Romancing the movies # 1

I watched Guru thrice.
When I tell this to people, they usually react in two ways:

1. Guru? What’s that?
2. Guru? Why for heaven’s sake? More people have responded this way (more than you would want to believe) because, come on admit it, most of us have seen those 1980s inane masala potboilers that were being churned out at an alarming rate.

Answer to first response: You shall never understand. Well, to answer the second response: I loved Mithun da’s dance. Although nature had decided to give me two left feet but that never deterred me from secretly practicing in closed room. My red Sanyo cassette player (a mono at that) was good enough to keep me entertained (it did not suffer from any inferiority complex since it did not know that stereo sound existed).
Those were the times when we used to wait for movie cassettes to come in combo pack (and we used to buy them for Rs.15). But few movies such as Meera Ka Mohan (music: Arun Paudwal), Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin were given enough credit to be bought in a single cassette. And cassettes were bought based on the sampling provided by the Chitrahaar every Wednesday and Friday night. One of the favorite games used to be guessing the songs in Chitrahaar. I still remember the delight I felt when “O Priya priya” song from the movie Dil was shown in Chitrahaar. I had placed the bet and won.
Watching movie used to be an occasion. The main attraction of any birthday party used to be what followed after dinner. The latest flick, fresh from the VHS copying lab was arranged and the whole gang would forget everything else in the world. Today how many of us have the capacities (and capability) to watch Vatan Ke Rakhwale (a Mithun Da & Sridevi thriller) and Awaam (a pot bellied Rajesh Khanna) back to back? But I have done that…with countless others.
At one such moment, our family hired the VCR (those black boxes still exist today) and told the guy to play Tarzan (supposedly a kids’ movie with animals…well, animals it had, of a different kind) and by the time interval appeared on TV screen, my grandpa and papa had discreetly moved out of the room.

And once I reqested papa to buy me the audio cassette for a movie called Jungle Love. yeah yeah, its "that" kind of a movie.

To be continued…

The nadir of filmmaking

These are the movies you can watch again and again and never cease to marvel at the timelessness of the absurdity:

1. Clerk: Manoj ‘Bharat’ Kumar had his heart at right place but maybe the camera wasn’t. So you are treated with shots taken from impossible angles though my guess is that cameraman was trying to follow Mr. Kumar’s eyes (he has never looked into the camera). It’s about a clerk Bharat (Mr. Kumar with an ever increasing girth), a poverty stricken former student leader who finds himself in a position he has to save the country from the clutches from some corrupt defense officials. Drenched to the core in a self pitying attitude, this movie has attained eternal glory due to its stupendous ineptitude. This is filmmaking at an extraordinary nadir.
2. Wardaat: You are a secret service agent a la James Bond. Your code name is Gunmaster G9. How to keep this a secret? Simple. Paint your car in large, bold friendly letters “Gunmaster G9”. Obviously the dark sides would simply assume this to be a stupid act of a stupid kid. But unfortunately, the dark sides are also equally stupid. Watch how Gunmaster G9 saves the world from the grave danger of locusts’ attack. And watch it to believe me when I say a secret agent actually shoots at the locust because he needs to collect a sample. A case study in how not to make a thriller. Eminently entertaining, this movie needs to be watched for its lack of attention to details.
3. Mard: Aha. Who could have imagined gems like “Mard ko dard nahin hota”! And it had three heroes. Big B, the horse and Amrita Singh. Populated with really bizarre situations and coincidences, it really works more as a fantasy rather than the intended separation-reunion Desai trademark movie. Not much to say really, except that this movie is probably the most absurd Manmohan Desai creation. If I had not seen the credits myself, I would never believe it was directed by him (I still think it’s a conspiracy by the dark forces).

Cabbie Times # 1

Here are some snippets from our conversations with the "lemosine"(as they call cabs here) drivers:
----------------------
“India?“
“Yes. You?”
“Kerala”
----------------------
“Janaab, from our part of the world, there are four nationalities present here. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kerala”
-----------------------
“When I was in Bangladesh, I had never touched alcohol. But after coming to Jeddah, I started drinking” (note from the listener: Jeddah, whole Saudi Arabia, happens to be prohibition zone)
-----------------------
“I have two wives in Pakistan. One doesn’t even know I am married to another.”
-----------------------
“What would you consider a better state of being? 2 wives with 11 children or 11 wives with 2 children?”
-----------------------
“It’s that bugger America. It’s their ploy. They have got the Danish products banned in Saudi Arabia just to strengthen their dollar against the euro” (we were as bewildered as you possibly would be now)
-----------------------
We enter the cab. The cabbie looks like he belongs to our part of the world. We are greeted with a typical Arabic song. Ah! So he is Arabic. We soon settle down in our seats and switch our hearing organ off to save ourselves from any further ordeal. And suddenly:
“Indian”?
“Well, yes!”
Some noise of somebody searching the glove compartment for some old cassette. And voila! “Nach Baliye” from last year’s blockbuster “Bunty Aur Babli” greets us.
“You know hindi”?
“English maafi” (Maafi meaning No)
Needless to say we were bowled over by this sweet gesture. I guess good people exist everywhere.
-------------------------------
“If they like the view of sunset at sea, they will not go to the sea shore. They will bring the sea to their palace”
-------------------------------