London Eye

Back from London after 18 delicious days of covering cricket. The Indian team loses before the semi-finals hastening my own return back, but it isn't just cricket that I'm taken with there. Everything is a new experience. From the dust-free roads to the squeaky clean sidewalks, the impressive buildings to the cuisine. The city of London shows you what the likes of Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay could be like if they got the careful attention that is needed to get them to bloom.

No. I don't go to Madame Tussauds, nor to do I venture near Buckingham Palace or take a walk through Hyde Park. After all that time in London stepping into the trains, jumping into buses and whistling for taxis, I begin to feel I belong - and pray tell me which Londoner feels the need to ogle at the palace? On more careful reflection, it also seems that I deliberately left the 'sight-seeing' incomplete so I can go back someday to complete it. I meet a lot of whites, blacks, browns and yellows. And twice I feel the undercurrent of racism. The second time being when I ask a British-Indian waiter to get me a table at a restaurant. (Not too surprising, is it? After all we Indians are as racist as anyone else, only our atttitudes only harm ourselves in the end).

Come to think of it, London has changed my life and the way I look at some things. Boy, how I needed this trip.

Symptoms

It's an ID crisis. That's why I've been off blogger for so long. Of course, it was also because of the Olympics, but even amidst those crazy work hours, I'm sure I could have a slipped in a line or two -bBut for that "where is this blog leading to" kind of thing.

I now know I'm not letting this writing thing go up in flames. But dear reader, do expect some changes in the future.

Marooned

Enough is enough dammit.
I've gotto get back to Bangalore....But how??

Anyone out there with any bright ideas?

Once upon a time in the west

When I was a kid, the word 'movie' was a synonym for some tortuous tale of a gun-totin', whiskey swillin', cigar smokin' unshaven loner who blasts the world away with his 6-gun (Or a sawed-off shotgun, for that matter). And of course, the best of these were The Good, The Bad and The Ugly or a For a Few Dollars More - both directed by Sergio Leone. I saw both these films with my dad in Bangalore's theatre Bluemoon (non-existent today) and ever since then, I was a convert.

Last week, I saw Leone's most acclaimed, but least famous film - Once Upon a Time in the West. And I was blown away once again. It's simply awesome, can't talk about it enough.

Once Upon a Time is lower on testosterone and higher on feel and mood when you compare it to the more famous Clint Eastwood starrers . And it's a telling commentary on how the world moved on as the railways moved from the Eastern coast to the Western coast in the US. The movie's full of intoxicating close-ups, stunning landscape pans, heavy on ambience and even normal scenes are choreographed to echo some bygone western classic. The opening sequence with the credits for example is a tribute to High Noon.

Whatever they say these days in film appreciation workshops (I've been to one) - those sphagetti westerns, as they've come to be called since Sergio Leone filmed them all in Italy, are definitely classics. Just see one of them, and you'll know why.

Here's an excellent site about Sergio Leone and his films http://www.fistful-of-leone.com

Boris Becker

Just finished reading Boris Becker's autobiography - a deeply satisfying read, after so many crappy bios of sportspersons. It's deep, brutally honest and answers most questions you would have had, if you grew up watching Boris' generation at Wimbledon.
An additional surprise - some sections in the book have passages written by someone else - Becker's mother, John McEnroe and Ion Tiriac to be precise.
 
For more, here's one review that appeared in Guardian's website before the book was published - http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1077478,00.html
 

Lakshya

One supposes that all you need to do to make a GOOD film in Bollywood, is break all stereotypes. It's that simple. Tweak that dance-around-the-tree routine a little bit,place the tear-jerker scenes at some point BEFORE the climax, give all songs in the film a proper context - and you're there. Farhan Akhtar, director of Lakshya did this, and a little bit more to make a truly watchable film.

A word about Lakshya - as a genre film first. What is it? A war classic on the 1999 Kargil struggle? Or is it simply the tale of a guy letting his destiny choose him. I think it's the latter. Lakshya is simply too thin on war details to be called a war film. Nor does it pretend to be, at any time. I'm sure most people will agree, no one really knows what happened during the Kargil struggle in the first place. And the army for sure, wouldn't want all the details leaked out.(Ironically Lakshya is more impressive when it's talking about war than the other big bannerflicks we're seen recently - LOC Kargil and Border being cases in point)

Karan, (Hrithik Roshan) is goofy, floppy haired and simplistic - who knows little about what he wants out of life. But his honest and pure heart earns him the love of Romi, (essayed by Priety Zinta) who's focussed, ambitious, impatient and bubbly. Karan applies to the army on a whim and makes it to the Indian Military Academy. But he deserts in just 4 days. However, eye-opening reactions from Romi and Karan's father convince him to go back and prove a point. Which he does, by passing out on top of the class and getting posted to Kargil. Meanwhile, Priety has got that dream job and is a journalist/anchor. She meets a multinational yuppie and gets engaged to him. This is when war breaks out, and the movie's terrain changes - and the climactic scenes are rounded off in thundering fashion.

Nothing too hot in the scripting. But we know Farhan Akhtar doesn't need a ground-breaking script, don't we? Give him something decent - and he'll turn it into something that will break frontiers in Bollywood, like he did with Dil Chahta Hai. Akhtar was very young when he made that film about India's youth coming into their own. And in Lakshya it's almost like the characters in Dil Chahta Hai go one step further to to confront their destiny.
One can be forgiven for thinking these two films loosely chronicle Farhan Akhtar's own rise. What then, we wonder, would his THIRD film like?

One thing for sure - if films like Lakshya are getting more and more accepted, and I'm sure they are, what will become of Bollywood? All those Rajshri films types in their creaky Prabhadevi offices in Mumbai had better watch out.

Inspector Morse and a little bit mo'

I wish I'd discovered Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse earlier.

As an aside, I was reading Daughters of Cain today at the
Deputy Commissioner of Police's office.
Now you're going to ask what I was doing there.
Well, I've been casing the office for the last 3 days, looking for
that all-elusive signature on a form, which says NO
POLICE VERICATION NEEDED for my passport application.

Anyway, an interesting thing happened today. While I was waiting at that
afore-mentioned office, a gang of dacoits with black polythene
bags slipped over their heads were marched inside. And before too
long, a lot of my fellow-reporters assembled taking shots of
poor sods and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Before
too long there was the mandatory PRESS CONFERENCE. And since I
was tired of waiting, I decided to tag along, and even managed
to compose my face with a midly questioning look, while all the
journalists fired their questions.
It turned out that the dacoits had made a career out of stealing
medicines from warehouses. Low risk venture and all that.
Anyway the whole thing got over in about 30 minutes, and at the end
I realized NONE of the reporters asked the one question I would
have wanted answered. How did the police CATCH THEM?

Maybe I thought of that, because of Inspector Morse.

Ninjai - The little Ninja

Stunning use of perspective, minimalistic composition, precision
sound and almost noirish in its use of black & white, Ninjai - the little Ninja
is a must see for all film buffs. And what's more you don't
have to pay for it. (Except for that net connection)
Ninjai is an animation series available on atomfilms.shockwave.com
and is easily downloadable. The site also has a lot of other short films
and I've just started exploring it.

Wanna see the series? It's here.

The Wasteland

For five days, each time I went to the loo, I went
with a copy of TS Eliot's The Wasteland.
(Come dear reader, do not think of any obvious puns, I'm trying
to say something here)

Since random observations seem to be the flavour of the month,
here're some -

1. The poem is impossible to understand, unless you're a scholar
in the classical languages.
2. Annotations will help - but only to a certain extent.
3. Great fun to read aloud - because Eliot's fractured
prose has great power and even a certain rhythm.
4. Eliot's imagery reminded me of some horror films I've seen,
most notably Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. And it reminded
me of The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymous
Bosch's infamous painting.
5. Someday, I'm going to figure the whole thing out.
 
If you want to read it, here it is: The Wasteland

Obscure incantations

It's been a while since my last thought-out post.
And that's because I've being doing too many things -
not all of them work related, though things are
buzzing in that department too.

Here are some random realizations I've stumbled upon
in the last few days -

1. If you fill your days out with too much action, your brain stops
and distilling your experiences for future reference.
2. I'm at the age when I'm beginning to properly appreciate
what my parents have done for me.
3. Lost in Translation, Bowling for Columbine and Straw Dogs are
truly sublime films.
4. Sports journalism is worth doing forever.
5. Zinedine Zidane never ceases to amaze.