social circus

If orkut seemed like a big, showy, never-ending, maddening, stifling jamboree open to all with everything on display, facebook resembles an after-event, after-madness, "by-invitation-only" private party; holding its own mystique, its own little secrets a far cry from the far-from-truth deception of the main event.

As yet, at least.

Saraswati Putra, Bhala!

It is foolish to expect an industry that feeds on stereotype for breakfast, that chokes when it runs out of cliche cylinders, to treat playback singing, its critical entity, any different.

So when you want

zesty, feisty quality in your life, you have Sunidhi Chauhan.

faux sexy wailing, haazir hai Kunal Ganjawalla

the male, higher-higher-pitched version of Sunidhi Chauhan with added diamond-like quality that just cuts through... Krishna Kumar Menon (KK)

a star like quality that will put galaxies to shame, take Sonu Nigam

sincerity, energy, honesty, so what if RAW, please meet A R Rahman

to communicate pathos, sincerity, again so what if RAW, make way for Ilayaraja

saccharine sweet to the point of inducing diabetes, there is always Chitra

someone to traverse the spectrum from an infant to a girl all the way to a woman, welcome S. Janaki

someone to traverse the spectrum from an infant to a girl all the way to a woman, north of Vindhyas, welcome Asha Bhonsle

invoke Gods, mountains, call only Anuradha Paudwal

devotional, call Anuradha Paudwal and Gulshan Kumar

divine, Lata Mangeshkar

saucy, sassy, cheeky, chicken-tikka masala, croaky & froggy, irreverent, arrogant (so what if it makes you want donate truck loads of lozenges), don't do anything; just close your eyes, and pronto! Anu Malik

to revisit the all the good things of your childhood, say "Sadhna Sargam"

fun, frolic added to romantic numbers, go to Mahalaxmi Iyer

somebody, when you find none, think of Alka Yagnik

to touch a chord of the masses faster than the speed of light, send an SMS to Himesh Reshammiya

to insult your enemies, love guilt pleasures, R. P. Patnaik door nahin

to "hear" a smile, please call Udit Narayan

to test the speaker quality of your avante-garde music set up, particularly Bass, head straight to Amitabh Bachchan

to drink without getting drunk, pesh hai Hariharan

to be literally jolted of blues, slumber, so what if transient, go to Sukhwinder Singh

seriousness, sincerity, character go to Kavita Krishnamurthy nee Subramaniam

to learn Malayalam through Hindi, go down south to Yesudas.

to feel good about yourself, about everything around, C/O Rekha Bhardwaj & Vishal Bhardwaj

most of the qualities mentioned above, dial 9823156147/ 9842351706 to reach Shankar Mahadevan






because for all the above and everything else there is an

S P Balasubrahmanyam


(May he live longer than is destined to)

in camera

Do me a favor, promise me you will. Okay? If no, you may skip this. Yes?! OK, now read on. Remember I shall hold you to your word.


1) Next time when you click a good looking snap, please don't touch it, retouch it, touch it up, Photoshop it. Don't let the moment get eclipsed by tech tools. I know to each his own but still try! Remember you promised!

2) It gets a little serious here. Promise me if you come across a very beautiful picture clicked by someone, you will not, repeat after me, you will not ask the photographer, "what camera is it?" "which model?", "no wonder, it is good!". Okay? Mummy promise. This is applicable even when the picture is not up to your standards. Either way you are insulting the photographer.

bing'o !

Just yesterday when I finished watching the official preview of the Microsoft search engine Bing, my first thought was "would this make God (also known as Google) look complacent?." Part of this thought process could be credited to my craving status quo in all spheres.


Rafe Needleman echoes the same thought in the last few lines of his gush post, well almost.

Manly Frame

Mohanlal's Anandan calls on Nasser's Anna Durai at the latter's residence when he is down with fever.

Anandan inquires about Anna's condition, and they exchange pleasantries. Prakash Raj's Tamizhchelvan can now be seen in the frame.



Anna politely rejects Anandan's monetary token to the party at this stage.

"The party doesn't need your money; Reach the common man. Votes will pile up automatically."

Apart from the conceptual brilliance giving us a peep into the characters' psyche, so what if evil and grey, what stands out is the beauty in the framing. Now it is strange that I talk of beauty in a frame where there is not a sight of a single woman. But the beauty that comes out of the mesmerizing whites, the unshakeable blacks, the rich contrasts is beyond words. Particularly in the last frame, filled with nondescript faces of nondescript men barring Lal, the orientation and placement of all the men whether intentional or not is truly outstanding.

When was the last time a picture (full of raw looking men) looked so ethereal almost making mockery of an entire battery of breathtaking women present otherwise in the film; Revathy Menon, Gautami Tadimalla, Madhoo Ranganathan, Aishwarya Rai, and Tabu?

:)


Iruvar (1997)


film grab courtesy: madras talkies

classified!

As if the existence of stereotypes (make that negative) around us in our societies isn't unfortunate enough, the fact that some communities, groups actually live up to that image is far more worrisome. I remember this was exactly a part of conversation between Lakshmi and I just the other day. It is almost as if the target groups have reconciled to the fact nothing can be done, or rather generations of conditioned thinking cannot be undone, and armed with this worldly knowledge they feel it is their right to behave the way they do, almost. In their not being able to do anything about it, the actions and lifestyles are justified in retrospect. I have not travelled far across this planet, at least not as yet, but I can safely say no society is free from this.

Why does a particular community act super frugal to the point of being stingy? Why does one race listen to only a particular type of music, or endorse a certain clothing fashion? Why does one group have to always act and sound intellectual, almost warranting pseudo-intellectual masturbations? Why is one group always loud mouths while the other is fool infested? When behaviors, attitudes become social tags or ID cards without a word being spoken, you know there is a room for worry. If you take any group/community/entity/strata and I hate to say this, its behavior will not be far from the image it has created, or that has been attributed. 99 out of 100 times. My heart goes out to all those who inspite of being a mole minority are consciously or unconsciously a part of a silent movement to break these stereotypes.


John Cloud in the latest issue of the Time (June 1, 2009) addresses a slightly related topic with more insight and well, cushions it with some research findings.

The following piece of work is credited to John Cloud and Time magazine, and I have only scanned the article for the sake of more readership. The copyright is duly acknowledged.


(click on the image for a bigger view)


As for me, I belong to all those demographics to which not-so-friendly qualities are ascribed, and on my part I try to be away from them. As Cloud would have liked it, I have not internalized them! :)

But I am also increasingly forced to believe in the adage that not without a reason do stereotypes exist, and that indeed is a scary thought.

Picture...Perfect

courtesy: Columbia Pictures, Phedon Papamichael

Will Smith's Christopher Gardner walks out of the firm after being told of his appointment as a new broker. But this moment arrives not until after a series of mind-sickening, confidence-numbing harrowing moments in his life. So this only makes what follows special; the bursts of joy, of the pent up tears.

Gardner with his teary eyed face, erupting in absolute joy in a sea of undulating faces, and with his self worth intact, stands tall


literally and figuratively.

Meet the Gods

Now contrary to what the scriptures have had us believe, King Raavana has also been acknowledged for better things, credited to be an erudite, and apart from everything else a staunch Siva bhakta.

We have been told Raavana owed it to Lord Siva for his name, for his powers.

Raavana needed Siva. May be history repeats itself.


If the grapevine is to be believed, Santosh Sivan would soon join Madras Talkies' Raavana after the original cinematographer walks out on the team.


No regrets, this shall only be one holy communion. Sure the Gods must be crazy.


:)

Chew this Beatle (sic)

courtesy: UTV Spotboy


Ronnie sure Screws the rest.


Welcome back Tigmanshu Dhulia.


Dil Se...

Congress Grass or Gross Congress?

The result of the victorious Indian National Congress?




"Rahul... naam to suna hoga!"

Angles (sic) & Demons (within)

One of the tracks on my Pod right after a viewing of Ron Howard's latest,

"Do aur do ka jod hameshaa chaar kahaan hota hai
Soch samajh waalon ko thodi naadani de maula"

..................................................................... Jagjit Singh


:)

Political Swearing In Ceremony

DMK, DMKD, AIADMK, DVK, DTMK, DMC, DMDK, DP, DPK, AIAMK, AIMMK, AK M.G.R DMP, A M.G.R K, ATMK


For you, the ever uninitiated, who thought the above were the choicest of Telugu cuss words, they are political parties in Tamilnadu.

Promiscuity and Incest

thy name is Andhra Politics

fuck democracy... fuck democratic thinking... hail autocracy... fuck equality... fuck respect... fuck dignity... fuck decency... fuck courtesy... fuck manners... fuck maturity... fuck "grown-up"... fuck nicety... fuck "point-of-view"... fuck "others'-points-of-view"...

let there be only one point... let there be only one view...

fuck "in-others' -shoes"... let there be only shoe; yours with the sharpest of spikes that are going to trample others who don't listen to you


let there be absolute dictatorship... abide, survive.; rebel, have your organ chopped off.

one rule, one life

The Loss of Independents

"...If more than 90 per cent of distant Nagaland’s people come out to vote when less than half as many do in South Bombay it shows how parts of the country where real democracy was denied for long are so much more enthusiastic about it..."

..............................................................................................Shekhar Gupta, Indian Express



Subjective to the core, cynical to the core,nevertheless, this Shekhar here is a mover.

debo'nair millio'nair

No, that's not a new movie I am producing but that perfectly sums up what this gentleman Shashi Tharoor is for he commands attention from my mother-in-law and a little more, worse, from my wife.


UNequivocally!!!

Good News

The answer to jaane kahaan gaye woh log is as follows


1) Shivendra Kundra is one half of Kundra & Bansal, an international law firm. Whatever happened to his moustache!

2) Usha Albuquerque is a Delhi based career counsellor.

3) Sunit Tandon is into theatre and is a big shot at National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) whose movies we used to despise before any masala behemoth started on big screens.

4) Shammi Narang, I saw of him last in Vishal Bhardwaj's Maqbool (2003)

5) Tejeshwar "roar" Singh is a big publisher.

6) Neethi Ravindran, who I have also encountered on recorded messages on telephones and service providers, is a big voice expert and offers professional voice services.

7) Rini Khanna and Sukanya Balakrishnan are on Facebook :P ;)

If there was a mini celebrity who could make me drink wine at 8 or 9 it was Sukanya Balakrishnan ("in aankhon se mujhe peene do" hai hai! ;))

8) Ved Prakash is a journalist, and with a media school; the last I met him was in 1996 at Kendriya Vidyalaya Gole Market, New Delhi.

9) Bhaskar Bhattacharji has had to honor an early appointment with God.



God bless these souls!

Jayant Kripalani

When I chanced upon this trove full of erstwhile gems, I was delighted to see this very likable gem which featured one of my favorite television stars of all time.




I have admired this gentleman for his frame, his mane, his persona, that naughty glint in his eyes and more than anything else that sugar-salt-pepper coated grainy voice of his with such fantastic voice character.

Then he chewed up the scenery when he teamed up with Farooque Sheikh, another favorite of mine, on Ji Mantriji (2002) for Star Plus; a series that ranks high high on my lists for being synonymous with class and sheer class. Now it looks like he is in the company of good men at Exper.




Gosh! nostalgia is so injurious to one's mental health.

Shoe'd Away

George "W" Bush, P. Chidambaram, Naveen Jindal (Congress MP), and now L.K. Advani

From the trend this list doesn't seem to be exhaustive.



Last heard Bata was running out of stock!!

ten tena ten ten tena!

First twin-metal ten rupee coins issued by the RBI.




Age can do nothing to some childhood fascinations