rants inc

Josheeeeenaaaah!

2010-02-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

It’s (cough!) that time of the (ack! Ack! Cough!) season again. And perhaps it isn’t a huge co-incidence that my friend Dhanushka, unheard from in several months, chooses to call just now, out of the blue (Oh, ok, out of Sri Lanka, you reality freaks: that’s where he is from).

Now Dhanushka and I have a history together. No, no, absolutely not what your fertile imagination beckons you to believe. ‘Fertile’. You’ll soon get to know why I used that word.

Any how, it goes like this: It all began when I moved to Pune to study filmmaking at FTII. What all began, you ask? My Pune-origin sore throat and allergic cough problems. Maybe I was allergic to the pollution, or to Raj Thackeray, who knows? (Is there a big diff between the two? Yes. Pollution doesn’t drive a Land Cruiser, but the Land Cruiser that Raj T drives causes pollution. In fact Raj T just needs to open his mouth to cause pollution, but that’s another blog-post.) Anyway, so there I was, gaining experience in taking shots (film shots, not tequila, noble reader) and nursing perpetual throat afflictions. And after trying out several systems of medicine I came to the conclusion that Hamdard’s Unani cough syrup ‘Joshina’ did much to soothe the poor throat and resultant rankled nerves. (No, Hamdard isn’t paying me for this). You mixed some of the syrup in hot water and took a swig, and got a complimentary sugar rush, besides. Now, people are known to have got hyper-active and done weird things on a s-sh-sssugar rush, but believe you me, I have never really acted abnormal. And I’m not-not-NOT hype-hype-hyperactive either. (Wait, let me run up and down the stairs for no reason at all, and come back).

(Huff. Puff. Phew!) Now Cut To the location of my story. FTII Hostel. Interior. We had a co-ed hostel. Yes, you got it right, dear reader, men and women in the same hostel building. Please don’t widen your eyes so, gentle reader. You can’t expect budding adult filmmakers (not adult-film makers, noble reader) in their twenties, thirties and even forties to live like chastised children. Some of our batch-mates brought along their spouses and children as well. And obviously there were no timing restrictions et al. Well, what are you going to do if you have to shoot a night scene? Shoot in the day and pretend that the sun is a twinkling star? Yes, it is, in fact, a twinkling star, but so what? We were artistes. And we were not going to be treated like children. Wait a minute, my Mom’s calling out. Yes Mommy, I’ll drink my milk (but I wanna drink with a straw!) and I will wear my teddy bear pajamas and go to bed by 8, only if you read me Winnie the Pooh first!

Now, something about dear ol’ Dhanushka. He was a foreign (Sri Lankan) student, like I’ve already told you, and I believe he had a deep appreciation for Indian culture (more interested in watching Govinda instead of Godard, for instance). He did have a keen desire to learn Indian languages (apart from the abuses which he knew almost instinctively). Hell, he even adapted Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Postmaster’ into a short film in Bengali without understanding a word of the language (this is hundred percent true!). Now the problem was that he looked as Indian as the rest of us. And several people, ranging from faculty members to waiters in restaurants would often start talking to him in Hindi. He wouldn’t know how to respond in what was a foreign tongue for him, and would just nod and smile and say ‘Haan’ (‘Yes’). Sample:
Befuddled Editing Professor: “Yeh kaisi editing kari hai? Film ka matlab kya hai?” (“What sort of editing is this? What is the meaning of your film?”)
Dhanushka: (Nod and smile) “Haan”.
Scandalized Lady Teacher: ”Yeh mahilaaon ka toilet hai, aap idhar kya kar rahein hain?” (“This is a Ladies toilet, what are you doing here?”)
Dhanushka: (Nod and smile) “Haan”.
Angry Batchmates (After Sri Lanka beat India in a cricket match): “Pakdo saaley firangi ko; aaj tera keema banaayengey!” (“Catch hold of the bloody Sri Lankan; we’ll make mince-meat of you today!”)
Dhanushka: (Nod and smile) “Haan”.

You get the gist.

So, one particular late evening, I was in my room sipping my regular dose of Joshina, and Dhanushka came in for a chat. Desirous of learning about Indian languages (especially after the aforementioned India-Sri Lanka mince-meat debacle), and about all things Indian in general, he asked me what ‘Joshina’ meant. I told him that it was a medicine I took regularly, and that Joshina, probably coming from ‘Josh’, literally meant Energy Producing or Vigour Inducing or thereabouts. As soon as he heard this his eyes grew as wide as saucers and he betrayed a strange expression on his face: a mix of panic along with a broad grin. Well, I don’t know whether it was the sugar rush or what, but I gave him a devilishly evil look, flashed my devil’s teeth and laughed, “Guah-ha-ha!” He immediately turned around and bolted for the door. With the glass of Joshina in hand I ran after him. And for the next several minutes, we ran all over the hostel like that: Dhanushka in his vest, clutching his threatening-to-fall-anytime electric blue checked lungi for dear life, hawai chappals flapping loudly, while I chased him up and down the stairs, the corridors and the TV Room. Every now and then he would turn back to see if I was still following, and on finding that indeed I was close behind, he would scream “Bachao! Bachao! Meri Izzat!” (“Help! Help! My Chastity!”). (I guess these were the only other words he managed to learn after “Haan”. Obviously the Eighties’ Bollywood films influenced him more than the syllabus’s French New Wave cinema). And of course nobody ever came to his rescue; he seemed to be enjoying the run as much as I was! Why else did he have a grin that would give the Cheshire Cat an inferiority complex?

Soon, this sort of thing became a regular habit, with me chasing him all over the place, and at times with others joining the fray as well, running along with me, shouting “Pakdo! Pakdo!” (“Catch him!”) or simply : “Josheeeeeeeennaaaaah!” by way of a clarion call. These marathon sessions would end only when the terrified Lankan would have managed to enter his room and safely bolt the door while I would be out of breath from running and laughing uncontrollably. Though, I swear, at times I thought I heard him secretly giggling to himself inside.

So anyway, we passed out of FTII, having learnt a few lessons about life, the universe and everything else, and went our separate ways. And now I return to the phone call I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. Dhanushka had only recently got married.
“My wife and I are expecting a baby,” he said, a tad sullenly.
“So soon? That’s a surprise!” I said.
“Yes. And it’s all your fault!”
“Ekscuje me, but what do I have to do with your family planning?”
“Well, just after we got married, both my wife and I developed a throat infection… And I … er… we … er… aah… took a bit of …uhm… Joshina for it. And then, we don’t know what happened to us! I had never seen my wife behave like this before! We got all charged up for … uhh… you-know-what… And the scenario is that we turned into maniacs, forgot to use any …er…protection, and that’s how we are now about to have a baby! It’s all your fault! You introduced me to Joshina. And my wife…my wife…,” he said, choked with emotion, “she totally went crazy after having that Joshina. Just the way you used to, whenever you sipped it.”
“What utter bullshit!” I spoke through clenched teeth. “Didn’t you ever get it, you moron? Nothing ever happened to my… umm… appetite for you-know-what after having Joshina! I was always faking it! It was a grand joke! And I thought you had understood it then itself!”
“Whhaaat?!” he said almost disbelievingly, “All that chasing after me, shouting ‘Joshina! Joshina!’ and ‘Pakdo! Pakdo!’… You mean it was a joke?!! I used to be scared stiff! Petrified!”
“Don’t bullshit me!” I retorted. “You looked pretty happy, with that grin across your face, even as you tried running as fast as your Relaxo Hawai chappals would let you!”
“Oh, that! That was because… well… which man wouldn’t be secretly happy with a Punjabi Indian girl chasing him…?” he said sheepishly. “But I swear, the Joshina did have that crazy effect on me and my wife…especially on her, in fact!”

Now, dear reader, to conclude, you never know with Dhanushka Gunathilake. I mean, there are certain lessons of life you expect from a guy who escaped almost certain death in a bomb blast in his war-ravaged native country. Dhan tadaan! Presenting Dhanushka’s profound, life-altering observation for all life and death emergency situations: “If you don’t have the time to wash your undergarments and you have run out of fresh ones, just wear the used undies inside out.” Aaah… there’s so much personal, almost painful depth in that sage advice.

P.S. Dhanushka’s wife happens to be a ‘Punjabi Indian’ as well. Uh…just thought I’d tell you.

P.P.S. Creative liberties have been taken, and though some bits of this story are completely true, at least as true as India TV’s strict journalistic code of ethics, other bits are purely fictitious. Now I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide which ones.

P.P.S. On an unrelated note, Meri twachaa se meri umar ka pata hi nahin chalta. (You can’t figure out my age by looking at my skin.) Possibly my low IQ blog posts and tweets may give a similar impression. I know I sound 13. What a compliment, I’m 16 after all.

I Just Can’t Stop Lovin’ You

2009-07-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

A Tribute to Michael Jackson

It’s finally beginning to sink in. Michael Jackson is no more. But for the most part, after I received the early morning wake up news about his passing (India time), I was just too numb to react. I guess I’m just one of the innumerable fans feeling personally bereaved.

I discovered MJ when I was eleven. It was the pre-cable TV era in India and there was not much access to international music, especially for someone like me who at that time lived in small town Siliguri in West Bengal. I did catch a rare glimpse of his on VHS tapes owned by friends with relatives in ‘phoren’. I liked him enough but didn’t idolize him or anything – that honour was strictly reserved for the very non-musical sporting icon Sachin Tendulkar. I did have a book of MJ’s songs’ lyrics and ‘sheet music’, but that was a default possession which came free with an electronic keyboard. And I pretty much remained indifferent to that little book.

At the age of twelve my family and I moved to the big bad metropolis, Delhi, and I ended up staying at a property which had a cable guy as one of the tenants. Cable TV had just made its first few tentative steps in India and having a cable guy as tenant meant free and unlimited access to cable TV, then almost unheard of! As an aside, the MTV then was enormously different from its Bollywoody avatar today. The VJ’s, and more importantly, the artistes featured were all ‘firangs’. In fact we would be very surprised (and pay special attention to) any Indian (or Indian seeming) musicians – Rock Machine, Apache Indian, Strings… And then, one day, I came across MJ – and the ‘Black or White’ video mesmerized me to no end. I was hooked.

I really don’t remember what happened after that. Soon MJ became adored, worshipped, loved, idolized, etc by me, replacing Sachin Tendulkar or anyone else in my heart! By the time I was thirteen, I was totally smitten. Dare anyone say anything against MJ! Not only was I this besotted fan of his, I day-dreamt all day long about him and imagined some fanciful communion with him in my solitary moments. The MJ songs’ book which had received scant attention from me earlier became my prized possession. It had a big picture of his on the cover and I would hug it to sleep at night, and kiss it, god alone knows how many times a day.

One day I learnt that he was a vegetarian. If I’m not mistaken, it had something to do with his association with ‘Free Willy’ and a resultant respect for animal life. I was a Punjabi, eating anything that moved (oh, ok not anything, like the Chinese!), but how could I eat meat when my hero had relinquished it? Ultimately, the devoted fan in me won, and I remain a vegetarian to this day.

It was 1993 and at a certain point in time, allegations of child sexual abuse against MJ began to surface. I was too young then to fully understand what ‘gay’ or ‘paedophile’ meant (though, admittedly, today’s kids are much better informed). But I did comprehend that something seemed to be going wrong in Neverland. Then there was a spate of news reports about some of his idiosyncrasies, and the sobriquet ‘Whacko Jacko’ began to be abundantly bandied about. Friends would make fun of him and it started becoming ‘uncool’ to be associated with MJ.

Gradually, the ‘bhoot savaar’, the craze, began to wear off. Though I could never really say that I had become indifferent to MJ. A couple of years down the line he visited India and I yearned to be in Bombay for his concert, but knew that I would never be allowed to travel alone that far. I had to satisfy myself by watching bits of his concert on TV (along with my recently-converted-into-an-MJ-fan grandfather who was only 93!). At the concert, there was this girl in the audience who got invited by MJ to dance with him on stage. Apparently she fainted when he said ‘I love you’ and didn’t take a bath for days because MJ had shook her hand. God! Did I envy that girl or what!

But once the hysteria abated, I found MJ becoming weirder by the day. His marriage to Lisa Marie Presley seemed like a publicity stunt and that very public kiss was totally revolting. His new albums and videos were not a patch on his earlier work, and in any case I had already started veering towards hardcore rock music. His numerous plastic surgeries and ever-changing nose put him in the category of the freakishly bizarre. By now, his reputation was such that it got embarrassing to admit that you liked him. I remember sheepishly admitting to a bunch of friends that I had become a veggie because MJ had been my hero and idol at a point in time. They teased me for several days after that. They would playfully start singing MJ’s songs whenever they would see me. Being an MJ fan meant risking being a laughing stock. And as far as I was concerned, MJ was history…

…And then, one day in recent history, he just died. The news of his death struck like a bolt out of the blue. It was unbelievable. And I was suddenly filled with a tragic sense of loss. Memories of my young and innocent days came flooding back and I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia, those sweet, simple days of MJ’ing. I really don’t know what happened to me after that. I just found myself mourning his death. I cancelled all my plans, including doctors’ appointments, for the week following his death, and remained glued to the international TV channels and newspapers which were covering his demise. I just couldn’t have enough of him and would often find myself being moved to tears by his death. I couldn’t believe I had ‘rejected’ him after having been such a devoted fan once. It would hurt me personally when people would call him ‘Whacko’ or crack jokes at his expense. And now, it’s back to yesterday, i.e., my childhood and teenage years of complete loyalty to MJ. He is back to being my super-talented, peace-loving, humanitarian hero. And it’s going to be like this forever. I love you, MJ!

2009-07-01T04:54:00.000-07:00

Here’s a semi-autobiographical poem I wrote long ago, when I had just joined college… I wrote it for an On the Spot Creative Writing competition and it went on to win prizes in several places. Now that I look back, its pretty jejune and ‘purple’….but hey, what the heck, I was only 17!

It’s So Easy to Fall in Love

As I sit dreaming, I hear Aerosmith tease,

‘Falling in love is so hard on the knees’.

And though I don’t jump at every given chance,

Somehow I just can’t avoid such a cheap coincidence.

Even I was a kid, once upon a time,

Studies came first and love was a crime.

But as a tumbled into teenage,

I noticed that there was coming a change.

Suddenly my skirts got shorter,

Nails were filed,

I didn’t do as I oughtta’,

‘Cause I was no more a child.

One fine day, I saw the movie ‘Top Gun’;

Like those fighter pilots soared my imagination.

I realized that even I had the blues,

And before I could get up,

I had fallen for Tom Cruise.

He was so good looking,

So handsome, so cool…

I would daydream all day,

I was such a lovefool!

His clippings and posters adorned my room.

But alas! There came a day of gloom.

I realized he was happily married

And had kids of his own.

Sigh! Broken hearted…

Never again would I be love-prone.

So I stopped watching movies,

Lest I should again fall for a star.

I switched over to sports,

And got bowled over by a cricketer!

How wonderful he was,

So what if he was from Pakistan?

Always victorious,

Oh! Macho Man Imran Khan!

But then it was no longer discrete,

He was a ball-tampering cheat.

A middle aged playboy big,

And a Male Chauvinist Pig!

Then I turned into a music buff

And coping with life became tough.

This time, to mend my broken heart,

Michael Jackson took his part.

I was teased and tormented by my friends,

“Never fall for these musicians!”

It wasn’t even clear whether he was Black or White,

And I realized that they were actually right.

I heard people say

Naughty things he did to kids

On the pretext of play.

He was so weird, such a nerd,

And then, I didn’t even know whether he was straight or gay!

So I put up a sign in my brain which said ‘NO’!

I would look at no man.

Till I happened to see a fashion show

And went gaga over Milind Soman.

What a body, what grace,

That dazzling smile, that sculpted face.

The way he talked, the way he walked,

He was no less than a Greek god.

“Never mind his girlfriend, honey,

He would leave her soon for me!”

My standard reply would be that,

Till the time I saw him act.

And even though I was optimistic,

Secretly, I was beginning to think he was sick.

I thought I would keep my heart under lock and key,

But as if I hadn’t had my fill,

I found I was crazy about a video jockey

And that was Danny Mc Gill.

But on Danny I didn’t make a lot of fuss,

He was just a small time crush!

Finally it was time to change my tactics

And bring practicality into practice.

I decided to come down to earth.

In Delhi, and in my college,

Of guys there was no dearth.

So I didn’t try to avert my fate

When I realized I had fallen for a classmate.

To me our common friend came to confide

That this time it was from both sides!

How time ‘flied’,

He promised me the world,

Till I realized, he had lied

And had made the same promises to another girl!

Every time I fall in love,

I fall down with a thud.

Crash, boom, bang,

And nipped in the bud.

You must be bored now,

Thinking what else is in store.

Well, just thought I’d tell you,

I have fallen for that cute thing next door!

We go for long walks

He listens, I talk.

Sometimes he comes to my house, or I visit his.

He is so very cute

And I call him my ‘Prince’.

He is so different, and I’m so happy,

For Prince is not a guy, but a Labrador puppy!

BJP 'hijacks' Sandeep Unnikrishnan

2009-03-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

….and there goes the BJP again…. This time it has ‘hijacked’ Sandeep Unnikrishnan to promote itself and forward its divisive agenda.

Recently the BJP had organised a sort of, youth rally, in Bangalore, with ‘anti-terrorism’ as its agenda. Nothing really wrong with that. L.K. Advani addressed a crowd packed with college students, making the usual (for BJP) noises about how the centre was soft on terror, etc etc. Nothing really new in that. But the main draw in the BJP rally was the speech given by the very articulate K. Unnikrishnan, the father of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan. He exhorted the youth to be willing to fight terrorism. Now there lies the rub. Not in K. Unnikrishnan’s views or his address to the youth. But in his overt support for the BJP.

Sandeep Unnikrishnan epitomizes an India which is secular and above parochial issues like caste and community. Sandeep belonged to the Indian Army, one of the last bastions of true secularism in India, where it doesn’t matter what creed or community you belong to, as long as you do your job well and with a nationalistic fervour. He was a South Indian, a Malayali, who had joined a North Indian regiment, the 7 Bihar regiment, and had given up his life defending Mumbai, or more rightly, India.

The BJP, on the other hand has only sought to play vote bank politics by dividing Indian society on communal lines. The razing of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent riots and the memory of the genocide in Gujarat still rankle afresh in one’s mind. In Karnataka, where the BJP rules, it has failed to curb violence against women which has now taken on communal overtones as reports come in of Hindu women speaking to Muslim men being threatened with dire results should they get ‘caught’ in the company of their male Muslim friends again (One of the women went on to commit suicide after being roughed up by the Hindutva goons). L.K. Advani’s belated criticism of attacks on women in pubs was too little and came too late; and one suspects it came only after realizing that the youth and a majority of the urban middle class (read a fat votebank) were upset over these outrageous incidents.

Now why would the father of someone as inspirational as Sandeep Unnikrishnan start to side with a party with a dirty agenda? Of course, he is free to decide his ideology and who he sides politically with. Or could it be that he felt ‘obliged’ to speak for the BJP because the BJP government in Karnataka awarded him a compensation of thirty lakh rupees after Sandeep’s demise? But then, one could argue that even the Central government (the Congress led UPA) conferred upon Sandeep the Ashoka Chakra, which came with an award of twenty five lakh rupees.

I am certainly not saying that K. Unnikrishnan should therefore side with the Congress. In my opinion he shouldn’t side with any political outfit at all. Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s death shouldn’t be politicized at all. Political parties are aware that post his tragic death, Sandeep has been catapulted into becoming an inspirational icon, a cult figure of sorts among the youth. One need only check the number of fan sites and communities dedicated to him on social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook to affirm that.

The BJP, by projecting Sandeep Unnikrishan as belonging to ‘their’ side through his parents’ presence, has sought to cynically cash in on his death, which leaves someone like me, an avowed believer in secularism, very hurt. Sandeep, whose social networking profiles reveal friendships with Muslims and Christians, would be turning in his grave right now.

P. S. An ironic twist to the tale of BJP’s ‘support’ to Sandeep: Led by a youth group, a park in Bangalore was to be named after Sandeep Unnikrishnan. However, some BJP activists decided to come in the way of the naming by getting physically violent with the members of the youth group. The reason for the BJP activists’ violence was the fact that Sandeep Unnikrishnan was not a Kannadiga, though his family had been residing in Bangalore for twenty eight years. The naming of the park has now been cancelled.