Theek Ho Jayega

My cable operator always has a sense of the occasion
He showed Black Friday on the night the Babri Masjid verdict came out
He is showing Salaam Bombay right now
The dejected protagonist is riding the police bus on a rainy night
Has a drunk loafer for company
The latter playfully runs his hands through the fomer's hair
Tells him "Theek ho jayega,
Ek din apne Hindustan mein sab theek ho jayega"
Hehe, Optimism.
Realm of the drunkard, the politician, the fool.

The Fourth Estate

Typically every issue has 3 media characters – the aggressor – who pushes the envelope and takes the role of the activist, the silent watcher – who wants to steer away from controversy and report the event as it pans out and the defender – who defends the issue either by being vocal or being silent about certain aspects so as to brush things under the carpet. These roles are played interchangeably by the men of media so as to suit their whims, pockets and favors.


The business of media is thus a business of ideologies more than anything else. Every newspaper is in the end a mouthpiece for what its owners stand for. The attempt is always to influence people. Some like Saamna are very direct and others like a Hindu employ numerous tools like subtlety, silence and misdirection to forward its ideologies. It is very clear how every Murdoch product will always favour war, catholicism, capitalism, anti-abortion, etc.

Atleast there is a refreshing honesty in the way party mouthpieces like Saamna work. There is no pretense unlike the men of English media and also regional independent media. They never claimed to be anything but propaganda machines. The language used by these mouthpieces is vile and extremely biased. The intention is to excite and infuriate the mobs into instinctive, brash actions. It is also a tool to justify its acts of violence against the minority. A healthy mix of rhetoric, passion and romanticism is used to hoodwink the readers into approving its actions.

It is also economics in the end. Whatever content that brings in revenue is published and whatever hampers it is avoided. And no one in this business is “Doodh Ka Dhula Hua”.

There is a certain sameness to the entire media industry today. An Arnab Goswami is no different from a Sanjay Pugalia in the sense that they all are eventually the pallbearers of the same brahminical lineage that 90% of the media industry hails from. It is still the upper caste who is covering the news, It is still the upper caste who is running the news business, it is still the upper caste financing it through ads. And so, while it may seem that it’s the masses who make or break these media entities, masses are the ones who matter the least to them. Masses are a number which comes every week in the TAM data. They don’t bring money. The advertisers don’t want to talk to the SEC C and D of our populace at all. And so the mouthpieces of the SEC A and B continue to grow and prosper. In a country of a 100 crores, the biggest advertisers are actually choosing between a 36 lac publication versus a 72 lac publication so as to maximize reach at the best cost per person.

The above two points of ideology and economics may seem strange bedfellows. They might even seem antagonistic to each other. But the fact is they both have gone hand in hand for ages now. Its what the catholic church does. Its what every Godman and media mogul has always done.

And this is where the role of the new media and the power it gives to the common man is so important and hence so infinitely scary for these merchants of distress. The pro-sumer is slowly emerging and the tenets of marketing are going for a toss.

The flip side is that every two penny bum who has neither perspective nor depth is spewing crap on his blog and taking every discussion – be it on a Pandit Jasraj youtube video or a Cricinfo article on Sachin - to a Hindu-Muslim slugfest where mothers and sisters of all parties are invoked.

The media is a lot of things, but sadly, it eventually is only a reflection of the society we create, we inhabit, he help proliferate.

Wonderyears

Innocuous little cleaning visit to my old house – lived there for 15 years. Havent been there even once since I moved out 5 years ago.


Quaint little catholic colony with un-Bombayesque amounts of greenery

And un-Indianesque amounts of facilities to play football and basketball and volleyball and tennis and carrom and TT

Jolly old men with cute hats and funny accents

Pretty ladies with long legs and the licence to show them off

The best location to smell the rainy wet mud without any urban adulterations

Actual Blytonesque places called ‘the chapel’ and ‘the grotto’; pretty words no? They are even prettier to look at!

Easter = Marshmallows, Christmas = Mars bars from the neighbour’s Canadian daughter (blue-eyes, rosy cheeks, absolutely smoking hot, sexy dancer)

Christmas Eve = Kiddies party, New Years Eve = Ball Dance and alcohol – catholic boys attended them, even got dates along. I was asked to sit at home and mug up why Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji so tight

The said Canadian daughter of the neighbour used to find yours truly adorable. She once announced if I was her age Id be her first choice for a boyfriend. Didnt exactly grow up to be the stud she envisaged :(

The kids living opposite our house were miniature versions of me and my brother. And when Sachin would make a 100, both pairs would be yelping with joy. We would exchange notes on how much McGrath was hated from balcony to balcony.

Abba was still the rage, George Micheal, even bigger!

Cricket was cool, football was cooler

But when the girls came out in their little skirts and shorts to play throwball, the crickets bats and the footballs lay unattended, unused, forlorn

And cycles were called bikes. And they were the ultimate status symbol. A BMX beat the Atlas and the BSA hands down. And there used to be biker gangs who would scour through the rough terrain of the colony, bullying the young and old; and then would end the day as the sun would go down with a good old ice-candy. How cool is that!

On good days in the field, we were the Waugh brothers, on bad ones we were relegated to being the Flower brothers.

We even had an Uncle Wilson who was the victim of all our Menace

And then there was this slim hot-headed girl. Spoke too fast in English and did not particularly like any of the boys. But she would come for tuitions in the building opposite mine and would sit at the balcony for hours to study. And I would sit on my window for hours pretending to study. The optimist in me thought that our eyes met quite often. There seemed to be that semblance of a smile also sometimes, reciprocated by a toothy grin on the other end. She had a pretty name, an even prettier face and played throwball as if her life depended on it.

Film : A Good Year (2006)

Starring: Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard

Max Skinner – Every one of my memories takes place within a 100 steps from this place

Christie Roberts – So are they good memories?

Max Skinner – No........ They are GRAND!

P.S. - A list of things found while rummaging through the old furniture today – some old photos, my passing certificate for TYBCom(yeah, I am that careless!), a notebook converted into a personal diary which died a premature death after 2 and half entries, a torn cover of a cricket bat and, a spiral-bound marketing proposal of Umang 2003.

P.P.S. – For those who don’t know, I might be moving to Delhi for atleast 2 years, next month onwards. Or, I might be in Bombay for good. Either ways, will announce it here with a big post on the 2 cities. Hope the product is worth the build up Im giving it!

And Pigs Could Fly!

As is evident from the state of this blog, I am not much of a writer. But just as every kid is allowed to dream of being a Sachin someday, every adult is allowed to think he can collaborate with MS Word to cook up a semblance of a novel someday. After 3 failed attempts, I had given up but a colleague in office suddenly sparked the ambition to give this another try.
Dont worry, the spark has gone now - it went within 20 minutes of it coming! So here I am blogging again as a much cheaper substitute of that grand ambition of penning a novel.

Below is a list of stories i attempted to write, huffed and puffed my way to various degrees of what you would only remotely call a "START", before LAZINESS reared up its ugly head and I went back to chasing money, and women (mind you, thats pretty steep hardwork too!):p

The Revolt
This was my first effort at writing a novel and this was when I was around 12. It was supposed to be set in the 2nd World War in a tiny inconsequential nation near the Czech Republic and it was a story of how the army, the press and the government come together to smartly bring the Nazis down on their knees and remain uncaptured throughout the World War. All the names – of places, people and newspapers were researched from the Encyclopaedia Britannica so that they sounded authentically European and exotic and powerful. So the protagonist was a loafer disowned by his parents and he goes on to lead the resistance. The heroine is the daughter of the newspaper baron of the country. It had all the makings of an angry, powerful, multi-starrer blockbuster with outrageous set pieces involving deceit and guerrilla strategies to out-think the evil Germans. I was going to describe the most expensive set ever made as the central parliament of the country with Bernini and a few other sculptors of his time coming together to construct the damn thing. (the rest of the sculptors’ names I don’t even remember!)

The Final Resolution
Satan and God are both organised sector companies with billion dollar donations and massive investments in global stock markets. Good Corp employs dead people to dish out scripts for the new borns who are born once their script is ready on how their life will turn out. Evil Corp. guys are quite restless as they have to try and disrupt these scripts and they aren’t doing too well. Their best chance is now as they have access to 5 ripe young minds who have been destined to greatness by the Good Corp guys and now the Evil guys plan to fuck around with their brains and gain control over the 5 most powerful countries in the world. Funnily, these 5 guys belong to the same country, the same state, the same city and the same college. Whats more, they are the Top 5 of their college festival happening in August this year (get the drift?? :p)

The burden to save the world rested on these young delicate shoulders!
The one on the extreme right eventually slays the Satan! \m/

The climax happens in the college festival as after becoming Heads of States when they grow up and realising that they have been manipulated into evil by the Satan, they turn back time to destroy Satan once and for all on the night it all started – The War of DJs night at this festival of theirs when they went to the roof of their college and Satan had struck. :P

WCE – World Cricketing Entertainment
A fictional saga on how every cricket match ever played is fixed and how the players, the betting industry, the governing bodies, the businessmen and governments use the game to make money and dupe the public until a cherubic curly haired kid comes along with a mickey mouse voice and a killer straight drive and changes the way cricket should be played

Hehehe.. if you are still here after reading all that, here is a list of stories I would want to write someday:

A musical (or a poetrical?) of a bollywood superstar who is doing his last movie and in the course of it is driven to murder, rape and suicide

An Alternative History of Islam – want to change some key moments in history and see how Islam would turn out in today’s world

A biography of a Media Mogul of modern times – hopefully, an autobiography :p

A story where Delhi and Bombay play lead roles – I am willing to tweak the story in any way just so that these 2 get the starring role and I can write pages and pages about them. You don’t care about the script so much if Aamir and SRK are signed on now, do you? :p

A children’s story set in the Dadar railway station – how one night an old man comes and gives these street urchins a set of clues that they chase all night throughout the station – its toilets, platforms, stores, trains and tracks - at the end of which they stand to get a treasure – only, the treasure is something they hadn’t imagined.

And one last thing, I want to write a teeny-bopper, bubble-gum love story – dunno what will be the hook, the tweak, the angle which will make it different but really want to write one someday :p

Random Songs I Like - Kajra Re

So the item song checklist would read something like this


• At least one big star (preferably female)

• Expensive set (read – garish)

• Female performer in skimpy clothes (enough to get it past the censors, that’s all)

• Remix-able (Kind of for the Long Tail to kick in)

• At least one signature dance step – to be easily copied by the most awful dancers in nightclubs

• One quirky line in the song which becomes a part of the lingo for that year

And Kajra Re from Bunty aur Babli had all of these

• It had not 1, not 2 but 3 huge stars.

• The set was that of one of Delhi’s most garish maikhanas- full Yashraj style

• Aishwarya’s Neeta Lulla choli was the deepest cut choli she had ever worn till that movie – something Neeta Lulla informed everyone who cared to listen

• Clap on left, clap on right, appreciate the beauty, appreciate the eyes (the weight of the body shifting from one foot to the other at every line)

• Aankhen bhi kamaal karti hain, Personal se sawaal karti hain

And yet, Kajra Re was more than all this. It, in fact, was more than just an item song.

And the hero of the song wasn’t on screen – he was the bespectacled man with the magical pen – Mr. Gulzar.

It is very difficult for old men to remain relevant to the changing times. Ask my dad – he has given up talking and started listening more to his sons, lest he say something unacceptable! If you are an artist, the pressure is even more intense. A lyricist trained in the highest traditions of Ghalib and a contemporary of maestros like Khayyam and Burman has to now suddenly compose music for bandits like Anu Malik and Pritam. The language has changed and it is to Gulzar’s credit that he remains as relevant today to me as he was to my mom in her time.

So what makes Kajra Re click?

The fact that the song retains the melody, the poetry and the mischievous interplay between the two. Gulzar injects the song with equal amount of Urdu and colloquial Hindi for it to remain both – poetic and hummable. This song is as much for mad dancing at the nightclub as it is for a Sunday afternoon hearing to appreciate the thought, the intrinsic wordplay.

There is no doubt in my mind that Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are exceptional music directors – that I think one of them dosed off or didn’t turn up while composing music for Housefull, Hey Baby, et al is a fair assumption. Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya, Taare Zameen Par, Rock On, Wake Up Sid stand testimony to the fact. Bunty aur Babli’s music was absolutely in sync with the language of the film - the look, the style and the characters. It is difficult to create a Mujra which sounds good to people of all generations – and this one does!

The selection of Alisha Chinai is what Geoff Boycott would call an inspired selection. The woman has done pop and disco with great aplomb but this song took her to a new level. I can’t imagine a Sunidhi Chauhan/ Shreya Ghoshal/Kavitha Krishanmurthy doing this song even half the justice it deserves.

And this brings us to the main reason why this song works – Aishwarya Rai. The woman in my opinion has done nothing of note before or after this song in her career. But in this song – OMFG – I was sitting in the first row of Gaiety and I kid you not, I have never felt so much in love with a human figure on screen ever! She was absolutely apsara-like in her movements, the kalgi worn sideways on the forehead made her look like the seductress Indian men must have dreamt about in the Mughal times. Her body as if carved out of stone. When the line “Meri angdai na toote tu aaja” used to be repeated the second time she would turn around and show her back and then she would, in one simple stroke, take all her hair in front revealing the beautiful back that im sure so many beauticians would have worked so hard to achieve. And she did things with her eyes in this song that would have made an “A” certification justifiable. When she would carry the lamp and take those graceful strides lifting her ghagra, I rose with every stride she took. And the kohl-rimmed eyes – the feature this song is an ode to – she has blue eyes, man! And yet the kohl just makes them so much more beautiful! It’s the sort of stuff Indian cinema is made of and without which we would be a very morose people.

And still, this song was also about a city of old – a Delhi my dad talks about, a Delhi I haven’t seen enough, a Delhi that Rakeysh Mehra wasn’t able to capture in an entire movie but Gulzar did in a matter of few lines.

Tujhse milna purani Dilli mein,

Chhod Aaye nishani Dilli mein

Ballimaran se daribe talak,

Teri-meri kahani Dilli mein.



God, Im in love with this place!

Filmy Family

Some random musings on a lazy working Saturday –


- Ive realized random is perhaps the most often used word in blog titles and I vow to never use it in any of mine

- I remember one meeting during MICANVAS (hope the all-caps pleases The Shrew) when I used the word ‘wacky’ in every new sentence to describe the core differentiator of my events. I was ashamed at the state of my vocab – but really, wacky WAS the best way to describe them and a better word for them still remains elusive to me.

- Working Saturday lunches at the Triveni Terrace have become somewhat of a lovely tradition here. The wintry afternoons are perfect for piping hot parathas, home-made sabjis, tangy shikanji and delicious Indian desserts

- I just coined a legendary line which trivia buffs will attribute to me when I become famous (or more likely.. notorious!) – “Writing is like peeing – I don’t do it till I absolutely can’t hold it in!”

I am a true blue gujju with a totally gujju family. We all have no taste in higher forms of art, we spend hours discussing relatives, Harshad Mehta and some set food choices we passionately love. So unlike Bongs and Tams I don’t have a huge community taking to blogging with a vengeance. I can’t joke about the financial markets and Narendra Modi as they both directly and indirectly run my household. The other day dad even told me that I get nothing as inheritance (dangerous pause).. in my pursuit of a media career as we traditionally don’t understand this media business (phew.. thank god.. for a moment there I thought ill die!)

So we are money minded people detested by some (especially Bongs I have met) for our constant hoarding activities and no hunger for knowledge (unless it’s a stock tip!) and mocked at by some (especially Hyderabadis I have met) for our inability to enjoy our obvious wealth with flamboyance, style and panache (look at the Punjabis!)

But we love our low-brow cricket and our low-brow Bollywood. We love hating Javed Miandad with burning passion - Dad/Mom/Dadi at various stages of my infant life have uttered the following line in grudging admiration of the batsman : “Aavi Gayo Miyo” – The Mian has come.

We love comedies – Be it Govinda(All the Nos.1), Sanjay Dutt (Munnabhai, mwah!) or Salman (No Entry, etc.) – they all are watched with a lot of relish.



Not being exactly the master of narration, I shall now take a halt and take you back to a time in the 1990s when me and my brother were deprived kids without cable TV at home so that we could develop other interests and not end up like other Gujju kids with no other interests apart from Cricket and Bollywood – sadly, we did end up like them – even worse – the deprivation made us even crazier about these 2 things. Our heroes were Sachin and Shah Rukh and inspite of a million new experiences and interactions, Im sure we both are going to die as fans of these 2 Men of the Hoi Polloi.



This, kind of, sets up the context for me to talk about what the title of this post is (well.. kind of!). So unlike or like any family I have ever seen, I come from a completely filmy family. Every character in my little family has had his or her really filmy moment and practices the greatest traditions of Nirupa Roy, Vijay, Raj, Rohit, Rahul and all of those as a part of their daily lives – without ever being able to distinguish whats filmy and whats not.

So when I dint score well enough in my tenth and was whining about bad checking by the moderator, my brother vowed to avenge my loss by revising his own target by another 5% in his tenth boards to compensate for mine (Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar anyone?)

And when my brother won the best student in school my family broke down coz he was the first kid in the family’s history to do so (Nirupa Roy ins so many movies)

And my dad sings Dev Anand’s songs during antaksharis on family trips with his signature mannerisms, addressing the lines to mom – and mom responds with a shy nod :p

I can track major events of my infant life with the release dates of the biggest SRK movies –

Fell for a girl for the first time – DDLJ

Came to know guys can wear silver necklaces – Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Got my first pair of glasses – Mohabbatein

Fell for a girl who was lively, restless and more than a little random - K3G

And the list can go on!

Dad started telling his employees to monitor the markets “Din Raat 24 Ghante” after he had seen Sarfarosh for the 21st time

My mom becomes senti when she watches random mother – son songs and gives me a call late in the night while Im lying intoxicated (ahem!) at MICA

Every person in my family is a dancer of varied potential.

Top of the pack is mom who was a fine dancer in her heydays and continues to love dancing

My brother is a naturally graceful dancer who has lost his SRK-imitated swagger only in the last few years

I am a junglee dancer who goes so berserk while dancing that many people stay away from me when Im dancing

Dad is the weakest dancer but copies Rajesh Khanna – so its more about the dreamy expressions and less about the steps!

And the way things are going, the Sanghvi family is soon going to have its first Mega production – a rehash of K3G – Dad gets to play Amitabh and I get to play SRK (in my head I have played SRK all my life!)...

And then the “inheritance” dialogue is going to be much scary!

Past Tense Future

I wish to reach a day when writing a blog post wouldn’t require so much effort.. so much inspiration.. so much mental make-up.. a day when it will be routine.. in the process.. in the effort.. but never in quality.
Every part of me screams for me to write a Delhi-Bombay post. Have thought of too many smart-ass lines and insightful observations - filing them away somewhere in the cabinet of the mind for a more appropriate time. I am slowly reaching a stage when I will desperately need to vomit it all out on a sleepless night or end up enduring a few more. The reason why I am still holding back the post is because im not sure im at the right vantage point to view this topic right now. It will be the day I know I will be going back to Bombay for a considerable period – and that could be a month later or 13 or 25 or…. I don’t know!
So heres a tag I thought will be fun answering, although it turned out far too senti in the end:

20 years ago I . . .
• Had a young kid I could barely hold in my arms and thought it was my new toy – the way I was one for my dad
• Thought my dad to be the scariest man I will ever know and my grampa to be the owner of a massive chocolate shop
• Watched DD News with the whole family waiting for the most interesting part – the advertisements
• Survived 3 days at karate class and gave it up forever

10 years ago I . . .
• Had a young kid who thought I was the master of cricket and would bat left-handed if I asked him to
• Wore extravagant warm clothes in the non-existent Bombay winters just so that I could ape what SRK wore in his last movie
• Wanted to be a journalist and bring evil governments down
• Cried copiously in bed coz dad refused to let me go for the school trip to Rajasthan

5 years ago I . . .
• Had a young kid who had stopped revering me and hated me coz he thought mom sided with me
• Wanted to be a media baron – a la Richard Armstrong/Keith Townsend
• Saw the dead body of the most optimistic, joyous, passionate man I have ever known – my grandfather
• Was an Umangite

3 years ago I . . .
• Wept on the Kota railway station platform as a young kid looked on from the overhead bridge
• Was putting on extra flab warming the seat in a makeshift cybercafé trying to eke out a corporate career for myself in a startup
• Saw a MICA Alumni video several times over without having met those people or seen that place before
• Finally became friends with my dad

1 year ago I . . .
• Felt proud of myself – and so did my dad
• Was hopelessly in love
• Loosened down, made friends for life, danced around a courtyard all night long
• Created Micanvas

So far this year I . . .
• Fell in love with a new city
• Found something good enough to make me think about giving up on a lot of things I hold dear
• Did good work – made the right choices
• Realized my mom is also human

Yesterday I . . .
• Went to a beautiful city – but didn’t manage to see it
• Saw a simple Indian wedding - made opulent by warmth and care
• Talked to my dad the way only best friends do
• Travelled for the first time in the first class compartment - with a UP gangster for company

Today I . . .
• Imagined a Delhi girl fight and abuse her way into a Virar local in peak hours
• Realized one of my bosses might well be the best writer I have read
• Turned down a chance to spend 6 hours with a pretty girl on Delhi roads coz it wouldn’t have served the company’s interests (I know.. wtf!)
• Had a filter coffee in an udipi joint and recalled many wonderful Sunday evenings with family

Tomorrow I will . . .
• Wear a kurta for the first time to office
• Go out for drinks with colleagues and be in my element
• Take a bath!
• Brush my teeth!!!

In the next year I will . . .
• Be the best MT in my company
• Still be hopelessly in love
• See a young kid take baby steps towards defining his Lakshya
• See Sachin holding aloft the World Cup in my city