what we are reading – EightandHalf
Jiah Khan’s death not only shocked everyone but in the last few days there have been various speculations surrounding it. Initially Police didn’t find any suicide letter. But now her mom Rabia Khan ‘claims’ to have found a note written by her. She has made this note public and so we are sharing it here.
It’s quite sad and heartbreaking stuff, especially for someone who has just twenty five year old. As they say, the real picture is not what you get to see on screen.
It’s a new low for journalism in India. Especially film journalism. What most don’t realise is that now film journalism is mostly either plugged or paid. And if not, it’s just about the access. At Jiah Khan’s funeral, actor Aditya Pancholi got into a scuffle with the media. His car hit a camera tripod, broke it, then journos attacked him, blocked his way and extorted money (Rs 15,000 or so) from him. It’s correct to say that Pancholi started it by breaking the tripod with his car, but to extort money from him is quite a shameful act.
With 25-30 channels on the spot trying to shoot one person, scuffle is bound to happen. It means 25-30 reporters with boom mics, 25-30 cameramen with camera and tripods. Plus, attendants, onlookers. So imagine a scenario of about 100 people pouncing on one person. Anyone will react violently to get out of the situation.
The scenario has become worst with no discipline, no rules and regulations, cut throat competition to get the best visuals, and anyone with a camera or boom becoming a Video Journalist or reporter. Watch the videos to see it unfold before your eyes.
via Tanqeed
Since the release of Ek Thi Daayan, many of us have been looking for the short story on which it was based. We asked Konkona about it on twitter as it’s written by her father Mukul Sharma. She guided us to his blog where he had posted the short story. Those of you who missed it earlier, posting the story here after taking his permission.
And click here for a short interview of his on converting the short into a novella and then a screenplay.
“Psst”
Misha looked up from the card house she was building to see her nine-year-old brother Bobo peek around the playroom door.
“What?” she asked, immediately interested.
“Want to see a trick?”
“Yes, yes!”
“No you’ll tell Daddy.” The head disappeared.
Misha jumped up upsetting the cards and ran out to the corridor. It was afternoon. And even though father would be sleeping, she didn’t want to take any chances. He had become so funny after mother died last year. Her wise eyes swept both ends of the corridor as she tiptoed to the outside door of the apartment. Reaching up — she was beginning to make it to the handle these days — she upped the latch and, very carefully or it would squeak, opened the door and stepped out into the eighth floor landing.
It was deserted. Her eyes darted to the two old fashioned elevator wells and saw one registered at the door. Through the tiny window she could see the lights on inside it along with some vague movements. Someone inside was doing something. Again on her toes, she went forward and pulled the door out a couple of inches. It was Bobo! He was standing in front of the button panel doing the funniest things. Once he pushed three buttons in at a time with his right hand while simultaneously jabbing in another couple with his left. Then, pointing one finger of each hand at the two rows, he alternately pressed one button of each row. When he did that, the overhead light seemed to dim a little. Misha opened the door fully. Bobo spun around.
“Why did you come?” he whispered angrily.
“What are you doing? Is this the secret?”
“Yes it is,” he said, “but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Please, please.”
“You’ll tell.”
“No, no I promise. I really promise.”
“Okay come, I’ll show you.”
She went inside. He put his finger to his lips, cautioning her to keep quiet.
“I need a lot of concentration to set it,” he said solemnly. Whenever he spoke like that, Misha knew he was really serious about something. He was only two years older than her but far more intelligent and could do a lot of interesting things with his hands. Like the time he had taught her how to control her dreams by moving her fingers in a special way for instance, and she deliberately dreamt of mother ten nights in a row. Now, with his back to her, he was fiddling with the buttons again.
“There,” he said turning around, “I’ve set it now. Watch what happens when I press the ‘G’ button.”
As he did, the lights dimmed once again and, slowly, the elevator began to descend. There was nothing like a trick to it at all thought Misha. It was going down like it did every time she went down in it herself. The ‘7’ of the seventh floor, written between the floor walls, flashed by the window, followed by the ‘6’ of the sixth floor and the ‘5’ of the fifth.
“Where’s the trick Bobo?”
“Wait,” he said impatiently, his eyes on the window.
Misha looked into his face, trying to read his thoughts. She could do it sometimes. She could usually guess when father would wake up, for example. When she looked back at the window, the ‘2’ of the second floor was just going by. She hoped the janitor wouldn’t see her downstairs because then father would know she’d been out of the house in the afternoon. The ‘1’ went by as she was thinking of what excuse she would have to give. Then, without any fuss and at absolutely the same speed, the trick unfolded. The ‘G’ of the ground floor also flashed by and there was no basement below their building.
It took her a moment to comprehend what was happening but when she did there was a thrilling sense of re-orientation. She whirled on Bobo who was standing there looking very pleased with himself. “That was a good trick!” she said clapping her hands gleefully in excitement, “Where are we going now? How far down?”
“Oh, a little way,” he replied mysteriously.
“What’s down there?”
“A playground I think, I’m not sure. I’ve only been down once before. Look!” he said pointing at the window suddenly.
Misha saw a small weeping child’s face flash by the window. It was a round lonely face about the same age as herself or a little older. Then another face flashed by, then another — there were lots of them. They stopped as suddenly as they had begun.
“Who are those Bobo?”
“Orphans,” he said knowingly, playing with the buttons again. “Keep watching.”
Misha looked up back at the window but there was nothing there. Just blackness outside. Suddenly a face came into it and scared her. It was a middle-aged women with long stringy hair and a snarled, unwashed face and whose hands clawed at the window glass desperately as she passed. Then there was blackness once more. Then that same face went by again. The faces quickly multiplied and rolled which Misha didn’t like at all. She was very frightened.
“Stop it now Bobo, I’m scared.”
“I have stopped it silly. We’re going up now. You can’t make out because it’s so black outside.”
They stood in silence. Nothing passed in front of them anymore.
“Who was the other person who came so many times Bobo?”
“A stepmother I think.”
“If,” said Misha with a far away look in her eyes, “I had a cruel stepmother, I’d like to put her in there too. You’d have to help me though.”
“Of course I’d have to help you. I’d have to set it for you first, wouldn’t I? Then when she came and pressed the button for ground floor, she’d automatically be taken right down to where we went and when the elevator finally stopped, they’d open the door and take her out and keep her. She’d never have stepchildren again to be cruel to.”
“Don’t you wish we had a cruel stepmother Bobo?”
*
“You’re lying!”
“God promise Daddy, I was in my room all afternoon just like you told me to.”
Mr Kapoor got off the rocking chair and advanced towards Misha till he was almost towering over her. Misha’s hands were ready to ward off a slap. Instead, he just bent his great body down till his face was inches away from hers and said in a soft, menacing voice:
“The janitor saw you downstairs. That’s how I know you’re lying.”
“But he couldn’t have,” blurted Misha, “I only . . .”
“That’s better. You only what?”
“Bobo was showing me something inside the elevator and . . .”
Mr Kapoor almost exploded in anger. “I don’t want to hear about your imaginary brother one more time, you understand?”
Misha nodded.
“I don’t know what pleasure you get in making all this up.”
But with that, to Misha’s great relief, he stalked away to his study. Misha went back to her broken card house.
*
Mrs Kapoor stood in front of the mirror in her petticoat and blouse and liked what she saw. Her dresses still showed her body off with magnificent ease. Her low-cut blouse for instance, not only cupped her large breasts firmly, but all too often tended to reveal their top halves each time her georgette saris slid carelessly off her ample front. She neither looked nor felt forty. Not even when Mrs Nandy, her rummy playing partner whose house she was on her way to right now, said all those snide things behind her back about her wrinkles. The girls at the afternoon’s session were going to be envious again.
She put on the sari, applied eye shadow, mascara, lip gloss and a bindi, in that order and went out into the landing. The elevator arrived moments later. She opened the door and went in.
She pressed the ‘G’ absentmindedly, opened her handbag and took out the bottle of Dior. So absorbed was she in spraying her cleavage that she hardly noticed that as the lift started descending, the overhead lights had dimmed a little. But then Mrs Kapoor’s mind was on other things. On her husband for one. He had told her to wait downstairs at 2.30 sharp where he’d pick her up from without having to go upstairs. She was hoping he would be on time. She hated waiting downstairs with all the servants, drivers and maids who worked in the building pretending they weren’t ogling her. On the other hand she hoped she herself was not late because he could be really irritable then. That made her panic. She glanced at the window to see which floor she had come to and saw the ‘2’ slide past and impatiently began counting the seconds of the ‘1’. Six seconds later it came into view and went. Exactly six seconds after that the ‘G’ too impassively slid past — like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Disbelief slammed Mrs Kapoor’s face into a cold statue of terror as everything from her gut to her mind caved in at the absurdity. Only a dumb vestige of curiosity still made her look zombielike into the window’s fascinating rectangle in silent slow-motion as it turned into a mirror in front of her and all she saw was her contorted face everywhere in it. She lunged on the button panel and jammed her fingers into the emergency bell push. An incredibly loud jangle exploded somewhere over her head and began falling off in intensity almost immediately as if the sound source were receding.
And Mrs Kapoor dug her frenzied hands into her hair above both ears and ruined her lovely, pulled back bun at the nape. Then, as her eyes locked with those of a little boy and girl in the mirror, she spun away to the rear wall and clawed at its smooth self-designed surface till she collapsed on the floor, eyes open unstaring, kicking, kicking and kicking at the red georgette sari strangling her from all over until the elevator stopped.
The janitor looked in astonishment at the spectacle at his feet in front of him. Others who had come running hearing the emergency bell found him gaping at a fantastically writhing red form in the elevator, which was now human, now an animal grunting savagely, howling insanities, talking of stepchildren, tearing her clothes, with saliva all over her chin.
Until a small crowd had gathered and Mr Kapoor, her tall, powerful husband, arrived to extricate his spitting raging wife in a mess of clothes and tears, screaming for all to hear, that her stepchildren had done this while her husband, facing her in total incredulity, kept mechanically repeating, as if that would bring her back to him, that they had no children, or stepchildren, at all.
As part of the campaign “India is a visual journey”, five filmmakers were commissioned to make five short films. You must have seen the promos of the shorts. Now all the films are online. Do watch and vote for your favourite
1. Hidden Cricket by Shlok Sharma
About the film – A country that is divided in the name of religion, state, language, caste, economy, profession and even god… breathes together, stands together in the name of CRICKET!
A sport that defines the country. Cricket is in our blood and rules our hearts. A synonym to passion — cricket redefines enthusiasm, craze, zeal and excitement. We are a nation that loves cricket, lives cricket, beyond conventions and beyond rules, from breaking boundaries to breathtaking highs, a million cheers and a zillion sighs, such is the madness, such is the passion to play it anywhere, any day, all the time, all the way. Cricket is our way of life!
2. The Epiphany by Neeraj Ghaywan
About the film – After their college reunion in Pune, a divorced couple is forced to take a ride together to Mumbai. As they meet an old woman on the highway in desperate need of help, their disparate sense of morality, culture and class creates friction, scraping the wounds of past that they thought was long gone. Some journeys may not take you anywhere, but you do move on.
3. Moi Marjani by Anubhuti Kashyap
About the film – A spirited independent single mother struggles on a daily basis to provide a comfortable life to her son and herself. She runs a small Internet cafe in Patiala, Punjab for a living, and is an Internet user herself. The film highlights a phase in her life when love comes knocking on her door. If only its timing was right!
4. Geek Out by Vasan Bala
About the film – The dual lives we lead, that virtual alter ego we all have nurtured and empowered, The Indian “Geek” today is no longer that lad who sat in a corner. He could be that carefully framed pic on Instagram to that deadly opinionated Twitter handle or maybe that pop philosophy spitting Facebook page or that revolutionary blog that was created to change the world or just plain drowned into the Audio-Visual black hole “You-Tube”. Day dreaming now has a new address, the world wide web. Dream on ! May the force be with the Geek!
5. Chai by Geentanjali Rao
About the film – The film is a sequence of montages that shows four different people making tea in a tea shop. A ten year old boy selling tea in Bombay at the Gateway Of India, An 18 year old girl with her tea shop in a mid level town, A 19 year old Kashmiri lad in a Barrista and An 80 year old man’s tea shop in a busy Kerala bus stand.
The film is a view of rapid change that India is going through and what it means to those people whose faces we never notice as we go along sipping our cup of tea everyday. Tea like the people of India changes with every language, culture, climate yet serves the same purpose everywhere always. A constant in a flux.
– And do VOTE for your favourite short. You can vote for as many shorts as you like, there’s no limit.
After a long wait, it’s finally out – the music of Raanjhanaa. But seems the wait was worth it. Do check out the music of Raanjhanaa. Rahman is back and how. Over to @Rohwit for its music review.
Raanjhanaa hua – The ever so melodious (yet not as popular as I would like him to be) Jaswinder Singh starts the song and vanishes too quickly. Anyway, the song belongs to ‘at times out of sync Shiraz Uppal’ and that’s what you will love the song for. It just doesn’t try to ‘fit in with calculated singing’. The percussion arrangement – top class, the use of Sitar – exemplary. In fact, when the song ends, the sitar doesn’t leave your mind. Go ahead, try it! A racy tune marked with excellent violins (which literally take the song to it’s peak every time they appear), the song is top class! Watch out for the faint guitar riffs throughout!
Banarasiya – Like the name indicates, a song that ought to remind us of Benaras. Starts quite rightly with Sarangi and flute (aided with the mandatory manjiras). Tune wise crisp, singing wise excellent, Shreya Ghoshal’s vocals! Sitar, Tabla and flute do their bit to raise the level of the song. The playful backup vocals by the hugely talented Meenal Jain and Anwesha add the right amount of playfulness and mischief to the song and you can picture the dancers in a group, exchanging glances and moving the neck and eyes in sync.The atmosphere is very ‘evening’ and the setting reminds us of the ‘Kotha’ culture.
Piya Milengey – The song that begins with KMMC sufi ensemble going at it along with Sukhwinder is endowed with definitive bass and faint piano notes towards the beginning part of the song. The ensemble does an excellent job without getting loud at all. A song that is likely to appear in the background as the film paces up. Thankfully a bollywood – sufi offering that leaves an impact and not screaming singers in the mind as it ends.
Aye Sakhi – A song that has the most delightful and talented singers around. Madhushree, Chinmayi, Vaishali and Aanchal sethi come up with a song that’s treated with sheer brilliance and arranged classically (and gives out a feel that the singers are practising kathak). In fact, the music and the feel around the ‘aye sakhi uljhan’ reminded us of ‘Jao rey jogi tum jao rey’ (from Amrapali). The ‘Tyun tyun tyun’ bit in between reminded us of the Tain tain tain song from Gangs Of Wasseypur. Still so enjoyable! The song has an element of ‘Kya dekh rahey ho tum’ from Taal in terms of feel but is vastly different tune wise. Thumbs up!
Nazar Laaye – With lazy guitars, simple beats and Rashid Ali who is almost sleep-singing along with Neeti Mohan, the first impression of the song is ‘JTYJN-hangover!’ A typical song that gets skipped most of the times but stays in the playlist nevertheless.
Tu Mun Shudi – A lot has been written and propagated about Hazrat Amir Khusro’s Persian words around which the song is created, so we won’t go there. (By the way, Tu = you, mun = mine, shudi = became, Muntu = me yours, shudam = have become). The techno start to the song with superlative A R Rahman setting the tone of the song welcomes Rabbi (No no, not the Rabbi who sang Challa, this one sings better!). The use of shehnai in the song is top class. The way it flirts with the beats, we never thought it can, and all this with a constant hip-hop like beat. There is always that song in an ARR album that evokes extreme reaction (apart from other songs which are tagged in ‘Give it time and they will grow’ category). This one belongs to the ‘extreme reaction’ category. People will either like it or completely dislike it. We? LOVED it! ARR at his innovative best (with his characteristic giggle!)
Aise na Dekho – A bonfire song. Starts with a frolicky mouth organ up and about with guitars. Yet another ‘JTYJN-hangover’ infected song, one might argue. Sung by ARR himself, the song scores low on words and the way they are pronounced (May be intentional?). Still the music arrangement is soothing. The whistling in between is simple and adds charm to the tune. Will I hear it again? Not now.
The land of shiva – Heavy chants with heavier music setting and bells marks this piece and before you realise what is happening, it gets over. With a little over 1 minute running time, the tune is clearly added to compliment the overall feel of the album and is surely going to appear in the film.
Tum Tak – May be it is Javed Ali who melts with the musical arrangement (The other way of looking it could be – his voice doesn’t stand out), the song is likeable only because of it’s music arrangement. The construct is too confusing, singing wise. Too many ‘Tum taks’ are irritating to say the least. The sudden change in the song on the other side of 3 minutes is bearable vocally. Kirthi and Pooja are efficient in the song. What lessens the impact of average singing is the excellent use of Manjeera and shehnai.
AR Rahman somewhere mentioned that the use of shehnai in this album is a tribute to Ustad Bismillah khan.
What we liked the most about the album is that it gives out sense of the film without being vague. The lyrics by Irshad Kamil are largely effective.
The variation that we hear in terms of tune selection and treatment is vast, the music arrangement as usual top drawer! The album exudes a lot of confidence and the feeling of ‘durability’ oozes in good measure.
Just when the promos were looking an ordinary, it is unbelievable what a brilliant music album can change it all. Now only if the film is good enough to hold it all together.
Correction for Tu man shudi explanation – Tu man shodi” means You became me and “Man tu shodam” means “I became you” not “yours”. “Man” means “I” not “mine”. “I became yours” is “Man maal-e-to shodam”. Thank you for correcting it everyone
At 25, Sujay Dahake made an assured debut with his nostalgia-dipped Shala. We all loved the film, had recco-ed it (here) and did a podcast with the director (here). The film was lying in cans for sometime, got a limited release initially and then went on to become critical and commercial hit.
Sujay is back with a new film titled Ajoba. The first trailer of the film is just out. Based on real events, it stars Urmila Matondkar and Yashpal Sharma. Have a look.
It looks so interesting but more than a trailer it looks like a short film. What do you guys think? Do comment and let us know.
And here’s the official synopsis –
Big Cat’s Big Adventure. Malshej to Mumbai in 29 days: Ajoba the leopard’s ambitious trek. Ajoba was rescued from a well and a tracking device was fixed on his neck, before being released back into the wild. He turned out to be one adventurous cat, as he made his way to Mumbai over the Sahyadris, i.e a cool 120kms.
– To know more about the film, click here for its FB page.
Faces. Faces. Faces. Vertical. Horizontal. Just faces. Give me more faces.
Is this the brief for designing Prakash Jha’s film posters? Just have a look at the posters of his last four films – Satyagraha, Chakravyuh, Aarakshan and Raajneeti. What else do you see? Nothing.
Another interesting experiment – Try to see one poster and imagine the name of some other Prakash Jha film there. Would it make any difference? Naah.
So who is the culprit? Raise your hand please.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 