Film: Gravity

Cast: Sandra Bullock and George Clooney

Director: Alfonso Cuaron

Rating: ***/5

Rarely does one encounter a film that excites you visually but leaves you feeling continuously weary at the same time. Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity suffers from the same mind-boggling setback. A visual masterpiece, it was impossible to look away from the screen lest you should miss even a second of the stunning cinematography. Set entirely in outer space, the film is a work of art, glorious in the way it captures the beauty of circling our blue planet in an infinite universe. Not a big fan of 3D, I understood in the first scene itself how 3D actually added to the experience of the film. Watching George Clooney and Sandra Bullock floating about in space, one could actually feel the absence of gravity, the need to hold on to something, and the complete nothingness within which they floated. At several points during the film I found myself reaching out to touch, or ducking to avoid matter that seemed to fly into the camera. To experience images as sensory devices, triggering real physical reactions was indeed magical — something I last experienced in Jurassic Park perhaps. Excellent use of 3D, no doubt.

And yet, the film didn’t quite engage me the way I had expected it to. Essentially, a personal journey of a mother struggling to overcome the death of her daughter, the film didn’t really invest much time in building on this aspect, in effect rendering her possible redemption incidental to and not crucial to the narrative of the film. An American crew repairing the Hubble telescope is suddenly struck by satellite debris which destroys their ship, breaking communication with Earth and killing everyone except Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). The rest of the film follows these two as they attempt to somehow make their way back to Earth.

While the film absolutely nails recreating outer space — offering interesting point of view shots that never seem to focus on anything (there is after all nothing to focus on) — it lacks depth for it struggles to get into its character’s inner experiences. I wanted to hear more of Bullock, see her fears and anxieties. She was after all a medical doctor in outer space! Surely, there was scope to etch out her character more. At the end of the day, the film seemed too controlled, concise, and formulaic.

The real heroes of the film are Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography and Steven Price’s superb soundtrack. You leave the theatre with astonishingly beautiful images in your head and Price’s disconcerting music. Cuaron also uses silence brilliantly, case in point leaving the sequence where a satellite is destroyed by high speed debris, completely mute, highlighting the extent and speed of devastation.

The film is a technical marvel, in keeping with his previous film Children of Men where he shot a stunning five minute long single-shot chase sequence. Bullock gave her best performance to date as a deeply conflicted and troubled mother. My biggest grouse would be that I wanted to see more of Clooney, but then that‘s just greedy me. A must-see nonetheless.

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The amount of hype the Modi wave has received over the past few months lead me to understand that his first rally in the capital city since he’s been named BJP’s PM candidate would be rather significant and high on the party’s electoral agenda. What I heard instead was all fluff and no substance. Typically, Modi spent most of his time criticising the Congress government and far less on what makes him and his party better alternatives. If the logic that he’s a firm nationalist and does not come from political royalty makes sense to you, then by all means vote for him, but I found his speech to be devoid of anything concrete or specifically positive and not to mention severely problematic.

I can agree with his comments regarding the governments within the government at the centre, however, implying that his own rule is anything but tyrannical is stretching it a bit far. “Delhi is burdened by governments. Here, there are governments within governments – one of the mother, one of the son,” he said at the rally. He also projected himself as a peoples’ ruler, one who wouldn’t ‘rule’ but ‘serve’. Looking at his government in Gujarat it is quite apparent that there is a clear disregard for the rule of law and all authority seems to be invested in one person — Modi. Fissures within the Congress and within the UPA coalition are significant problems but none as troubling as a country’s future in the hands of a megalomaniac.

Similarly, in cleverly defending Dr. Manmohan Singh against Rahul Gandhi’s very public snub, he appeared to be projecting himself as the bigger man — “The PM has no respect within his party, how will he have respect in the world? His own party calls him ‘nonsense’; Congress ke vice president ne PM ki pagdi uchal di hai.”  Only that just a few minutes later he made the prime minister the subject of some pretty nasty insults and jibes. “Humaare pradhanmantri Sardar hain, par asardaar nahi. I hope he’ll be able to converse with Nawaz Sharif since we know how he’s not used to talking much.”

In defending and snubbing the PM simultaneously, he appeared less bitchy than he was actually being. Referring to Nawaz Sharif’s alleged derogatory comments about the PM, Modi suddenly turned ultra nationalist —“How dare Nawaz Sharif call India’s Prime Minister a dehaati aurat village woman? India is a country of 1.2 billion people, we will never tolerate this. Where does Nawaz Sharif get such audacity?” he said. So it’s okay for you to abuse the prime minister but when a foreigner does the same, that’s not cool. Modi’s lessons in patriotism 101. 

I also found Modi’s speech to be rather chauvinist at several points. On the Delhi rape incident, he criticised Sheila Dixit’s comments and I was quite intrigued, wondering why he had brought it up. “The CM said, being a mother I advise girls to return home before it gets dark. Is she not responsible? Does she not have duties towards this? Delhi Chief Ministers are not accountable for what they do neither are they responsible,” he argued. What he found problematic here was not Dixit’s patriarchal response, but an administrative and leadership failure. Likewise, I failed to understand what was so infuriating about being called a dehaati aurat? It’s quite disturbing that someone who wants to be the next PM of a country that is still largely rural shares the mainstream notion of reading the phrase dehaati aurat as a pejorative one.

Much has been said of Modi’s charisma and I know several people who are going to vote for him solely because they believe in his skills as a leader, his aura of authority and his supposed ‘vision’. This recent speech made it quite clear that this impression of charisma and magnetism that surrounds him is nothing but good PR and his so called vision is simply put, quite hollow.

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Cast: Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Director: Ritesh Batra

Rating: 4.5/5

Newspapers routinely carry stories these days about how finally we have independent, self sufficient female characters in films that are relevant to its narrative. While I agree in most part, I think in portraying these ‘liberated’ women on screen, directors/storytellers often stop themselves right before she can take a radical or unexpected decision. I was upset when Sridevi in English Vinglish decided that she didn’t need love but only respect from her misogynist husband and ungrateful children. Vidya Balan in The Dirty Picture similarly left me slightly baffled; particularly distressing was her choosing death. A gun wielding Parineeti Chopra in Ishaqzaade was such a refreshing character but then why was her fury eventually tamed and turned to love? Kangna Ranaut’s jugni Tanu in Tanu Weds Manu, Deepika Padukone in Cocktail, there are so many such characters that pushed boundaries, but were pulled back right where it mattered most.

The best thing about The Lunchbox is that it doesn’t shy away from crossing lines, and lets its characters choose their journey on their own terms. The final few moments of the film struck me as perhaps the bravest to come out of Indian cinema in the recent past. As Ila, our female protagonist, stands by the window contemplating her future, in her resolve I found the ‘liberation’ that all of the earlier films had failed to produce. This is just how I would have wanted the film to end, in ambiguity, but with hope.

The film uses Mumbai’s famous dabbawala service as its premise and ponders over what would happen if the flawless delivery system was to go wrong once, delivering a housewife’s dabba for her husband to a stranger instead?

Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a bored housewife, desperate for her husband’s attention who packs up a delicious meal in a dabba hoping to make a place for herself in his heart via his stomach.  Except the dabba is mistakenly delivered to Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan) – a reclusive accountant, on the verge of retirement. What begins here on is an utterly honest and real exchange between the two, over letters that take off awkwardly with conversations about the city and its happenings, slowly moving to personal insecurities, fears, and dreams. Both find in each other the antidote to their loneliness.

The letters never become overbearing or heavy, always keeping it real, speaking the language of everyday people. She writes to him in Hindi; he replies in English. She opens her heart to him; he’s mostly curt and unemotional. And yet, they fill a gap in each other’s lives, helping them realise they want something more, something else.

The character of Ila, burdened by the responsibility of a young daughter, an absent unfaithful husband, a troubled mother and a terminally ill father, needed an actor who could pull off the many layers and complexities that the script allowed her. Admittedly, Nimrat Kaur was absolutely fantastic as Ila, conveying mischief, desperation, loneliness, hopelessness and resolve with flair.  Her interactions with her neighbour ‘aunty’ (a brilliant voice over by Bharati Achrekar) with whom she only talks through her kitchen window were particularly lovely, adding some relief to her otherwise claustrophobic life.

Irrfan Khan as Saajan Fernandes was exceptional. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe his superlative performance as a man who spends most of his day by himself, tapping away on his calculator or puffing cigarettes on his dingy balcony, all alone. He genuinely seemed reluctant to talk, and reply to questions, as if by breaking his reverie someone had encroached upon his personal space.  Awkward and melancholy, Khan was a delight to watch. Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Aslam, Fernandes’ colleague and friend helping unravel Fernandes’ guarded self with well meaning humour and jest, was also fantastic. 

This is easily one of the best films I have watched in years, overwhelming me with its quiet, slow and gentle pace. Ritesh Batra is clearly a master storyteller, turning the simplest of stories into a powerful treatise on love and life.

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Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Riteish Deshmukh, Sonalee Kulkarni, Bruna Abdullah, Manjari Phadnis, Kainaat Arora, Karishma Tanna and Maryam Zakaria 
Director: Indra Kumar
Rating: Zero

Grand Masti is one of those films that should never have been made. And even if it was to be made, it shouldn’t have been released on the day that the nation was attempting to come to terms with the death penalty given to the four accused in the December 16 gang rape case in Delhi.

While the filmmakers of this painfully atrocious film said that ‘adult comedy’ can be enjoyed by adults in a humorous environment, the sheer extent of this film’s sexism is appalling. The entire crux of what the film would have us believe is a plot based on notions of viewing the woman as a sexual object, to be seen and enjoyed – exactly the mindset of entitlement that leads to cases of rape in the first place (And no number of death penalties can lead to a change in this attitude)

The film is the sequel of the 2004 film, Masti. In the opening scene of the new film Ritesh Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi and Aftab Shivdasani are in college and are teaching young, impressionable students about how to enjoy life. They start simply with the alphabet. The letter A is supplemented with a close up shot of women’s buttocks clad in exceptionally skimpy outfits, B leads to a similar shot of women’s chest. This opening scene lays the foundation for the rest of the film and apart from the cheap, sleazy alleged humor in the film, there isn’t much else.

The four, after marriage, find themselves predictably horny but stuck in sexless married lives. Upon receiving an invitation from their college (Shree Lalchand University of Technology and Science, yes, S.L.U.T.S), the four decide that this is their opportunity to gratify their ‘sexual needs’. 

The director seems to believe that the yawning gap left open by the non-existence of a plot could be filled up by overloading the audience with sleazy and bad jokes. Take for instance the fact that the girls that our heroes are chasing are “Rosy, Mary and Marlow”, who are obviously referred to in the film as “Roz meri mar lo”. 

Apart from the unapologetic sexism in this film, there is little else. Heaving bosoms, tight shots of women in hot pants are juxtaposed with sleazy dialogues. The humor itself is forced and doesn’t do much for the audience. In fact, this has been a problem with adult comedies in the film. They seem to believe that odd motley of forced cheap humor and sleaze would somehow lead to a successful film. 

Honestly, no one expected the film to be anything else. Sophistication or intelligence weren’t expected, though some subtlety would have been nice. This film is a lesson in how not to make an adult comedy. Film makers should really realize that unadulterated lechery is not equal to adulthood.

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Film: Zanjeer

Director: Apoorva Lakhia

Cast: Ram Charan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Prakash Raj

Rating: Zero

Sher Khan walks into the police station and pulls up a chair to sit. A buffed up Vijay glares at the chair and quite suddenly kicks it out of Sher Khan’s reach with all his might, baring his teeth. He then scowls quite angrily, “Yeh police station hai, tumhaare baap ka ghar nahi!”. 

If the filmmakers expected applause from the audience here, all they got was awkward silence. 

Every two minutes while watching Apoorva Lakhia’s Zanjeer, I would tell myself, “Power through. It’ll all be over soon.” Unfortunately, even in just about two hours, the film managed to ruin the original, make a farce out of the angry young man character, remind us that women are dispensable and give us a good solid headache.

Though Zanjeer launched Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man phase, it wasn’t exactly the best film in this genre. Yet, the strength to all of his films from this phase lay in the writing. All credit to Salim-Javed, the script-writing duo, who gave India some incredible films like Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Sholay, Deewar etc. While watching Lakhia’s Zanjeer I got the feeling that they had in fact lost the script and were simply faffing around, making up the story as the shoot went by. How else does one explain the utter lack of logic and reason that characterised the film!

Sample this- Vijay (Ram Charan) wants to take the oil mafia in Mumbai down (spearheaded by Teja), and for this he blazes into an illegal slum colony in his expensive SUV, on the hunch that that’s the centre of the oil smuggling network. He literally blows up the entire slum, loss of innocent human life be damned, and walks off in slow motion. Stylish aviators and linen shirt- check.

 The new Vijay is ultra macho, hyper masculine, and perpetually angry. His back story is barely delved into and we never feel invested in his fight against crime. Ram Charan glares, twitches, barks, shouts and pouts his way through the movie, never really emoting at all. I’m quite certain he had more makeup on than Priyanka Chopra. Not a hair out of place, he seemed airbrushed all through.

Priyanka Chopra’s character was utterly pointless and she was infuriatingly annoying. Jaya Bachchan’s ‘chakku-churri’ wielding spunky Mala is replaced by an NRI dimwit whose only aim in life seems to be shopping. Vijay’s confidant and aid Sher Khan (Sanjay Dutt) is perhaps the only human character in the film and Dutt does well to invoke both fear and friendship. I still can’t understand why he was wearing hot pink and yellow kurtas, but then there isn’t much that makes sense in this film.

I was ecstatic at Prakash Raj’s entry, but my joy was short lived since Ajit’s cold and calculating Teja had been mutilated into a clown right out of Sajid Khan’s films. He even ‘meows’ every time he sees Mona (Mahi Gill) mouthing such terrible lines like, “Mona darling, you should only open your mouth for one and only one purpose.”

If this is the filmmaker’s idea of a tribute, then I shudder to think what other films he might threaten to remake next. Zanjeer was and is loved by so many because it spoke of moral corruption just as much as it addressed material injustice. Lakhia drained the film of all its emotions, relationships and reason and filled the gap with well shot action sequences, chiselled bodies, cheap humour and atrocious dialogues. Unfortunately, no one remembers a film that doesn’t bother to take itself seriously, particularly a remake of a classic.

We hear Amitabh Bachchan’s version of the ‘yeh police station hai…’ dialogue at the end of the film and immediately it becomes clear how shallow the remake was. Bachchan’s voice had more power and weight than three hours of clowning about. Salim-Javed must be weeping at this travesty of their masterpiece. 

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Director: Maneesh Sharma

Writer: Jaideep Sahni

Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Parineeti Chopra, Rishi Kapoor and Vaani Kapoor

Rating: ***/5

Ah! Finally a film that doesn’t make its audience want to burn the screen down. Directed by Maneesh Sharma, our very own shaadi specialist (Band Baaja Baaraat), Shuddh Desi Romance is essentially a desi version of Runaway Bride, except its the groom who’s the one with commitment issues here.

 Raghuram Sitaram (a consistent Sushant Singh Rajput) is a tourist guide and a small time crook who sells dupattas made by “orphaned children from Iraq” to unsuspecting Americans in Jaipur. He meet Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) on the way to his wedding and instantly falls in love with her. Given his rather shifty stance on marriage, it takes him no time to dump his would-be-wife Tara (Vaani Kapoor) at the altar and run away. Back in Jaipur, Raghu and Gayatri begin a rather adorable live-in romance, resulting in an eventual marriage proposal from Raghu. Except this time Gayatri isn’t sure and she sprints right away. Cue Tara’s re-entry where she teaches Raghu a lesson or two in humanity and what it feels like to dump someone. They fall in love to some okay-ish music by Sachin and Jigar. Just when Raghu’s made up his mind about marrying Tara, Gayatri returns, asking him to choose her.

 By the end of the film every character has dumped and been dumped by the other at least once. What is interesting is how the film questions the idea of marriage, and actually makes it fun. Gayatri’s reluctance to commit to someone comes from her troubled past relationships, one of which left her pregnant and alone. Raghu, who works part time as a fake wedding baaraati, similarly can’t see honesty in an institution that is filled with nothing but lies. In a country so obsessed with matchmaking and weddings, what happens to characters like these?  At one point Raghu even tells Tauji (Rishi Kapoor) the wedding planner and his confidant, that he should find himself another profession; the idea of marriage is about to die.

Particularly wonderful are the women in this film. Both Gayatri and Tara are independent and whacky in the way that people in real life are. They emerge far more intelligent and sorted than our hero who starts resembling a lost puppy by the end of the film. I cheered hardest in the scene where Tara tells her uncle off for defending her ‘honour’, asserting that she was no one’s responsibility and that he should stick his nose out of her business. Gayatri’s ‘safe-side’ attitude towards life similarly reminded me of so many of my friends.

 While the first half of the film was impeccably paced and packed with some absolutely delightful dialogues written by Jaideep Sahni (who has also written the story and screenplay), the second half tends to drag on and there doesn’t seem to be any chemistry between Rajput and Kapoor. It is only the casual banter and unexpected moments of quirkiness between Raghu and Gayatri that make the film light up again much later. 

 Shuddh Desi Romance is no Band Baaja Baaraat but it definitely has it’s moments of fun and insight. Live-in relationships, marriage, and premarital sex, all are broached but never spelled out or made moral issues. True to Maneesh Sharma’s style, the characters use colloquial language which adds to the charm of the film.

 A double thumbs up for this smart, light and breezy love story that starts with, but doesn’t end with a wedding.

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Director: Prakash Jha

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Arjun Rampal

Rating: 1/5

When you are unclear about why you are making a film, the confusion tends to spill out somehow.

The idea of a modern day satyagraha against corruption sounds engrossing — particularly when

inspired by real life incidents from merely two years ago — however, when the director has nothing

new to say or offer to the narrative against dishonesty, the premise has no way of sustaining an

audience’s interest in the film.

An idealistic man Dwarka Anand aka ‘Daduji’(Amitabh Bachchan) is forced to take on the system’s

wrath once he raises his voice against corruption, following his equally moralistic son, Akhilesh’s

death under suspect circumstances. He turns into a local Mahatma Gandhi, courting arrest and

rousing a social movement against corruption. Manav (Ajay Devgn) is Akhilesh’s corrupt corporatetype buddy who in Daduji finds a father figure and decides to follow the right path. Yasmin Ahmed

(Kareena Kapoor Khan), a big shot journalist, who along with Arjun (Arjun Rampal), the youth leader,

help shape this movement, culminating in the final act of the film — perhaps the most absurd kind

of kraanti. It seemed more like an exercise in self aggrandizement than a people’s struggle. Which

self respecting activist group hangs gigantic posters of only their leaders as if it were a popularity

contest? I particularly couldn’t understand how Yasmin made it to these posters. Wasn’t she

supposed to be an objective, independent reporter?

Ostensibly an ideological film, the characters are all allegedly ‘Gandhian’, yet they seem to have

no clue as to what that means. They swing between violence and non-violence as per their

convenience, and even a gravely ailing Daduji’s rousing speech about peace fails completely to

register any change. Ajay Devgn promptly goes and lands a deafening slap on Manoj Bajpayee’s

cheek in the very next scene!

Perhaps this philosophical oscillation has much to do with Prakash Jha’s vague notion of politics,

where in film after film he raises important questions but settles for easy answers. He never seems

to want to push his questions beyond a point and routinely ends his film with a speech that seems

like a paraphrasing of a school level civics book.

Like all other Prakash Jha films Satyagraha too is basically about relationships. The answer to all

problems, for him is an appeal to the essential humanity of each person, without taking political

sides. Family and friends is what matters and it is these relationships that he affirms his faith in, not

in any idea, system or programme. With the effect that his films tend to look exactly the same (no

thanks to his obsession with casting the same actors repeatedly), where the core issue might be

different, but the final resolution will always be one based on familial affections and love.

Nearly 150 minutes long, the film is exhausting and completely predictable, utilizing every cliché

in Bollywood’s book on political dramas. The music is particularly appalling, and the never ending

background score of Janta rocks! , or Raghupati raghav raja ram are a real pain.

By the end of the film, the filmmaker seems to lose all sense of logic and rationality, turning

the small town of Ambikapur, where the film is set, into a full blown war zone with makeshift

fortifications and ammunition bearing goons. All female characters seem to disappear from the film

(I mean all- there is no woman in sight) by the last scene, where the mob must decide a corrupt

politician’s fate.

Quite troubling, the film was unsettling for the way it reduced an interesting political idea to a

hollow, superficial drama without any conviction.

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Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, Will Poulter

Rating: 2.5/5

Four loafers come together to pose as a happy family on a mission to smuggle drugs into America from Mexico and on this journey together somehow find in each other the family they never had. The premise of We’re the Millers admittedly is quite novel and exciting. The only glitch is that the joke kinda loses steam halfway through and the film never quite ups the ante. Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, the film is a mediocre comedy that has it’s moments, managing to elicit a fair amount of laughs from its audience.

David (Jason Sudeikis) is an easy going small time drug dealer who after being robbed of all his cash and stash, is forced by his supplier boss (Ed Helms) to bring back a smidge of drugs from across the border to clear his debt. He realises his best shot at not getting caught at the border is to find himself a fake family out on a harmless vacation in Mexico. For this he turns to Rose (Jennifer Aniston), the local stripper, Kenny (Will Poulter) his naive eighteen year old neighbour and Casey (Emma Roberts) a runaway with issues, and together they make their way across the border and back, pretending to be a typical American family, but failing miserably at it.

The star of the film is quite clearly Aniston, who is a delight to watch as a strong willed stripper. Ever since Friends, she’s somehow always played Rachel and one can see why she signed on to do We’re the Millers, where she gets to stray away from the goody-two-shoes, innocent, and lovable kind she’s always played.

Predictably, there are a number of gags and sexual shenanigans that are more amusing than they are hilarious. With a few baddies and drug lords in tow the adventures of this makeshift family end at a fanciful if not absurd note, leaving one slightly bewildered.

You can save yourself a trip to the movie theatre and keep this one for one of those nights when you need a meaningless comedy to fill the hours.

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Reading about the recent gang rape in Mumbai got me thinking about all those times I or my other female photojournalist friends had gone out into the field for stories, late in the evenings and sometimes even well into the night. I didn’t need to think too hard to realise that on every single occasion, the presence of a working woman out on the streets at night had never gone unnoticed. Being glared at, followed, verbally abused and teased is almost a daily experience for women who work in this field. There have been so many times I have thought twice, thrice about following as story that might need me to explore unsafe territory. And so many times I have had to be accompanied by a male colleague whose only job on the spot would be to stand guard.

As we fight for the rights of every woman in this country to feel safe and have the freedom to do whatever she wants irrespective of the time of day or the clothes she wears, let us also pause to  think about something far more specific — the working woman in cities.

Our society in different ways makes us aware that a working woman is an aberration, an exception and most importantly undesirable and unnatural. Women all through history have had to struggle to negotiate their space in the public domain. Even when the notion of women stepping out of their homes was accepted (during the freedom struggle for example), it was justified as a sacrifice for the sake of the nation and always footnoted with an insistence on balancing both the home and their work outside.

In today’s world however, whether men like it or not, whether they approve or not, there is a steady process of extending the liberties previously allowed to women. Not interested in paternalistic protection, women are reclaiming their space in the city- not simply as daughters or wives, but as single, independent, working individuals who want to be given a fair shot at achieving their dreams.

The problem here is not women’s clothes, or how they walk or talk or behave. The problem is not that they believe that it is their right to be able to take a bus at 10:00 at night. Nor is it that they dare to enter a profession such as journalism or photography or medicine. The fault here lies clearly and squarely with men who cannot understand the changing face of their towns and cities where a woman can and does negotiate with the space of the city, daily. In office spaces, metros, buses, trains, on the streets the struggle is continuous and incessant but it is one that has far more participants than ever before.

It is men like Asaram Bapu who are the problem, asking rape victims to plead mercy by calling her rapists ‘bhaiiya’. Is it shocking then that a young girl has recently accused him of physically abusing her? Only a mentality that believes that rape is normal, and that the only possible relationship between a man and a woman can be that of a lord and slave, can treat its women as nothing more than inanimate objects to be used and thrown away.

If only the tables could be turned. If only it was men who were the victims and had to walk down lonely streets at night with cars trailing behind, or taking subways with no lights on, or working in offices where their colleagues felt them up in lifts, or be denied exciting career opportunities simply because they belonged to the ‘wrong’ gender.

This is a country where for a woman who steps out of her home, getting raped is an everyday possibility. It takes courage to be a woman in India today. For, it is not normal to be carrying around a pepper spray key chain. Or to be holding on to a pocket knife in a bus, waiting to be pinched or pushed. This is what we have learnt to do. Fight back. Shout back.

Is anyone listening?

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Director: Shoojit Sircar

Cast: John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri, Siddharth Basu

Rating: 2.5

As members of the Tamil activist group Naam Tamizhar managed to block the screening of Madras Cafe in Tamil Nadu, the rest of the country still managed to catch Shoojit Sircar’s latest, starring John Abraham and Nargis Fakhri. The problem with pre-release controversies is that when someone declares a film to be offensive and politically problematic in advance, as a viewer you begin to look for every small error that might suggest the film’s moral bankruptcy. I found myself doing the same and at several points I felt that the film seemed to tread very close to becoming a thriller that demarcated its black and whites very clearly. Anna (Ajay Rathnam) is quite obviously modelled on LTTE leader Prabhakaran and is often criticised in the film for being a megalomaniac, hell bent on sacrificing human lives just to have his way. The naive nationalist zeal with which special army officer Vikram Singh (John Abraham) and senior RAW bureaucrat Robin Dutt (Siddharth Basu) approach the Sri Lankan civil war situation is most bizarre. In one scene Dutt wonders if they have a Vietnam on their hands and it becomes quite difficult to disagree with him on that. The film doesn’t quite delve into why and how Indian military forces became embroiled in the conflict in the island, and instead takes off from the year 1987 after which India’s mission was to break up the LTTE dominance in Sri Lanka and conduct peaceful elections. If it had in fact spoken about India’s desire to interfere in its neighbour’s affairs so as to project itself as superior, maybe the film would have gone on to become truly extraordinary.

Keeping things simple, Singh is packed off to Jaffna where he must negotiate with the LTTE and attempt to break it from within. What follows is a series of whirlwind episodes of conspiracy, intrigue, backstabbing and mass murder that end with the Indian forces’ eventual embarrassing retreat from Sri Lanka. The second half of the film then follows the threat to the ‘Ex-Prime Minister’s life (an obvious allusion to Rajiv Gandhi).

Abraham as a no nonsense army officer haunted by the scars of war is effective, registering his best performance till date. The best thing about the film is perhaps Kamaljeet Negi’s cinematography, capturing some terribly poignant and moving images of a people displaced.

Though one must commend Sircar’s intelligent use of the Sri Lankan civil war situation to weave an engaging and at points thoroughly engrossing story, one is left slightly discontented with the shifty and almost apologetic stand it takes on the political questions the film itself raises. It seems the filmmaker was careful not to piss off either the Congress or the Sri Lankan governments and in effect couldn’t make up his mind about who the real terrorists were. Overall, a well made thriller that had the potential to be much, much more.

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On one of my usual page hopping excursions on Youtube, I somehow landed up on Usha Uthup’s rendition of Fever, the song made popular by the great Peggy Lee. Honestly, I was quite amazed by what I had just discovered- Usha Uthup singing jazz! A few links later, I began listening to songs by an artist whom I knew nothing about until then- Asha Puthli. A track among many in a playlist of songs from the incredible jazz age in Bombay in the sixties and seventies, Puthli’s Space Talk easily stood out as an incredibly original voice.  

Immediately struck by the incredible range and unusual voice texture, through Puthli the entire history of the jazz age in India and abroad began to unfold before me. Born and raised in Bombay, Puthli trained in both Indian classical and Western Opera styles but began to take a far keener interest in Western popular music, which was essentially jazz and the blues. On the radio, and at the bars in Bombay jazz was what defined the age musically. In an lovely article in Upper Crust, Stanley Pinto, a nightclub pianist describes Bombay in the sixties when countless restaurants, bars, cafes and hotels opened their doors up to jazz musicians from all over the world.

 “The Dorothy Jones Quartet played at Berry’s on Churchgate Street. Across Berry’s was the original Gaylord restaurant. The band there was led by Ken Cumine, India’s only jazz violinist. The Other Room at the Ambassador hotel was India’s most reputed jazz agglomeration and The Tony Pinto Quartet, was in residence there. Just across from the Eros cinema, was the Astoria hotel with its famous Venice restaurant. Famous because this was the jazz musicians’ jazz hideout. Across the road at the Ritz hotel was The Little Hut. Neville Thomas, one of the most dashing men around town, led a group called Three Guys and a Doll. From that spot, it was a brisk walk past Flora Fountain, where, plumb opposite Akbarally’s, were Bistro and Volga, the two most popular haunts of the younger set. Seby Dias held court at Bistro.  At Volga next door Hecke Kingdom’s Quartet held sway,” he writes.

Having grown up in a Bombay seeped in the jazz music tradition, and listening to artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, as well as soul singer Dusty Springfield on the radio particularly Voice of America broadcasts, Puthli became interested in the kind of music being made in the West. She began singing at local gatherings and nightclubs where she experimented with jazz and soul, fusing Indian and Western styles. One such performance at a nightclub apparently impressed writer and columnist for The New Yorker- Ved Mehta so much that he included an article on a younger singer hell bent on making it as a jazz singer in the West, in his book Portrait of India.   

“Asha started in the mid sixties in India. Her first release was singing for The Savages. The song was called Pain and Puthli sings scat which is wordless vocals on the track. Her second release was with a Singapore based band called The Surfers. They covered songs such as Angel Of The Morning, Sounds Of Silence, Sunny and Fever,” said Joseph Clement Pereira, who runs the hugely popular Facebook page called India Sixties and Beyond Music.  

Eventually Puthli used a dance scholarship with Martha Graham as an opportunity to move to the US and finally sing some ‘real jazz’. Interestingly, it was Columbia records records producer John Hammond who had previously charted the success of artists like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Billie Holiday, offered her a chance to sing with jazz wizard Ornette Coleman on his album Science Fiction.

Historian Robert Palmer couldn’t help but rave about Asha’s voice on that album so,  “A sound like Raga meeting Aretha Franklin, Miss Puthli’s singing is equally extraordinary. There is just enough Indian training left in her style to give it an indescribable fluid quality. Her alternation of timbre from the breathiest of sighs to gospel derived moans is unique. She improvises off an impressive range and generally walks through the album with the assurance of a master performer.”

For her songs on the album Puthli also won the award for best female jazz vocalist in Downbeat Magazine’s annual jazz critics’ poll. In this phase of her career, Puthli also acted in films such as Merchant Ivory’s Savages where she appeared fully naked. Having exhausted the scope offered by the avant garde jazz scene in the US, Puthli then made her way to Europe where she found the kind of popularity and adoration she deserved. “She could not break into the mainstream in the US because of this prejudice against Asian singers particularly of Indian origin. She did however become big in Europe where she had hits in several countries. She recorded in Munich and was said to have had a great deal to do with fashioning a new style of singing soul, much like Donna Summer would a few years later,” said Pereira.

Over the years she recorded several solo albums such as Asha Puthli (1973), The Devil is Loose (1976), 1001 Nights of Love (1980), Only the Headaches Remain (1982) etc where she experimented with genres such as psychedelic rock, soul, jazz, pop and disco. The Devil is Loose was perhaps her most popular and successful album gathering a wide spectrum of critical acclaim. Thom Jurek of AllMusic writes about the album, “a masterpiece of snakey, spaced-out soul and pre-mainstream disco” which definitely went a long way in establishing Puthli as a pioneer when it came to experimenting with genres and creating new sounds.

Asha Puthli’s songs continue to be fascinating and inspiring for the way she was able to add her own sensual, whispery, ad-libbing innovative style to various kinds of music. Case in point, her cover of the Beatles classic, I Dig Love where she completely alters the feel and expression of the song with her naughty vocals. “The way the Beatles saw it was as a spiritual song. They did it like a bhajan. In 1973, when I did it, I felt I was already Indian, and the spirituality was inside me. I was trying to become Western, so I brought out the material aspect, the sexual aspect,” she told Jon Pareles in an interview for the The New York Times.  

Her song Space Talk has been sampled by several contemporary artists like P.Diddy, The Notorious B.I.G., Dilated Peoples, Governor featuring 50 Cent, and Redman. Asha Puthli’s last album Lost was released in 2008.

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The ending of Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobara! leaves one with a dreadful feeling that the filmmaker is not quite done with this franchise, letting the threat of a part three dangle over a thoroughly exhausted audiences’ heads. While the first film was quite tolerable, with some interesting moments taking us back to a time when movies were dialogue driven, the sequel is downright annoying.

Writer- director duo Rajat Aroraa and Milan Luthra had packed the first film with a lot of punch, contextualising the story of Mumbai’s gangsters by tracing the rise and fall of an ethical don Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn) and his eventual replacement by Shoaib Khan (Emraan Hashmi). The film alluded to the story of real-life gangsters- Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim which definitely added to the appeal of the film. The sequel however, takes all the substance out of the film and leaves us with rather hollow characters engaging in a non-stop dialogue-baazi session. While yesteryears films revelled in such witty exchange of lines, OUATIMD falls flat on its face. The dialogues and film are neither taali-maar nor ‘paisa- vasool.

Nearly three hours long, the film’s first half shows promise but can never quite find its rhythm. Akshay Kumar as Shoaib Khan is dull, delivering his dialogues in a guttural monotone. Donning huge sunglasses and smoking continuously, his character claims to be far more menacing than he actually turns out to be. Imran Khan as Aslam is a total misfit, visibly uncomfortable playing a small time mawwaali. He should probably stick to playing English speaking, urban, yuppy boys. Sonakshi Sinha as Jasmine, the object of both our heroes’ attention, is decent, but there isn’t much to her character anyway. Even in a done to death storyline about a love triangle and friendship, our heroine has so little to do that the film looks more like a bromance.

OUATIMD makes references to films like Amar Akbar Anthony and its characters seemingly occupy the same universe as Manmohan Desai’s unforgettable street smart heroes. Unfortunately the film only pays lip service to the masala genre that Desai pioneered, failing completely to capture the heart and soul of the streets of Mumbai as well as the absolute terror that gangsters inspire.  Hopefully, Luthra will spare us the horror of sitting through another sequel.

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