Journey

Past few months have defied all my long held theories about cinema and film making. No more do I watch films for pleasure, nor criticism, nor theorizing. I am not able to! I watch them for what they could be if I was behind the camera or what they have which I as a film maker could never have thought of.

Although this journey has begun rather late but I am thankful it began at an age where I was capable of doing an honest introspection and self correction of myself. If this had started earlier I never could have got a chance to live the life of a foolhardy, just too self aware and self important human being. Thankfully I lived that life a few years ago and therefore retrospectively I have now realized my mistake and am sure of not repeating it ever.

If on the other hand this journey was too late I would have lost precious time. Film making as a form of art per se cannot be understood without giving due diligence to the associated art forms. You cannot be a satisfied film maker if you are not visually observant of your life, if you don’t listen well to what goes around you, even if is a flutter of a butterfly or dropping of a dust peck, if you don’t have thoughts, ideas, meanings with a principal basis to support. As a sincere filmmaker you will attach meaning to every little thing that seemed unimportant to you so far and still does to many people. You look at life with a much different perspective where you feel as if you are travelling all the time.

Being a film maker is easy, but a being a true human being with ethical or moral values associated with your endeavor and an unquenchable thirst to fulfill your artistic pursuits is what takes efforts and time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It can happen sooner with some than others but will nonetheless take years. Artists are made not born. This sense of art has to be developed with sincerity for which you are only accountable to yourself. Age polishes art, but if left unattended it will rust away into doom. It’s a perennial effort to bring into fruition the proverbial “artist’s eye”.

I have just burnt my fingers into the surface of what seems like a giant volcano inside. It looks like a long journey, may be a journey to life, a journey to get all you live for. It’s not a trivial journey; it’s a step which will transcend all your beliefs, judgments, pains, sorrows, redemptions you have had in your life so far. It’s a journey to be the kind of human being you want to be. No trivial effort this is.

Daryaganj Book Market

Before I start my reportage about the visit to Daryaganj book market, I must confess that it is a place I had craved to visit for many years, and my love for this place goes a long way back to the doordarshan days when the address "Nayi Kotwali, Daryaganj, New Delhi - 110002" used to be displayed after the news programme on TV for any leading information about the lost (and found) people. This love started merely as a curiosity about the name "Daryaganj". During college days when I picked up a lot of hindi literature, I found this word mentioned in several paper backs at the back cover as a part of the publisher's note and my growing curiousity took the shape of a strange kind of affection for this place. I got the opportunity to visit the place on the last sunday, hence my account of the place could be deemed laced with self-indulgences and pre-concieved notions of mine.

You must imagine a day with a perfect morning, neither too hot, nor too cold. There must have been moderate rainfall on the previous night, which is what makes the air little damp, pavements little slippery and roads muddy. Dampness which could have led to intolerable humidity, had it not been for the mild and cloud capped sun. All in all, a perfect day to visit Daryaganj book market.

On the way to the book market, most of the shops are shut and streets are mostly clean, garbage cans have been cleared and there is plenty of space for everyone on the streets. As you cross the shopping area, you notice a small community park where few old men are chatting, some are reading, few women are chatting amongst each other holding their chunri with one hand close to their face to cover it from playful sunlight.

Entering the book market from the opposite side of the street has a particular advantage that you can notice the business going on from a distance in a larger perspective. Most noticeable are of-course the books lying or rather arranged on the pavements, but then there is more than that. There are T-shirts, caps, locks, ties, shoes and several other small leather made knickknacks on sale as well. Hence the term “book market” already sounds a misnomer. Anyway, you move on crossing the road and jump right in the heart of the market and suddenly loose your sense of space akin to a fish market, a place for which chaos will be an understatement. People are pushing you and brushing past as you are trying to make sense of the situation. Shopkeepers are asking you to either move on or leave the pavement as this is “business hours”. When you side-step you realize you are blocking the entry to staircases, those narrow and winding steps, probably leading to shop keeper’s apartment.

On this side of the road everything looks so vibrant as if you have entered a different world, the traffic is whizzing past at crazy speeds, shop keepers are lively, even the beggars are lively. A shopkeeper is telling his customer, “bhai khareedo ya na khareedo, kitab aise mat feko” (Whether or not you buy the book, handle them with care). Here people make no bones about their business; they usually do not have eager smiling faces which you usually associate with the shopkeepers in malls. Here the trade is much more rough and pushy but the offers are ludicrously cheap and the choice is endless, hence nobody really cares about pleasantries. Some one pats on my shoulders and asks me to keep my cell phone inside lest someone might snatch it away. So simple yet so meaningful were his gesture that you don’t realize that he is actually mute. A shopkeeper is laying the books on the pavements, yet another is mopping the pavement. A sewer has opened up near by owing to the filth around, but sellers don’t mind cleaning the road themselves. A little ahead a circle of crowd has been formed, as you move closely you see a Muslim (because of her black robes) woman drinking water from a tap and people are waiting for their turn. All in all, a commotion of sorts.

A little ahead half the road is dug up due to some reconstruction work and the moving traffic winds down slowly through. Next to a small dig out within the construction site, two people are sitting facing each other on chairs which they have somehow managed to put there. They are chatting easily over a cup of tea while puffing out bidis with no attention whatsoever to the mounting jams nearby. Traffic jams does not last much as a bus drives away after some passengers have alighted at the stop. They are all college kids, with their sporty caps, Nike shoes and bag packs, talking noisily with each other, strolling past casually as if it’s a walk in the park.

A cycle rickshaw is steering its way in the maddening traffic; there is something very unusual about it. It is not noticeable immediately but as the rickshaw comes close you realize that its driver barely has one arm. He is pulling it away with full-blooded rigor never compromising the balance and speed. It is loaded with sacks of books and it suddenly comes to a grinding halt almost with an unusual crash into the pavement, few shop keeper leap towards it and start unloading with a sense of alacrity. Rickshaw driver is helping them unload the books while few guys start to unpack them with usual finesse. The job is over in a few minutes and someone hands over the cash to rickshaw driver, a paltry sum of 20 rupees for a perfectly relaxing Sunday morning he just had.

If you are already soaked in sweat, you can sit on a stool in a nearby cobbler’s shop, while watching him at work. His hands are absolutely and completely blackened with boot polish as if his body is a devotee of his work. His face is prematurely old; hair is unusually black and disheveled; His body language is lethargic as if he had been starved for centuries and you feel somehow his whole life has been subsumed by darkness. Meanwhile somewhere else in the market the entire young crowd, of which a mention has already been made earlier, gravitates to a particular shop in the market which has occupied a major real estate in pavement and still some books are being laid out. They have managed to put up huge shelves where the books are arranged methodically by an expert. People are languidly browsing the books as the collection is really impressive. Exactly next to this shop is music store of leading repute, but it is no surprise that it is virtually empty because a few paces ahead another music store has been set up on the pavement selling pirated stuff for dirt cheap prices.

A few minutes ahead there is a government approved wine shop which can give any book shop a run for its money. This shop stands in perfect contrast to the book market, even incongruent. Shopkeepers don’t shout here, people don’t spend much time here either, they know what they want, they order it, shove it in pockets and leave, not even bothering to keep the change back in their wallets while fully aware that pickpockets are everywhere. Imagine their sense of urgency on a Sunday afternoon.

It is mid-day and the heat is beginning to take its toll on you. You wander in streets and watch the happenings around you with very little recollection. In this state of mind you can see names but fail to appreciate the humor behind. Book market’s explosive character could also be attributed to the unusual titles it boasts like “Do pairon wala bomb” (A two-legged bomb), or how about “Dilli ke darindey” (Beasts of Delhi)? This market is probably yet to reach the peak of its business as some sacks of books are still lying on the pavements, even on the rickshaws, but you realize that you are too fatigued to continue any further exploration.

Road to novelty

The very reason you jump into film making is because you don’t want to stick to clichés rather you want to change the rules of the game and break away from conventionality, creating new ways of portraying a mood which strikes a chord with the audience not because they have seen similar thing before rather they have never seen such a thing before. Does the road to learning novelty in cinema traverse through clichés?

There are many possible answers but the one which I can think of right now is here:

When you create a scene and put up your camera, your abilities in the past will drive you towards achieving the best possible angle. You won’t be able to achieve the right angle, the right distance and right height the very first time. It needs practice and experience. What you see in movies by great artists takes years of experience and learning, something which can only be achieved when you START SHOOTING and LEARN ON SET.
In order to learn as much as you can from every exercise, just ensure that before you are actually shooting, you have explored all the possible angles and know the effect each angle may create in the minds of the audience. Then only you will be able to TELL YOUR STORY. Additionally, this is important because you are telling a story with visuals and you want visuals to convey a certain thought or mood or drama. If you can’t tell the exact outcome of a particular shot, how can you evoke the desired emotion in the minds of the audience? Merely by dialogues?

Katra Katra

I like the song "Katra Katra" (Ijaazat) written by Gulzar. It is probably the most cheerful celebration of the conflicts and pains of the forgiving heart of a woman, who loves her husband living a perplexing life. Rekha looks amazing too, portraying the complexity of the character very simply yet convincingly, which is often very difficult.
You know that you pity her for absence of love in her life yet you enjoy her solitude as much as she herself detests it. It puts you in conflict yourself.

Nuclear deal - a failed success?

Government has won the confidence vote and we can now see the nuclear deal pass but in probably the most utterly forgettable fashion. The cabinet’s ambivalence was clearly evident and the goings on in the Lok Sabha were not exactly cheerful. But has the government managed to secure the more important asset than even the nuclear deal, the people’s faith? Nuclear deal or no nuclear deal, current government will go in history as being very opaque even notorious on various occasions as regards safeguards agreement. Why did the ministry decline to release the contents of the safeguard’s agreement to the public when IAEA itself did not pose any restrictions whatsoever, giving an impression that they are just somehow muddling through?

Opposition’s double-standards were quintessential BJP – making every possible allegation to quash the deal. One comment was, “UPA is doing injustice to the Muslim vote-bank by supporting US (and thereby Bush) who has been a cause of misery to Iraq – a Muslim country – and to the innocent Saddam Hussain. This deal is inherently evil”. Why did then Jaswant Singh remark that “This deal is our [NDA’s] baby. Why should UPA act in such urgency vis-à-vis the safeguards agreement”? This smacks of power mongering with utter disregard to nation’s goodwill.

Left had good intentions, they rightfully backed-off. I like this politics in which our leaders are putting country first. They drew our attention to the particularly hazardous outcomes of the nuclear deal and the fact that several nations including US, Germany are loathe to having new nuclear power plants for civilian energy purposes. But their fears for the country, becoming a US henchman with this strategic alliance thereby compromising national sovereignty, are unfounded. The most obvious outcome, they argue, could be a terrorist backlash against India due to its wholehearted support to Bush’s regime.

Terrorism is the most potent challenge world over, but this bull has to be taken by its horns. No country can afford a strategy of avoidance over prevention against terrorism. By not going along with US we are not sure to be spared by the terrorist organizations simply because India has been a perpetual target way before even the 9/11. Post 9/11 the terrorist organizations have found a more pressing agenda but India has never been outside their radar. Hence, India cannot afford not to enter this alliance simply because it might prick the terrorist fraternity.

Overall, I am not exactly unhappy that India has managed to take the nuclear deal to the next level, which is a very progressive mindset to meet our energy requirements in the long run (the next 50 years). But our governance has major challenges:
1. Policy making is easy, implementation is tough. Nuclear fuel is potential hazardous if not dealt with high standards of security. A country of billion people cannot afford a Chernobyl in the making here.
2. We are very close to the terrorist warheads; the archetypical enemies of the world are next door to us. I leave the potential disasters of nuclear fuel finding their hands to everybody’s imagination.
3. India’s strategic alliance with US does not and must not mean that we support US for the terrible war crimes in Afghanistan or their wholehearted support to Israel against Iran, which has brought these countries on the brink of a war. And this should be clearly spelled out to the international community.

In the deep recess of my mind, I find that I have really struggled for the past few years in identifying with myself. It has been a perpetual conflict pervading my life all along. I know that I want something, and precisely how I can get it but another very potent force which is much more subtle but clearly overpowering all other forces seizes any constructive efforts towards my goals.

A good start is very important, most important in fact. But it’s the start which is most likely to go bad. You can survive few initial years with good start but it cannot ensure sustenance of well being. As a human, you will tend to loose enthusiasm and subsequently focus in your work. It is very important to learn from your mistakes from very early stages of your life because you don’t want to be making unpardonable errors at crucial stages.

Anything which lasts long and healthy gives a sense of success and achievement, one which justifies all the pains and suffering you incurred. You tend to feel that you could hold onto your cause through the thick and thin.

An even better scheme of things is when you constantly reposition your aspirations. As an individual this will give you a sense of adventure all your life. This leads to another very important conflict. Is it important to change your goals and never being satisfied with anything in your life? I sense that this is a notion which I have forced upon myself very solemnly – meaning I must not aspire to keep changing my priorities all my life and must have a point of saturation somewhere. This will help me ponder over my life after I have lived most of it. This will also bring cutting edge perfection into my work just like a painter or musician who becomes a master of his art and sensibilities. I will not want to keep going back to my past and always feel ashamed of myself for all the “acts of childishness”. On the other hand, I will not want to achieve finality, which will kill all my endeavours to achieve more and higher. This is a very difficult exercise one which demands absolute honesty on my part. How much I succeed depends directly on how honest I am in my self-evaluation.

Explosive culture

My first impressions of New Delhi, the capital city of India, have been mixed. They have ranged from mildly fulfilling to absolutely gut wrenching. Now what can I say about that? Doesn't sound very palatable to me. I like Delhi for what it can offer to me, and I hate Delhi for its people. It is not an instinctive serial-killer-syndrome, but I despise them, knowing that in doing that I despise myself as well. I am ready to take that self character assassination so long it enables me to spew out my angst, euphemistically "Negative Energies".

I hate their overly eager, irate and hurried attitude, their non-chalance towards queues, their too fat bellies, their disregard towards have-nots, or worse their pity towards have-nots. When I read signs on roads, saying, "Please mind the steps" or "Please take diversion carefully" etc, I feel why has anyone cared for being so nice with such nasty brats. Like they really care.

For Delhi, it's people are the real let down. When I portray India to others, I say there is love, caring for others, even strangers, but thats really not my country. May be it once was, but certainly not now. Look at TV channels for example, why are we seeing so many useless soaps, songs, movies and not to forget news day in and day out. What do they think about us? Are we as mindless as that! Why are radio channels replete with useless noise. "Because, some dumbfuck takes interest in them and we have to serve our client in whatever way we can", they might argue. If India was a country of 1 billion sheep, we would have been more civilized, atleast we would be safe from anti-evolution.

I think desire is the evil root of all.

10 Minutes

My watch is 10 minutes advance. People fail to grasp the necessity of this habit. But it keeps me ticking, giving me a sense of being ahead with the rest of the world by 10 minutes. Although I am fully aware of this fact, somewhere my subconscious has registered it in a unique, mysterious way. Every action, intuition and move is enchanted by this deceptively trivial fact. How?

I would force - unknowingly - my mind to act now which it could have waited 10 more minutes for. I can plan for future unwavered by the fear of being too late to commit because I have 10 minutes lead to the rest of the world anyway.

आ चलें धूप की खोज में...

A film must touch you; it must sit within your soul and have conversation with it. A film must portray reality; a film must inspire us without being pedantic. It must teach us not preach us. The characters in the film must look into your eyes and share their agony and pleasure with you and when they do that they must not look merely the characters of a show. They must be as real as the person sitting next to you.

If you think that this is an impossible task and there are more possibilities of eggs falling on the floor and not breaking than making such a film, then you should watch "Taare Zameen Pe". You might change your opinion about the life you lead and people you like (or dislike). On one hand we have a miraculously simple story, one which might trick you to believe that not more than a 1 hr documentary could pretty much summarize the idea, on the other hand we have the creative genius of TZP writers and director to come up with so many layers in the story that you will end up relating with it in the most unique and peculiar way. You will feel that it is inspiring you in a way which only you could understand. I ended up feeling that life after all goes on and one's biggest inspiration is within oneself. I realized that when the laughter cannot contain pleasure one often has to resort to tears lest your heart might explode with triumph. Triumph of a boy who steals one day from the school to learn about life what no modern education system could impart in a lifetime. Or the triumph of a teacher against the common notions of society, where intelligence quotient is measured in numbers, where no less than extra-ordinary scores are given the due recognition; everything else is conveniently ignored with a justifiable need-of-the-hour argument. The policy of elimination than selection, you see.

I would rather not delve much on the technical aspects of TZP; needless to say that film has lived most of its life in being the most supreme work of an accomplished artist. The dialogues are apt in most of the situations, although with a slight whiff of over projection on certain occasions but these are pardonable mistakes given that the film has so boldly questioned the very essence of bollywoodism. We have to ask ourselves these questions, how long are we going to continue to make films serving as junk food for the masses? How long are our films going to act like song-churning vending machines? You put a coin and get a song.

TZP is also peculiarly noticed about its music, the sacred cow of Indian cinema. It takes the film to another dimension where the lyrics are vintage Prasoon Joshi, blissfully unconventional in portraying the essence of youth in modern India. A few animation spots in the films are very creatively used, especially when you see the musical notes complementing the "play of colors" in the child's beautiful mind. The film is a creative marriage of all cinematic brilliance and a deceptively simple art of story-telling.


And of course the holy grail of TZP is the much concerned, often misunderstood even discounted despair and agony of a dyslexic child. The films’ biggest achievement is the inconspicuous manner of bringing to forefront the issue and not for one second preaching about it. I hope it strikes the right chord with the parents who constantly push their children beyond reasonable limits. It might sound wishful to expect that the film might be the stepping stone for our educationists to shape up the future education system and that the film might turn a few tables in this bureaucratic quagmire called India. The film teaches us the real meaning of cinema and life and many things can be changed with that knowledge.

A short stint

Have you ever wondered that the formation of a baby in mother's womb is a not merely a physical process. It is almost mysterious even miraculous that a life is is formed out of a very scientific beginning. A life which has psychology, emotions, spirituality and a complete sense of wholeness. We all learn mostly from our surroundings, relationships, all of which adds a dimension to our personality but whenever we look within ourselves we learn that there is something in us which is truly ours, which was not inspired by anyone else. It belongs to us, and us only.

In most difficult times we usually come to terms with this inner beauty of ours. When I speak to someone who is in despair and wants my succour I try to connect to him through this inner feeling of mine. Once, when I was very small, a visitor came to my place for a glass of water. It was a hot summer day. I could feel the heat in his dark skin made even darker by the fiery sun. A drop of sweat rose from his petals. When he asked for water, I looked at him and realised the urgency within a matter of micro-seconds. There was a real connection established between the two of us for that brief moment.