know, and Michael is finally let in on the secret: The game was Negative Twenty Questions all along. Wheeler suggests that the nature of perception and reality, at the quantum level, and perhaps above, is somehow similar to this game.

When I read about this, it reminded me acutely of filmmaking. There is an agreed-upon game, which is the screenplay, but in the process of making the film, there are so many variables that everyone has a slightly different interpretation of the screenplay. The cameraman develops an opinion, then is told that Clark Gable has been cast in that part. He thinks, Gable? Huh, I didn't think it would be Gable. If it's Gable, I'm going to have to replan. Then the art director does something to the set, and the actor says, This is my apartment? All right, if this is my apartment, then I'm a slightly different person from who I thought I was: I will change my performance. The camera operator following him thinks, Why is he doing that? Oh, it's because... All right, I'll have to widen out because he's doing these unpredictable things. And then the editor does something unexpected with those images and this gives the director an idea about the script, so he changes a line. And so the costumer sees that and decides the actor can't wear dungarees. And so it goes, with everyone continuously modifying their preconceptions. A film can succeed in the end, spiralling in on itself to a final result that looks as if it has been predicted long in advance in every detail. But in fact it grew out of a mad scramble as everyone involved took advantage of all the various decisions everyone else had been making.

...and

And just like that, the film decides that it is time to get made. And I thought I had something to do with the 'when' and 'how' of it. Duh.

one liners...

Its one of those Sunday mornings when you are generally looking around for something to sink your teeth in. This thing on TV might have just done it for me, I think ;)

So this HP commercial goes "Hi I am Sid and I love music". That just cracks me up. I mean...someone is actually getting paid to come up with a line like "I love music"?

"Hi, nice to meet you. So what do you do for fun?"

"I love Music!"

"Sure, mate. How about that 'breathing' thing? Thats also pretty cool, no?"

While on annoying one-liners, there is the Ms. Alcohol Saint. You run into these characters in most parties.

"Hi, nice to meet you. Can I get you a drink?"

"oh no, thanks. I get high on life"

Feisty! Note she doesn't just say "I dont drink, thanks". No way! - that would be self-deprecating. And worse, would just answer the question. You gotta be more elaborate than that. You gotta have a STORY behind your teetotaling.

"Hi, nice to meet you. Can I get you a drink?"

"oh no, thanks. I get high on life"

"Thats just so sad, sweetie. Out here, we get high on life AND alcohol. na nana na na!"

Another oft-spotted-party-species is Mr. DadINeverHad. These guys usually are the hosts.

"Alrite, chief. I think we will head home now. Thanks for having us. Good night"

"Oh it is so late. Please call and let me know you guys reached OK".

Now folks, I have had quite a few late nights in my life and met many Mr. DadINeverHads. And given the limited capabilities of my memory, I almost always forget to make 'that' call. I just find it strange that none of 'em have ever called me back, or come out looking for me or filed a police complaint, or even complained of losing sleep that night.

"Alrite, chief. I think we will head home now. Thanks for having us. Good night"

"Oh it is so late. Please call and let me know you guys reached OK"

"Sure. And you call me when Rakhi Sawant cracks mensa".

Mirror mirror on the floor...

ITC Grand Central Hotel. Mumbai. Circa 2009.

For the 25th time this year, I enter the hotel in a cab. Three well built men, dressed in imposing black uniforms stop me, just like they have stopped me 24 times before. The least beefy among them walks slowly towards the car and inserts this mirror-on-wheels under the chassis and observes attentively. Convinced that there is nothing else but rotting auto parts there, he then turns to the other gentleman, who by now has his head inside the trunk. The head comes out unhurriedly and gives the less-beefy man a reassuring nod. Relieved that I am not out to harm humanity, they let my car proceed.

Surely, if I want to blow up ITC Grand Central, I will dress up in a business suit, pack loads of explosives under my chassis (exactly where it will be visible in the mirror) or just throw them in my trunk (for extra leg-room in the back seat), patiently wait for the inspection to be over (front & back!), so that I can then get on with blowing myself up.

Surely.

PS: But in a sagging economy, to think that this has given jobs to roughly a million people nationwide who are doing this day-in day-out - a masterstroke!

and yes, not to mention the 'impenetrable' security this is giving our hotels...

Venky

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is a pioneering scientist. Am sure his body of work will someday affect my granddaughter's protein consumption.

So what is interesting about Venky?

He has a name that is made up of four god's names (with one receiving unfair advantage of a repetition). A pretty defiant name, me thinks - considering he comes from a city where traditionally all of these 3 gods were despised. In short - a possible vaishnavite from the saivite capital.

Dont dig that trivia? cool. So what else is interesting about Venky?

He left India in 1971. Roughly 6 years before I was born. 'So what about that?', I hear you ask. 'An entire generation of educated, upwardly mobile Indians left the shores in those days'. True.

So what else is interesting about Venky?

He came back to India about 7-8 times (to teach in IISc, charity, etc). Thats coincidental! Thats about the same number of times I have gone to Vegas - for charity, again. Dont trust me? Ask the number of casino workers who got a raise that year, thanks to the money I lost on the poker table.

So what else is interesting about Venky?

'Dude, he got the nobel'. Remember the award instituted by the guy who invented dynamite? (Yeah yeah, the same guy who refused to institute an award for Mathematics, because his wife ran away with a math teacher). I often wonder how the guy who invented the dynamite can give away an award for peace, but I digress. Lets get back to Venky.

So what about Venky's nobel?

Nothing. Just that it is weird that the Indian media is celebrating. 'Why not yaar? he was born in chidambaram, he studied in vadodara and what the heck? he is brown!!!'. OK. ok. ok.

what? what was that? did i hear you call me a jealous bastard? well, may be I am. But I still think it is weird that we are celebrating. Some asshole even had the headline "Venky is India's pride".

Fuck you.

The man left India almost 40 years back. He left because there was nothing this country could offer for his development. And he did not come back because he could not do what he wanted to do, here. In other words, he abandoned this place for something better. Dont get me wrong, I think he is a very nice guy and a wise one at that. And 'smart', obviously - he got the dynamite prize, remember?

So call him that. Smart, wise and nice. Dont call him India's pride. Coz this award doesnt tell you what we did. It tells you what we couldnt. And cannot, still.

Eeram

The thing about 'Eeram' is that for more than 3/4ths of the film, the director is continuously screaming to you from behind the screen - 'see how different I have made this frame look?', 'see how logically I have connected these scenes?'. This almost kid-like enthusiasm is very palpable at the other side of the screen. Clearly, this is a man who has put everything he has got into his first film.

I read a few reviews talking about inspiration from 'what lies beneath' and 'dark water'. I havent seen the latter and the former was forgettable anyway. Honestly, I dont think it matters because the script itself is a very trivial part of this film, in my opinion. What 'Eeram' has achieved is to create one of the sleekest films ever in this language. And that is something.

In the age of Vijay and Sundar. C (2 guys who have single (double, actually) handedly killed tasteful cinema in Tamil), the things you yearn for as a fan are: that refreshingly creative frame, or that momentarily intelligent line, or that realistic make-up.....just any semblance of proof that the creator really had a flame burning inside him and that he did not merely go through motions.

There is a pretty ordinary scene in the film, where a bunch of police officers meet in a swank conference room and discuss a suicide in an apartment (forget the fact that it is ludicrous to conceive that the entire police force in a city will sit together in a conf room to discuss a solitary death). However, the scene opens with a close-up of a glass of water with a coaster on top of it, and the cops in the background. Beauty! It is scenes like these that make 'Eeram' an important film in Tamil cinematographic history.

Of course the real protagonist of the film is water and she has never looked so good on screen before! Be it while overflowing from a tub or while splashing onto a face in slow motion or just dripping from the edge of an iron gate or just settling down a glass window as a condensing mist. The ubiquitous blue tone of the film that is occassionally broken with scenes in a full color pallete is just a master stroke!

I googled Manoj Paramahamsa - the cinematographer and he seems rather new. But boy, what a talent! Watch 'Eeram' for this man's work and also for Arivalagan's creative bursts.

Like I said, the script isnt important, though it is not bad at all. My only peeve with it is, like all ghost stories, this one is also based on revenge. Makes me think...wouldnt it be fun if someone came up with a different kind of a ghost motive? like say a ghost that wants to play cricket or one that wants to run in an election? Thats for another day, I guess...

gig

There was this boy, who grew up in Virugambakkam - a suburb which isnt quite driving distance from Dublin, Ireland - home to 4 punks, who will end up entertaining him like nobody or nothing else.

Cut to the early 90s and the boy catches this music video, where the 4 punks are playing on top of a building, in the middle of a crowded street. That kinda does it. Boy pciks up 'Joshua Tree', swears that is the best album ever, pledges life-time allegience to the band and includes their concert into his 'bucket list'. Like most things on that list, he never really expects it to happen (though he fancied his chances on "No:4 - sleeping with cindy crawford").

Cut to the later 90s and the band comes up with 'Zooropa' and 'Pop', arguably two of the worst albums of the time and definitely their crappiest pieces of work (I mean, 'discotheque'? really???). A 'duh' feeling creeps in and suddenly the boy doesnt think much of the band anymore.

Out of the fuckin blue, in year 2000, band comes up with a supernatural album called 'All that you can't leave behind' and (in Bono's words) 're-applies for the job of the best band in the World'. And how! They go straight back to his bucket list and right on top! (the encumbent no:1 is 'checked' when Roger waters decides to visit Bengaluru)

Years later, one fine day in July 2009, he decides to blow away his entire bank balance on a trip to Paris. No points for guessing who is playing there at that time! All plans are made and he is waiting with bated breath. 48 hours before take off, in a manner only he is capable of, he damages his passport. That ugly 'blue and gold' booklet that has seen him around the globe for more than 9 years has decided to call it a day. Just like that!

Cut to the next week and he finds himself in the middle of a human ocean on the day of the concert. Only, its not the "Stade de France", but something similar nevertheless - Shastri Bhavan on Haddows road. The place where thousands of fans come together annually, to impress Mr. Mohammed - the chief passport officer, who holds the key to their international future. This is the "Great Indian Passport Trick", which includes:

1. Getting about a 1000 people to sweat profusely in the summer heat outside
2. Packing them into a 20X20 room with no ventilation
3. Ignoring the stinking latrnine without a door nearby
4. Maintaining your place in a queue that gets shuffled every nano second
5. Putting up a 'sorry sir, I wont do it again' face while facing the officer in charge and most importantly,
6. Keeping your forms dry through all this.

Why is our man here? He finds out that his band is playing again, in a few days in Amsterdam. Now if he applies that day, he could get his new passport soon (provided he kisses a few asses (well!) and scores with the 'wont do it again' face), get his visa stamped sooner, take a cheap flight to Paris, take a REALLY expensive train to amsterdam, make it on time and hope that the hotel guys have kept his ticket safely. Phew!

Did it happen? Not quite the same way, but yes! Was it worth it? fuck yeah!

Ladies & gentlemen, U2!

No: 1 - See a U2 concert before kicking the bucket. Check!

Miracle

Its amazing how so many things come together exactly right, to create that one magical scene.

Long live the King

His, was the first tape I ever bought, when I was 10. I was walking around outside my Mom's office, looking at peddlers and was intrigued by a cassette cover with the word 'Bad' on it and the picture of a man with a funny hat.
His 'Thriller' was, is and will always be the best album I will ever lay my hands on
He redefined the phrase 'music video'.

He will always be the most under-rated song writer. He once told Larry king in a show forty years ago, when he was a kid in Jackson 5 -"wont sing it if I dont mean it".
He was only pop. But probably the only pop 'name' that has been/is/will be cool to 'drop', be it at a rock gig in Wembley, or on the jazzy Bourbon street in New Orleans, or a hip hop basement in NY. Oh screw it! He was even cool in Thiruvaiyyaru and Shanti Niketan!
He did not re-define 'pop' culture. He WAS the pop culture.
And I was looking at the July tickets last night...

Now listening!

10 things you remember about the december season 6 months later!

10. The 'double decker idli' - a rage at Mylapore fine arts! they actually cook two idlis fused in the middle with chutney!! (am waiting for Stem cell idlis next!)

9. Kanimozhi sitting in the last row of rickety chairs, listening to a Sudha Ragunathan gig

8. The 12B bus that would announce its presence promptly at 8:30 PM everyday, with a blaring electronic horn that was louder than......everything!

7. The horn on that particular night, which blended so well with a 'thodi' flourish of T.M.Krishna, that he had to pause momentarily to chuckle

6. The emergence of T.M.Krishna as the undisputed superstar of the season.

5. The new pocket-sized ready reckoner on krithis and their ragas, which was the most read book in all of Mylapore in December and January

4. T.N. Seshagopalan's Tamil diction that made proper Tamil 'keerthanai's sound like chaste Hebrew

3. The 'sometimes cocky', but 'perennialy indecisive' mylapore fan, who could not make up his mind on 'exit' strategies and invariably would get up to leave in the middle of a rocking 'thaniyavardhanam', as though it was channel music!

2. Akkarai Shubalakshmi, who dominated on the violin so much that lead performers were reduced to 'support vocalists'!

1. Aruna sairam, who continues to belittle U2 in concert showmanship!!

Give me back my shoe

Once, I was stuck in uptown Vegas without a cab and had to hitch my way back to the city. Unfortunately for me, the chap who offered me a ride was a pimp. For the 20 odd minutes that I spent in his 'bling' car, I dont think he finished a single sentence without mentioning his 'bunch' and how I should give him a call sometime.

I am often reminded of him this month, thanks to this hilarious news channel called CNN IBN. It is about time someone recognized IBN's efforts in the genres of comic humour and a weird kind of media prostitution. Lemme explain:  

In IBN speak, when terrorists attack Mumbai, you have to call it "India's 9/11" (dd/mm mismatch notwithstanding!)

When the Mumbai police arrests a father for raping his daughter, he has to be referred to as "India's Josef Fritz"

And when Janrail singh throws a shoe at Chidambaram......you guessed it - "Shoe-gate!!!!!!"

Am not sure if Nixon is gonna turn in his grave for that, but I definitely think this is unfair. Come on....after spending an insane amount on a flat screen TV and a Tata Sky package with 'news', the least I deserve is my own personal, national shoe incident! No?

Attack of the 'Adigaprasangi' Kids

Run for cover! They are everywhere - these perfectly normal looking 3-5 year olds, who have been spotted telling on their moms through a toy phone, offering life insurance advice to dads, washing tips to moms and switching on stadium lights to fool an apartment full of parents, among other things.

Phew! whatever happened to good old bikini-model style advertising? Does anybody hear me?

The spectacle spectacle!

'Hey Ram' is one of the finest films ever made in India. More than the beautifully layered script or the fantastic shots, what really hits you is the honesty of that script. The movie ends with the protagonist picking up Gandhi's glasses and sandals after he is shot, which his grandson gives to Tushar Gandhi in the last scene. A beautifully fictitious ending that is almost poetic. It was also not very far from reality.

In the 1930s, Gandhi gifted his glasses to an Indian army colonel. His 1910 Zenith watch went to his grand niece and his sandals were gifted to a British army officer in 1931, before the London talks. In the last 79 odd years, no Tom Dick Harry or Anne Susan Mary gave a rat's ass about the location of these memorabilia. 

Like all memorabilia do, they reached the hands of a collector who wanted to auction it (Except in this case, the guy - James Otis is a dickhead). News breaks out about the auction and all of a sudden, blood is boiling, people are disturbed, patriotism reaches feverish proportion and everybody wants the auction stopped. In what fuckin joy ? If not for the piece of news in BBC, would any of these self proclaimed patriotic psychos even know about the existence of these things? I dont think so. And pray tell what is so wrong with any of this being auctioned anyway? Its an auction - a place where people 'value' stuff. Far cry from the godforsaken museums back home.

And did I mention James Otis is a dickhead? The joker actually has the balls to go on record asking the Indian Government to serve its 'poor' people in return for his stupendous kindness in giving the stuff back for free. And the neurotic Indian news channels dont get it. They keep interviewing the jackass for his demented sound bytes.

Enter Mallya. The dude walks in, bids the bid, closes the lid on the damn thing and gets the PR that he righfully deserves.  What do the rest of them have to say now? The government is stumped - its completely ineffective and unimaginative effort has been exposed. Ambika soni is looking for a calm place to bury her head. And the know-it-all Mr. Ramachandra Guha is busy telling television stations that it is a shame that a liqor baron had to save the teetotalling 'Mahatma's' belongings. Fuck you.

All I have to say in the matter is this: Every buck that I have spent in this lifetime on countless kingfisher pints, is money well spent! Somebody pat me!! 

....and cheers to that ;)

the unsaid

Dileep was born a hindu. He converts to Islam, bags an academy award and says glory be to god.

Resul is a muslim. Talks about the significance of 'OM' in his acceptance speech and says on TV that his award is a 'Mahashivarathiri' gift to all malayalees.

Jai Ho, India ;)

Dog days

You know the feeling when you suppress something for an awfully long time and eventually let go? No am not talking about Ramalinga Raju, but my December and January. 4 intriguing films, an entire concert season and 3 weeks on Mumbai and Delhi roads meant there were tonnes to tell....but its amazing how awfully hard it is to get the internet, time and 'state of mind' - all in the same room, so you can write the hell out of it.  Nevertheless, its good to be back!

There is a scene in Slumdog, where the boys look through the key hole of the brothel room and see young Latika's torso twirling to a kathak movement,  illuminated by a thin light beam.  At that instant, it hit me that Boyle has crossed the rather thick line between 'a film on India' and 'an Indian film'.

Its amazing how a film with lines as cheesy as "I thought we will meet only at death", "I love you....so what?", "the slumdog barks", "is this heaven" and "my enemy's enemy is my friend" actually made it to so many festivals and awards (the red carpet has been rolled out at the kodak theatre as I write).  But when you really think about it, it is quite a smart film. 

'Subtitle' is among the worst things that ever happened to cinema (just behind George Clooney as Batman) and Danny gave it an interesting twist in Slumdog when he decided to have it beside the character and not at the bottom of the screen - its traditional home, where for decades it has been stealing viewers' eyeballs from beautiful frames. Its a small and stupid thing, but boy it worked.

'City of God', 'Amores Perros' and 'Malena' were in the native tongue. The characters did not have an accent and nobody found it odd in Latin America. They were landmarks in cinematic history, but more people would watch Slumdog Millionaire.

'Salaam Bombay' or 'City of Joy' would never make it to any list of popular films, though they are essentially the same DNA as slumdog. Only that Boyle decided to almost make it a series of music videos on arguably Rahman's most neo and experimental album till date. The opening police chase, the escape, the brilliantly shot train sequence....nice!

The rioters are on the other side of the railway platform and the kids are playing in the water. It is a shot from Jamal's POV as the boy plunges into the water and gets up. As he rises, the audio goes muffled like as though water went into the ears of the camera. Resul deserves a sound oscar just for those 15 seconds!

I saw another film on the underbelly of India last week, called 'Naan Kadavul' (That one needs a blog by itself). More morbid, more disturbing and even more honest. It had real people and not actors, but the tone was so mellowed down that it did not really get you out there. Whereas with SM, you could almost feel the heat and the dust. May be rightfully enough, they have just handed over the best cinematography oscar to it. Just that I cannot believe that an effort like Dark Knight would miss out....IMAX and all ;)

But the lasting image for me from the film, more than a month after seeing it is the frame of  Rubina Ali....dusty, sweaty and heavenly, under a sodium vapour lamp.