Thoughts Before Valentine’s Day

When I was a teenager, I did not know anything about Valentine’s Day. February 14th came and went just like any other day.

If Valentine’s Day is all about exchanging flowers, greeting cards and expressing love for the one you love, then in retrospective, I should say each passing day was a Valentine’s Day then.

It was a different time and space. Even in co-ed schools, boys never talked to girls. Girls held the books closer to their chests and walked with downcast eyes.

But then the eyes talked and a darting glance itself was enough to tell volumes to each other. For a glimpse of that ‘untrained darting of eyes’ we boys bicycled along the alleys. In the class room, we politely asked them for their note books and seeing their handwriting itself was fulfilling.

Yes, in villages love flourished in silence. And the boys developed strong calf muscles due to over cycling.

I came to know about Valentine’s Day in Baroda and I was twenty three years old then. With a broken affair for my past and a torturous present in hand, I hoped against hope that someone would come and offer me a flower. Nothing happened.

I did not know that the guys also could give flowers to girls. There was no wikipedia to do some quick references.

Years later, some one told me, she would have accepted me, had I offered her a flower then. But things don’t happen like that. I got my girl friend on a very unromantic day when the streets of Baroda were covered with mud and slush. I professed my love for a girl with wet clothes hanging on my shoulders like a bat’s wings and a pair of shoes covered with mud.

But she accepted me. And after many years later she told me that I stank of onion on that day. Such a struggler I was that I could not afford to think of buying some mouth freshner before I went to profess my love.

But I learned a lesson from that incident: a Valentine can not only smell of flowers, he can smell of onions too. Love has different fragrances. It can even smell of Nivea cream.

Before I fell in love, I was so desperate that I even wished some girl would tie rakhi on my hand. None did. Many youngsters go crazy when they realize that they are not even worthy of becoming a ‘decent’ brother. They think so not because they want to become ‘brothers’, but the rakhi thread opens up a possibility for the conversion of brotherly relationship into something romantic.

In reel life and real life, you see a best friend moving along with a loving couple. And finally, this best friend would tie knot with the girl. Milton is right, they also serve who stand and stare.

In London, I came across something called Halloween Day. I was two month old in London and the Halloween Day fell on October 31st as prescribed. I was invited and was asked to come in fancy dress. Whatever I wore at that time was literally fancy dress. Shirt and a pullover from the one pound shop. I looked perfectly ‘fancy dressed’ in somebody’s used clothes.

I could not recognize my class mates, all European girls dressed up in fancily minimum clothes and faces covered with masks and hats. It was a fairy world complete with grinning faces carved on pumpkins and huge candle lights.

For a moment I imagined that I would get a temporary girl friend from this fancy world. But most of them were already having boyfriends to dance with. So I think, I spent the night discussing art theories with another senior most member in the crowd, sipping away bitter wine.

It is interesting to think about all these festivals that our right wing fundamentalists now oppose. They say that these festivals are against Indian culture. They almost believe that in Indian history nobody fell in love. Nobody exchanged roses and soulful poems.

They forget all our pigeons and swans and clouds and winds that took messages from the lovelorn people to their beloved. There will be no classical Indian poetry if we ban the love portions from it.

Cupid could be a foreign import. But what about our putties, yakshas, gandharvas, kinnaras and apsaras? They all played major roles in the history of Indian love.

Our one and only Vatsyayana, who wrote Kamasutra was a great voyeur. He did not want to make love and experience so he asked his disciple to peep into a couple’s room and report what was going on. I am sure, the couple under the sagacious surveillance was great acrobats.

I don’t understand why the right wing fundamentalists, who try to do the moral policing by disrupting parties and festivals like Valentine’s Day, don’t see that love cannot be stopped by banning.

Lovers are like Picasso. Picasso once said, if he is confined in a jail and is deprived of working materials, he would paint the walls of the jail with his saliva.

Lovers would find extremely innovative ways to be in touch and they would celebrate their love even in a country where love is banned. In 1984, George Orwell talks about Winston Smith’s and Julia’s love. They are all under surveillance. But they get into an attic where they believe there are no surveillance cameras and kiss each other.
Lovers can make winds and clouds to speak. They can make pigeons and peacocks to fly exhaustive distances to share a message. They can choke the internet and mobile networks with love messages. They can create virtual graffiti all over the place through love messages sent to FM Radios.

But one difference; in old days, love was inexpensive. You never paid for that darting of eyes. You never paid rain, wind, clouds and birds to share a message. Savitri never hired a taxi to follow Yama, the god of death. She just walked behind his buffalo and proved that she could reclaim her Satyavan’s life for her love.

Now love comes with a price tag. Valentine’s Day is expensive and the market studies say that billion worth of transactions are done on February 14th , that is Valentine’s Day, the amount, which is second only to the transactions during Christmas. Now to love you need to pay mobile companies, greeting card makers, liquor companies, restaurants, textiles shops, confectionaries and even to Hindustan Latex Ltd, which is the biggest condom maker in India.

And the right wing fundamentalists don’t know in the capital economy and in the society of spectacle, love cannot be confined to darting glances. They should look into the market economy of love.

Instead of moral policing, they should sell flowers and confectionaries, and make a few quick bucks.

Look, these guys just don’t know, the Valentine’s Day celebration was activated in 20th century by the Confectionaries Association in the US.

Now our secular democratic protestors want to sent pink panties to the right wing fundamentalists in Bangalore and Mangalore (where the pub was attacked) as a token protest.

Pink is associated with all what is tender and love. Pink undergarments are inspirational. If added with leather, it would give some dungeon effect. With cuffs, gags, chains and pins in place, you get the sado-masochist pleasure too.

I would suggest, the protestors should send them not fresh pink panties. But the oldest used undergarments by both the gender.

Fresh pink panties again create a buy end and sell end market. You never know, the Ram Sene activists would auction these panties tomorrow through some other agencies and you buy back it without knowing its origin.

So let’s stick to used, rotten, tattered, battered, stained and elastically unviable undergarments for our Gandhigiri.

If we want to stick to Gandhigiri, let us send pink khadi loin clothes to them. Ultimately, even if they are auctioned, it would add to our public sector only.

This time I am going to send a flower to a woman on the Valentine’s Day. May be I cannot love this lady the way I love my wife or my girl friend. But I can love her for being the boldest woman in the country today.

Her name is Renuka Choudhury. She is the Minister of State for Women and Child Welfare, Union Government of India.

While responding to the Ram Sene’s moral policing in Karnataka, she said two things, which I deeply appreciate.

One, this Pramod Muthalik, who is the leader of Ram Sene, is unmarried. He should be knowing a woman and a married life in order to understand the give and take involved in a man woman relationship.

Two, we should ask this man’s mother from where he got this attitude.

I appreciate Renuka Chaudhury for her bold comments. It is not literature or art, where you cannot ask a male writer to give birth to a child and know the birth pangs before he narrates a delivery scene.

But it is real life. To know the tenderness of the man-woman relationship one should experience what it is like. Ideology cannot replace love. But love can replace ideology. Many kings have abdicated their thrones for love.

These roses are for Renuka Chaudhury.

Angles in Public Relations

In Bodhi Space, Mumbai, I could see this girl’s eyes following me. I was with Jitish Kallat then. We were watching a few paintings by noted artists like Sujith SN, Gulam Md Sheikh and N.N.Rimzon. Jitish was curious about the new name, Sujith SN. Then Reena Saini Kallat entered the same hall. I smiled at her. She shook hands with me before running after her child who would just like to get out of the place.

Outside the hall, in the corridor I met several acquaintances and the girl’s eyes were still following me. I knew, she would come to me and ask me something at any time. Then she did approach me.

“Are you one of the artists in the show?” she asked me.

“No, I am not. I am just a nobody who knows the artists,” saying this I smiled at her. She too smiled at me with a sense of understanding. Then she just drifted away and vanished in the crowd.

There are several enigmatic girls in the art crowd. Who are regular at art show openings know these girls but never ‘know’ them quite well. But this girl was not of that type. I knew who she was though I did not know her name or the organization, which she worked for.

She is a PR girl. A Public Relations girl. As you know, her job is to spread the word about the program that her company has undertaken for publicity. She arranges meetings between artists and journalists. She sends the press releases to the concerned people. She makes sure that her photographer takes the pictures of the ‘who is who’ in the society in general and the art world in particular. She uses her extra charm over telephone to get the journalists on time for the interview. She follows them up with coaxing calls to make sure that the interviews are appeared on time.

She is a phantom personality. You see her there in the openings, standing in the sidelines. She is professionally committed so she keeps an aloof attitude.

She is a human being so we see even behind the powdered up face and well lined eyebrows and eyes, a deep sense of loss. Her cheeks are rosy not because she is so cute but because she is embarrassed at bumping into wrong people like me. She is looking for a celebrity. But she often bumps into people like me who would look like a ‘probable’ and ‘possible’ celebrity.

I understand her embarrassment and the sense of loss and vagueness that she feels when she is at work. She is a PR girl, so she cannot show her sense of loss and vagueness in public.

So she is always cheerful.

But when she sits at the wheel, if she owns a car, or sit at the backseat of a taxi or auto rickshaw, she would press a number, which she would definitely have been itching to press the whole day. It could be that of her boyfriend or soul mate or her mother.

“I am coming in a while. Wait for me and I love you,” must be the words that they say once they are relieved from the duty.

Back home, she would wash her face and she would look at the muddy water mingled with make up powders and creams making swirling movements in the wash basin drain. She washes clean a day with cold water. Then she raises her head up and looks at the mirror. There she sees the girl, who does not PR for her soul.

I like them because they are very devoted people. Their job is such that they need to work on different stuff on each passing day. One day they PR for an artist, next day they PR for a movie. Another day is for a concert. And they do know most of the people involved in the field. If they don’t know, they have techniques to know them.

Slowly they know a world that never belongs to them.

The clinging of vine glasses and clanging of bangles and the rustling of silks become music to their ears. May be over a period of time this music makes them cold to the same music. They develop a philosophical attitude towards the luxuriousness of life.

They dream of a life where words are meant to be said, not to be rehearsed and presented.

They dream of a life where smiles are smiled from heart, not from the vicinities of lips.

They dream of a life where eyes glitter while looking at the grace of life, not at the triggering sounds of the shutterbugs.

She comes to the field when she is quite young. Fresh from college, all stars in eyes, she is ready to do any job within the given situation. Most of the PR girls choose this job not because they want to become PR girls, but because it is one of the avenues where you can prove your organizational capacities without too much of training.

In other professions, training precedes the job. Here in PR, training succeeds the job. Every day is a training day.

You learn the hard and f****ing rules of a glamorous world bit by bit. You swallow a bitter pill with a smile on your face.

She enjoys it because it is from here that she learns life and she ascends in her life.

When she is fresh in the job, her tag line shows, “I am busy. Another Happy Day.”

After a few days, she writes, “I am tired, Wants to quit’.
Then it becomes Bob Dylans’ lines.

Then it is quotable quotes.

When she is seasoned and trained enough, her tag lines don’t change that often. She likes to speak of life through the tag lines.

I like PR girls. I like to watch them. They are like the make up and costume staff in a shooting location. They are needed there. But need not be so visible.

PR girls are beautiful. But they are not more beautiful than others even if they are.

(My observations could be wrong. I would like my ‘PR Girl Friends’ like Sumedha and Shilpa to shed light on this subject more)

That Urge of Yours

I know this urge of yours
To pay someone to make a
Vegetable out of me
Consign me then into a corner.
Derelict as would I lie there
Making space for you to
Exercise your power over me.

I know this urge of yours
To kick me out from all
What I know and rejoice,
From all those peaks of
Careless but beautiful choice.
Then push me into the depths
Of tears and despair
Without giving a damn or care.

When I told you that I saw heaven
You told me that you are tired
Then I came to you with
A drop of nectar on my lips
You sent me out by saying
That you have no thirst.
I said I have wings,
You laughed at me and said,
That was just cotton filings.

Cotton balls can’t fly unto stars
As I do by nights after nights
Moth wings cannot move
A mountain, but let me tell you
They can resonate the music
Of celestial spheres.
Words come to me so easily
The way venom comes to you
And the stings so natural.

I may turn blue of cold
A slab of ice may freeze me to size
Still my blood will carry the germs
Of an unborn rebellion of love,
Which would wait for
The right time to sprout:
What comes from earth
Should go back to it, they say.

I see the great urge of yours
To erase me from your life.
But I am a history engraved on rocks
Only to be discovered by someone
With butterfly for his fingers.

The Pub Culture that We Need Urgently

Union Minister for Health and Family Affairs, Dr.Anbumoni Ramdoss is also finally against the ‘pub culture’. The ruckus on pub culture started almost a week before when a group of youngsters rushed into a pub in Mangalore, Karnataka and roughed up the boys and girls who were enjoying their drinks and friendship. The television grabs showed how these ‘morally upright’ youth physically assaulted girls and the boys who opposed the attack. These ruffians belong to a splinter right wing party called Shri Ram Sena (SRS). Pramod Muthalik, a former RSS, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena leader is behind this ‘anti-pub’ movement. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Ghelot (Congress) made a public statement that pub culture was anti-Indian. The same sentiments were expressed by the Karnataka Chief Minister, YS Yeduriappa. National Women Commission is the only agency that came out against the attack and expressed its wish to involve in the case suo moto.

So with the Union Government also endorsing the views of a former Bajrangi Dal leader, we are now left with only one option: approach the court. And we know Indian courts are famous for the slow delivery of justice. Perhaps, Indian democracy is still functional because our legal system is slow enough to let things take their own course in the name of democracy. Otherwise, in which country the judges of the courts would refuse to declare their material assets!

Now let us come back to the point. The pubs are attacked because the young people, especially the girls, go to these pubs and consume liquor, which is supposedly against the ‘true’ nature of Indian tradition and culture. I don’t know where exactly it is written in our traditional scriptures that consumption of liquor is against Indian culture. But the logic here is simple; women should not go to public. The Hindu right wing fundamentalists do not directly demand purdah system for the Hindu girls. But I am sure it is in the offing. Today it is liquor consumption. Tomorrow it is jeans and top.

The incident has happened in a place, which is a few hours drive from Bangalore, which is the IT hub of India. Also it is one of the world hubs of international IT trade. Bangalore is famous for its pub culture. That is the great Indian irony. Because of this pub culture no social problem has arisen so far in this city. In all the metro cities in India, girls and boys go to pub and this ‘tradition’ has never resulted into a social or cultural calamity. Then why now, suddenly everyone is against the pub culture?

It is an indication that we are turning into a puritan state. The government would tell us, from behind the sophisticated and silken curtains of liberalism, that we should not allow our girls to go to pubs and clubs. Then after a point of time, they would decree that the girls should not go to malls and cinema halls without accompanied by a family member. Then they would order that the girls should be seen in public places with purdahs on. Then they would make laws to punish girls seen alone in the street. Any girl could be accused of having loose morals, therefore punishable in the coming days. This is how the Talibans made their laws stringent on their citizens in Afganistan. Is India turning a Taliban state fast that too without a so called right wing government at the helm of affairs?

Dr.Anbumoni Ramdoss is famous for his anti-tobacco campaign. Now he is against liquor consuming also. But these arguments so far are done in a very abstract way. It started off as ‘anti-pub culture’. Slowly, as I said before, it will turn into ‘anti-liquor’ and ‘anti-women’. Ban on public smoking is one thing. However, ban on pub culture is another.

Pubs are a bit more liberal places where, like in a restaurant, people mind their own business. Some people would drink there and some may not. If a boy and girl drink, dance and enjoy music together, it is not going to affect anybody’s life. Altercations can spring up in pubs. But doesn’t it happen in legalized bars? Doesn’t it happen in temples, churches, holy places, streets and cinema halls? Why only pubs?

If pub culture corrupts the Indian youth, then the government of India should ban 99 per cent of the consumer items in the market. They should ban all the movies. They should ban art, literature and fashion. All these things ‘corrupt’ the young minds with ‘ideas’ than a few glasses of beer would.

We should see the larger picture of things. When the general election is round the corner, such issues would drum up the support of the conventional vote banks. Pramod Muthalik who sent his supporters to a pub in Mangalore had been an aspirant for Lok Sabha election tickets in the previous elections. He was spurned initially by the RSS, then by Shiv Sena. His reason to start his own political outfit and create this ruckus is simply for fame and publicity. He can create a vote bank for himself through such obnoxious activities.

This is what exactly what Neeraj Jain did in May 2007 by attacking the works of Chandrasekhar, a final year MFA student of the Faculty of Fine Arts MS University, Baorda. Jain was seeking an assembly election ticket and he wanted the attention of the BJP higher ups. Hence, he took up an issue with the works of Chandrasekhar. He attacked the works in the name of Hindu morality. Gujarat was about to have the assembly elections at that time and Jain thought that he would create his own constituency by creating a moral-ethical issue. Though he did not get an assembly seat to contest, he could gather enough fame and support, which he would use in the coming years.

By playing into the hands of petty politicians like Muthalik and Jain, responsible leaders like Dr.Anbumoni Ramdoss and Ashok Ghelot are doing a disservice to the country and its secular and diversified fabric. It is high time they think that we want a Taliban state or a secular democratic country where people could exercise their rights (including the right to visit a pub irrespective of gender) freely and without fear.

We need to establish more pubs and attract more young girls and boys so that we can feel that we are living in a country with an egalitarian attitude. Isolating the moral police and giving them less space in media is the best way to keep them away from repeating such acts of vandalism in future.

Villain by Default: Big B and Slumdog Millionaire

I watched this movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan on the next day the Golden Globe awards were presented to it for four different categories. I got a pirated DVD from a friend of mine, who claimed to have got it from another friend who downloaded it from a website.

I watched the Slumdog Millionaire at home, the way I once watched some porn movies. As a responsible citizen in the country, I don’t feel like watching a pirated DVD, especially when it is an unreleased movie in India.

I wanted to write about the movie right then. But for the fear of persecution by the twisted arms of law, I resisted myself. I did not want myself and my friends to get into trouble.

But then within two days the national daily, Hindustan Times ran a story on the pirated DVDs of Slumdog Millionaire selling like hot cakes in the hug of pirated goods in Delhi, Palika Bazar. One shop owner told the paper that he sold one copy of the DVD for Rs.450/- . The paper asked the trade pundits about the negative effects of such pre-released piracy. They said, it would actually ensure crowded cinema halls. There is a twisted logic in it. May be first time piracy helping a small budget movie to become a big hit. Market has different routes to success.

Then a few days back, I walked into the local DVD rental shop and the smiling teenager at the counter instantly offered me a combo version of Slumdog Millionaire with other new releases in Hindi.

Aren’t you afraid of renting out unreleased movies? I asked him.

No, it is in English. It is already released in the west. You will get the Hindi version on 24th, he told me.

There is logic in it because the Hindi version is going to be released on 23rd January 2009.

I have digressed a bit. My intention was to talk about the villain in this highly acclaimed movie.

In my opinion, Amitabh Bacchan is the villain of this movie, may be by default.

The biggest hero of Indian screen, Amitabh Bacchan (otherwise known as Big B) had criticized the makers of the movie in his blog for selling Indian poverty in/for the western world. Ever since a mayhem has erupted in the public realm. The Big B bashers are out on prowl.

Big B critiqued the western investors (Interestingly Warner Independent Pictures is the distributor of the movie in the western world) for selling Indian poverty for making profit. He has his reason to say so. But my point is different. Big B is the villain in the movie, where he appears as a cameo (a hand of an extra seen from a down angle), as a poster and as a program presenter (Kaun Banega Crorepati, an Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, presented by Big B himself) by default acted by another veteran actor Anil Kapoor.

The film starts with the young hero being tortured in a Mumbai Police station. This young boy is a chai wallah. And he answers all the questions asked by Anil Kapoor. Now he is one question away from two crore rupees. But there is a break in the shooting. Meanwhile, he is handed over to the police because Anil Kapoor doubts that this boy is a fraud. Otherwise how can a chai wallah from the Mumbai slums answer all difficult questions?

While handing over the young boy to the police, Anil Kapoor screams, ‘Bloody, it is my show.’

The show must go on. If someone wins two crores, then how the suspense of the show be on for a long time?

Big B is the real time show presenter. We don’t know whether he had ever handed over any potential contestant to the police for winning the money.

But the sub-text of the movie is this: there is a foul play in this reality quiz program. If you show excellence, and especially when you are an underdog, then you must be a fraud. You should be given to the hands of law.

Anil Kapoor fades out and Big B comes into the minds of the viewers. Something is rotten in the city of Mumbai and we smell it.

There is the final question, ‘Who has the maximum number of classy centuries in cricket?’ (I am writing from memory). There are four answers. The boy opts for A. But then he asks for his last life line ‘fifty-fifty’. A and C are erased. So we have B. Ricky Ponting and D.Jack Davie (not sure of this name). Then comes the break.

In the loo, Anil Kapoor mumbles; how this underdog can win it away from me. The boy is in the same loo, inside a closet. Anil Kapoor inscribes ‘B.’ on the mirror covered with steam from the hot water pipe. Then he walks out.

‘B.’ The capital B. Here is a suggestion for the young boy. You choose B and you win. But B could be a wrong answer. Who knows? You have to rely on your instincts.

‘B.’ Big B. Do you see that suggestion? The big villain?

But the boy opts for D and he wins.

Was the surrogate of Big B was playing a foul game? The Big B could be deceptive, we are forced to believe.

Let me cut it back to one of the flashbacks.

Here we see the young boy in a rotting makeshift toilet in Dharavi. Amitabh Bacchan comes by a helicopter and lands near the slum. The boy is still in toilet. He wants to see his super hero; the angry young man of the times. He jumps into the shit pool and covered fully in shit, he runs towards his hero and gets an autograph from him.

This is the same angry young man who betrays him later in the contest. Can you read out some connection?

This is the failed project of the angry youth of India.

The boy grows up, seeing Amitabh Bacchan’s movies and posters. He remembers all these and he answers one of the questions pertaining to Big B, just from memory.

This boy is the representative of all the underdogs who do not forget the things happened in their lives. They learn from life, and when asked, they have an answer. The issue is they are never asked for an answer.

He does not remember whose head is there in the Thousand rupees note? He does not remember because he has not seen a thousand rupees not. Even if he had seen it and remembered it, he would not have said it BECAUSE HE WAS NEVER ASKED THAT QUESTION. The question was about the head in the hundred dollar bill.

(See the irony in Idea mobile phone advertisement, where Junior B, Big B’s son Abhishek Bacchan, solves a huge policy problem by asking people for their opinion. First time the Indian underdog is asked a question because he holds a mobile!)

Big B, who once symbolically fought for the rights of the underdogs, now becomes an oppressor by default in this movie. I don’t know how many people saw this subtext.

This movie is all about the winning possibility of an Indian underdog (or underdog of anywhere in the world). But at the same time this movie is about betrayal by icons. Here we have Big B as the big betrayer. He becomes the villain of Slumdog Millionaire.

But unfortunately, Big B reiterated his villainy by commenting against the movie. That could be a providential intervention.

Everyone knows the importance of being Big B, because he was the one first showed us how an underdog really felt when he is hurt.

I love Jamal Malik, the underdog and I still love Big B because end of the day both of them stand at the either end of underdog-hood.

A Warning to Warner Brothers

We are in twenty first century. But Warner Brothers think that we Indians are still in early twentieth century, when traveling film projectionists showed films for us. They showed the moving visuals in the temporary tents and announced, ‘Now the train is coming.’ ‘Now look it is Vittoli coming by a horse.’

We, then knew, a train was coming and Vittoli was coming on horseback. But then there was no sound track. So some sonic interventions by the projectionists were needed. Above all, they believed, as a primitive people we did not understand the visual language. May be in retrospective, we are ready to take such arguments. Fine.

But what about ‘Chandni Chowk to China’, a much hyped film with Akshay Kumar in the lead role? It is produced with a budget of Rs.80 crores and is heavily funded by the US based film company Warner Brothers. The trade pundits say that including the publicity expenditure, the total cost of the film is a whopping Rs.100 crores.

India has the dividend of population. The surplus population does not indicate enhanced work force and labor capital alone. It indicates the power of consumption too. If a minor section of the people decides to watch this movie, then also, Rs.100 crores and more will be collected with no difficulty. So the Warner Bros does not have any problem to fund such a movie.

But my problem is not that. In the globalizing scenario, any multinational corporate can invest in Indian ventures and ethically speaking they should be invited to do many more investments like that. However, my problem is with the attitude with which they went through the script of this film. I am sure that they would make several layers of scrutiny before they decide to fund any such film.

The story line is simple: Siddu (Akshay Kumar) is a struggling cook at his father’s (Mithun Chakravorty) small restaurant in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi. He behaves like country bumpkin and falls for all conmen who predicts his future. Meanwhile, in China the followers of a slain warrior Lu Shung are waiting for him to reincarnate. Some China men find the reincarnation of the warrior in Siddu and take him to China. There he goes through several problems finally to emerge as a great kung fu fighter by defeating the villain Hojo.

Khalid Mohammed, the film critic had rightly pointed out that the story is line strangely resembled the famous animation movie, Kung Fu Panda. There is no dispute about that. But then, the treatment of the whole film is also like an animation movie that primarily considers kids as its viewers.

So when you watch this movie, ‘Chandni Chowk to China’, you find yourself as a stupid child, who is ready to lap up anything shown to him in the name of comedy (kids would kick my ass for making a comment like this. These days kids are very intelligent).

You find a pack of fools going to China and meeting a pack of aggressive fools there. So basically two sets of fools fight each other to take prominence in the hierarchy of fools. Warner Bros looks at the Indian viewers and Chinese viewers as two sets of fools who would make this movie a blockbuster only because this temporary super star Akshay Kumar is in the lead role.

Akshay Kumar acts like a clown. When he emotes he looks like a real stupid. Certain roles suit him and when he is at the hands of good comedy directors like Priyadarshan, he could emote well. Here the director Nikhil Advani has completely failed in direction or controlling Akshay Kumar.

Basically this movie treats the viewers as stupid jokers, that is my primary problem. And second, the ideology of the movie re-iterates the patriarchic notions of the society, which the new age India desperately wants to do away with.

Here we have an Akshay Kumar fighting for the legacy of Lu Shung. Before that he is treated like a kid by his father Mithun Chakravorty. Then Mithun lays down his life for saving his son’s life. Later exhorted by his father’s ghost, he fights to save the lives of one Chinese inspector who sires two female interests in the story played by a single Deepika Padukone. One of the Deepikas fights for the villain (to protect another man) while the other Deepika serves as an adrenaline jet pump. Finally, Akshay Kumar fights for the ‘male rights’.

How long our mainstream films work on the male chauvinist themes? And how long they treat the viewers as stupid kids?

Trade pundits say, the film will not collect as expected. If it does not collect that shows, the Indian audience is matured enough to spurn such ‘anything goes’ attitude.

Ghajini of Amir Khan is a super hit because it shows that Indian people still has suppressed violence against those people who make them temporary amnesiacs.

Rab Ne Bana di Jodi worked moderately and saved Shah Rukh Khan’s face because Indian audience still imagines in split living; one in the real world and one in the fancy world. And still they have not forgotten the transcendental spirit of love.

Chandni Chowk to China is a blot on the Indian screen. With all due love for Akshay Kumar, I would tell him, stick to his talents. Don’t behave like a bumpkin and make his fellow Indians feel like hating him.

Warner Brothers is still welcome to Indian screen, but with much more cosmopolitan and egalitarian scripts.

We became independent in 1947. And we opened up our economy in 1991. We have a history and great talents.

Remember that before you fund any stupid films like Chandni Chowk to China.

(I thank Mrinal Kulkarni, my wife and art historian for telling me that Chandni Chowk is nothing but a product of political plot to frame Indians and Chinese as grinning fools, by the Western ideologues)

Say no to Rape: Park Benches can Revolutionize India

A week before at Garhi Chowkhandi village near Noida Sector 71 (Uttar Pradesh) an MBA student was gang raped by ten village boys. The girl was inside a car with a friend. These village ruffians while coming back from a local cricket match found the boy and girl inside the car. They roughed up the boy and raped the girl taking turns. Some of the rapists were arrested immediately.

But the anti-climax of it: the village women and men came in support of the arrested boys. They accused the girl of having loose morals. The former village president exclaimed, “After all it is just a rape case.” Newspapers published the photographs of a group of village women crying. It could have been passed for the image of the affected girl’s family members or it could have been passed for the photograph of a young army man died in a combat.

But it was the picture of the women from the hooligans’ families. They demanded justice for their sons. They still demand it.

Police investigations have proved that these guys have been on prowl in this area looking for couple who are alone in a secluded stretch. They used to threaten the boys and rape the girls with them.

Reason: The girls have loose morals. And that’s why they are ready to go with their boy friends to such secluded places.

Now the debate is on the urban-rural divide in India. Especially when it comes to the ethical and moral social behaviors, the rural populace considers that girls cannot go out with their boy friends. If they go out, there is no problem in raping them. Rape is a form of punishment.

Excuse me, are you talking about India? Yes, it is in India and the incident happened a few kilometers away from the Noida city centre, which is the IT hub, industrial hub and also the entertainment hub of Uttar Pradesh, the neighboring state of Delhi. Here rape is a way of implementing social justice. Social justice by who?

The Gurgaon residents (Gurgaon, as you know the IT hub of Haryana and it is hailed to have international living standards), especially women, say that they cannot speak even to the policemen because these law and order keepers, mostly hailing from rural backgrounds, behave as if they behave with their own women folk. They are chauvinists and irresponsible.

I don’t want to talk about these village boys or police men. Let the law of the land take its own course. But I want to talk about something which could bring about a lot of changes in the society. What we need is a political and governance will to implement what I suggest.

The girl was raped because she was alone in a car with her boyfriend. So what? She was with her boy friend. She was partly undressed. So what, she was doing it willingly.
My question is not that. Why did they go to a secluded place like that to catch some private moments? An MBA student and her friend could not find a suitable place in Noida to spend some private moments and that is the truth.

Look, I am talking about human beings. They need privacy. You may suggest that they can go to a mall or a cine hall. A mall is not a place to have private moments while a cinema hall is. But you cannot go to a cinema hall every day.

What about the apartments where they are living? The landlords would not allow their young tenants to entertain guests from opposite sex. What they are going to loose? Condoms are available, if not i-pill. Say the word ‘condom’ with pride, the government advertisement says. I-pill, I will not advise it to girls. It is not that effective all the time.

Whose morals are you trying to protect?

Let’s come back to the point. Suppose, if there are enough park benches along the roads, eateries, city squares and other public places and if the couples are allowed to sit and spend their time, and if we are not there to ogle them and voyeur them, then nobody would go to the secluded places.

If a couple kisses passionately in the street, what is my problem? Why do we think that the girl is a loose character? Why do we let the boy go scot-free? Why should be bother at all? It is their privacy, it is their life and it is the happiest moments in their lives.

We can solve the moral prejudices of these cities with one simple thing. Place park benches by the sides of mains streets, bus stops, metro stations, popular joints and wherever possible and encourage the youth of India to spend their time in public. Ask them to show all their love in public. Ask them to share their intimate touches in public.

That can change this country.

Things will change.

I remember, there was a time when bikers chased the couples on other bikes only to see the panty line over their sarees or churidars.

Then, when the low waist jeans came into fashion, they chased to see the protruding panty belt.

Then things became common. Now none chases to see a panty line.

On the contrary I have seen boys chasing the newly married girls behind veils, just to get a glance of her face and imagine whole lot of things.

If the government and local governing bodies establish park benches all over the city and depute educated and hip street cops to patrol the streets, none will go to the secluded roads to share a kiss.

Yes, right in front of other people couples can kiss. Why not.

They should.

And that would change a lot in this country.

Let us make park benches.