I accident saw her in a YouTube video and was struck by her beauty. When I showed the video to Alka she told me that she’s Leela Naidu. I generally don’t like the profiles of Indian film actresses (except for Madhubala) but Leela Naidu was/is a stunner. Once she was declared one of the top 10 most beautiful women in the world, and I’m not sure about the others, she could easily be among the top beauties. It was nice to know that she didn’t die young, like many other extraordinarily beautiful people.
Technorati Tags: leela naidu
I generally don’t use such expressions on my blog but this is a clear case of mutual ass-licking. First NDTV declares Manmohan Singh the leader of the year and then sycophant journalists like Rajdeep Sardesia, Barkha Dutt and Vinod Dua are conferred Padma Sri, one of the highest civilian awards in India. It is anybody’s guess why these three journalists got the award.
At home we were discussing if such biased people keep on getting such awards then what credibility do such awards carry? Actually these kinds of awards fetch many privileges to the awardees, for instance getting their books published, obtaining lucrative government contracts, getting highly sought-after assignments abroad, and of course, in this twisted case, lots of publicity to the news channels they belong to.
Last year I read Arun Shourie’s “Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud” in which very laboriously he has explained, taking examples from various texts and other sources, how these “respected” journalists, historians and scholars keep promoting each other’s works and causes and keep getting rewarded in shady manners and then keep getting cushy jobs and assignments and this cycle goes on and on and on. The only difference now is that common people can articulate their thoughts using blogs and other communication means. So at least there is a certain section that can see the truth and talk about it and I think this is an extremely positive development, and this is a reason why conventional journalists dislike new-age media, especially the kind of media that empowers practically everybody to communicate and exchange ideas.
In another diabolical development our Prime Minister declared that the families of jihadis who are killed by the Indian armed forces will receive compensation from the government. Read this satire recently published in The Pioneer. This is like telling them: kill our army men and if they kill you back we will compensate your families. In another right-thinking society such a Prime Minister would have been arrested for abetting terrorism and his or her party would have never been able to form another government. But alas! This is India, the land of million tragedies. And then they wonder why the Indian Army is short of 12,000 officers. Who would like to fight for the government that compensates people who are out to kill them? This is so bizarre.
Andher nagri by the way means a completely chaotic state of affairs where nothing logical happens.
Technorati Tags: barkha dutt, rajdeep sardesai, vinod dua, padam sri
Being musically inclined, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa is the only TV show that I watch with random regularity and I can follow how individual participants are performing. Oh, and yes I started my music lessons again . Remember once I mentioned my old recalcitrant guruji who is over 70? After taking his classes it was not possible for me to go to another teacher. Although he sometimes irritates me but I think he’s the best teacher I have ever come across. Coming back to the TV program.
The final event turned out to be a real damp squib. Nobody was expecting Aneek Dhar to win. Of course no doubt be deserved to be among the top three but he was no way the first runners up stuff. Either Amanat or Raja Hasan should have come first; they are far superior than Aneek as far as voice quality and style are considered. He has a very shrill noise although technically he has no flaws.
Did a Bengali factor play in? The Bengalis are prone to send excessive SMS messages to help Bengali contestants win and even when the SMSs are not involved through networking tactics they try to ensure victory for a Bengali contestant. I’m not saying that he is a Bengali so his victory should be questioned; it’s just that the other contestants were far better and this is the only logic that can be drawn — that he undeservedly got more votes. Of course Rashamya too used cheap psychological tricks to fetch more votes for his student.
The win actually doesn’t matter much because many contestants have won and then faded into oblivion. Only the talented can survive. This is why there are many contestants who got singing contracts even before reaching the finals — including Amanat and Raja — but I doubt if Aneek got a singing contract during the competition.
And it is heartening to see that true talent is still appreciated in other parts of the country and that is the main reason that Amanat, despite being a Pakistani, was among the top three, and despite Poonam being the least glamorous among the female contestants, was the top female performer and eventually won the spark of the day award. Hers is the face that should inspire you. Read her story if you can find it somewhere. Listen to her singing Der na ho jaye, I mean, of course she is not Lata Mangeshkar but I think after Lata and Asha Poonam’s voice is the best I’ve heard so far.
All in all, Sa Re Ga Ma P is the best talent hunt program on Indian television and the new singers discovered through it are really going to give sleepless nights to the established but mediocre singers of the Hindi cinema. These singers, barring Aneek’s final fiasco, are really brilliant and truly deserve the attention being showered upon them. Hopefully we’ll get to listen to some good melodies in the near future. And if that doesn’t happen well I’m always there to sing to myself and to people who care to listen, for instance my greatest fan I think, no I’m sure, is my 27-month-old daughter :-).
Technorati Tags: saregamapa, sa re ga ma pa
Sandeep on his blog dissects an article published in The Hindustan Times written by some extremely biased (or clueless, a greater possibility) historian/writer named Ramachandra Guha. My analytical writing has been living in the dumps for quite some time but Sandeep’s take on Guha’s politically and culturally confused contemplations is quite engaging.
Recently Amardeep posted his reaction to a journalist’s outburst against bloggers. The journalist says at the beginning of his article:
Every English-speaking Indian man between 25 and 60 has written about the Hindi movies he has seen, the English books he has read, the foreign places he has travelled to and the curse of communalism. You mightn’t have read them all (there are a lot of them and some don’t make it to print) but their manuscripts exist and in this age of the internet, these masters of blah have migrated to the Republic of Blog. [ link ]
Amardeep rightly says that the writer hasn’t done his research properly and hasn’t read blogs that he should have really read before drawing such immature conclusions. I’m sure the writer didn’t read Sandeep’s blog.
Why do conventional writers and journalists (most of them, not all) hold blogging with contempt or downplay it as an elite fad? There was recently another article saying that bloggers were nothing but scavengers surviving on the toils of real journalists. Actually, they don’t understand blogging, and those who do, hate it or fear it.
A blog is a communication tool, a social media tool where people can express themselves and interact with hundreds and even thousands of their readers on a regular basis. It renders voice to people who had no voice until its advent. Anybody can today have a blog and share his or her opinions, philosophies, joys and concerns. Blogging empowers you to react immediately. Have some opinion on a newspaper article or a TV program or a movie, or a book or politician? Log into your blog account and share it with your readers. Just discovered a new recipe? Write it on your blog. Got a great video clip? Share it on your blog. Anything that can be digitally published, can be published on a blog.
Blogging initiates a two-way communication, and this is something feared by journalists, MSM people, politicians, and all those who thrive on the inability to react. In pre-blogging times the most you could do was send a letter to the editor if you read something nefarious like Guha’s article. It was up to the editor to publish your letter or whether to “edit” it or not. The Hindustan Times would certainly never publish Sandeep’s letter in its present form. And even if it were published, it would only be available to the HT readers. His blog post can be read by thousands of people from all walks of live. For instance, I read it just now and I have never in my life read HT.
Blogs also jump in when the mainstream media (MSM) fails to cover relevant news. Recently Mridula highlighted an incident where a laborer’s child died due to the callousness of IIT Kanpur authorities, and I too wrote about the incident. Taking a cue from different blogs the MSM too has started highlighting the shameful incident. Similarly when Manjunath was murdered the TV channels and newspapers woke up only after the incident had been widely discussed on various blogs. Bloggers have forced many multinational companies like Dell, Sony, etc. to mend their ways. Journalists, with their limited reach, would have never been able to achieve such feats.
Instead of criticizing blogging, journalists and writers should embrace blogging to reach a wider readership.
Here you can read diverse views on blogging.
Technorati Tags: journalists, msm, blogging
It took me around three weeks to watch the movie Parzania. I’ve had it for a long time on my laptop. Since Alka was not interested in watching it I watched it in tiny bits of 5-10-15 minutes.
Parzania is a stark movie and I understand why it faced hostility in Gujarat and from other “Hindu” parties. The movie almost ends up telling you that
- All Hindus are ugly and repulsive
- Most Hindus are corrupt, timid, or simply evil
- Muslims are generally peace loving and hence victimized
- All non-Hindu Indians are somewhat elite and “modern” in thought
- A foreigner is more brazen while showing anger against injustice while Indians can simply bemoan and cry helplessly
Does it all sound overly biased? It does. And it surely seems like a propaganda movie, but you know what? The times of riots do transform the dominant societies and turn them into inconceivable demons. If you have been at the receiving end of a state sponsored riot you can relate to the views expressed in Parzania. In the movie the policemen laugh while the Hindu mobs butcher defenseless civilians and set on fire pregnant women. If it sounds inconceivable, it isn’t. It happened during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots too. Even small children were set on fire while the policemen looked the other way, cheered the murderers and even participated actively. There were orders from above to act like this. So if Parzania looks biased, there is a big chance that the film shows a reality and sometimes reality repulses you, revolts you, and even makes you feel ashamed of your existence. Atrocities against life (human, animals, even plants) happen all over the world but all hell breaks lose when they happen as an act of genocide. Watch Hotel Rwana if you get a chance. You should even watch The Pianist to see what humans are capable of if they decide to be inhuman.
Parzania, I discovered, is not a name of a girl. It is pronounced with a western accent, like, the “a” between z and n is said the way you say the “a” of plate. So it’s not Parzaania. Parzan is a Parsi boy of about 10. He lives in a fortress type of chawl with his parents. There are mostly Muslims in the chawl with I guess just one Hindu family and one Parsi family. His parents are Cyrus (Naseeruddin Shah) and Shernaz (Sarika).
One day after getting scolded by his teacher for listening to cricket commentary in the classroom, on his way back he talks to his sister about this imaginary place called Parzania where you can do whatever you feel like doing and you don’t have to do thing you dislike. It is a fantasy world totally happy, fully content, no fear, no hatred.
The story mostly comes through Allen (Corin Nemec — an American actor) who is in India to study Gandhi and spends a lot of time talking to Cyrus, smoking, drinking and cursing.
Life is full of happy puns and laughter for the all the families of the chawl. They talk about inter-religious marriages. There’s a jovial talk about a Muslim girl meeting a Hindu boy on the Internet and getting married and Muslim men talk about this good-humoredly. Interestingly, all the families have a somewhat European, or rather western attitude. They even say fuck this and fuck that during conversations, just like Americans.
Things only turn murkier and ugly when they show the teeth grinding, saffron aprons-clad Hindus planning nefarious things behind the doors or conducting “surveys”. They reek of only hatred and they seem to be devoid of any civilized emotions. The only purpose of their existence is terrorizing and killing non-Hindus. They are always planning an orchestrated, well-targeted violence.
So there is a typical light and shadow effect here: there is a community that talks about relationships, religion, philosophy, art, cinema and romance, and then there is another society always wandering in the dark taverns of hatred conspiring murders and rapes.
Then they announce the Godhra train burning incident and all hell breaks lose. The chawl is attacked and then everything that happens during riots in India happens. The rampaging mob cuts women and children to pieces and the Hindu neighbors refuse to help, and the chief minister (Narendra Modi, of course) keeps on saying that everything is under control. In this turmoil, while Cyrus is at work, Shernaz tries to save her two children by requesting her Hindu neighbor to take them in and leave her outside. They don’t open the door and while running helter-skelter Parzan is lost. She keeps screaming that she is not Muslim, but nobody listens to her.
The policemen are shown laughing while a crowd in front of them pours kerosine on a pregnant woman and sets her own fire. They have shown the mob violence in its purity. As an after thought they have also shown a Hindu rioter sparing a sacred Muslim woman and throwing a saffron apron upon her so that she looks Hindu.
Their Hindu servant saves Shernaz and her daughter and when Cyrus meets them the quest for their son begins. The rest of the story revolves around their fruitless search and a thoroughly corrupt Hindu administration.
Despite a one-sided portrayal of the situation, it’s a good movie to see. A world ahead of those overrated and silly Ram Gopal Verma and Karan Johar flicks and in fact they should learn something from the makers of Parzania.
Sarika has acted exceptionally well in the movie and she deserved the award she got for this movie. The script is very tight and the story moves fast. Sometimes it makes you cry. It makes you cry because beautiful, blissful lives are ruined due to some distant follies of others. It makes you ashamed of your country.
It will be difficult to watch the movie if you have strong politico-religious feelings and it may even seem revolting at some places. But when communities turn communal and instigated by politicians and granted impunity, no outrage seems far-fetched. Having witnessed the 1984 riots, I could easily believe whatever was being shown in the movie. Still, they could have stuck to the reality and still shown some normal, human Hindus, rather than showing all of them sub-human. As I said, as an after-thought they try to show some good-intentioned Hindu, but you can easily see it’s a charade. Nonetheless, if you haven’t seen the movie just because you don’t agree with its content, you are missing a well-made, good movie. It can be compared to any internationally known movie. In that sense, I think it is quite underrated in India.
Technorati Tags: parzania, gujarat riots
There is a post on the barbarindian’s blog that talks about a recent interview by Mahashweta Devi in which she said:
“I was deeply impressed to see how strong the work culture is in Gujarat. The city and village roads are well-built, even the remotest villages have electricity and drinking water. I was especially impressed with the medical facilities in the panchayats and local-level health centres. Not at all like West Bengal where, even now, villages and panchayat areas have hardly any electricity and where the Government’s so-called swasthya pariseva (healthcare service) is totally non-existent,” she said. “In West Bengal, which has been under a CPI(M)-led Left Government for 30 years, little has been achieved,” the writer said. She also alleged that starvation deaths and child mortality are “rampant” in West Bengal.
I read this in The Pioneer a few days ago and remember discussing it with Alka how such opinions don’t appear in “secular” newspapers and news channels. I’m not a big fan of Modi but his state seems to be making big strides towards economic and social progress whether people like it or not. I wanted to write about Mahashweta Devi’s comments (she is a leftist writer) that day but was really busy finishing a few projects. Good that barbarindians mentioned it today. Such issues should be highlighted in all fairness.
Technorati Tags: gujarat, modi, india
When Bono is not fighting the WTO and globalization he is having a hell of a time, and seeing him like this is quite encouraging. Just imagine, on one side there is a super-model and on another there is Penelope Cruz. And his wife is at home. Good to be a prolific singer :-).
Alka often teases me that I’ll be usually surrounded by girls if I become a famous singer and I never take her seriously. Hmmm…but Bono inspires me to put in some more practice hours. ;-).
Technorati Tags: bono, u2, penelope cruz
Link via barbarindians. Our “oh so liberal” government first banned the AXN TV, then the FTV (it’s not fuck TV, it’s fashion TV) and now they are banning commercials that they think, are “inappropriate. Aren’t they the same losers who protested when the VHP goons protested against those silly paintings. They find offensive paintings acceptable, but they cannot tolerate slightly naughty ads. Hypocrites. I wonder how the Arundhati Roy will react to this barbaric censorship.
Below is one of the ads blocked by the information and broadcasting ministry.
Technorati Tags: censorship, fascists, advertising
And, as the TV news channels want us to believe, Monica Bedi is a celebrity; the fact that she is the former girlfriend of a dreaded mafia don has been conveniently skirted aside. It somehow seems they’re being paid to do so.
I woke up in the morning (one of those rare mornings when I slept at night and woke up in the morning). Alka switched on the TV to quickly catch up on some news and every channel was broadcasting the Monica Bedi release live.
She has been in the news ever since her association with Abu Salem surfaced, but what’s with all this frenzy? Are we having a Paris Hilton syndrome here? There are cameras in front of the jail, there are cameras in front of her house, and according to the latest updates from Alka (I’m in another room, working) they’ve got cameras even in her village in Punjab. I’m sure they’ve got people glued to their TV sets and it’s all a game about the TRPs.
Anyway, I think the real danger for Monica Bedi starts post-jail. She spilled some beans and that’s going to cost her. Although she wants to act in films, one really has to be a daring adventurer to cast her. There are many who bay for the blood of the don and his near and dear ones, and Monica Bedi was (is?) his near and dear one lock stock and barrel. Even Salem himself would try to knock her off as that’s how criminals work. It’s a quagmire and coming out of it is not as easy as it is being shown on the news channels.
So more than her film career, she should worry for her life, and should go somewhere she cannot be traced. She shouldn’t be swayed by all the attention being given to her. For the TV channels she’s merely a sensational news and for the average viewer she is merely a voyeuristic pleasure (and of course an eye-candy — even I find her attractive to look at). Everybody wants to see a pretty girl, a former actress who used to sleep with a dreaded don. People look at her father and feel good about the fact that they are not in his position.
Her family will be in great peril too, because even if she goes into hiding, the family members will be hounded for her whereabouts.
She was safer in the jail. The real troubles for Monica Bedi will start now.
Technorati Tags: monica bedi, monica bedi released, abu salem, release of monica bedi
Mika Brzezinski’s Blackberry is currently receiving new messages at the rate of about one a minute. Some come from friends and colleagues, but most are from complete strangers. To nearly all, she is a heroine. [ Why I said ‘no’ to Paris Hilton mania ]
Well, I know this is never going to happen in India :-). In this video, the MSNBC journalist, Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC TV, shreds the Paris Hilton story because she thinks there are so many important story, for instance the Iraq war, to be covered. Looking at her, I feel so ashamed of our journalists, especially the NDTV and CNN-IBN types who are simply bimbos (both male and female) who by the accidents of chance have become TV news journalists.
More links on Mika Brzezinski - Paris Hilton news:
Technorati Tags: Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC TV, paris hilton
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