Diwali Reflections

As I write this blog, I’m sitting on the bed typing away in my room in the dark with the lights off. There is only the soft glow of an orange Diwali ‘kandeel’ (lantern) in my window with its streamers fluttering in the cool night breeze. That and the occasional splash of colour flitting across the room as a firework explodes in the sky sending out sudden bursts of red, green or gold light that float down slowly and ebb into nothingness in the breeze.

The inky vastness of the night sky ouside contrasts vividly with the strings of dancing lights in the apartment blocks opposite my window.

Am listening to Abida Parveen belt out ‘Na nigaah mein manzil to justaju hi sahi’ in the background on Falak on Worldspace (which generally plays too much Jagjit Singh and too little of the rest of the vast Ghazal performing majority).

Remember listening to a lot of different Ghazal performers (mostly on Polydor or HMV records) during school holidays on our trusty Orion portable. The setting typically used to be some cool retreat away from Mumbai that enabled us to get through the holiday heat with our sanity intact during Diwali or the long summer school vacation. Stuff by performers like Nina and Rajendra Mehta, Savita Sathi, Talat Aziz, Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain, Begum Akhtar, Anup Jalota (before his Bhajan period), Vatsala Mehra and the like. And Penaaz Masani (Dad used to be a huge fan-I’m not sure whether for her relaxed lazy interpretation of Ghazals or the way she looked. Remember seeing her recently at an airport and wondering whether I should get an autograph for dad).

Vividly remember picking up a Chandan Das cassette for the first time in a Delhi market en route to Kashmir. It turned out to be brilliant and paved the way for more Ghazal cassettes (there was a time when we had close to 200 of them).Age has ruined most of them now. And I cannot find replacements on CD or tape.Used to sample Ghazals then mostly through DoorDarshan shows, with their typical 80’s ‘Ghazal feel‘ painted sets with chandeliers, fountains and alternate close up shots of the singer and a bunch of flowers (still haven’t figured that one out).Some of my favorites are mentioned below. If you have an idea of where to get these please let me know-

Chandan Dass-

Dil me kis darja bedili hai abhi
Woh chandani ka badan
Is soch mein baitha hoon
Aaj ki raat bhi guzri hai (..meri kal ki tarha..haath aaye na sitare tere aanchal ki tarah)
Saari duniyan ke sitam aur mera dil tanha
Ab khushi hai na koi dard
Chand tare yunhi
Haalat maiqade ke
Halka halka surur hai saaki

Savita Sathi-

Faasle aise badhenge
Pyaar ke din bahut suhane the
Yeh zindagi ke tamashe
Veerane mein chupkar rona

Penaz Masani-

Fasle bahar kya kahoon
Kahan the raat ko
Halka kabhi padega
Yun unki buzm mein

Jagjit Singh-
Baad muddat unhe dekhkar yoon laga
Main aur meri tanhai

Talat aziz-
Ab kya Ghazal sunaoon
Duniya ko yeh kamaal bhi karke dikhaiye

Vatsala Mehra-
Aap ka etbaar kaun kare

Nina & Rajendra Mehta-
Taaj Mahal mein aajana
Suna hai maine yeh jabse ke tum gulshan me aaoge

In the event that you manage to trace these, please pick up a copy of the album for yourself (that is, if you do like ghazals).

Yup, they’re ‘that’ good.

Fade to black

Have started developing a fond craving for old black and white Hindi movies. More specifically, hanker for a time, albeit on celluloid, where life was simpler, cleaner and more elegant. Modern movies have too much clutter for my liking-so much so in fact that the message (if any) gets lost in a sea of hammy acting and terrible effects.

Love the oldies for a number of reasons. Like getting an unexpected view of a sparsely populated Bombay with more open spaces during a standard tree sequence in songs.Unexpectedly coming across a double decker bus in a scene chugging along an empty marine drive.And having scripts that made sense (strange how scripts that were saleable a quarter century back or more find no takers now).And for the optimism which shines through, no matter how bleak the setting, or how dark some of the characters are.

Even the Eastman color movie era that followed was brilliant in its own right. Compelling actors and screenplay gave us such hits as Deewar, Golmaal, and Sholay.

Am deeply skeptical about this movie remake business. Fine that you’ve watched the movie in your school shorts.Also fine that you idolize the hero/heroine/director. But why in god’s name would you want to remake the thing? And trumpet it as your contemporary interpretation of the classic while stating, seemingly humbly in interviews, that you could never match the Original? Why couldn’t you have made it into a class project while at film school? Wait a minute; you never were at film school were you? In that case, carry on, I guess.

I admit that there are some competent remakes out there. Like Psycho, for instance. But those are good only if you haven’t seen the original. Pathetic if you have.

Trying to remake something as iconic as Sholay is suicidal. Agreed that it’s a ‘proven formula’ and you’re just changing the variables. But that approach generally works in maths and not in the movie world. One very compelling reason against such a daft move is that a lot of the target audience has already seen and loved the original movie and has ‘grown up’ with it. I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t seen Sholay to date. If I were in the remake business I would be more comfortable working with something that has a killer script and mass appeal but has managed to keep a low profile over the years. Definitely not something of Sholay’s caliber.

Cannot imagine someone else doing a Jai and Veeru act. Or for that matter anybody else doing a Gabbar, even someone of Mr. Bacchan’s stature.

It just feels wrong.

Perhaps we could possibly maybe change Dhanno, if Maneka Gandhi okays the move…but nothing else...

Even if the movie does decently at the box office, people would never admit it could match up to the original. Don’t imagine anyone renting the movie or buying the DVD five years down the line.

So what exactly is the point here?Am I missing something?

Interesting hypothesis

Came across Scott Adams’ blog while searching for Dilbert comic strips on the web. Is surprisingly sane except for some cases where tries to defend some of his more over the edge beliefs.

Ran into this well constructed argument.

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/09/philosophical_q.html

Go ahead. Read it.

Think it over.

And post your responses here.

A one track mind

Ditching the ubiquitous Mumbai local has unexpected advantages.

Have been commuting to work as long as I can remember by train, probably because Office has always been on the other side of town. Moved recently to a workplace that turned out to be closer to home, and so naturally expected to reach there a lot sooner, knowing, as any Mumbaikar does, that the shortest distance between any two points in Mumbai is a train ride.

Was confused when getting there by train (by this I mean getting to the station and from there to work) took anything between 45 minutes to an hour. Even more so when getting there by auto takes 25 minutes flat. So have abandoned the local for a bus/auto to work.

Which is great. And that’s not just because I was tired of arriving at office after a train ride with my shirt looking like it’s never been near a laundry.

I have started listening to music while on the move again. Something that I couldn’t do when I traveled by train for just two stations. Also, wasn’t generally in the mood for music in the auto later to work after all that jostling during the train ride. Had forgotten how much better the day starts off this way.

Listen to a lot of assorted stuff on my way to work now, but have lately been listening to a lot of strange tracks that I’ve discovered (or re-discovered in some cases) through Worldspace. Have been tracking down the relevant album on the internet and checking out if the album’s available locally, else persuading a friend to try and download the track.

Have been listening to these songs for a number of times in a row, spaced throughout the day or the week And am surprised that they manage to stay stuck in my head for so long. Have included a list of some of these tracks below-

‘The blower’s daughter‘by Damien Rice (with a particularly haunting vocal section by Lisa Hannigan.)
‘One headlight’ by the Wallflowers.
‘Blood of Eden’ by Peter Gabriel and Sinead O’ Connor,
’ All for you’ by Sister Hazel,
‘You get what you give’ by the New Radicals,
’Hate Me’ by Blue October.

All good, if somewhat unconventional tracks.

See if you like any of them.

Cheers!!

Oops!!

Sorry about the last pic post.

Had reset my phone and got a message saying that a new blog had been created when I tried to post.

Sent the pic to check on which blog it lands up.Apparently,it's still linked to this one.

Sorry about the confusion :)

Will post again later