The ballad of Billy the kid

The Oracle has spoken on the last of the big time spenders. As is his wont, he is absolutely thorough and masterful. Nothing, in fact, needs to be added to, or taken away from that tribute. But since he has kindly linked me in this post, I felt obliged to put forth my two bits on when and how I started to worship the same idol.

I was not a big fan of the man when in college. In fact, I never quite understood his music at that point in time. In college, we were listening to Wham, MJ, John Denver, Eagles, a little bit of Pink Floyd and Dire Straits and all sorts of wrong kind of sound, an ignominy called Modern Talking included. Coupled with the fact that lyric books were not easily available in the 80's, that we would only listen to medium wave radio and some dubious quality tapes on mediocre equipment, made the soul of his lyrics to be largely lost on me. I remember having listened to and vaguely liked Piano Man, and having read somewhere that Manna De's Bengali hit on Coffee House was loosely inspired in theme by it.

Then came 1989 and Storm Front. Even though mtv was not here yet, the crazy video of we didn't start the fire was getting beamed on DD and immediately caught our attention. The power and pace of that dynamic ode to fifty years of Americana and other world events was hard not to get swayed by. It is learnt that he had fired all of his existing band members save the trusted drummer, revamped his team and worked with a new producer to create that new sound. And new it was. It turned everything else on its head.



But the moment of truth for me came on the 1994 Grammy Awards night. River of Dreams had been nominated in more than one categories. And in the runup to the awards the song played over and over. I had never listened to anything like that before. I had hoped it would win song of the year. With due respects to The Boss and sir John, lesser numbers own that year. On the night of awards, the man performed his song. I have been frantically looking for that video on utube and other places, but it's since been removed due to third party copyright issues. (It should be mentioned here that earlier the same night Frank Sinatra was cut short during his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement award.) Billy might have known he was not going to win it that night. He looked dour. At the breath reprise ending the third stanza, where he builds up a crescendo :

I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is that I've been looking for....

He always takes a longish pause at this point, straightening his neck, taking a sip of coffee and all. On that Grammy night, he just seemed to stop on his tracks. A full fifty seconds maybe. Then he said, nay, made an announcement :

Valuable time is passing by. valuable advertising time is passing us by.

He took a sip from his mug, and resumed his song all on a sudden. At that very instant, he made a true believer out of this casual fan.

You have freed me traveler, now go free yourself.

To reach the castle of the Zade emperor, you must take the north road. And cross the border between Heaven and Earth. Then you'll have to pass through the gate of no-gate. (Which means you either have to be a Zen master or you must be carrying something very special.) On to the Five Elements Mountains, land of the Immortals. Where, once every 500 years, the Jade Emperor hosts the Peach Banquet. It is here that the Heavenly Ministers gather to celebrate the longevity and drink the elixir of immortality.

Don't know about you people, but me, I'm a sucker for such crypto-Confucian nonsense. Over the weekend, I'd been watching The Forbidden Kingdom. As usual, late to the party. But having a whale of a time.

It is said in enlightened circles that even the greatest Zen masters and Taoist immortals could not actually defy the laws of gravity until a genius named Yuen Woo-Ping came along and introduced them to the invisible wire trick. You see, the no shadow kick, the Buddha palm technique and the one finger death touch were all very fine maneuvers to have in your repertoire, but when push came to shove, they just couldn't make you fly. Only when they learned how to give a fuck for physics, did they become the stuff of Academy awards. To borrow an expression from the movie, their ch'i became like fire. And I became a true fan ever since.



I hear the biggest action flicks of today question the very demarcation of right and wrong. They delve deep into the mind of the evil and try to find out what drives him. Logistics not permitting, I have not yet watched the greatest superhero/action movie ever made, so you can call it a case of sour grapes, but I still doubt if I'll be equal to the task. Given a choice, I'd pick the simple Amrish Puri type villains over the uber-complex Joker any day. In this regard, the Chinese hardly ever disappoint. Their villainous warlords are straightforward and true to imagination. Take a regular despot like Mao Zedong. Throw in the flowing tresses and some high kicks. Add a goatee for effect, and you're pretty much done.

A good villain is a good start. However, he alone is often not enough for a good evening's entertainment. You need to have a silent monk doubling as the crazy monkey, a drunken immortal who mouths the most confounding Zen philosophy, but as it turned out, was not really immortal to begin with, and an orphaned kid prodigy mysteriously named the Southern Sparrow, who for some unknown reason shifts back and forth between the first and the third person while alluding to herself. A witch who performs most of her sorcery with the aid of a mile-long whip, or, in the absence of it, her silver white wig, which can magically grow to, like, a length of fifty yards instantly at the moment such need may arise. That is to say nothing of the misfit hero who has little to do except looking lost and acting dumb. Only then you can look forward to time well spent.

What else? Oh there's plenty. Gems like this when Jackie Chan (Lu Yan) gets the wrong side of an arrow and is looking at slim chance of survival without his elixir.

Jason : He needs wine. It's his elixir.
Medicine man : We will send a walking monk.
Lu (From the bed) : Don't you have a running monk?

Or during the famous fight scene between Chan and Jet Li ( the monk):

Lu Yan : [the Silent Monk does a Praying Mantis stance] Praying Mantis! Very good... for catching bugs! But not Tiger!
[does a Tiger Stance]

Paisa wasool. Plus I also learned the Mandarin for "Cheers". Which is, Tamb'ei!
I recommend. But then, I'm shallow. You watch at your own risk.

In other news, we'd been at work studiously perfecting the Moj'ito. Wonderful drink for warm monsoon evenings. A little birdie tells me that Castro had once remarked, " Moj'ito ergo sum".

Viru se takkar ?



28th July 2008, The telegraph, Kolkata. Sunil Gavaskar wrote (I'd been looking for a link for the better part of an evening, in vain, so I took a shot and put it up) :

(Last time India batted out the last two days of a Test match to avoid defeat).....In Adelaide perhaps,when Sehwag played an innings of such responsibility that when one sees the manner of his dismissals in recent games one wonders where and when the change to being casual has come.
of course, he does not want to get out but at the highest level unless there is a discipline in shot selection, the road back to the pavilion...blah blah.
....Viru can demolish and demoralize any attack in the world but only if he stays away from premeditated shots.
Then he will be unstoppable and India will get the start that they need to put pressure on the opposition.

There is nothing profound about Gavaskar's view on that column. Nothing we did not know already. Except the uncanny timing of the comment. On July 31st and August 1, 2008, Viru did just like the little doc ordered. Sambit Bal writes :

Sehwag has scored many gigantic hundreds but this must rank among his best. It came against massive odds, and it came when India needed a saviour after the two Sri Lankan spinners had humiliated their batsmen. Seen in isolation, he destroyed them.

India may yet lose this match. But I'm very very happy for Viru. I believe his is now the highest individual test score by a batsman from any visiting team on Sri Lankan soil. The way Sri Lanka has traditionally maimed big bullies in their own backyard, we needed somebody to show 'em.

The interview

Last night I dreamt I was facing a job interview. A tough, no punches pulled, "bizarre, new world" job interview. Now most people who have a faint idea of who I am and what I've done so far with my life, will be quaintly amused with the absurdity of the notion. The last proper job interview I attended was in the wee early nineties, when people were still sending telegrams, and the blogger and the fan reunion was more than just a motion away. In recent years, whenever I'd gone to discuss an opening with some prospective employers, they seemed to have a fair knowledge of the archetypal me. They never ask me about my strengths and weaknesses, or, why did I think my skills would be a good fit for the job. They know, to the exact decimal point, what I was capable of not doing, by dint of my sizable experience in not doing anything in the capacity of a technical manager in a behemoth organization. And whenever the subject of dope would be broached, lots of rolled up eyes and muted laughter on their part at the remunerations I'd require. As a rule, these discussions tend to culminate in perfectly amicable disagreement over the issue of moolah alone.

But this being the season of cross-voters and cross-dreamers, what should I dream of but this, a bizarre, tough, new world job interview. Say your howdys to Anita Bruzzese. Her idea of such a interview questionnaire is like

• If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you select?
• If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see playing the lead role?
• If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?
• If you could compare yourself to any animal, which would it be and why?
• If you were a salad, what dressing would you be?

She has a theory it brings out grace under pressure. That there are no right answers, only the manner you respond which is analyzed. Surely they would have a manual for this. Y'know, the shallow drifter sort for thousand island, the power exec for blue cheese, and likewise? Set me thinking, and I pondered over it for long before dinner. Then I had this dream.

They were interviewing me for some job. Oddly, they were asking me personal questions. Oddly again, the interviewers were all pretty young women in their 20's. I know, men will be men, and one is allowed such liberties while dreaming.

If you were a cocktail, which one would you be?
If you are an MP who has cross voted, which party you'd rather be from, and why?
If you could marry a celebrity, whose husband would you be?
You suspect your boss is a closet gay. What color clothes would you wear to office on a Friday?
You're the leader of this terrorist outfit that is into serial blasts. Which city will you do after Bengaloor and Ahmedabad?

The second one was a sitter. I blurted BJP even before she finished. The fourth one I'd cross check with Mr. Shenoy. Apparently he's done some research in the area. The last one was not a happy question. I was in no mood to answer.

The ever growing Salman Khan
If he kept saying no, how would he ever grow?

Until now, it must be me only, but the way Salman Khan is growing taller by the day is a phenomenon all of us must soon recognize and suitably marvel at.

1994 : Andaz Apna Apna ; Salman and Amir were the same pint size

2008 : Dus Ka Dum ; Presto! Salman is three inches taller. Now, you'll say Salman has pimped up hair and Amir has tonsured his head, so here's another :

2006 : Rang De Basanti premiere ; See, see?

1998 : Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai ; SRK looks marginally taller

2007 : KBC ; Salman towers over both SRK, and KAT, who I thought stood a head above both!

At the rate Salman is vertically reaching out, grabbing progressively taller girlfriends, and surpassing his co-actors in stature, I think I should post another picture in advance:


Watch this space.

The Lotus eaters

We've had it up to here with China now. Not content with eating up our Steel, Textile and Consumer Goods industries on the fly and buzzing over our BPO gravy train with malice, they have now unleashed new age goblins on our national flower. G.S.Mudur reports :

...a fly from China has been eating lotus plants across vast stretches of shallow freshwater fields in Kerala’s Malappuram district, one of India’s largest hubs for commercial lotus cultivation.

The yellowish-brown larvae of the two-winged insect have been feeding on lotus leaves for over two years, causing an infestation not previously observed in the country, scientists at the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) have said.

Chinese scientists had first identified the fly, Stenochironomus nelumbus, in 1986 a botanical garden in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. Since then, it has spread fast within China, feeding on the rose-petalled lotus lily.

Link (warning: contains revolting photo of fly maggots)

The idea-raising campaign

The other night I was trying to watch an abomination of a comedy called Mere Baap Pehle Aap. It made me somewhat sad and pensive. It made me wonder what happened to good old storytelling in Hindi films. What happened to originality of thought, and most importantly, whatever happened to the healthy Bollywood tradition of wholesome plagiarism? I look at the releases of this year, and they are a very sad bunch. The Mumbai Film Industry is having a bad day at office.

So here's something I thought of doing. Something close to my heart. Now, I may not have revealed it to a lot of people, but I've wanted to make movies all my life. Yes, I'd also wanted to meet Santa Claus, but those were really early days. The moviemaking wish has been a consistently strong one ever since I learnt to put my fingers together and frame a shot, which was pretty early too (I was all of 15 I think). As I grew older, I learned to appreciate that writing an original screenplay and directing it is too much hard work for anybody's good, unless you are Quentin Tarantino, who I knew I wasn't (Y'know, for a brief moment there, RGV thought he was, but then, everybody now knows the score.)

So here's what I'd do instead. I'd settle on playing the movie producer. My duties will include selecting an working title, an original story idea, deciding on the chaps to direct and play the characters and hopefully find finance for the party to begin. (this will be the tough part, but here I'm counting on my blaudience, whose number now threatens to touch double figures. But I brag, and digress...)

You can say my choice of story inspirations are shallow. To which I shall say, "Oh yes I'm Shallow Hal, what the fug is your problem? Who wants to watch DEEP anyway? "

Without further prelude, then, dear friends, we present the line-up of the first 5 ventures from Digdowndeep Productions. Don't get fooled by the frivolous tone. These are serious business proposals, worthy of top-dollar investments. These five original films have been long time favorites, and I'm ready to bet on their viability in an Indian adaptation. I'm sure there are countless other Hollywood and European films waiting to get inspired by. But these are, to my mind, like infant orphans screaming their hearts out begging to be adopted. We'll start at the shallow end of the pool, and gradually go deeper.

1. Ane Wala Pal (Next)



There's the thing about the future. Every time you look at, it changes. Because you looked at it. And that changes everything else.
This is a sci-fi, and not the 2050 sort. It seems the character played by John Abraham has the magical power to see two minutes ahead into the future. Into his own future. When he meets the Jiah Khan character, his abilities dramatically improve. a terrorist group gets involved in the story, and all all sorts of excitement ensue. For further details, visit imdb. To be directed by Abbas Tyrewala. (I'd have loved to rope in Shekhar kapur, but I want to finish it before 2050.) The film will be equally viable with Emraan Has me and Neha Uberoi, but it will have to bear the dubious Bhatt tag.

2. Achambit ( Bedazzled)



Fair? Who do you think you're talking to? I don't recall anybody ever accusing me of being fair before. I think I'm insulted.
A deal with the Devil. Going hilariously wrong. I don't believe anybody else in India can look and walk the role played by Liz Hurley other than Malaika Arora Khan. Casting her is 80% of the job done. The male lead will be up for grabs. My preference is Shahid Kapoor. Aftab Shivdasani would fit just as well, but lack the presence and the innocence. Sohail Khan will do the honors at the megaphone for two reasons. He' s had experience in supernatural comedy with the disastrous Hello Brother. And he might be comfortable in directing the devil, 'cause she's family. The love interest? Somebody giggly and stupid. Genelia if Shahid plays the lead.

3. Gattu Parmeswar (Bruce Almighty)



Hood: Okay Cool, man, the day a monkey comes out of my butt is the day you'll get your sorry.
Bruce: What a coincidence, because that's TODAY.
Man is unhappy with God. God meets him and hands over his reign. Just to show where it pinches. Who do I want to play Jim Carrey? Let's see, Govinda did a first rate job in Kiyunki main Jhooth Nahin Bolta (Liar, Liar), but the Chi-Chi of today won't look credible. Akshaye Khanna does decent comedy, I'll only have to get him a decent hairpiece. The only other choice is Akshay Kumar. While he has the gift of timing, he may not be adequate in the motormouth blabbering department. Then again, there's Arshad Warsi. Looks to me the most suitable.
For Jennifer Aniston's role, I would take Ayesha Takia without hesitation. But we need somebody with a smaller rack. For that one scene, remember? Well then, Aarti Chhabria it is. Competent and underrated.
Amitabh as God? Of course that would be the most unimaginative choice. We'll try Nana patekar instead. he even looks a lot like Morgan Freeman.
And no other director for me please. Has to be David Dhawan.

4. Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai ( Like a Fish out of water)

It's different. They don't make films more different than this. A heist for, of all things, a rare tropical fish. Cynical plotters. A femme fatale. Bloodbath. The meek inherits the earth. Bible couldn't have been more profound.
Important thing here is to choose our femme fatale. I'd leave the spot open for Monica Bellucci's character. It'll be a toss-up between Kajol And Sush. Kajol, a tad easy on eye make-up. Sush, with a bit of a makeover, to look her actual age. Whoever has the dates. Needless to say it'll be the role of a lifetime for both.
I'm not too choosy about the hoods. One of them should be Naseruddin Shah. And the meek fish expert, the protagonist? Rajpal Yadav, anyone? Remember Main Meri Patni aur Woh?
Nobody in Mumbai can make it better than Sanjay F. Gupta. Let's not look any further.











5. Kahan Ho Malik? ( O brother, where art thou?)



They have a plan, but not a clue.

Three jailbreak fugitives. A stashed away treasure. A fast-paced road movie. American deep south in the '30s. Backdrop of racial strife, religion and an upcoming election in backstate Mississippi. A plethora of colorful characters. I don't know how my Odyssey will be Indianised. But I do want to get this movie made in Mumbai.
We'll have to think on the lines of the freedom struggle and Hindu-Muslim riots. And at the same time, make a classy, fast, light-hearted and fun film. Tough ask. We might go to Vidhu Vinod Chopra and ask him to take charge. He should also bring on board his immensely talented director Rajkumar Hirani. Vidhu did a great job with 1942, he should be able to replicate it here. Or we can approach Vishal Varadwaj. Since he's been so good with Shakespeare, Homer for him should be home turf.
I don't care much who play the characters. I only want Saif to play George Clooney's role. Suave and rakish at the same time, Saif can.
Who will provide Soggy Bottom Boys' Music? Who will sing "Man of Constant sorrow?" Well, the issue will be settled at leisure.

That, then, will be my gift to Bollywood this summer. Anyone wishes to make such gifts is most welcome. We are about to start a campaign to raise the maximum number of story ideas. If you are reading this, if you're into films and Bollywood, and if you keep a blog (too many ifs?), you must also think of doing a tag. In fact I can readily think of three people, Amrita, Arnab and Ramsu who'll easily make a more handsome contribution to our campaign.

Feature of the day

This excellent non-interview of Billy Joel by Dan Berry on NYT. Made my day.

Wondering why Vienna in the song Vienna, I was reminded Beethoven's grave is in Vienna. Could it be that as a young and very successful piano player who was ambitious and in a hurry, Billy addresses himself, and thus the allusion to Beethoven's grave in Vienna?

Completely out of context, there's a good joke (in somewhat unsound taste) on that grave. Goes like this...

Beethoven's Ninth

A tourist in Vienna is going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears some music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source.

He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads: Ludwig Van Beethoven, 1770-1827. Then he realizes that the music is the Ninth Symphony and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him.

By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backward. Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar.

When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backward. The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th.

By the next day the word has spread and a throng has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward. Just then the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the crowd asks him if he has an explanation for the music.

"Don't you get it?" the caretaker said, incredulously. "He's decomposing!"