Development Comes at a Price

Having been in the IT channel space for a while now, I fancied writing for channel partners was fun. Most of their vendors, if I may repeat the jargon they often used, wanted to 'explore' the B and C cities in the country, and 'penetrate' the markets there:). Most of my stories and that of my colleagues would be full of these aspirational 'X opens India office and forays into top ten cities and eyes 50 more' write-ups. I wrote on, mindless of what a B class city may be looking like. Little did I know the vendors may have had a point in eyeing their favourite 'A and B class cities' till I actually went there to the A and B class cities myself and took a good look. My visits to places such as Mysore, Mangalore, Cochin, Thiruvanthapuram and Vishakapatnam have been eye-openers in more ways than one. For starters, the infrastructure in these cities - be it roads and traffic regulation are infinitely better than in some of the bigger cities.. sorry, population in the metros cannot be an excuse for badly laid roads, potholes, open drains and the like. Then, they have virtually everything that the citizens can enjoy in terms of lifestyle- malls, coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, and zillions of others. The availability of transport is not an issue either. Other essential services are on par with the so-called metros - the power cuts in the bigger cities would amount to the same! :). Postal and courier services, banks, schools, colleges, provision stores, medical stores... so what does a consumer lack? Practically nothing, besides he has the luxury of a lesser polluted environment, well, atleast for the moment... till the IT and the real estate sharks decide to milk their spaces dry. My point is development is welcome.. its good to see villages turning to towns, towns becoming town-cities (Mandya in recent times is a beautiful example), and the cities becoming bigger with all the state of art facilities in place. But, many a time all this comes at a very heavy price... peace and tranquility of the place are the first casualties and of course, poor greenery does not stand a chance. Why are these places taxed beyond their capacity to withstand? I can very well see that the 'penetration' and 'forays' of the IT and lifestyle corporations are likely to make these hitherto peaceful cities burst at their seams five years down the line. Little surprise, havent you already received an SMS from your service provider about some plot available some 50 kms from Bangalore enroute to Mysore? Well, this is what I am talking about...development at a price.

Anubhav: The Marital Reality Show

Another excellent comment on Basu Bhattacharya's 1971 classic, Anubhav. Till I saw this movie, I never knew Tanuja to be such a spontaneous, vivacious artiste. A typical case of talent never getting its due. And no suprise, that daughter Kajol made up for the mother s lack of it later in the 1990s... Well, Kajol inherited her grandmother Shobana Samarth's boldness, her mother s spontaneity and her equally famous Aunt, Nutan s intensity, and the result was the iconic stature she gained and she rose to, as a consistent third gen heir to the acting legacy of the Samarth-Mukherjee family. Read this review written by a discerning cine buff. Dont miss the shared video of the Geeta Dutt haunting melody 'Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho'alongwith this. For those who have not seen Anubhav, this will give you an idea about what I am saying...
ANUBHAV (1971) MOVIE Review, ANUBHAV (1971) MOVIE Actress, ANUBHAV (1971) MOVIE Actor, ANUBHAV (1971) MOVIE Hindi Film, Marital Reality Show!!! - MouthShut.com

Ghar: Intense, Sensitive, Heartwarming

A review of the 1978 Rekha -Vinod Mehra classic that I chanced upon in Mouthshut.com..as it goes, Kisi ne mere mooh ki baat chheen li:) Just what I wanted to say and write about one of the most intense movies I have ever watched - sensitive and relevant even today. GHAR MOVIE Review, GHAR MOVIE Actress, GHAR MOVIE Actor, GHAR MOVIE Hindi Film, Ghar - an amazing film! - MouthShut.com

Ode to the Lost Collective Consciousness

Catching up on old DD serials through the Internet has turned out to be a trip filled with heavy doses of nostalgia. I was in for a pleasant suprise. There are many people who still fondly recollect these serials and pay rich tributes. So am not alone in my reminiscenses, after all. And You Tube helps to bring some of the episodes back to us, thanks to dedicated sharing and uploading done by diehard fans. Humlog, Yeh Jo Hain Zindagi, Khandaan, Buniyaad, Isi Bahane, Udaan, Idhar Udhar, Paying Guest, Dekho Magar Pyaar Se, Kacchi Dhoop, Mashoor Mahal, Wah Janab, Ramayan, Mahabharat, Bharat Ek Khoj, Naqab, Nukkad, Ados Pados, Intezar, Manoranjan, Circus, Gul Gulshan Gulfam, Mirza Ghalib, Manzil Apni Apni, Fauji, Sanjha Chulha, Guldasta, Kshitij Yeh Nahin, Farmaan, Talaash, Phir Wohi Talaash, Karamchand, Malgudi Days, Kab Tak Pukaroon, Tamas, Mriganayani, Ek Kahani, Katha Sagar, Qile Ka Rahasya, Daane Anaar Ke, Mungeri Lal ke Haseen Sapne, Muzrim Hazir, Tehkikaat, Byomkesh Bakshi...and not to forget, dear old Chitrahaar and Rangoli..the list of memorable serials is endless. Have we ever wondered why? Well, quite simple. For one, it was early days of TV viewers for the bulk of us across the country and we lapped up everything that was given to us. Two, what was given was short and sweet and had the middle class audience at its core. No story prolonged with endless twists and turns, and stuck tautly to the original plot. Three, we watched an episode once a week. Four, we were bound by a collective consciousness, that is sorely missing today, and that s what separates the viewers of the DD golden age from those of today. The magic of waiting and watching something within a family, then many families put together make for what is known as the Collective Consciousness. I still vividly recall the days at school when we used to discuss with relish, the TV programs watched the previous evening - we all watched the same thing and so it was fun, because we were driven by the same feeling towards a serial, song, newsreader, announcer, anchor and well, even the the famous DD national integration themes. Remember the unforgettable Mile Sur Mera Tumhara? The latest Phir Mile is not a patch on the original one.

Now, in 2010, no two people within a circle are likely to be watching the same thing. Call up a friend or even your mom and the former would be catching up on a reality show from the zillions of them and your mom would most likely be watching a soap from the enths of them on a regional channel. While these are happy times in terms of choice and variety, I wonder if we are really watching or merely seeing a myriad images in front of us out of force of habit... and with attention spans almost in competition with those of infants, the situation doesnt get any better.

I am trying to do something about this at a personal level. I studiously avoid watching soaps and reality shows. Two, I catch up a bit on the news and withdraw once 24 hour news bombardment starts getting suffocating :) Three, I am trying to get episodes of some of my old faves and watching them. Currently, onto Byomkesh Bakshi and Kacchi Dhoop. Rajat Kapur' s fine act of the Bhadralok Sherlock Holmes is heartwarming and makes good viewing even today. Kacchi Dhoop, an adaptation of Little Women stays in my mind not only for its innocence but also because this serial happened to launch Bhagyashree of Maine Pyar Kiya fame. Well, the whole world talks of the SRK making it big from television, but few would remember poor Bhagyashree s similar rise to fame from television. Well, she did not sustain the glory while the Khan still shines, we dont talk of has-beens, do we?


And, one serial that really stayed with me was Kshitij Yeh Nahin. Adapted from Sachi Jamadar's Doosra Lagna, this was a unique love story between a widow and a man whose love she refuses to acknowledge till the very end. Supriya Pilgaonkar as Nisha Pradhan and Tushaar Dalvi as Shekar, came up with fine performances and Rajat Kapur, once again, as Akshay, Nisha s dead and gone husband completed the cameo angle. Veteran Vikram Gokhale as Nisha s doting father-in-law added to the acting cast. One story that I would really want to revisit and see all over again and lose myself in a different world. As for my fave title track, I think Shyam Benegal's Bharat Ek Khoj would win hands down.. there is something haunting in the vedic chants that reverberate in the opening notes.
Meanwhile, I am enjoying the bliss of good old DD and hope others are also digging out stuff too and rejoicing, like I am. Join the gang!

It is Still a Man s World

I am no feminist, but let s face it- Women have to always make peace with life and the world. When I was growing up, I would often hear my mom s laments, and the one that stayed with me, "It s a man s world". She had her reasons.. well, she was in charge of everything in the family, right from the proverbial 'pin to plane', and besides she had a full time job and two children and two pets to manage. Dad, with due respect to him, did not so much as even lift a pen or a pin to help around the house- this despite having the luxury of time. And, that did not stop him from assuming the role of the decision maker. So, in effect, Mom never enjoyed any autonomy, and was relegated to being an executive, crudely put. Her story may not have been too different from that of women in any other middle class household of her time. Did these women have a choice, but to make peace so as not to upset the apple cart? Well, I realize now that poor Mom had a point in lamenting and will continue to do so.

Vintage bollywood of the 1920s right upto the '40s had some very unconventional leading ladies - be it Devika Rani, Shobhana Samarth, Kanan Devi and Durga Khote, amongst others. These women had to strive hard to break myths within and outside the industry about their profession, and as women who subsisted and subsisted well, thank you:)But did the gossip mills and the men around really spare them? They were given labels that would make a slum dweller blush.And all because they periodically challeged the mores laid down by society and never conformed. Enough reason for the men to get worked up, aint it?

While going through Lata-in her own voice, the book version of transcriptions of conversations of India s nightingale with Nasreen Munni Kabir, we get to understand how Lata Mangeshkar stands tall in a male dominated industry. Her struggle to success is inspirational for many talented young women. Although typical of her generation, Lata is diplomacy personified, reading through the pages, one also does not fail to draw inferences that she had to contend with difficult men and their egos all the time. Men, who perhaps nurtured her and expected her to toe the line and not dare to cross the 'lakshman rekha'. Lata, to her credit, has always cocked a snook at such men and moved on, fully aware that her matchless voice would drive the very same men to her doors. The highlight of the lady s life is the fact that she never married, though the media even those days linked her to some luminaries. Does it take too much for anyone to guess why Lata never settled down to a life of matrimony and motherhood? I dont fancy any man of her time- with the honourable exception of the late M.S Subbulakshmi s husband, Sadasivam -having the nerve to nurture and let a talented wife go ahead and chase her career and success. Lata had to pay for her success, a fact she does not regret much, but yes, a fact she acknowledges candidly to biographer Nasreen Kabir.

Has the scenario changed for the better in this day and age? I am afraid not. The celluloid world across the globe is replete with instances of famous talented actresses taking a break after marriage and motherhood. The story is the same for the average woman on the street. Well, no one asks the father to take breaks.. after all, its the woman who bears the child and is therfore the de facto nurturer and 'life-giver'. Paternity leave notwithstanding, I would still not see a man putting his life and career on hold for a few years in order to 'just be around' with his baby or to just in order to allow his wife to re-pursue a career. A woman is expected to willingly give it all up, if her husband relocates, or if he feels family should be priority for her, and she should never so much as question any of his actions or 'come in the way of his dreams', while hers are being right royally trampled upon, otherwise she is branded demanding, nagging, selfish, individualistic and career chasing. Men would be lambasting those 'types' during their weekend drinking sessions, and would be thanking their stars for not having such harridans as wives:). Well, its not entirely a man s fault. Since, times immemorial, irrespective of culture or subtext, we have raised the men to a pedestral giving them glorious titles, "oh, the breadwinner, ah the saviour"; we have boosted and massaged their egos with great care. A step further, we have even allowed ourselves to be called, "a sex full of guiles and charms, difficult to please, woman the mystery", amongst many others. All this was done, again at the behest of a man, someone who guided us into believing he was the be-all and end-all of our miniscule existence. So, how would he be expected to change tracks and accept the changing equations?


A recent article in a mainstream daily supplement reiterated the point. Women today, especially in urban India, find themselves in a catch 22 situation. On one hand, they are better off than their mothers and grandmothers with access to education, plum jobs and loads of financial independence. On the other hand, there are no free meals ever. The whole package comes at a price, my dear ladies, and a thankless one at that. You now have to be super educated, smart, successful and super sexy as well. After all, who is ever going to look at you if you are not worth it?:) Besides darlings, dont forget to put the meals (healthy ones, mind you) on time on the dining table for your poor famished man and kiddos. Manage the family, the house, the extended family, go to the gym, attend to chores with clockwork precision, besides not to forget, be on your social best when people come home or when you go to parties alongwith with hubby dearest... and its your life, you should know how to find a purpose, handle back biting colleagues and competition, handle road rage and negotiate things with equanimity. "Asli Duniya mein aayi ho toh uska saamna karne ki himmat bhi rakho." Get it? And dearie, please mind your language, no profanities and agression, tumhen yeh sab shobha nahin deti!". The writing on the wall is crystal clear: comply or fly, shape up or ship out; the choice is yours. :). Women today are dealing with men who are not outright MCPs like the men of their father's generation. They come across as a wee bit more approachable, but this new breed of men have a way of making women squirm with their martyr-like silences, coldness and cover-ups, and leave them with little choice but to compromise, if not, well, the door s wide open..:)

And for all those naive women who think they have stormed male bastions in different fields, let me tell them that their other sisters are still ready to commodify themselves as objects to cater to the male fantasy. And all this happens happens daily everywhere in the name of 'modernity, glamour, sensuality and asthetics'. Worldover, women sell themselves silly and cheap for a few extra bucks - as pop divas, as cheerleaders, as anchors and even porn stars; they are just everywhere, catering to the burgeoning demand of the male mind and hormones. Now, whose fault is it? The men? Dont be silly. Its symbiotic. Men will be men and will watch when a woman is ready to show and flaunt right?:) Whether it is the mainstream Hollywood or pop wave of the west from the 60s to the current day glam revolution of today s India, it s all the same. Women may or may not have realized this. But, they have and will always remain puppets in the hands of their men. Poor things, we remain in the beautiful illusion that we are 'liberated'. In an article from a film tabloid that I happened to chance upon, a legendary actor was openly disppointed with his biographer wife s interpretation of his love affairs. While I intially sympathized with the ageing actor, I sat down to think how angry the lady must have been in order to go ahead and wash dirty linen in public. The man, by his own admission, came across as a self indulgent selfish man who never did justice to any of the women in his life. So, am wondering what the 'disillusionment' was all about?:)

The recent Supreme Court ruling on live-in relationships and premarital sex was seen as a watershed in fundamental rights, and women may feel this could be a big step towards personal freedom. Wait before you rejoice. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, let me tell you that mere beer swigging, free love and hedonism do not make a free woman, free in every sense of the word. Somehow, it brings back the intensity of a woman's bondage all the more. Arent we still going to be playing to the male gallery? In the years to come, like it happened in the West from the 60s onwards, we will also see a generation of girls, single mothers, conveniently abandoned by their men for greener pastures, burdened witn the responsibility of bringing up their kids, a la Vidya Balan s role in Paa..? And for those ladies all set to embark on the extra marital terrain, you could nt be further from your eternal quest for love and security, coz my dears, each man and relationship come with their own Emotional Atyaachaar! You re better off with the first or all by yourself:).

Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati..Ironically, the Indian woman deals with different travails in different landscapes, be it rural or urban, so much for being venerated as the 'Devis'. I would love to share Suhasini Maniratnam s optimism in a recent interview where she believes that women's complete liberation is just a couple of generations away. And we eagerly await the 33 percent reservation for women in Parliament and Government bodies. But cynical me would not so easily buy the optimistic gush. Meanwhile, ladies, we have to deal with insult to injury, while womenfolk are doled out a Women s Day. However since today is Mother s Day (Thank God for small mercies:)), I salute my mother and all the women across the world who are braving it out amidst declining sex ratios, without giving up ever. Well, is the Almighty listening? I have my grave doubts, coz, doesnt the Supreme Force happen to be a male too?:)

Watch These If You Can

A good book and a great movie never fail to make a deadly combination for me. Over the last month, I happened to catch up on a couple of movies which made me think long after i finished watching them.. and that, I believe, is the hallmark of good cinema. The Memoirs of a Geisha, the first in the series of movies, I approached with some skepticism since I had been warned by friends a couple of years ago - " Not as good as the book, the big screen has failed to bring life to the author s imagination adequately." But as the movie unfolded on my TV screen, I had every reason to differ from the opinion given to me. Adeptly reproduced on celluloid, the progatonist geisha, Sayoli s life and angst in pre-war Japan was brought out very well. Besides, enough attention was paid to milieu, casting and the canvas, though international, was still very local.
Hmmmm.... who can one equate a geisha with...? I guess, our devadasis and the mujra dancers, would be an apt comparison. Early societies respected these women of high accomplishment, but in later centuries, the status of these women degenerated to that of mistresses of wealthy patrons and that of women of easy virtue.A geisha too invariably had to choose a rich 'danna' or patron master to see her through her years in the profession. In what was and what is still a man s world, a woman, whoever she may be, has very few choices to make on her own.

The next day, I decided upon watching Karthik Calling Karthik or KCK, which is our very own HiFi offering with the talented Farhan Akhtar attempting a subtle psycho thriller. Since the time Farhan has discovered his love for being in front of the camera, he s given us Rock On, Luck By Chance and KCK. What sets KCK apart is a never-before attempted exploration of schizophrenia, and a small likeness to European cinema of the '90s, in terms of narrative, ligting, background music and camera angles. Karthik (played by Farhan)is a loser who lurks in our midst, but a highly competitive and consumerist society often tends to overlook people like him. How the climx unravels itself is neat cinematic story telling and full marks to Farhan Akhtar for this experiment. He has managed to extract a decent performance from glam babe Deepika Padukone, and that, I must say, is no mean achievement. All in all, KCK is a clear indication of the extent to which our cinema is now looking at places other than stale Hollywood for fresh ideas. What with offerings such as Being Cyrus, Bheja Fry, Dev D, Road the Movie and LSD making news, Noir is indeed here to stay.

Which brings me to The Road to Sangam. Simple fare, honest and will take you through a low-profile, god -fearing Muslim mechanic s conscientious journey to winning rigid hearts. Paresh Rawal's Hasmatullah is so endearing in his gentle non violent but persistent ways, so like the man (Mahatma Gandhi) who is the focus of the story without actually being there. Set in Allahabad, the movie s docu-cinema narrative style ambles along effortlessly. The surprise is in the supporting cast, with stalwart Om Puri, character actor Pawan Malhotra in an virtually unrecognizable get up as the Maulvi, besides a host of localites who have lent their presence, giving the movie an authentic touch. A must watch for all Indians alike, for the Hindus to shed their skepticism and to understand the likes of Hashmatullah and for the Muslims to understand the spirit of the man, and the philosophy he stood for - conscience, peace, harmony and co-existence, which transcends beyond all religious bigotry.

Like it is the law of the land, I reserved the most sensational for the last:). Jokes apart, stepped upon this pretty accidentally, after reading reviews, and saw it only yesterday.. Love, Sex Aur Dhokha or LSD as its now come to be known is going under the cover of being a full blown 'experiment', and one of this year s most talked about movies (if it can be called one)... an experiment that s perhaps never been attempted in Indian cinema where there s no hero other than the peeping tom camera :) What the intentions of producer Ekta Kapoor (yes, its indeed her) and her director, Dibakar Bannerjee, may have been while while conceptualizing the tri-episodic offering is anyone's guess. Yes, there is enough to make one wonder what the whole movie s all about but at the same time, there s enough to hold one s attention especially the second story.Set in a departmental store, it explores how a young salesgirl is duped into an affair which was nothing but a bait to record her making love, the footage of which is sold as porn. Though Kapoor and Bannerjee have gone all out to defend their baby to the media, this one s got the 'A' from the censors, and rightfully so... no, wait, not that it s got hot 'scenes' but because there s something very voyeuristic in the way the camera in each of the three stories goes about prying into the lives and loves of the people it captures. One of the so called different movies of this season. Watch it for what it is worth - an experiment. I would not want to take away anything from Banerjee for his effort. Hmmmmmm... however, am wondering what the high ratings were all about.Do reviewers collectively condemn and eulogise? Ahem.. is this some kind of a pact? Then, how else would you explain the 31/2 and 4 and perfect 5s for this Dhokha...:)

Death Lays Its Icy Hands

The other day, a friend sent me the link of a blog from the Asom Times. It was written by a close friend of the late Ranjan Das, CEO of SAP India, who passed away of cardiac arrest in October 2009. The blog was personal, touching and left me with a twinge of sadness. Das' story was that of the meteoric rise of a middle class boy to the corporate blue-eyed boy. A story of grit and brilliance. At 42, Das was clearly not yet at his peak in terms of his professional achievements and had loads of things to be done on his unfinished agenda. It is anyone's guess what he would have scaled had he still been around....

Actor-Director Shankar Nag died in a tragic road accident more than two decades ago. Nag,in his time, was a brilliant director (we all remember the televised Malgudi Days, dont we?), and had in mind his baby, Rangashankara, a centre intended for promoting theater amongst all age groups. But, when fate struck, wife Arundhati, bravely fulfilled her late husband's dream. Today, Rangashankara stands tall in South Bangalore. The point here is Shankar Nag was set to do a good many things which were abruptly curtailed by death. It was well known that he was a restless, ambitious, creative man who would have worked wonders had he been around.

Indian's former premier, the late Rajiv Gandhi too is another example of a promising life cut short by fate. Gandhi dreamt of the Telecom and IT revolution for India way back in the 80's, and took giant steps to get our hitherto traditional economy well on track with the world. He was young, handsome to boot, and had won many admirers all over for his diction, his charming smile, amongst many other endearing qualities. So, even while mainstream media was divided in its opinion about his capabilities as a politician, he was scoring many points elsewhere, with the able support of his close coterie and his wife, Sonia. May 21, 1991 signaled the end to one of India's most charismatic leaders. There have not been too many ever since.

The recent Carlton Towers tragedy in Bangalore, footage bits of which local TV channels aired relentlessly, really wrenched my heart... young people jumping from the building in blind panic and meeting their end was tragic, to say the least. Open the city beat of any daily and one would see reports of deaths -natural and unnatural. It takes one second for us to cross over from life to the unknown. A cousin once narrated an incident that happened in his home town some years ago. On a sunny afternoon, a holiday, while he was enjoying time out with his friends and was crossing a particular highway service road, he witnessed a brother duo being run over by a speeding lorry in a matter of seconds. The friends later found out that the deceased were muslims : It was Id that day... Celebrations would have turned to mourning at the boys' house that day and for several years to come...

Death is a truth that we all know but often do not want to talk about; we prefer to go into denial. We go on with our lives mechanically like we have taken immortality for granted. It is about time we acknowledge the ephemeral nature of our existence, live by the day and stop planning endlessly for a future we cant be sure of being alive for. It aint so easy? We could do better by asking some of the survivors of terror attacks, accidents and others who have had close shaves with the moment of truth. Their numbers are many; they would agree with this, I am sure.

The Sun Never Sets on the Badshah...

In recent years, I have begun to like watching movies in the comfortable environs of my home and hence my visits to the movie halls have come down drastically. It is about total control and also avoiding a situation of being trapped with a bad watch and a headache in the theaters.

During one such home movie session, while watching MNIK, I could not stop thanking the Almighty and other forces that I was not subjected to the movie in the halls. Nevertheless, Shahrukh Khan s having the last laugh... again... I heard the the movie's opened to a very positive response at the box office here and overseas. And, Khan's exchange of words with the Shiv Sena has garnered more and more support for himself and his movie. The man has done it.... once again, typical of the Scorpio spirit (I cant afford to forget his birthday, since he shares it with a host of people right from my father to close family friends!).

Personally, I would not rate Khan's acting skills as anything beyond an attempt at pyrotechnics. For all the irreverent self -praise he subjects us to through the media, barring the stray Swades, Chak De India or a Paheli, I cant imagine the man ever having delivered a credible performance in his long career spanning over two decades. And understandably, he was reported to have had differences with the directors of each of these movies.. simply because they were not going to suffer the routine rubbish doled out by our matinee idol (it was expecting too much that all would be like best buddies Farah Khan and Karan Johar:)). The numerous blockbusters notwithstanding, Shahrukh remains a star trapped in mediocrity, predictable insufferable mannerisms; this, inspite of a stint in theater and despite a spark of talent (he was compared to Dilip Kumar) one saw in him in his formative years in Bollywood.

But, what makes the Badshah tick...appeal, charisma, lifestyle, matinee quotient, mass reach?
In reality, he is a product of studious brand building and hard work achieved over a number of years, and I guess he deserves to make the most of his efforts. All said and done, love him, hate him, but one just cant afford to ignore Shahrukh Khan- oh yes, he s a superstar and does not shy away from the fact. The person hurting most with the rise of the star is none other than the other Khan-Aamir. Few would remember that it was Aamir Khan' s refusal of Darr (1994) that catapulted the Badshah to superstardom. And our dear friend, Aamir Khan had to work doubly hard to reinvent himself in the cerebral meter in order to counter the Shahrukh box office onslaught... In the Khandom of Bollywood, Shahrukh s clearly stolen the show right under the noses of the other 3 Khans.

It has been a phenomenal rise from where Shahrukh started off two decades ago. A classic case of making hay while the sun shines - the cinegoers love him; so do the advertisers. Yeah, for every ten who cant stand his movies, there emerge another hundred who seem to lap it all up, and significantly, they come from a carefully cultivated overseas market. If he continues to play his cards well, he may have scripts written for him right into his 50's and 60's a la AB. Going by the way it is shining, Shahrukh Khan' s career may never see the sun setting on it. Now, is that good news or bad?

The Return of the Aryans?

Bhagwan Das Gidwani would never have dreamt that his epic title would be used in this context. Well neither did I. I would have never ever contemplated or been vocal about the North-South divide or the Aryan-Dravidian separations in my life had it not been for...

Let me explain. Being a Bangalorean, who grew up on a healthy diet of Hindi cinema and being someone who had a good mix of friends across communities, I would be the last candidate for such talk. I have enjoyed Holi as much as Ugadi; I love dal tadka as much as I would relish slurping rasam; to me Kareena Kapoor is no different from Ramya. I have rushed to catch the 'first day first show' of many a Bollywood caper during my college years. Watching Aamir Khan was as exciting as seeing Kamal Hassan on screen.

My father's love for rare old Hindi film songs is very well known in his family. Infact, many of his kith and kin are vintage hindi film music afficionados. I made Hindi my preference of second language way back in standard eight atschool and this continued till the day I graduated from college. I have studied the language and loved it in all forms - prose, poetry and drama. I made sure that I got my diction right. I did not make the stereotype errors, you know, small nuances, that went a long way to establish that Hindi was in no way different to me from Kannada or English. So, when all these influences have grown in me over the decades, then why, out of the blue, would I be rabble rousing about the insufferable attitude of the people on the other side of the Vindhyas? Why would I get passionate about the 'Aryan' outsiders in my city?

The last decade has seen me share my time between two employers - both MNCs and the best in their businesses. Alongwith the fact that they were big players, they came with the package of having a huge crowd of people from outside the city. Which meant for every one or two locals, one was getting to see eight outsiders in various hues - from other southern states as well as from the North - from the northern most cap to the cowbelt states. The national integration opportunity was thrilling till I came face-to-face with situations I never thought existed in my integrated world....

What appalled me were the condescending, downright pathetic comments about the South made by the Northern crowd I bumped into - ranging from the food, people, the cinema, to the local language here. "Hamen to idli nahin bhaati," "Ooty kya hain, North mein toh Mussorie, Nainital, Kashmir aur Shimla hain." The Southern mountains never seem to match the grandeur of the Himalayas... is it actually in the altitude or in the minds of the people who pass these comments? Aur phir.... ek second, Andhra Pradesh ki state language kya hain? Andhra? aur Kerala mein kya bolte hain? Keral? Yahan ki bhaasha... Kannad? (Please note the shocking knowledge of geography and phonetique or the lack of it; one would have presumed they would have paid some attention to basics at school).

The southern way of dressing is too simple; South Indian girls are too drab; South Indian weddings are so boring, southern finishing on any product is too... well, local! The sad part is such snobbery can be be heard even from some second generation North Indian locals. And this would beat it all.... raised eyebrows to my Hindi..."Tum itni acchi Hindi kaise bol leti ho, tum to North mein kabhie nahin rahi ho na?" Well, I know, short visits and vacations to the 'holy land' do not count, but give us some credit for 'having being here and having done that'.

And well, the two time-tested, pet mock points for my North Indian friends: the southern diction of their bhaasha, Hindi and the colour of the skin. Well, all I can say, my dear ignoramuses is, please read your bit of authentic history and you may get a wee bit enlightened, and perhaps be shaken out of some of the historical 'Aryan' superiority that plagues most of you.
And while we do appreciate your food, dances, festivals, tehzeeb and your flambuoyant spirit, my dear friends, this is the way we are, and we are not ashamed of that; there is no reason to be. And no,we are not the Mehmood 'Padosan' or the Quick Gun Murugan caricatures that you would want to believe us to be, and the onus of national integration does not rest solely with us. As it goes in a famous Kannada film song of the 1980's, "Nodee Swami, naavirodu heege..." Find out what it means for yourselves if you mean business... I mean the business of becoming Indian, instead of remaining your fancy North Indian!