Sometimes shit. Movie rage.

One day Karan Johar, the film maker and India's wrong answer to Stephen Fry, decided that Ekta Kapoor was not doing her duties well. In today's fast paced lifestyle, people should not have to wait for 11 years to realize they've been watching crap.

With this view, and a 400 billion rupees and an ensemble cast, Karan Johar set out to make Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. One ought to stop when your title translates to Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness. But nothing was going to stop K Jo from wasting 400 billions and the potential of some fine actors.

I am not going to give you the plot of the movie, go read Wikipedia for that. I am merely going to reveal certain motives behind the making of this film that the public never knew about. Remember how the title promises moments of sadness as well as happiness. Well, you are going to cry at every moment in this film. No, not because the film maybe pathetic. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was designed to make you cry. When someone in the film cries, you cry. When someone in the film smiles, you cry. Genuinely. Shahrukh looks for opportunities to cry, Hrithik goes from crying to being euphoric back to crying. Amitabh Bachchan does not like to cry, but is made to, in the end. And Kareena is a student of King's college, London.

The public was always curious about the personal married life of Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, the height issues, the good actor bad actor issues and the disappointing son issues. With Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, much of these was brought to light in different shades of pompous red and yellow.  

Basically, Amitabh's character, Yashwardhan Raichand is a wealthy, good natured, humble, all loving businessman who does not want to do anything with the working class populace. How everyone else in the film bring him to change his mind and become extra all loving, forms the story. At the heart, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham is a larger than life, the Universe and everything film.

Tip: If you watch the movie in segments, you almost get the feel of a daily soap. That's the power and finesse of Karan Johar.

She looked decent. Socially, she had good prospects. A dead father did not matter much in society these days. A western schooling and an Indian living meant an ideal character.

Then she shook everything. She eloped with a seemingly illiterate guy who worked as a domestic help. People started talking. People did not really care about her future more than they cared talking about it. A dead father was suddenly significant. 

People talk for a few days or months at the most. Until they talked, her marriage fared well. She had a beautiful boy. Fair, from his father. Then one day the father left. The swarthy young mother and her fair boy were on their own. People talking seems to be a bad omen. They curse the lives of those that are unimportant, even insignificant to them. It is the only way people have authority. 

A few years now, everything seems normal again. She lives as a tenant in a cheap but decent looking chawl which is queerly built behind a restaurant & bar. People say it is cheap, living there. They cannot justify it really, but they will continue to talk nonetheless. 

I hear people say that she now sells her body for her stomach. Maybe, maybe not. People won't cross check it anyway. This city has become sadist. 

Years down the line, the college going boy of this illicit mother convinces himself every night, "A prostitute's son is not a bastard. A prostitute's son is not a bastard." He does not even know whether his mother is really one. 

Expecto Patronum

The iPad is a beautiful thing. It made me want to sketch. Then I dabbled on paper too. I'll put them on soon.

Devil is in the details. But there's too much details in this city to romanticise.

Too many people, too many incidences, too much happening inside the fences.

Why do you think was Mordor so beautiful despite the foul air?

For fair was the balance between life and action. 
For Bombay though, Mordor is but a fraction.

Your maximum city ain't some fancy boroughs.
Carelessness taken for honesty, evil too here is gross. 

A cold cat lingers on the cold street on a cold night. It is winter and the cat knows. It is November, the cat would not care. It is looking for some thing. As it walks past a tiny puddle of water on the foot path, it stops. The cat can see a blurry crescent moon in the water. It looks up, purrs and continues the calculated walk. Up ahead on the street where the row of houses begin is parked a car. It is becoming bigger and bigger as the cat treads on. Once close, the cold cat now feels some warmth. The idea of a car is comforting. But before it can heave a sigh of relief, a familiar meow is heard. Another cat steps out from under the car. Both exchange cold glances. A minute of stare and the new cat swiftly turns around, its tail stretched upward. And as it stoops to enter its bed again, says, 'The next car is empty. Some salmon in the bin. Make yourself comfortable..sister' and disappears in the darkness under the car. The cold cat looks up at the moon with a thankful face and walks on.

A Post Script

This is regarding the two short films I have just uploaded on the blog. Both the films were made more than a year back, when I was studying Mass Media. I would have loved to provide the scripts of the films, but cannot. We did not really have a sense of any pipeline while making those films. Owing to our ignorance, I had hand-written both scripts, the copies of which are nowhere to be found now. I had thought of penning down the scripts by going through the films again, but later scrapped the idea. A script is made into a film, not vice versa. And though literally it is possible, I would not be doing justice to the literature. 

Venn, short film

This is one of the few short films I made with a filmmaker friend of mine. Venn was made on an intensely tight budget and in not more than three days. We entered the film in the Kolkatta Film Festival, where it was among the five selected films to be screened from the student category.
I co-wrote the concept and story of the film with Vishal, the director of this film. Owing to low finance and wanting to experiment with non-actors, Vishal decided that I should act as the lead character of the film. I personally find myself to be not a good actor at all, but Vishal says otherwise.