Black Friday

S. Hussain Zaidi published his book Black Friday in year Oct 2002. Anurag Kashyap made a movie based on the very book but could not release it till Feb 2007. Bombay HC had court stayed the release of the film, until the judgement in the 1993 bomb blasts case was delivered by the TADA court.
Court thought that Cinema as a medium has greater reach than print media. Certainly true enough. We eat, drink and live movies. No qualms about it whatsoever.

Black Friday gives us a chilling inside of the events before and after the greatest terrorist attack on India in recent times. A series of blasts that rocked the whole nation and world. It is a narrative of how a fanatic abused the system and burnt the financial capital of India. "Mein akkha mahim jala dalega," shouts Tiger when he sees his charred office post Babri Masjid riots. The desperation to take revenge finally translated in the worst of jehadi mission of all time.

The events and characters are all real, at least that's what the writer of the book says after 4 years of meticulous research. Director Anurag Kashyap just needed to relive them for the cinema screen. Unarguably he has done it brilliantly. A relatively unknown star cast helped in keeping the characters grandeur than the actor performing them.

In such cinema, where the element of surprise is minimal, creating moments which can keep viewers' attention is really difficult. Cinema as a medium is all about saying what you say, in ways that others can understand. Success can not come when the director tries to speak in his own language without concerning about the viewers. Anurag is just too perfect in this art.
Close camera angels, varied colors, and variation of speed - techniques that make this movie a memorable visual experience. It is a delight for the eyes to see those torture room scenes in Red tints, or blasts in slow motion.

You can not escape showing blood if you talking about a blast. And trust me, he has shown plenty. No hesitation whatsoever in showing gory pictures. Grey is the color which can capture this mood the best. And he has used a lot of it.

Movie is really fast paced. Indian Ocean's ever rocking background score gives it all the more effect.Sounds make you feel the tension in the scene. There is this scene where just after a blast, one person is trying to call for help. In movie, they have shown it silent. The effect it has the viewers is just unimaginable. His pain could not have expressed in any cry of known pitch.

And yes, though he has not tried to hide any detail, he has used a lot of symbolic language. The scene when Badshah Khan and others reach Tiger's friend in Tonk is one such example. Dog trying to chase the ball thrown by his master is getting fooled speaks a lot about thoughts going through Badshah's mind at that time. camera zooms on Badshah for a moment and it all looks so nicely written there on his face. Brilliant.

KK Menon as ACP Maria has done a great justice. His dilemmas and frustrations are visible in those eyes. He is on a mission where he knows odds of getting wrong are enormously high. The responsibilities of getting justice for the victims is a pressure that could break any human. He tells it aptly to the media person's on question of Human Right violations by Mumbai Police, "300 se jyada log mare the, unke human rights ka kya. ham log jin logon se lad rahe hai vo criminal hai, aur jyada khatarnak hai kyunki unpar jehad ka bhoot chadha hua hai. Das me se ek do baar galti hamse bhi ho hi jaati hai, aur nirdosh log pakad me aa jate hai, par koi bhi itna perfect nahi hai." I just love him.

Very well made Anurag. Indeed.

inside outside

my two cents

Best of Indian advertising agencies in recent time.
Enjoy.
Airtel: http://www.webchutney.net/extras/airtel/chaalischor/
Nike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib3WSzJyqVQ

my own Mt. Everest

Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you donʼt make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

This metaphorical Mount Everest doesnʼt have to manifest itself as “Art.” For some people,
yes, it might be a novel or a painting. But Art is just one path up the mountain, one of many.
With others, the path may be something more prosaic. Making a million dollars, raising a
family, owning the most Burger King franchises in the Tri-State area, building some crazy
over-sized model airplane, the list has no end.

Whatever. Letʼs talk about you now. Your mountain. Your private Mount Everest. Yes, that one.
Exactly.
Letʼs say you never climb it. Do you have a problem with that? Can you just say to yourself,
“Never mind, I never really wanted it anyway,” and take up stamp-collecting instead?
Well, you could try. But I wouldnʼt believe you. I think itʼs not okay for you never to try to
climb it. And I think you agree with me. Otherwise, you wouldnʼt have read this far

So it looks like youʼre going to have to climb the frickinʼ mountain. Deal with it.
My advice? You donʼt need my advice. You really donʼt. The biggest piece of advice I could
give anyone would be this:
“Admit that your own private Mount Everest exists. That is half the battle.”

And youʼve already done that. You really have. Otherwise, again, you wouldnʼt have read this far. Rock on.

ps: Taken from How To Be Creative by Hugh Macleod. I started reading it today itself and trust me I am bowled over by it. Thanks a ton to Goli and Alistair for pointing out about this article. Do visit http://gapingvoid.com to know more about Hugh.

search

the search continues...

ps: Sometime I hate these one liners. But I really cannot help it right now. Too busy with work and stuff. Stuff bole to personal life. Work bole to trainings in company. Can you believe that I am on a five day training that costs more than my salary for one month!!!
do paise ki baat: Training corporates is a really big business, dude.

five point someone

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Tell me about two of your greatest strengths.
3. Tell me about two of your greatest weaknesses and how do you plan to overcome them.
4. Tell me what is so unique about you that no one else has.
5. What are your expectations from us.

- A cofused soul's guide to self realization.

yeh hosla

Yeh Hosla Kaise Juke,
Yeh Aarzoo Kaise Ruke...

Manzil Mushkil to kya,
Dhoondla Sahil to kya,
Tanha Ye Dil to Kya
Ho Hooo

Raah Pe Kante Bikhre agar,
Uspe to phir bhi chalna hi hai,
Saam Chhupale Suraj magar,
Raat ko ek din Dhalana hi hai,

Rut ye tal jayegi,
Himmat rang layegi,
Subha phir aayegi
Hoooo

Yeh Hosla Kaise Juke,
Yeh Aarzoo Kaise Ruke...

Hogi hame to rehmat ada,
Dhup kategi saaye tale,
Apni khuda se hai ye Dua,
Manzil lagale humko gale

Zurrat so baar rahe,
Uncha Ikraar rahe,
Zinda har pyar rahe
Hoooo

Yeh Hosla Kaise Juke,
Yeh Aarzoo Kaise Ruke...

- From movie Dor, song "Yeh Hosla"

aham brahmasmi

Being larger than life is an addiction. It can result in loss of your identity.

a thousand words

challenge yourself

I asked her
what should I do
To get back into groove,
To be myself again,
And to redeem myself
From this self-pity and guilt?

"Challenge yourself.
Award or Punishment.
Any of these has to work."

khana khazana

Continueing from Khate jao khate jao...

I found it strange that nobody asked me why I had been to a dietitian at first place. Arre the people who have seen me know what I mean. Okay for others, I am so lean mean and thin that many a times I need to visit children's section in those shopping malls for a perfect size.
Then why? Why, why, why?
So here is the daswa sawal for 50Lac.

Q10: Why did PritS visit dietitian last week?
and here are your option-
A. On the intranet they published photo of the dietitian which was supposed to visit the company campus.
B. The visit was arranged by company. No fees. And PritS can go anywhere if it is free.
C. The cute little paunch that PritS has been sporting off late is now fattening faster than inflation rate.
D. PritS's company had forced him to meet the dietitian in the hope that there he might find his girl and leave his single status. Employee facilities and CTC part you see.

Think think...
Weigh all the options...
No helplines here, though. I am not as generous as SRK you know.
Okay...
I know you finding it tough to answer...

Chalo let me give the answer.
[everyone silent, all eyes at the computerji]

And the answer is E. It was part of free quarterly checkup drive for all the employees.
Oh did I not give you E option?
Hehe.. How can I do that. KBC always had only four options. They don't give more even if Mr Tag Heuer SRK conducts the show.

Anyways, coming back to topic now.
So this cute dietitian (hello don't be scandalize, what if she already married to someone. I am just commenting about her cuteness) told me that I need to cut on my fat intake and sugar consumptions. I had high cholestrol, she told me. I was staring at her with my jaws open. She must be kidding. SRK has really corrupted all minds with those sick jokes. I asked her to repeat if she really meant what she was saying and if that meant I was needed to stop eating fatty food n all. She reiterated with a big YES.
A heart broken. I said yes, in the lowest of my pitch. In my heart, I felt like laughing. My mom would be surely shocked when she hears that.
Next time when I go home, I wont need to eat those chapatis with ghee (I never liked them you know, but was always forced to eat them). Rest I cann't help yaar.
Ham jeene ki liye nahi khate hai balki khane ke liye jeete hain.

So how did I celebrated this great day of those amazing revelations. I ate three extra cheese slices with my aloo parathas in the dinner. yummmmmmmmm they were. :)

kahte jao khate jao...

"I am married to a marwadi jain family and I know how much ghee and sweets they eat," said the dietitian. I dint know if it was a compliment or insult. I give her a smug look with a grin on my face. She understood that this guy is hopeless.

Having been born and brought up in Nimar/Malwa (region around Indore) and spent most of my life there, food comes as a natural obsession for me. Aakhir hamara janam hi khane ke liye hua hai. Childhood was full fun coz of the variety of home made food we used to eat. Each festive season, the whole family would gather at one place and then there would be a lavish treat for everyone. Everything home made, and being Jain it also meant No aloo (potato), pyaj(onion) etc. So a variety of green vegetables, mixed and matched in all types of permutations and combinations, fried with pure ghee (that too homemade) served hot with different kinds of bread (roties and parathas). No three course meals, everything and anything at one time. There would be at least 4 cups in the plate and one with sweet outside the plate. yummm...I miss those days a lot.

One more really special fact about that time was that we never went out to have food. Only occasionally we would see face of a hotel. Anything you ask for, it will be prepared in the home. No spending extra money on unhygienic food. I still remember how we used to pataofy our parents for a meal out. We never cherish good things in our hand you know. Now when I live away from my home, I miss those homely treats a lot.

We Jain's have a uncanny taste for trying out new things. Let me give you an example that would bowl you out. During the summer season, mango can be found in every house. Green mango is used to make achar (pickle). The ripe one is used in a way that nobody can ever think of. Take a look here.
First thing you can make from Mango is Mango juice. A inevitable part of lunch during summer at our house. So you use mango pulp for making this juice. But what about the chilka(skin) and guthli(the seed). Do we throw them away? No way... Clean and wash them and then dry. Now we make sabji of them. Trust me I never liked those Sabjis when I was there, but now when I eat them, I just feel proud of my mom and my food culture. I know you still cant digest this fact. This summer my mom is planning to come to Bangalore, I would invite you for such a treat then.

Whenever I go home now, my mom would be all prepared for the same treat. All the pickles (mango, lemon, dates, red chilly, green chilly, mix, amla) would be in place, properly decorated near the dining table. Papad (moong, chana, joovar, chaval, kela) always handy for that extra pinch of taste along with the ravishing meals. Day starts with a hot cup of tea (she could never make me drink milk at home, while I drink one full glass here in Bangalore), served with some home made biscuits and sweet/namkeen. There would be atleast 5-6 types of namkeens available on any given day. Lunch and an early dinner (Jains don't eat after sunset you know) are always completed with sweets and namkeens. I forgot to mention evening snacks and the late night nashta. Eat eat and eat.

continue...

Bookless in Baghdad

I have not read Bookless in Baghdad by Shashi Tharoor. But I chose this title coz it aptly relates to the phase I have been through.

How would it feel if you are left in the middle of nowhere and no one to give you company? "Alone, Not Lonely," taking the cue from Reema's blog.
You tend to forget that there is one person always giving you company and that one person will always be with you, no matter how good or bad time is. That one person is none other that you. If you believe in God, you can call it God. If you don't, you call it your self. We come to know about it's existence only when we are all alone. Then only it's voice can be heard. Otherwise we just ignore its existence altogether.

I faced a similar situation recently. I went to a very beautiful place and my camera was not working. How did I feel?

I felt cheated and lost. Sense of failure overshadowed my feelings. I felt so sad that my camera was not there to capture the beauty that I forgot that I had my eyes and other senses to do precisely the same. One sense ruled all the others, logic was butchered. It took me sometime to realise this fact that it was I who was not more bothered about the camera and surely I can do without it. I, then, tried to enjoy the beauty and guess what, the place was more beautiful than it looked at the first sight.

This happens to all of us sometime or the other. In the heat of the moment we tend to ignore the importance of what we already have and wish for something which is not with us. Ghar ki murgi dal barabar hoti hai. Art of happiness teaches you one very basic concept of feeling contended with what you have. I wish I can master this soon.

V Day bug

Love is in air...
Still, what I catch is this bloody flu!!!

Patterns

"There is only one sure shot rule about life and that is there no rule."
This is one saying that I would surely refute. At least that is what I have learnt from whatever experience I gained in life in 22 odd years.

There is pattern to everything. Anything and everything can be parsed to a complex (or sometimes simple) mathematical or logical equation. There are effects and ends. Which can be put in two side of a equation. Mathematics really holds the key sometimes. After reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, I became more sure about this.

Square, round, triangular or linear - our life just revolves around patterns. Dimensions define the limits and we just a slave of them. Every relation is just a complex equation involving needs, expectations and desires. Feeling and emotions just try to make a wrapper around these hidden things.

Tolstoy told once "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I partly agree to him. Even each unhappy family can be unhappy in a predefined way.
Its all the same in the end. Sometimes it just a two-faced coin while at others a multi-face solid. How we understand things just depends on how we see it.
When I fell in love, everyone around me looked in a similar phase with almost same kind of story. So many of them. Love was in air.
When I broke up with my love, I found so many like me. All sharing similar pains. Reasons and results not differing from each other. Tears in eyes everywhere. I don't see anything special anywhere. Just that we are unaware of things. Our ignorance is the hindrance in finding these patterns of relations.

They say, "Sawan ke andhe ko sab kuch hara hi dikhta hai" I say this is ignorance.