romanticist's blog

Guzaarish: High Falutin’ and Delusive

2010-12-05T15:21:24Z

By Sanjeev Verma

Ordinarily, just his name is enough to put me off. Sanjay Leela Bhansali shares that privilege with Karan Johar. I find them bogus film-makers masquerading as auteurs. Auteurism is the theory of a film director as the ‘author’ of a film. Yes, cinema is a collaborative process but some of these film-makers have such a distinct style that they leave their unmistakable stamp on all their creations. There have been true auteurs in cinema; I can name a few straightaway: Francois Truffaut, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, et al. But a film director who is barely competent masquerading as an auteur is truly bad news. Like these two gentlemen.

Pictorialism rather than poignancy marks SLB and KJ’s approach to cinema. The real tragedy is that their pictorialism is seriously flawed too. To be sure, there is always plenty that’s going on in their films—whether Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham or Black, or Guzaarish, the provocation for me to put pen to paper—but the vast images on the screen seem to emasculate the plot. Their films lack a fundamental dramatic sense. Good directors, and good writers for that matter, have a sharp instinct for how people relate to one another and consequently what they say.

In Guzaarish not only does what people are saying in the film sound false to the ear; after a while what we are seeing on the widescreen begin to seem false to the eye. A film director who can’t hold attention with either his narrative or his pictorialism is bogus. Bhansali seems less interested in the story than in giving the images a spiritual glow.

With his new film Bhansali is giving us not only auteur vibes but also pretending that the intensity of his film is such that he had to dispense with the services of a music composer. He has done the music for Guzaarish himself. The film has a faux operatic sound and feel but there isn’t a shred of originality in it. Much as I hated SLB’s earlier films Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas, I have to concede that Ismail Durbar’s music was magnificent. His earlier Khamoshi had some splendid music by Jatin-Lalit and even his worst detractors wouldn’t call the music of Saanwariya forgettable.

But in Guzaarish he loses his music mojo too. He may have this penchant for getting it right every time and I am sure he drives his production unit nuts as he mounts his sequences but the drama and the dialogue is so corny. We are meant to empathise deeply with Ethan Mascarenhas, the handsome quadriplegic played by Hrithik Roshan, but in the designer set pieces that our ‘auteur’ creates there is room only for things posh and pretty.

As the film enters his most elegiac phase, one scene finally—finally—succeeded in tugging at my heart-strings. The roof of the Gothic villa Ethan Mascarenhas lives in ruptures and drops of water plop on Ethan’s face. He’s a quadriplegic. Can’t move. He writhes. It’s bravura stuff for precisely 30 seconds as Roshan shows his resourcefulness as an actor. Then the moment passes and SLB’s hokeyness takes over. Ethan’s protégé is lying slumped in a chair somewhere in that sprawling house and can’t hear the cries for help, while his mother has also shut her eyes—forever. So, the hero suffers through the night and it is only in the morning that his comely nurse rescues him.

Guzaarish is Bhansali belting out the same note on the piano for two hours and seven minutes. It’s just exasperating. The film finds you asking questions. Far too many questions:

Why does this director filch ideas from European films so shamelessly?
Why does he use so much English in the film? Doesn’t that alienate a majority of Indian filmgoers?
Why do so many characters in the film—examples: mommy dear who appears as suddenly as she disappears and the nurse’s abusive husband—flit in and out inexplicably?
Why is there a song in the film with trite lyrics like Sau gram zindagi?
Why does SLB shoot Ethan’s villa like the Norman Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho? (Mascarenhas’ villa stands starkly against the overcast sky, dark and foreboding.)
And, hey, why on earth did Bhansali’s acting scouts dredge up the insufferable Suhel Seth from the suburbs of Delhi to play a doctor in the film? That is unforgivable.

Transforming India’s forlorn World Cup hopes

2010-06-27T09:03:31Z

By Sanjeev Verma

It’s
been a bit of a rollercoaster for the Indian cricket team this year.

They retained the No. 1 Test ranking by bouncing back from a
crushing defeat in Nagpur to defeat South Africa at Eden Gardens Kolkata in a
stirring finish
Post-IPL3 they were completely listless in the T20 World
Championship in the West Indies and fail to win any significant match
The K. Srikkanth-led selection committee then rested eight or
nine key first-choice players and sent a team led by Suresh Raina for a
tri-series in Zimbabwe, in which the Indian team was repeatedly trounced
The rested players then returned for the Asia Cup but Yuvraj
Singh was dropped and Sachin Tendulkar asked to be rested some more. The team’s
performance was scarcely rousing but with M.S. Dhoni leading astutely India
still managed to win the Asia Cup.

Performances
in Dambulla were scarcely rousing and certainly there was nothing in individual
performances to signal the arrival of a couple of players with the ability to
lift a team that most certainly needs a lift if it is to do well in the 2011
World Cup. There are no more than eight months to go before India travel to Mirpur
in Bangladesh and kickoff their World Cup campaign. The nation will hold its
breath and expect the team to emulate the 1983 World Cup triumph by Kapil Dev’s
team. But there is very little to suggest that India has a settled group of
players who are capable of playing at a consistently high level to beat all
comers.

However,
the Indian team still has a chance of trying a few players and come up with a
settled one-day side for the World Cup. Over the next few months India will be
playing plenty of one-dayers on its own soil and in Sri Lanka and in conditions
that will be similar to the ones in which the World Cup will be played. Sri
Lanka, who India seems to be playing all the year round, New Zealand and
Australia are the teams that India will face and then it will play five
one-dayers in South Africa before the Mirpur World Cup kickoff match.

It’s
an opportunity for the Indian team to discover bowlers who can bowl
consistently mean spells and at least a batsman or two who play with calculated
aggression. Eoin Morgan is a great example of the kind of player India needs.

A
street-smart batsman a la Dhoni will lift the Indian side—that’s what I keep
thinking. The focus of most commentators is on a couple of quality
all-rounders; methinks a couple of specialists will do fine but they need to
bat with the consistency and effectiveness of Dhoni or Morgan and bowl with the
guile of Lasith Malinga or Umar Gul. Lamenting the decline of Irfan Pathan
isn’t going to help. Nor is a player of his kind anywhere on the near horizon.
But I would say a corpus of four quality players plus 12-13 of the current crop
would boost India’s otherwise forlorn World Cup hopes.

I
am closely following the fortunes of the India A team in England and I hope the
selectors are too. Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane are two batsmen who are
performing consistently and deserve a chance. Manish Pandey, Abhinav Mukund and
Manoj Tiwari too. But the bowling unit in the A team looks weak. Pujara’s
Saurashtra colleague Jaidev Unadkat has been doing well and I found Wasim
Akram’s comments on Unadkat, who played for Kolkata Knightriders, encouraging.
Maybe there is some promise there. Ditto Dhawal Kulkarni, who has been
consistent in domestic competitions over a long period. But, for the rest, usual
suspects like Sudeep Tyagi aren’t going to lift the spirits of Indian cricket
team.

An
incisive new ball bowler is what India needs. Ishant Sharma seemed the ideal
candidate not long ago. But he’s struggling and is low on confidence. He should
have been in the team for Zimbabwe but the selectors preferred playing R. Vinay
Kumar. Ashoke Dinda and Umesh Yadav. If not the Zimbabwe-bound side, surely
Ishant should have led the pace attack on the England tour for India A. That
didn’t happen either. So, the situation is that Ishant is likely to return to
the Indian Test team for Sri Lanka having played very little international
cricket.

Maybe
it is abundantly clear to Srikkanth and his selectorial cohorts but try as I
might I cannot see the logic behind not playing players struggling for form.

Ishant has pedigree but he’s out of sorts. How will he get
that edge back into his bowling? By bowling or by resting?
Yuvraj Singh hasn’t
fired as we know he can in many a moon but I’d like to meet someone who doubts
his pedigree. So, if he is crucial to India’s World Cup hopes then he can only
get back into the form he’s capable of by playing
Gautam Gambhir’s technique against the rising ball (ditto
Raina, Rohit Sharma and Yusuf Pathan) was tested in the Caribbean. He needs to
sort that out. But selectors rested him for the Zimbabwe series
Praveen Kumar has bowled as many good spells for India in the
last couple of years as bad ones. The only way to know for sure if he deserves
to be in the World Cup mix is by having him bowl more and more but he too was
rested for Zimbabwe
Rudra Pratap Singh and Dhawal
Kulkarni—if they are in the running for a World Cup berth (and the answer to
that cannot be no) should be bowling for India, not resting.

Sudeep Tyagi, Vinay Kumar, Ashoke Dinda, Umesh Yadav, Pankaj
Singh—are they in the running over the likes of R.P. Singh and Kulkarni? Why just
keep expanding the pool of potential India players without giving anyone a good
run to prove his mettle? If Steve Waugh didn’t get a long rope he wouldn’t have
ended as Test cricket leading run scorers in history. Nor would a certain
Marwan Atapattu played as well as he did for Sri Lanka…

The
track record of Indian selectors—whether Srikkanth, Vengsarkar or More before
him—is abysmal in first showing undue haste in injecting new players into
international cricket and then jettisoning them just as hastily. There are
countless examples:

Dhawal Kulkarni is 22. Last year he was included in the team
for New Zealand on the basis of a strong showing in the domestic season and
also IPL2. He returned from that tour without playing for India and now the
selectors seem to have moved on to Tyagi, Pankaj Singh, Yadav, Vinay Kumar, et
al. Even Mumbai Indians had no place for him in IPL3

Manoj Tiwary is 25. found himself in the Indian team for
Bangladesh in 2007. The selectors waxed eloquent about his batsmanship. Tiwary
hurt his shoulder badly on the tour, returned to India and has since found
himself overtaken by several other batsmen. He played some good innings for the
otherwise clueless Kolkata Knightriders and clearly has the makings of a fine
batsman but when will his time come? Will it come?

Subramaniam Badrinath will soon be 30. He must be among the
most technically proficient batsman around and yet, in spite of being on the
fringes of international limelight for the past six seasons, he has only played
two Test matches and three one-dayers. Yet, his Tamil Nadu teammate Dinesh
Karthik, who is 25, has played 23 Tests and has averaged 27, apart from 47
one-dayers. Why?

Abhishek Nayar is 26. He is a fine, aggressive player ideally
suited to the shorter versions of the game. He was picked for the West Indies
tour last year. He played in three one-dayers and got a chance to bat in only
one, in which he remained not out without scoring but he is forgotten

Mohammed Kaif is 30. He is astute and assured but has not
played for India since 2006. He was indeed dropped after a string of failures
but why he has not got a chance to reestablish himself in the national team
defies logic and it can only get you to agree with Mohinder Amarnath who once
described as a bunch of jokers.

I
hope some of these cricketers will get a fair trial in the next few months:

·
Cheteshwar Pujara

·
Manish Pandey

·
Ajinkya Rahane

·
Manoj Tiwary

·
Dhawal Kulkarni

·
Jaidev Unadkat

·
Ravichandran Ashwin

·
Saurabh Tiwary

There is still time for Krishnamachari
Srikkanth and his colleagues to try these players who potentially could transform
India’s forlorn World Cup hopes. Give them an extended run to rekindle the embers of India’s World Cup hopes.

Who’s the greatest Indian batsman?

2010-05-31T10:20:04Z

By Sanjeev
Verma

It was another workaday Sunday as India played Sri Lanka in
a one-day match. As young turks Virat Kohli and the staggeringly under-performing
Rohit Sharma trounced a toothless Sri Lankan attack missing Muthiah
Muralidharan and Lasith Malinga, the Ten Sports commentators drifted into talk
about the best batsmen in cricket history. I am not sure what triggered it but
listening to Tony Greig is nothing if not provocative.

He pronounced Don Bradman as the greatest batsman by some
distance and then concluded that a bunch of other great batsmen were grouped
together with little to separate them. Among them he mentioned Gary Sobers, Ricky
Ponting, Brian Lara, Vivian Richards and Barry Richards. In the midst of
reeling off those names, he teasingly talked about ‘outraged’ Indian listeners saying
the greatest is Sachin Tendulkar. Not without justification, the former England
skipper added…

Sir Don himself is said to have himself pronounced Tendulkar
to be the best batsman he had seen. If he did indeed say that, it’s high praise
for one of modern cricket’s all-time greats from the greatest of them all.

However, this isn’t about Tendulkar; it’s about two of India’s
most dependable batsman ever and that is Sunil Gavaskar. He perhaps lacked the
shot-making flair of the likes of Tendulkar and the two Richards, West Indian
or South African. But only philistines or those who mistake the slam-bang T-20 methods
as great batting will deny that Sunil Gavaskar is on par with Tendulkar if not
a notch above.

Gavaskar ended his Test career in 1986 with a 50-plus Test
career average, widely accepted as a benchmark in batting greatness
sweepstakes. His best performances came overseas in the West Indies, Australia
and England against the best bowling attack in cricket history.

Gavaskar played almost all his 125 Tests (in which he
averaged 51.12 per innings) at a time when the most fearsome pace bowlers were
in operation—among them Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Bob Willis, Dennis Lillee
and the West Indian pace battery with Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel
Garner, Colin Croft and Malcolm Marshall. Facing those bowlers without a helmet
and consistently scoring against them is an achievement orders of magnitude
better than facing most recent and contemporary fast bowlers, only a few of whom
(Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald, et al) can even begin
to compare with the fast bowlers of the 1970s and 80s.

Gavaskar was India’s batting mainstay and India did well
when he did and the team flopped when Gavaskar was dismissed cheaply. In the
1970s there were occasional good innings from the Gundappa Vishwanath and in
the early 1980s Mohinder Amarnath and Dilip Vengsarkar dazzled to lend spine to
Indian batting, but from his debut in the West Indies in 1971 for 15 years, India
saved Test matches and occasionally won them on the strength of Gavaskar’s batting
skills.

My memories of Gavaskar are numerous. I would have been in
class seven or eight when Bombay’s Wankhede Stadium staged its first Test in
1975. It was the last Test of a series against West Indies in which the touring
team had made mincemeat of an Indian side without Gavaskar, who was injured.
The opening batsman recovered to play in the fifth Test but it seemed like déjà
vu as Clive Lloyd made 242, opener Roy Fredericks made a hundred, Alvin
Kallicharan and even Deryck Murray missed their centuries and the West Indies
piled up a 600-plus score. The Indian response was stunning with boundaries
flowing as Gavaskar negotiated the pace of Andy Roberts and Bernard Julien and
then repeatedly danced down the pitch and straight drove off-spinner Lance
Gibbs. He made 86, Eknath Solkar batting at 3 made a hundred and later Vishwanath
and Anshuman Gaekwad had a significant stand too. India lost the Test but the
batting had spine with Gavaskar at the top of the order.

Then there was the epic 221 in 1979 at the Oval in England. India
was chasing 438 for victory in 500 minutes. Can’t be done, was the popular
verdict. Gavaskar had other ideas. He put on 213 for the opening wicket with
Chetan Chauhan and then 153 with Vengsarkar and at 366 for 1 victory was
entirely possible. It wasn’t to be as India fell short by nine runs and the
match was drawn. But it was subliminal batsmanship from Gavaskar as he compiled
a flawless double century.

In 1983-84, after a humiliating innings defeat in Kanpur at
the hands of West Indies in the first Test, it was exhilarating to see Gavaskar
repeatedly pulverize the tormentors of the previous Test—Malcolm Marshall and
Michael Holding—in a stroke-filled innings of 121 at the Feroze Shah Kotla.

There was so much calmness about Gavaskar’s presence at the
batting crease. And you need calmness when Marshall was bowling balls that come
up to your throat after pitching at the good length spot. His technique was so
good Marshall, Holding, Imran, Lillee, et al, would find hurling bouncers at
him futile. The faster they bowled, the more solid bat Gavaskar presented to
them. In terms of technique against fast bowling, Gavaskar remains peerless. If
anyone comes close to him in terms of excellence in facing up to fast bowling
it is not Tendulkar but Rahul Dravid.

Dravid too excelled in tough conditions in his 14-year Test
career. His best batting has come overseas. He too has a 50-plus average in
well over 100 Tests. The charismatic batsmanship of Tendulkar may have overshadowed
Dravid’s batsmanship but cricketing cognoscenti, even die-hard Tendulkar
admirers, must concede, howsoever grudgingly, that on the bouncy wickets of
Australia and South Africa, and in overcast conditions in England and New Zealand,
Dravid, not Tendulkar, has looked India’s best batsman.

Tendulkar is aeons ahead of both Dravid and Gavaskar as a
limited overs batsman but in Tests the gap narrows. When you start to compare
the performances of the three players overseas, Gavaskar and Dravid may even surge
marginally ahead of SRT. Come to think of it, these things are purely
judgemental; you can’t prove anything one way or the other. The only reason I
often find myself drawn into comparisons which are so odious is this: justified
as the encomiums for SRT are, I do think the fact that Sunil Gavaskar blunted
the best pace attacks in the world with clinical efficiency three decades ago is
ignored. And that is not right.

Lata Mangeshkar

2010-06-06T06:59:00Z

Her Majestic Voice

For
as long as I can remember I have been hearing her voice. It was always there with
me subconsciously. On the radio at home in the 1970s—the ubiquitous Vividh Bharti—every
other song announced was sung by her. Pathos-filled ballads, playful songs,
semi-classical songs, love songs—she sang them all with equal flair.

That
voice was a part of my growing up years. While getting ready for school in the
morning, there would be her voice on the radio. Returning in the bus there
would often be her voice, as her soaring, ringing voice would emanate from a
transistor someone was listening to. Wherever I went, whatever I did, Lata Mangeshkar’s
dulcet tones would pursue me. It was a voice that quite simply was a part of my
subconscious.

I
suppose when you are so familiar with something or somebody you become a little
too used to it. So, the various hagiographic articles and speeches about
India’s nightingale didn’t draw any special attention. My musical inclination
in the years at college was conditioned by peer groups and it’s The Beatles,
Abba, Boney M, Neil Diamond and The Carpenters that I took to enthusiastically.
I became an occasional broadcaster too and professed undying love for Glenn
Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” and Susan Raye’s “LA International Airport”. My
music world was far removed from Lata in those days, though her voice on the
radio was inescapable.

Once
I got over my short-lived liaison with Western pop, I passionately took to
Western classical music. I would listen to the BBC on the short wave and as the
sounds soared and trailed off and on, I would love the music without quite
knowing that it was, say, the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” or an
excerpt from Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”.

My
acquaintance with Western classical grew through sheer doggedness, spending
hours in the studio library of All India Radio’s Western Music section. Or
listening to the BBC. Or buying the few Soviet Melodiya records that were
available and then hearing the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra play a Beethoven
symphony. I made my acquaintance with the best classical renditions—Arthur
Rubinstein, Nathan Milstein, David Oistrakh, Kathleen Ferrier, Victoria de Los
Angeles, Tito Gobbi, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Rudolf Kempe, Otto Klemperer,
et al—in the AIR studio library.

Subsequently,
my overseas trips gave me a chance in the late 1980s and early 90s to buy great
CDs and also to see great live concerts in London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna or
Milan. That love for Western classical music is enduring and will remain as
long as I do.

What
does all this, you may justifiably ask, have to do with Lata Mangeshkar?

Nothing
except that I needed to set the context for the second coming of her voice in
my life.

I
live in the suburbs of Delhi and the drive to work is 80-90 minutes on a good
day. And another 90 minutes for the return journey. Listening to Mozart and
Beethoven for three hours a day, five days a week, would be a bit much for
Ravi, my chauffeur, I decided. I tried listening to FM radio and the old Hindi
film songs on AIR FM Gold 106.4 worked nicely for a while. Except that the
presenters talked too much in between songs and the breaks for public service
messages were too long, too frequent and too grating. The likes of Radio City
and Radio Mirchi had motor mouth comperes who set my teeth on edge.

Yes,
there was the occasional Sayema to listen to at night in the ridiculously
titled show “Purani Jeans”. In fact, for a while Sayema’s style and chutzpah
enchanted me but over time
my enthusiasm waned given the sameness to her choice of music. It seemed like
she found it difficult to move away from the Kishore Kumar-R.D. Burman-Amitabh
Bachchan axis. Yes, occasionally there would be the music of Kalyanji-Anandji’s
music too but how often can you listen to “Pyaar main dil pe maar de goli”?
And much as I like KK and RDB, and do think Kalyanji-Anandji have done some
good things, I cannot listen to something like “Apni to jaise
taise” (the song from “Laawaris”) more than once in about five
months. And to listen to “Mere angane main tumhara kya kaam hai” from
the same film even once in a year would cause severe depression.

So,
my passion for Sayema and Purani Jeans abated because of the long breaks in
between songs and her growing loquacity. So, no Western classical and no radio
in the car. That only left the choice of buying CDs of old Hindi film music and
playing them in the car. That’s what I did.

One
day I went shopping in Mumbai at Rhythm House in Kala Ghoda and bought old
Hindi film music. For me the greatest Hindi film songs were composed between
the years 1950 and 1975 and most of them were sung by Lata. I bought several
dozens of audio CDs from this period and on those 90-minute trips to and from
home would play them in the car.

I
don’t know what Ravi thinks of my selfless act. I would like to imagine him
looking dewy-eyed at me and saying to himself: what a wonderful boss I
have—kind and considerate! However, I suspect it is still grating for him to
keep hearing Hindi film music from the 50s and 60s…

So,
while I have no idea what Ravi thinks, what I do know is that in my ‘ennobling’
act I have personally discovered true bliss. I get many calls in those 180
minutes in the car every day and when I am at times asked if I am alone in the
car, I take pleasure in saying, “Of course not. There’s Lata with me.” And she
is. Like an inseparable companion. This morning she sang “Naina barse” (from “Woh
Kaun Thi”, composed by Madan Mohan) five times, one after another, and I could
have gone on a few more times and would have had I not felt Ravi was wincing. Did
he really wince or did I imagine it? I wasn’t sure but decided to avoid playing
it yet again. And what a song I moved to: “Jaa re, jaa re udd jaa re panchchi”
(from “Maya” composed by Salil
Chowdhury).

I
now actually look forward to the 180 minutes in the car and there are even
times when I wish my destination hadn’t arrived quite so soon. It happened just
yesterday. “Aaj socha to aansoon bhar aaye” (from “Hanste Zakhm”, composed by
Madan Mohan) had just started with Lata’s voice soaring over the soulful
strains of the sitar, when my office swung into view. I considered telling Ravi
to take a couple of rounds of the block while the song played out but dropped
the idea. I think he would have winced.

Lata
with me in the car for three hours every day has been happening for the last
year and-a-half. It’s helped me rediscover her magical voice. I have been
listening to songs that I grew up with as a child but songs I took for granted
and didn’t stop at any stage of life to think of them. To admire and adore
them. Until now. Now I do so endlessly. If I could express the feeling by way
of a Lata song, it would be “Woh jab yaad aaye, bahut yaad aaye” (from “Parasmani”,
composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal).

Her
voice grows on you. I can now listen to her songs and am able to guess roughly
what period the song comes from. A couple of weeks ago, I made my acquaintance
with the cathartic pathos of “Chal diya dil mera tod kar” (from “Fifty-Fifty”,
composed by Madan Mohan). It’s 1956 and it’s Lata’s voice as a 27-year-old.
Listen then to “Hum pyaar main jalne walon ko” (from Jailor, composed by Madan Mohan just a couple of years later) and
her voice is already starting to sound different—it’s fuller and deeper.

By
1963-64 her vocal range reached its full-throated peak. Listen to “Gumnaam hai
koi” (from “Gumnaam”, composed by Shankar Jaikishan) or “Mora gora ang lailey”
(from “Bandini”, composed by Sachin Dev Burman). Or the pathos-filled “Lo aa
gayee unki yaad” (from “Do Badan”, composed by Ravi). The quintessential Lata
voice is what you get through the 1960s and early 70s.

Make
no mistake about it. I absolutely love her voice through the 1950s too—whether
it’s the lyrical “Aayega aanewala aayega” (from “Mahal”, composed by Khemchand
Prakash) or the magnificent “Kadar jaane na” (from “Bhai Bhai”, composed by
Madan Mohan) or countless other songs—but a few years later the youthful
impishness of that 50s’ voice is gone forever. It is replaced by a more mature,
a more full-throated voice of the kind that could belong to a soprano—a warm voice with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over a full orchestra.

From what I have been hearing of Lata the last two years, my impression
is that it’s after “Satyam Shivam Sundaram” the voice of the 1960s and 70s
Lata—which I call quintessential Lata—started to change. By the time she sang
for Rahul Dev Burman in “Golmaal” and “Love Story”, and Laxmikant Pyarelal in
“Aasha”, Lata’s voice had changed. And while there are many Lata songs from the
80s and later that I like, I believe the greatest songs she recorded were between
1950 and 1975.

The
transition in that magical voice fascinates me. I remember reading an article
some time ago about phonetic study of the human voice and how indication about
the age of the speaker is always present in speech and can be used as
perceptual cues to age. That can certainly be said of singing voices too. I
certainly get that feeling when listening to Lata. It’s a voice I am
now—finally—completely aware of.

Two years ago if I was
told that I was about to be left on a desert island with just half-a-dozen
audio CDs for company, my choice would undoubtedly have come from Mozart’s
piano concertos, Beethoven’s symphonies, maybe some compositions by
Mendelssohn, Schubert and Tchaikovski and Verdi. Today, one of those six CDs
would have to be of Lata’s songs. If that CD could have 70 minutes of music, it
means roughly that it would contain 16 songs. So, just a few days ago I
challenged myself to come up with this list of 16.

I have agonized and
cogitated over the choice, heart-broken in many instances of having to leave
out one song or another, but I am happy with these 16. On a desert island with
just these songs to keep me company, day in and day out, I think I would
survive listening to:

1.
“Aaj
socha to aansoon bhar aaye”. Hanste
Zakhm (1973). Music: Madan Mohan, Lyrics: Kaifi Azmi. Picturised on Priya
Rajvansh

2.
“Aap ki nazron ne samjha”. Anpadh (1962). Music: Madan Mohan. Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali
Khan. Picturised on Mala Sinha

3.      “Humne dekhi hai in aankhon ki mehakti
khushboo”. Khamoshi (1969). Music: Hemant
Kumar. Lyrics: Gulzar. Picturised on Waheeda Rehman

4.      “Ja re ja re udd ja re panchchi”. Maya (1961)
Music: Salil Chowdhury, Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri. Picturised on Mala Sinha

5.      “Kadar jaane na, mora
baalam bedardi”. Bhai Bhai (1956). Music:
Madan Mohan. Lyrics: Rajendra Krishan. Picturised on Nimmi

6.      “Kahin deep jale kahin
dil”. Bees Saal Baad (1962). Music: Hemant
Kumar. Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni. Picturised on Waheeda Rehman.

7.
“Lag ja gale, ki phir yeh haseen raat ho na ho”. Woh Kaun Thi
(1964). Music: Madan Mohan. Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Picturised on Sadhana

8.
“Lo aa gayee unki yaad, woh nahi aaye”. Do Badan (1966). Music: Ravi. Lyrics: Shakeel
Badayuni. Picturised on Asha Parekh

9.      “Mohabbat aisi dhadkan hai”. Anarkali (1953)
Music: C Ramchandra, Lyrics: Hasrat Jaipuri. Picturised on Bina Rai

10. “Na tum bewafa ho”.
Ek
Kali Muskayee
(1968) Music: Madan Mohan. Lyrics:
Rajendra Krishan. Picturised on Naina Joglekar

11.
“Naina barse rim jhim”. Woh
Kaun Thi (1964).
Music: Madan Mohan. Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Picturised on Sadhana

12. “Naino mein badra chhaye”. Mera Saaya (1967). Music: Madan
Mohan. Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Picturised on Sadhana

13. “Qareeb
aa yeh nazar”. Anita (1967). Music:
Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Picturised on Sadhana

14. “Rehte the kabhi jinke dil mein”. Mamta (1966)
Music: Roshan. Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri. Picturised on Suchitra Sen

15.   “Ruk ja raat thehar jaa
re chanda” (Also “Hum tere pyaar mein saara alam”). Dil ek Mandir (1963). Music: Shankar-Jaikishan. Lyrics: Shailendra.
Picturised on Meena Kumari

16.
“Tumhe
yaad karte karte jayegi rain saari” (Also “Tadap yeh din raat ki”). Amrapali (1966). Music: Shankar-Jaikishan. Lyrics: Shailendra. Picturised
on Vyajantimala

Dilli-o-Dilli

1970-01-01T00:00:00Z

I rave and rant so much about life in Delhi that I thought let me chronicle some of my pet peeves about Delhi and Delhi-ites and see if any of what I have to say resonates with my readers. I don't pull my punches and in these jottings I certainly won't. Successive posts will be like episodes on aspects of life in Delhi. The Two-Wheeled Monstrosities

Reading the newspapers this morning I discovered that a two-wheeler manufacturing company's net earnings for the quarter had gone up by 95 per cent over the pervious year. I read the news item and felt both deflated and anxious. Sales of two-wheelers mounting rapidly can only be bad news for a city like Delhi.

The city roads are infested with motor cycles and scooters that nonchalantly weave through peak-time traffic, break every rule in the book, get involved in accidents (which more often than not are fatal) and a two-wheeler manufacturer doing good business basically means that many more of these two-wheeled monstrosities would join the road, weaving through traffic even more nonchalantly and all the rest Make no mistake about it.

Two-wheelers are not the only offenders. Everyone on wheels or legs breaks traffic rules and abandon commonsense. Whether it's someone driving a Mitsubishi Pajero or riding the humble bicycle Why then pick on two-wheelers, supposedly a vehicle for the lower middle-class? Why? Because it is the unsafest mode of transport on the bustling streets of Delhi.

Besides, I really do find it depressing that two-wheeler riders in Delhi think nothing of precariously perching their entire family on the vehicle and venturing out into the maddening Delhi traffic. I get panic attacks looking at ladies in sarees perched on the pillion seat with both legs one side, holding a child in her arms. My instinct is to look away but before I do, I also notice that there's another boy sitting on the rider's lap. Two-seaters carrying entire families on the fast-moving Delhi-Gurgaon expressway?it can't get more depressing than that.

They are not allowed on the expressway. There are signs asking them to keep off. There are often uniformed workers waving at them to get off the expressway. But, oblivious of all that, the two-wheeler riders speed on the expressway with a whole brood for company on a two-seater

Two-wheelers have been allowed to become family vehicles because of sheer apathy on the part of law enforcers. More than two should be a strict no, no. Helmets should be a must. Sarees should be prohibited. People should be advised to sit astride a two-wheeler. All that should happen. But it doesn't.

What does happen on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, for instance, is that the two-wheeled monstrosities zip about and every other day there's a fatality I hear of. I have even stopped trying to find who died in the accident. It's invariably a two-wheeled rider or a pedestrian trying to cross the road. Talking of pedestrians, a couple of footbridges have been built on the expressway. I was stunned the other day to see motorcycles on footbridge. My driver told me that the footbridges have ramps and two-wheelers are allowed to cross the road using them. It's shocking, isn't it?

Pedestrians die by hundreds and finally the administration builds a footbridge or two, whereas they need to build maybe 20 on the 27 kilometre stretch. And he two-wheeled monstrosities are allowed on those footbridges. Is anyone who takes these decisions even thinking straight? I find two-wheelers flouting every rule in the book every single day with impunity. Which is not to say that car drivers don't. Only that the misdemeanours of the motorcyclists far exceed anything the motorists unleash on city roads.

The other day on the expressway I saw this Sikh dude on a heavy duty Yamaha motorcycle (may have been a 1500 CC bike) zipping on the highway leaving everyone in his trail and looking over his shoulder to have a look at the chaotic traffic he was leaving behind. I mean he was doing this on an autobahn in Germany you may just forgive him, but here in Delhi? At 8.30 p.m.? I wish there was a court order restraining these dudes and dudettes

At this point an aside. Believe it or not, a few weeks ago in the Safdarjung Enclave market near Deer Park this black Mitsubishi Lancer screeched to a halt and this dude made a spectacle of getting out of the car, walked with a swagger to the paanwaalah and a few minutes later with several pairs of eyes following his every move, he contemptuously flicked ash in the direction of the rest of the world, entered his car and roared off. Guess what was written on the rear windscreen of the car? Fuck the law. I don’t often feel sudden rage but that day I did!

Any way, to return to two-wheeled monstrosities, Harley Davidson, the iconic American brand, is meant to be introducing their motorcycles in India and I am sure there are enough people with money who will buy those machines at whatever price they are available. But driving those machines on the miserable roads of Delhi? Is that any fun? I haven't ridden those bikes. Not do I have any intention to, but I am quite sure that the prospect of sitting astride a Harley Davidson and avoiding a whole assortment of barriers?inanimate and otherwise?on pot-holed roads would be completely off-putting.

Let me think of what to rant about next. There’s so much to rant about…

20-20 Cricket gets my Adrenaline Pumping

1970-01-01T00:00:00Z

By Sanjeev Verma

I have a confession to make: I've never been a sci-fi enthusiast. Never. Not literature. And, seemingly more damningly, not film. Not Star Wars. Not Matrix. Not Stalker. I studiously?and determinedly?avoid them. Among those I can describe as my friends, there are a few science fiction film enthusiasts and they just don't get it. How, they ask, can a self-avowed film buff, not be fond of a genre that presents enormous visual possibilities? How, they ask, can you not like the cinema of such wizards as Andrei Tarkovski and Stanley Kubrick, or Steven Spielberg and George Lucas for that matter?

In my defence, I tell my sci-fi loving friends that of course I love Kubrick and Spielberg. Only I like Eyes Wide Shut and Schindler's List, rather than 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I suppose I am an old-fashioned film enthusiast. For me a film is about storytelling about recognisable people and situations. Futuristic imagery, I am afraid, singularly fails to seduce me.

Anyhow, before I get harangued for saying sacrilegious things about sci-fi cinema, let me shut up and get to the point of this blog, which?strangely enough?isn't sci-fi or films. It's cricket.

In 2008, when the Indian Premier League came into being and catapulted 20-20 cricket into the limelight, I responded the way I do to sci-fi films?with the apathy of a purist. The cricket I love, I said to anyone who bothered to hear, is about watching Rahul Dravid on a sun-dappled cricket field remorselessly grinding the bowlers into the dust. Not about Virender Sehwag teeing off even before the ball had left the bowler's hands, determined to deposit it into the rear rows of the stadium.

Cricket, I said, is about an innings that lasts 120 overs. Not 120 balls. About the evocative essays on cricket by Neville Cardus and E.W. Swanton. Not about a down-at-heel reporter struggling to conjure up the image of Yusuf Pathan violently smashing the white cricket ball out of the stadium. About dewy-eyed cricket lovers recalling the joy of watching Michael Holding bowling fast?really fast?to Sunil Gavaskar. Not watching Shantakumaran Sreesanth fortuitously dismissing a big-hitting batsman off a full toss and then contorting his face and giving the batsman a foul-mouthed send-off.

20-20 didn't seem something I?a purist if ever there was one?would take to. That was then. One T-20 World Cup and two editions of IPL later, I confess the abbreviated form of the game gets my adrenaline pumping.

To be sure, the love of test cricket, Dravid, Cardus and Gavaskar endures but the resistance to 20-20 cricket is gone completely. This form of cricket has created its own place in my heart and that is thanks only to IPL.

I remember many living room conversations with friends last year. Who, I asked rhetorically, would care whether Bangalore won or Delhi? Would Matthew Hayden play for Chennai with the same pride and passion as he does for the Aussies? Two editions of IPL later my questions have ceased because the answers have been emphatic.

Stirring intensity

The intensity with which IPL 1 and 2 have been played has been quite stirring. I must say there is something exciting about Jacques Kallis bowling to teammate Herschelle Gibbs and giving him a stern glare when his swipe outside off stump connects nothing other than thin air. Or Lasith Malinga steaming in and sending down a lethal slinger to Kumar Sangakarra.

I am now a 20-20 convert. Many things have happened to make that happen. There was India's T-20 World Cup triumph to begin with. The way Dhoni's men beat Australia and then laid Pakistan low in a nail-biting final. That had something to do with it. But mostly it's been IPL 1 and 2.

If anything, IPL 2 had more thrills and spills than the opening edition of the tournament. And for that you have to give all credit to the loquacious Lalit Modi. There's no finesse or subtlety to the man (his lisping tones could be heard at any and every opportunity in South Africa) but he is a maverick genius. To take IPL overseas a couple of weeks ahead of the event and proving naysayers wrong, Modi staged a coup.

Outside India, it was said, the atmosphere would be lacking. It wasn't. The atmosphere was different for sure; the crowds weren't as numerous or raucous but they were there all right. The pitches and the conditions made for closer matches and not as many high-scoring ones as IPL 1 had. The gyrating cheerleaders didn't seem as out of place as they did at Indian cricket grounds. I have heard terrible stories about lewd gestures and vulgar comments from large sections of Indian crowds at most venues, particularly in Delhi.

Great atmosphere

Some writers have written uncharitable things about IPL 2. I find those comments befuddling. The second edition, they claim, lacked the crowds and the atmosphere of IPL 1. Not true at all. Crowds were decidedly thinner. Much thinner. But, hey, South Africa has a 50 million population to India's 1.17 billion. And while cricket and cricketers?as has been stated ad nauseam?are worshipped in India, South Africa has two others sports?rugby and soccer?competing with cricket in the popularity stakes. Lacked atmosphere? No, sir. The atmosphere was different for sure. But it was there in abundance.

The other thing that was different about IPL's second edition was that it offered an even contest between bat and ball. If your cricketing joy lies purely in seeing marauding batsmen flay the bowlers at will, you would probably have enjoyed IPL 2 a little less. But it is the fascinating tussle between bowlers and batsmen to outthink each other that makes cricket the game it is and that was in plentiful evidence in South Africa. Also, I certainly think the batsmen need to work harder to get their runs. If it comes to them on a platter and bowling reputations are ruined after a few lusty blows, it simply isn't fair.

IPL 2, then, provided a more potent and engaging mix of cricket and entertainment. The drama in some of the matches was stirring. The very first day had great cricket. Shane Warne foxed Virat Kohli and B. Akhil in an exhibition of masterly leg-spin bowling but Rahul Dravid?the most unlikely man to be doing well in T-20?gave Bangalore Royal Challengers a chance and the bowlers (led by the ageless Anil Kumble) then put up a virtuoso show to dismiss defending champion Rajasthan Royals for a meagre 58.

Absurdities galore

The manner in which West Indian Chris Gayle cut loose against Kings XI Punjab was worth watching but at the end of the match it was absurd?and not a little annoying?to have this cloying interview with Kolkata Knightriders team owner Shahrukh Khan, who was chuffed enough to make several predictions, including this one: that the toss-up for the Most Valuable Player of the Tournament was between Chris Gayle and Saurav Ganguly.

Gayle left to lead his team against England after just six matches and Ganguly cut a sorry figure looking sour-faced and utterly out of sorts throughout IPL 2. The team owner who made the grandiose prediction disappeared soon after making it as his team got clobbered by all and sundry. They made inexplicable decisions like not playing Ajantha Mendis and discarding Mashrafe Murtaza after just one match too. Heads will no doubt roll before IPL 3 comes along. New coach certainly. New captain perhaps. New owner? For the sake of cricket?and my own equanimity?I hope Shahrukh Khan's love for cricket is over. Or at least that the official broadcaster does not inflict another interview on us with Khan holding forth on cricketing matters

SET Max was, if anything, shoddier in its coverage this year. Too many commercials. Too many plugs about "DLF maximums" and "Citi moments of success". The strategy breaks were an unwelcome addition. And surely no one who enjoys cricket would have found Sameer Kochhar, Gaurav Kapoor, Mandira Bedi and Chang even mildly interesting. Also, in his playing days Kiwi Danny Morrison was nothing more than a mediocre bowler. As a television commentator he makes the most mediocre commentators seem positively brilliant. Cancel his contract somebody

IPL is packaged as an entertainment experience and all manner of things are done to create that package. Most of what is done isn't warranted but that's the nature of the beast

Collapsing in a heap

Cricket-wise there were thrills and spills aplenty. It was nice to see Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma dominate with the bat in South Africa. Their bowling (Sharma got a hat-trick) was a revelation too. To me, IPL 2 also showed why Sachin Tendulkar, the great batsmen that he is, can never be a good captain.

He had perhaps the strongest line-up in the tournament and yet his team struggled and finished seventh among eight teams.

Last year, they said Mumbai Indians suffered because of Tendulkar's unavailability and then the ban enforced on Harbhajan Singh. This year Tendulkar played throughout (and as a batsman was often brilliant) and Harbhajan was also allowed to play since he didn't attempt slapping anyone after a defeat. But their team sizzled initially and then, inexplicably, collapsed in a heap.

The captain had a lot to do with it. Just an example or two:

He dropped Sanath Jayasuriya for a match or two ostensibly for poor batting form in favour of Luke Ronchi
In a crucial match against Rajasthan Royals, with himself and Jayasuriya as the most feared opening pair in the tournament, he had Dwayne Bravo, Yogesh Takawale and Ajinkya Rahane as his 1, 2 and 3. Jayasuriya and Tendulkar batted and 4 and 5. If Mumbai Indians still almost won the match had entirely to do with the brilliant Abhishek Nayar. That two-run loss hurt Mumbai Indians and Tendulkar's tactics were to blame.

Mumbai Indians also didn't renew the contracts of Dwayne Smith and Manish Pandey. And we know what those two players did for Deccan Chargers and Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Here's what I think: if M.S. Dhoni was in charge of Mumbai Indians, the results would have been very different. I am sure of that. I mean what a team with Tendukar, Jayasuriya, Bravo and J.P. Duminy (not to forget Nayar) among the batsmen and Lasith Malinga, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan among the bowlers. To be sure, they suffered because of Zaheer Khan's absence but Dhoni would have made better use of the resources at hand, especially Duminy and Bravo as bowlers.

Daft or what

Virendra Sehwag's captaincy cost Delhi Daredevils dear:

A team that dominated most of the tournament even when their destructive openers?Sehwag himself and Gautam Gambhir?were largely out of sorts was due to the dominant batting of A.B. De Villiers and Tilakratne Dilshan. Glenn McGrath sitting on the bench through 15 matches most rank as something of a scandal. Dirk Nannes was a revelation, yes. But McGrath, the bowler capable of metronomic precision and control not playing
When Sehwag was injured for a few matches in came David Warner, the rumbustious Aussie left-hander, and spanked the ball in a manner that would sent a chill down the spine of many a bowler. Sehwag returned and Warner joined McGrath on the bench
Rajat Bhatia had been a key bowler for Delhi and had in an earlier match showed nerves of steel in bowling the 20^th over. Sehwag didn't give him a single over in the semi-final against Deccan Chargers
When Adam Gilchrist was belting the living daylights out of, Sehwag brought himself on to bowl and disappeared for 25 runs. He bowled before handing the ball to Amit Mishra, who came on for the 8^th over the immediately made a difference.

The bottom two teams of IPL 1 playing in the final was quite a story. But I have to admit that well as Rahul Dravid played in some of the matches, I just don't like watching my favourite batsman look anything less than elegant. The shot he played in the final to someone called Harmeet Singh and lost his leg stump was ugly and ugliness is one thing I do not associate with India's finest batsman.

Bangalore Royal Challengers were losing wickets all the time but I still thought they would win and in my view the reason they didn't is because of a decision they made before IPL 2 started?they traded Zaheer Khan for Robin Uthappa. They lost a brilliant bowler for a unidimensional batsman who fires about one every eight matches. In the last over of IPL 2 Uthappa was abysmal. If only it had been Rohit Sharma. Or Suresh Raina. Or?to continue the flight of fantasy?Yusuf Pathan playing the last over

In Conclusion

So, from passionate outpourings, it should be evident that my dislike for limited overs cricket is a thing of the past. T-20 has emerged as a game that involves great skill and strategy. Adam Gilchrist's team had both and that's why they won IPL 2. I now await IPL 3. But, please, I don't want to hear another word on shenanigans in the KKR outfit.

The Great Desert Island Discs Game

2009-06-01T07:02:40Z

In an earlier post on the golden era of Hindi film music, I talked about Desert Island Discs. Just that reference as revived a long-time fascination with that programme and its concept. It's a game that has an eternal?and international?appeal. The BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs was created in 1942 by Roy Plomley, the British playwright, novelist and broadcaster.

In 1942 Desert Island Discs was meant to be a series of eight weekly programmes. Each show consisted of an interview with a celebrity, interpersed by the guest’s choice of music. His contract was renewed for a further 15 shows. In the end he presented 1,791 editions of the programme stretching over 43 years. Plomley's successor as the presenter of Desert Island Discs was Michael Parkinson and then Sue Lawley and Kirsty Young.

The format that has been in place for 67 years is simple: each week a guest is invited by the presenter?currently Kirsty Young, awell-established BBC news anchor?to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. The discussion of their choice is a device for them to review their life. They also choose a favourite book (excluding the Bible or other religious work and Shakespeare - these already await the “castaway”) and a luxury which must be inanimate and have no practical use.

So, let me choose eight pieces of classical music to begin with.

1. I am a Mozart devotee. Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K 491, is a piano and orchestra concerto that's sublime in its musical elegance. The theme and variations finale of this concerto profoundly moves me every time I hear it

2. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K 622, which the Austrian composer wrote in 1791, the year he died at the age of 35

3. Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 61, which as a conversation between soloist and orchestra is peerless, is an easy choice

4. As too is Beethoven's Eroica?his Third Symphony in E Flat Major, Opus 55. If there is a more heroic musical composition I am still to hear it. The manner in which great composers use particular musical instruments is for me an inexhaustible source of fascination in classical music and in listening to the Eroica the use of oboe stands out

5. My fondness for opera music came relatively late and perhaps for that reason I am such a Verdi or Richard Strauss devotee. Or Richard Wagner. But I love Puccini's Tosca, the opera I listen most to

6. Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor, K 626. For people who know me, this would seem a strange choice given my anti-religion postures. However, I do believe that if there's anything that's every come out of religious beliefs of human beings it is music and nothing exemplifies that better than Mozart's Requiem, which is profoundly moving. Violins combining with the stirring choral singing of the Lacrimosa never fails to move me

7. I wouldn't go anywhere?much less a desert island?without Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Opus 61

8. And, finally, Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K 201, which for me is the greatest symphony in musical repertory.

With this music, and with some books and enough food, and of course a great music system to play these discs, you could leave me on an island and forget I exist.

If only Amitabh had gone away quietly…

1970-01-01T00:00:00Z

He has reduced himself to a caricature of the man?and actor?he once was. Ever since his disastrous experiment with politics, Amitabh Bachchan's charisma has been on the wane. It has hit many low spots along the way and the process continues unabated. With his latest statement on Slumdog Millionaire on his thoroughly tasteless and insipid blog, Bachchan plumbs new depths of vainglory.

He suggests that Slumdog Millionaire has caused "pain and disgust" to "nationalists and patriots" because "it projects India as a Third World nation". I suppose from the balcony of the Bachchan mansion "Prateeksha" or "Jalsa"?or whichever other bungalow he chooses to ensconce himself in?India does appear to be a First World nation. I can imagine Bachchan's averting his gaze from the slums that surround the Juhu area in Mumbai he lives. Hence Danny Boyle's depiction of life in slums?"the dirty underbelly", in Bachchan's eloquent words?outrages the true patriot in him.

Thereafter Bachchan goes on to take a swipe at Satyajit Ray. Major film festivals of the West, he claims, gave plentiful attention and adulation to Ray because "he portrayed reality", while ignoring "the commercial escapist world of Indian cinema". There was, our man says, nary a word of appreciation for the entertaining, mass-oriented box-office blockbusters being turned out from the Mumbai dream factory. In its tastelessness and insensitivity Bachchan's comment on Ray rivals a statement made in the Rajya Sabha a few decades ago by actress Nargis, who claimed Ray "exported poverty".

A towering figure in world cinema, Satyajit Ray made 37 films. HHis debut film, Pather Panchali (1955), which established him as a film-making talent to reckon with, did deal with characters mired in poverty but what poverty did Bachchan?or Nargis?see in Charulata? Or Nayak, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Seemabaddha, Ashani Sanket, Teen Kanya, et al? And that's assuming that there's a problem with a film portraying characters in a poverty-stricken situation, which obviously there cannot be.

Does this Big B?what a God-awful nickname that is?seriously expect cineastes to extol his misogynist tripe?mard ko dard nahin hota (Mard, 1985) or his loathsome warbling Mere angane main tumhara kya kaam hai (Laawaris, 1981). Or, worse still, did he expect film festival audiences at Berlin or Venice to accord a standing ovation to his unbelievably appalling Gabbar Singh in Ramgopal Varma ki Aag? Or his putrid pronouncements as an ageing lothario in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna?

Here's what I think of all this:

A blow Puneet Issar landed on Amitabh Bachchan in 1982 changed a lot of things?a lot more than may be obvious straight away. Bachchan survived that potentially fatal intestinal injury all right but it caused a tectonic shift in the

Bachchan persona. His Midas touch vanished. Never to appear again.

His charisma declined. The quality of his films took a nosedive. Think of Mard, Inquilaab, Aakhri Raasta, Shahenshah, Toofan and Jaadugar in the remaining part of the 1980s decade. Or Agneepath, Aaj ka Arjun, Ajooba, Hum, Major Saab, and many others in the 1990s. Then came his misadventure with ABCL (the grandiosely named Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited), which nearly drove him to bankruptcy and he got embroiled in legal cases of fraud. The Bachchan era seemed to have ended but television gave his career a second lease of life.

The game show Kaun Banega Crorepati was a huge hit and the essential talent and goodness of the man shone through in the game show format as he dealt suavely?and endearingly?with ordinary people who were clearly overwhelmed to be in the presence of someone with a larger than life image. It put things back on the rails for him in financial terms. Cases of fraud against him were withdrawn and riding on his television popularity he attempted to resurrect his career, an attempt that met with limited success. He could never rekindle the Bachchan aura of the ten years between 1973 and 1983. He had become a parody of himself. Consider films like Ek Rishtaa, Aks, Aankhen, Kaante, Aetbaar, Baabul, Eklavya, Nishabd, Eklavya, Ramgopal Varma ki Aag the list goes on.

To be sure, on occasions he would deliver a film of some promise. But from an actor of his calibre and influence you would expect more consistency. Lest this analysis of Bachchan's career be judged all too pat and sweeping, let me concede that in the last 25 years he has done some films that he needn't be

embarrassed about:

The Javed Akhtar scripted Main Azaad Hoon (1989) showed him in fine fettle
The Salim Khan scripted Akayla (1991) made by Ramesh Sippy which occasionally had him exude the kind of brooding intensity that reminded you of Mr. Vijay (the man without a surname) that he played in his halcyon years?Zanjeer, Deewar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar, Dostana, Shaan and Shakti
Mukul Anand's overwrought Khuda Gawah (1992) in which Bachchan's Pathan is a powerful presence
Ravi Chopra's predictable enough weepie Baghban (2003) in which Bachchan creates moments of deep intensity
Shaad Ali's Bunty aur Babli (2005), which has echoes of the Bachchan joie de vivre
The original Sarkar (2005)
Cheeni Kum (2007), where he produced a measured and restrained performance.

My list does not include perhaps his most lauded performance on the last decade and more?Black (2005). Primarily because, unlike most critics who wrote paeans of praise, I deeply dislike Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film, which is as fake as fake can get. Also, I couldn't come to terms with Bachchan's over-the-top performance; he should have played it at least a note lower. It's one of those performances that's saying: ain't I great? I prefer acting far subtler. Some examples from Bachchan's own oeuvre: Deewar, Sholay, Zanjeer, Abhimaan, Trishul, Chupke Chupke, Namak Haraam

Any suggestion that the remarkably untalented Karan Johar has done anything other than make a succession of terrible films, of course, sets my teeth on edge. And in the execrable Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna he enabled Bachchan to touch one of the lowest ebbs of his career. Somehow Johar's cinema is inevitably about ebb, no flow. But this isn't about Johar, so let me give my teeth a rest (they have been on edge since I started writing this paragraph) and return to Bachchan.

In 1991, the London Film Festival held a retrospective of Bachchan's films. I was a delegate at the festival and the press office of the festival informed me that Bachchan was in town and available for interviews and asked me if I would want to meet him. Why not, I said, and so a day later I was escorted into a small room in the Press Office for a 30-minute meeting with Bachchan. We talked about his film Akayla, which had just been released. He told me that my review of the film in The Sunday Observer (of which I was then the film critic) had been faxed to him the previous morning and that he had read my views with interest, "even though most of what I had to say wasn't exactly complimentary".

Before we could really start talking, the time was over and Bachchan invited me the following day to have lunch with him at St. James's Court Hotel. He was a gracious host and we spent several hours talking. I remember a key moment from that interview. I asked him that I would have expected a influential star and cerebral actor like him to do work that was more enduring and less kitschy. Let me reconstruct the question: "Don't you also get the feeling that over and over again you keep playing the one-man variety entertainer or lately this vigilante who guns down the villains in defiance of lawful institutions? Don't you think a man of your influence and talent should have pushed the envelope and created an infinitely richer body of work?"

Long, studied silence greeted my question. Then he said he tried that a couple of years earlier in Main Azaad Hoon but his fans couldn't accept him "as a guy who gets up beaten up by others and someone who decides to commit suicide to make his point". He said: "My kids couldn't believe it. They told me, dad how can you play a part in which everyone's bashing you? Why aren't you bashing all of them up mercilessly?"

This was Bachchan's reason for not doing more, well, meaningful cinema. Quite staggering, I thought then. And now while writing this it's a despairing sense of disbelief that overwhelms me. Yet, we will retain fond memories of his Vijay in Zanjeer or the lovable rogue Anthony in Amar Akbar Anthony or the English professor in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Chupke Chupke. Not to forget the laconic Veeru of Sholay. If only he would shut up and not make preposterous statements on his ill-conceived blog or agree to dance at a London tube station in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. If only he would refuse to take calls from Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali when they make their next films If only he had gone quietly into the night!

Golden Era in Hindi Film Music

2009-01-14T18:39:29Z

The Magical Years: 1960-1975

I have always been fond of old Hindi film music but it’s always had to play second fiddle to my love for classical western music. I worship Mozart and Beethoven and that’s the music I have listened to most for the last, well, 25 years of my life. However, 2008 brought about an unexpected change. I changed my job. The distance between home and work grew from being six kilometres to 46 (one way, of course) and apart from Mozart’s concertos, Beethoven’s symphonies and Puccini’s operas, I started to listen to old Hindi film music. I must confess this was in deference to my driver, who I could see squirming visibly while driving me to and from work. I took pity on the poor bloke and decided to, well, lessen his agony by listening to old Hindi songs.

I am not sure he appreciates the great sacrifice I made and I am not even sure if the music playing in the car for three to four hours every day is any less agonising for him, but I’ve discovered true bliss in the bargain. As my son puts it, there’s always Lata with me in the car. And that she is. She is quite simply one of the great voices I have heard in my life–one that I never tire of listening to. So, for two hours in the morning while driving to work (or rather being driven to work) and two hours in the evening, I listen to her songs. More often than not they are songs composed by Madan Mohan, who has as long as I can remember been my favourite composer. Together, the melancholic mood they create with their songs never ceases to cast a spell on me.

On a visit to Bombay a week or so ago, a like-minded friend, who always associated me with Mozart, was surprised to hear me go into raptures about Madan Mohan. Turned out he adored the composer too and so we spent an entire evening talking about the great man, who died when he was just 51 but left behind a body of work that is peerless.

We talked also about what we both described as the golden era of Hindi film music. For him it was the period 1950-1980. I narrowed that down further to just 15 years: 1960 to 1975. The most gifted composers were at their creative best in those years composing music to words penned by great poets and the songs were vocalised by singers at the peak of their powers.

Let’s take the composers. Madan Mohan, S.D. Burman, Roshan, Shankar-Jaikishan, O.P. Nayyar, Ravi. Or Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Kalyanji-Anandji for that matter. Then take the lyricists. Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi Azmi, Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Rajendra Krishan, Shailendra. As for singers, imagine having to choose from the likes of Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammad Rafi, Manna Dey,
Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Geeta Dutt…

When you have, say, the words of a Kaifi set to music by Madan Mohan and the song is sung by Lata, the result can only be magic. Or make that S.D. Burman/Shailendra/Lata…

The evening in Bombay led us on an interesting journey as we started to talk about one of our favourite programmes on BBC in the 1990s. A lady named Sue Lawley asked all manner of well-known people to imagine themselves as castaways on a desert island, and to choose eight pieces of music to take with them. My friend–and I–had oodles of fun listening to the choice of music of writers, actors, politicians, et al.

This led us to play a new game. He asked me what Hindi film music I would take with me if I were left on an island with music from eight films? I asked for time and just last night sent him my list. The films I chose: Hanste Zakhm (Madan Mohan/Kaifi Azmi), Guide (S.D. Burman/Shailendra), Dastak (Madan Mohan/Majrooh Sultanpuri), Bandini (S.D. Burman/Shailendra), Mamta (Roshan/Majrooh Sultanpuri), Hum Dono (Jaidev/Sahir Ludhianvi), Woh Kaun Thi (Madan Mohan/Raja Mehdi Ali Khan) and Anpadh (Madan Mohan/Raja Mehdi Ali Khan).

Just saw my friend has written saying I must now whittle down the eight films to just eight songs. A pleasurable but somewhat despairing prospect. Imagine zeroing in on just eight songs from the thousands of songs I have grown up with, loving them, smiling and crying with them. But since 1942 guests on BBC have been choosing their desert island discs and they are given just eight songs to choose and they have been doing so. And so will I. In another post. Soon.

But, in signing off I have to say that this evening while I was returning home I heard Madan Mohan’s “Aaj socha to aansoon bhar aaye”. It’s a song I listen to often. It’s from Hanste Zakhm and when Lata’s voice soars over the soulful strains of sitar, I find absolute bliss.Every time I hear it I like it more. Now, there are just seven more songs to add to this one. Easy does it. Right?

Echoes of the Past

2008-07-16T06:18:51Z

By Sanjeev Verma

Cinema?and I usually say this when the wife is out of earshot?is my first love. For me it's cinema. Or films. Never movies. I painstakingly?and I am sure gratingly?object to even my nine-year-old son calling them movies. Why, he asks? Aren't they synonyms?films, cinema, movies, et al? No they most certainly aren’t. Movies, I maintain, is what they are called in America and there's something ephemeral, even trivial, about that word.

So, to get back to the point, I love films. Some 16-odd years ago, Sight & Sound, the film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI), asked me as a film scholar to nominate my ten favourite films of all time. This choice, the BFI letter told me, would be included in Sight & Sound's ten-yearly poll of the best films in history. In 1952 Sight & Sound polled the world’s leading film critics to compile a list of the best films of all time. The magazine has repeated this poll every ten years, to show which films stand the test of time in the face of shifting critical opinion. In 1992 (and that's the year I was invited to nominate my ten) the magazine added a poll of directors asking them for their personal choices. In 2002, the magazine published its largest poll to date, receiving contributions from 145 film critics, writers and academics, and 108 film directors. The results were intriguing, both for their certainty in choosing intense personal films as the best, and for their lack of agreement about which films of recent times can compete with the greatest.

I remember the impact the letter from BFI had on me in 1992. I first luxuriated in the prospect of compiling a definitive list and thereafter cogitated endlessly over my choices. Starting with a shortlist of 100-plus, I then used the elimination process to zero in on my top ten. When some 40 names were left on the list, it broke my heart to scratch out names of films that have meant so much to me. Night after night, with the deadline fast approaching, I would sit on my study table agonizing over each film. Finally, seemingly unable to prune the list to anything less than 20, I picked up the phone and spoke to the head of BFI. Could I please?please, please, please?be allowed to send a list of 20? I would gladly write an essay passionately arguing why I couldn't bring myself to strike out any more names from the list, I said.

The lady laughed heartily?a touch wickedly it seemed at the time?and told me she had received many similar calls from people around the world and her response was simple and stolid: We need a list of ten and no more.

Resigned to my fate, I spent another couple of nights, and days, and finally got a list of ten that provided that elusive sense of quietus. I still cheated having chosen 12 films; putting The Apu Trilogy down as one film helped. I never got the invitation from BFI to nominate my top ten films in 2002. I am hopeful of the letter?or e-mail in keeping with modern times?making its way to me in time for the 2012 poll.

But you know that marathon exercise, which had its moments of agony and ecstasy in equal measure, has held up nicely these 16 years. I remain faithful to the list in its entirety. Four years hence, if that e-mail does come, I won't be surprised if that list remains unchanged. Unless, of course, an outstanding cinematic creation makes its debut in the interim period. I doubt it though. Sure, there have been a couple of stray films in these 16 years that have made me feel like reaching for the eraser and revising the list?the only ones I can recall are Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours, Stanley Kubrick's hugely under-rated Eyes Wide Shut and the Coen brothers' recent No Country for Old Men?but the list has survived.

Here's my list:

1. The Apu Trilogy (1959), Satyajit Ray

2. Bicycle Thieves (1948), Vittorio De Sica

3. Brief Encounter (1945), David Lean

4. Charulata (1964), Satyajit Ray

5. The Earrings of Madame de (1953), Max Ophuls

6. The Leopard (1963), Luchino Visconti

7. Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Charles Chaplin

8. Night and Fog (1955), Alain Resnais

9. Strangers on a Train (1951), Alfred Hitchcock

10. The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed

No film after 1964. Yes. But then I am nothing if not old-fashioned. But when I run down the list of the films voted for by the 145 directors who took part in the 2002 poll, I find that these cineastes are equally old-fashioned. Here's the list of films that received the most votes:

Film	Votes	Rank
Citizen Kane (Welles)	42	1
The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola)	28	2
8 1/2 (Fellini)	19	3
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)	16	4
Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)	14	5
Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)	13	6
Raging Bull (Scorsese)	13	6
Vertigo (Hitchcock)	13	6
La R�gle du jeu (Renoir)	12	9
Rashomon (Kurosawa)	12	9
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)	12	9
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)	11	12
Sunset Blvd. (Wilder)	11	12
The Apartment (Wilder)	10	14
La dolce vita (Fellini)	10	14
Mirror (Tarkovsky)	9	16
Psycho (Hitchcock)	9	16
Tokyo Story (Ozu)	9	16
Apocalypse Now (Coppola)	8	19
Casablanca (Curtiz)	8	19
City Lights (Chaplin)	8	19
Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)	8	19
Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly, Donen)	8	19
Andrei Roublev (Tarkovsky)	7	24
L’avventura (Antonioni)	7	24
Chinatown (Polanski)	7	24
La Grande Illusion (Renoir)	7	24
Some Like It Hot (Wilder)	7	24
La strada (Fellini)	7	24
The Searchers (Ford)	7	24
Amarcord (Fellini)	6	31
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)	6	31
A bout de souffle (Godard)	6	31
Jules et Jim (Truffaut)	6	31
Les Enfants du paradis (Carn�)	6	31
On the Waterfront (Kazan)	6	31
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)	6	31
The Seventh Seal (Bergman)	6	31
Taxi Driver (Scorsese)	6	31
Touch of Evil (Welles)	6	31
The Conformist (Bertolucci)	5	41
Once upon a Time in the West (Leone)	5	41
Persona (Bergman)	5	41
Pickpocket (Bresson)	5	41
Ran (Kurosawa)	5	41
Sunrise (Murnau)	5	41
Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick)	5	41
The Third Man (Reed)	5	41
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston)	5	41
The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)	5	41

If you think you are a cineaste try putting your list of ten together and see how many post-1960s films make it. Will it be a case of echoes of the past for you as well?