Driven sick by 'Om Shanti Om'

For the past several months preceding Diwali, TV Channels and magazines have been full of nothing but an inordinately high level of hype - as pre release publicity for two Hindi films; Sawariya & Om Shanti Om.

I will reserve my venom for the latter, mainly because no one bugged me about the other.

The din has been at high decibel, indecent levels and has transgressed all limits of human endurance. My nerves have been tested sorely as every available channel has either published or broadcast interview(s)with stars, the opinions of Chaganlal dresswala and his aunt on the costumes/music/locations/props/makeup used, and just about everything else. Come to think of it, there was no mention of the heroes favourite brand of undies. (I guess that was because he reportedly wears them outside his costume in the movie!).

And don't forget the ear splitting music. The Music. YES. That I think, was the most annoying of all; as it tended to follow you from your home TV to your car radio, catching up with you when you tried to grab a chai at a nearby cafe and coming back to haunt you at night, as your missus caught up on filmy gossip on some late night show at 11.30 pm even as you tried to call it a day. It has been simply too irritating, exasperating and enervating to listen to the same wretched music for months at a stretch.

And when my 3 year old granddaughter arrived a few days before Diwali, singing her own version of Dard-e-Disco I was really ready to snap.

Little did I realise that the worst was yet to come.

Horror of Horrors, I was compelled by my wife to accompany her to this movie, that too on a working day. Imagine fighting with your wife after being married for 34 years, that too over a silly Hindi movie, so I did the next best thing under the circumstances. I gave in.

Come November 20, and the North East Monsoon , which had been long playing truant from Chennai, returned with a vengeance. The heavens opened up and I was secretly hopeful that if the rains continued well past 4 pm, I could yet avoid the trip to Satyam. The tickets had been paid for, but what the hell, when you don't want to go, you just don't want to go. Haven't we all felt that way at least once in our lifetime.

Alas, my wishful thinking was no match to the power of my wife's prayers. The rains stopped by 11 am and 6.30 pm saw both of us at Satyam.

The staff at the place were on some new kind of hospitality drive; we must have heard a hundred good evenings before we even took our seats. Were they just rookies learning to be polite? No, they must have been putting patrons at ease before administering the proverbial 'bitter medicine'.

And bitter it was.

Just who the hell does Farah Khan think she is? Sure, you don't have to tell the world about the big, bad world of Hindi movies only the way Guru Dutt did. In sombre black and white. In a classic like Kaagaz Ke Phool. With haunting music that you remember 40 years later.

You can be loud. No, make it LOUD. Without changing the point size I just can't express how LOUD and BRASH this movie is. Only as loud and brash as Farah Khan can be. It is a spoof, I am told. Spoof? Hell, how can this OSO be a spoof?

The first spoof that I remember seeing and enjoying was "Our man Flint", starring James Coburn. Sometime in the '60s. When I was still at IIT, Bombay. And that came soon after Dr. NO, From Russia With Love, & GOLDFINGER had created a stir around the world with Sean Connery as the new action hero for the age, JAMES BOND.

It was relevant, it was contemporary, it took jibes at Q and his gadgets as much as it did at the Super hero that was Bond. And more important, James Coburn was an established tough guy on screen, before Sean Connery, with major roles in The Magnificent Seven(1960) and The Great Escape(1963) etc.

His spoof was credible.

In contrast, OSO talks about a period 30 years ago, when Jitender wore white shoes and waved a tennis racket as he sang a duet. And Helen wore flesh colored underclothes for the item numbers. Maybe the white shoes have gone but what else has changed?

How many silly romances has Shah Rukh Khan acted in himself? Barring Chak De, Swadesh & Paheli, all of recent vintage, the rest of his films are immensely forgettable.

Hell and damnation, this was no spoof at all.

I was told, by my constant companion of 34 years, the mother of my children, and my resident encyclopedia on Hindi movies, that I should look out for the nuances. On how Farah Khan has brought in so many tid-bits, digs on the reincarnation theme, the dream girl theme, and the '70s film sets and so on and so on.

Nuances, did you say? That, I am afraid is one word that Farah Khan does not understand. How can you? When you are being loud & brash. I mean LOUD & BRASH. All that is clearly visible is Farah Khan and Shah Rukh Khan telling the audience.. " look here, boys and girls, between us and Karan Johar, add maybe , Yash Uncle and Malaika, we decide that we are the smart cookies who know everything that needs to be known about making Hindi movies. We are the arbiters of good taste. Even in our most narcisstic moments. And we love the incestuous asides that we ourselves come up with. If you don't like it, lump it. Aah yes, thanks for paying those hundreds plus bucks for the tickets. How else would we pay for our next trip to Switzerland or the ghastly sets".

You cannot set out to make a spoof and then fill it with ALL the things you ever wanted to spoof in your whole life.

A spoof on Hindi movies does not need to run through 18 reels and three long hours.
A spoof on Hindi movies does not need endless song sequences that bark SPOOF,SPOOF,SPOOF.
A spoof on Hindi movies does not need LOUD songs that take you through the denouement.
A spoof on Hindi movies does not have to burst with so much Kitsch that it looks like Kitsch Khichdi.

And like the many who wrote footnotes to Masand's review of this film, I too am stuck with a lingering headache, three days after watching the film.

Good bye Farah Khan. That was the last time, ever.

I mean the last time that I pay for a ticket to watch your trips into the Absurd. I confess, that I will not always be able to choose the moment to avoid as you pop up on my home TV screen.
Then, there is the remote!

Divine Right of Intervention at Baroda

Baroda & its prestigious Faculty of Fine Arts at Sayaji University have been in the news the past one week. In yesterday's NDTV debate on 'We The People' , the usual culprits were there, with Chandan Mitra batting for the BJP. In this context, I remembered some similar incident a few months back, My thoughts then had been pushed away by other more pressing matters. but it is time to think again...

Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP President, claimed recently that his party has a ‘Divine Right’
to represent Hindus. This set me thinking about this exclusivity, and I wondered why the Good Lord above chose to grant it , if indeed he did, to these guys - The goons who call themselves the Sangha Parivaar.

Soon, my search was rewarded with the following passage:

Once self-supported by ‘conscience’, once embarked upon a career of manifest usefulness, the true ‘Hindutva’ soldier never yields. Neither public nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have once got our mission. Taxation may be the consequence, riots may ensue and even wars may be fought; but we go on with our work, irrespective of every human consideration which moves the world outside us.

We are above reason, we are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody’s eyes, we hear with nobody’s ears, we feel with nobody’s hearts, but our own. Glorious, glorious privilege!
And how is it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare yourselves that useless inquiry!
We are the only people who can earn it – for we are the only people who are always right.
UNQUOTE.

Unfortunately, I do not know what is the percentage of the popular mandate (Vote Share) that the ‘Hindutva’ forces, BJP & Shiv Sena, won between themselves in the last Lok Sabha elections
In 2004. It certainly was not more than 25%. If 80% of Indians are Hindus then there is a serious mismatch here in the numbers.

HOW THE HELL DO THESE GUYS CLAIM TO REPRESENT ALL HINDUS?

I am more than ever convinced that all organised religion ought to be banned.