Viplava kavi

A Telugu poem

Kavitha raase viplavakaari
kalam pattuku saaguthavu,
Chetha kaaka, paata paadi
cheyyi dhulupuku pothavu

Raithulele rajyamantu
rajaneethi palukuthavu,
Gundelona aggi vunchuku
manchu pogalanu vadhuluthavu

Kalla mundu kaduluthunna
drusyameedi chuudanantavu,
Saamyavaadam sadhyamantu
aayudhalanu pattanantavu

Janam hithavu koorukuntu
Eemi cheyaka oorakuntaavu,
Chetha kaaka, paata paadi
cheyyi dhulupuku pothavu

-- oka viplava kavi
---

Convoluted means for a contrived end

Review of 'Rang De Basanti' -- Dir: Rakyesh omprakash Mehra

When a movie transcends a cinematic experience to take a preachy and patronising tone, it is always an agony to the viewer, especially when the message isn't properly delivered. Rang De Basanti (RDB) by taking the route of a 'movie with a message', joins the league of those could-have-been-a-great-picture movies. The recent additions being Prakash Jha's Apaharan and John Mathew Mathan's Shikar. (Note: Earlier, Prakash Jha's Gangajal and Mathan's Sarfarosh did a wonderful job of what a 'movie with a message' should be like!)

RDB's first half is so promising that by the interval time audience anticipations are very high. But any aspirations of leaving the cinema hall with a smug feeling are dampened in the second half, as a very unoriginal way to solve the 'problems of a great nation' are unfolded. What starts as a film grasping the pulse of today's youth, starts drifting away into fathomless mediocrity when a panacea to the nation's ailments is proposed. As the movie continues with many of those cliche`s that are being nourished by Bollywood, it leaves lot wanting to classify it as a great picture. Yes, RDB is lot better than the banal stuff thrown at us these days, but it is certainly not what it is being hyped to be.

This review might appear a tirade, but to give a fair picture I must acknowledge that RDB certainly has some flashes of brilliance. The way the story of pre-Independence revolutionaries is juxtaposed with the life of protagonists is really a delight to watch. Mehra did justice to today's youth, when he showed the fears, cynicism, rising fundamentalism, and aspirations of the young graduates. The scene where Aamir Khan expresses his innermost fears in a drunkard's rambling is really good. Even though he completed his graduation years ago, he is unwilling to leave the college campus, as he fears that coming out into the real world might make him a nobody. He fears that he can't live up to the expectations people and he himself have on him. This helplessness of not being able to do anything once one comes out of college into real world strikes the chord with today's graduates. The brilliant cinematography and youthful music adds to the aura and leaves behind a charming memorabilia.

Where RDB recreates the mood of the youth and the nation today, it fails in building upon it. It tries to fit in a Dil Chahta Hai and a Yuva into a single space, and misses out on both the counts. It tries to provide a solution to the youth's angst but ends up giving something which the film itself declares ain't a solution but just a wake up call. This wake up call whimpers, lingers for a while and dies. If RDB wanted the audience to do something, it should have shown what it thought was that something to be done. But saying all the while that something needs to be done and not showing it certainly leaves the film incomplete. The movie ends with a message that youth join IAS, police or army and do good to the country! Thank you, but then why didn't it show how IAS, police or army did that something. Why were the audience shown antics, which can only be termed youthful brashness at best and utter foolishness at worst. RDB miserably fails at its message, if there was one in the first place.

Talking in terms of a cinematic experience, it has lots of cliche`s in it. To name a few..
1) The introduction of an English woman in the theme, one can certainly draw an inference of inducing potency from outside, if not our recent fashion with angrezi actresses in Bollywood.
2) Our filmmakers' fascination with Punjab. I have started wondering if non-punjabis are second rated Indians after all..
3) IAS, Police, Army..as the only national saviours.
4) Intense hatred of anything that is political. Politicians depicted as corrupt.
5) Bangles, sacred threads getting untied certainly means that something misfortunate is going to happen.
6) Muslim families leading their lives on edge. (Maybe it is justified in the movie as it wanted to get a gross aggregate picture. But still?)

Well, inspite of all these...the first half is certainly youthful and fun. All one can say is..
If u want a youthful movie..DCH was lot more fun.
If u want a pre-Independence revolutionary movie..Legend of Bhagat Singh is well researched.
If u want a message-movie..Yuva fits the bill.

You want all the three..go for RDB. But don't expect it to be the best. It has all three but certainly not the best of all the three.


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Also visit: Tera naam kya hai...Basanti?

The frog and the princess

1) The Original
(i,e the story I heard long back which I now tried to recollect and compose after storing it in my whacky brain for long years. Don't blame me if the end seems so contrived, 'coz I always fell asleep when a story came to its end.)

Long time ago there used be a king, who was admired by the people and envied by the neighbouring rulers. The king used to treat his subjects like his children. There was happiness everywhere in the country except for the king's castle. It so happened that the king had a daughter, who spent her days gloomily in the garden of eden, which had a pond adjacent to it.

The princess was gloomy because she was eighteen years old and didn't find her loved one. She was introduced to many a handsome gentlemen. Few courted her and some tried to flirt, but alas! the princess didn't find anyone interesting. She waited to find someone who would move her heart. Young princes from neighbouring countries and even from far off places came to woo her, but no one was able to touch her heart. This made the princess depressed and she found herself looking at her own image in the murky water of the pond everyday for hours and hours, when all of a sudden one day a frog jumped out of the pond and started staring at her.

The princess was shocked to see such an ugly creature and began to panic. The frog got worried that the princess might kill her and screamed at her,"Princess don't be in a haste to kill me or call the guards. I appear ugly, but there is a handsome me inside."
Princess revolted, "Ugh!!"
"Well, give me one kiss and find it for yourself," shrugged the frog.
Princess thought about it for something like a nanosecond before she said, "No way!"
Not bestowed with much brain power, the frog decided to do the best it could do. It made a gaint leap to the princess's lips and smacked them.
Well! Surprise...the frog turned into a handsome bloke with whom our princess fell head over heels in love. (err..why didn't she fall in love with any of those handsome chaps earlier? Why NOW. Maybe she loved the long leeeeeeeeeap.)
So..they got married and lived happily ever after.

--
Now comes the interesting twist to the tale. It was such a cool story, many people wanted to make a movie out of it. Of course, if Cindrella and Snow White became widescreen experiences, why not our rustic love story between the frog and the princess? How romantic, isn't it. So varied people made various versions adopting it to suit their genres...

2) Hollywood Studios:
Big sets of the pond and the garden were created. As a matter of general principle, they decided not to shoot outdoors, though it would have cost them less. The movie was made three long hours. It had 7 Ball dance sequences, 17 songs. The frog had a bald head. The princess was very pretty. The kiss scene too boring. The end too melodramatic.

3) French New Wave:
The king was shown, the queen was shown, the king's retinue was shown, the people of the country were shown. Their births were shown, their lives were shown, and their deaths were shown. Everything was shown but the princess's gloom wasn't. Then suddenly the princess cried. Then a frog jumped out of the pond and the movie ended. No story was shown. No end was given.

4) Film Noir:
Seeing the princess gloomy, the king hired a detective. He started spying on her and he fell in love with her. One day trying to hide from her, he fell in the water. When he came out of the pond, the princess screamed seeing him all covered in muddy water and weeds. The spy kissed her and wiped out the dirt from his face. Bad luck for him, the princess had multiple personality disorder. The baddie came out and killed the spy. The good girl came out and wept.

5) Westerns:
There was no place for a lovestory! Instead they made 'the good, the bad and the ugly'

6) Hollywood horror:
The princess was acting weird. She would always stay in the garden and stare into the pond. Every night a frog would come and seduce her. The exorcist was called, but he failed. Then one day, the king thought the water in the pond was too dirty. He dried the pond and the frog died, and the daemon left the princess's body! Well, you are mistaken. The frog was now sharing the princess's body. Film ended. Time for part two.

7) Hollywood Sci-Fi:
The princess was gloomy and always sat by the pond. The pond was the gateway to all the aliens who took the shapes of frogs to come into this planet. The princess fell in love with one such frog. But no one would agree. She started hiding the little frog in her room. Eventually, she realised the frog was dying and let it go. Then new technology came and the frog came back to live with the princess. Well! it's another thing, the princess had another boyfriend now. The frog went back and then there was a war. The king declared an independence day and wiped out all the frogs! The people lived happily ever after, without frogs and without aliens.

8) Hollywood Romance/Action:
The princess was gloomy. The neighbouring king declared war. The neighbouring prince decided to sneak in the castle thro' the secret passage and came out of the pond. The girl saw him and both fell in love. Now they both wanted to stop the war but the war continued. The prince's elder brother was killed and the boy had to fight. The princess's father was killed in the war and she too joined the battle. There was war, war and more war in the day. Love, love, more love in the night. After we had enough, the film ended.


9) Bollywood istyle:
The hero refused to act in a deglamourised role as a frog. The story was changed to 'the stallion and the princess.' Our hero was also not happy why anyone would refuse to love him? So the princess fell in love with the stallion. The hero was also not happy with having only one heroine. So now there was a sister to the princess. Both loved our hero who was a stallion by day and a man with a paunch in the night (well..our hero is 50 years old you see) Then six songs were shot in foreign locations. All were done on roads with fantastic cars as the background. Well..they were all dream songs and our chaps dreamt the future! Anyway, the story went on and on. Thankfully it ended. Our hero married the two girls, became the king and lived happily. He was still a stallion, but now by the night!


PS: Coming soon, what various directors would have done with the story.