Two Sticks and the Exception

I remember a time when I thought chopsticks fiddly and a distinctly oddly conceived tool. Two sticks, I ask you! But so it always is - one culture's way of doing things will seem very difficult to another. I remember Sadhguru chuckling once about how South Indians manage runny rasam saadam with their hands and THAT while eating on banana leaves. It is a feat, no question.

Lack of skill notwithstanding we found chopsticks intriguing and I remember laughing a lot at our clumsy attempts at picking up mango pieces on a sleepover at Alina's. And being soooo impressed with Karishma Kapoor's nonchalant skill in Dil Toh Pagal Hai. Such mastery seemed a far cry away.

Now however, one way or the other, I've become handy with these utensils that have been in use since 1200 BC. East Asian shows, for one - the Koreans eat rather a lot in their dramas, and by just observation almost, I've picked up the knack. As for how hungry Korean dramas make you, that's another story. (I wish Indian TV and OTT producers would get their act TOGETHER! Contact me on email for consultation on how to re-orient the industry.)

But to chopsticks again, my cousin brought me some nicely tapered ones from her travels, my sister gifted me a stainless steel pair in the Korean style, and I have a few blunt Chinese-style ones in wood and plastic, so now I've a nice collection for every kind of application. I find myself reaching for them when cooking anything chunky that needs dexterous turning on the pan. Can't reach for a piece of pickle at the bottom of the bottle? No problem. Need some alma murabba or prunes halfway down the jar? Piece o' cake. 

Obviously I now eat noodles with chopsticks but there is one exception. Maggi - done the desi street-side way, with tamatar, pyaaz, capsicum, chillies and masala - simply cries out for the fork. Not the elegant sort with long tines and embellished handles, but the thin cheap variety where the tines could possibly impale your tongue, where the handle could cut your finger if you held it too tightly. That kind of fork, scraping against the steel plate as you try to salvage as much masala as you possibly can.

Game on

“I’m in love,” I told Shweta.

“Twentieth time this year!” she said.

It’s true. I’m what they call a dil-phenkh. My heart waits eagerly to find something worthy of worship – and in the world of East Asian drama, there are so many, so many demi-gods.

I’ve stayed for the most part with Korean dramas, but a couple of Taiwanese series, one lovely Thai story and a few Japanese pieces (mostly movies) have made it to my binge list. Chinese dramas, I’ve hitherto steered clear of, simply because of their length. 30 to 60 episodes per story are a bit daunting without strong recommendations.

But the mood came upon me and I watched a movie called Love O2O. Such an intriguing concept for a love story, I quickly devoured it in all its forms – I read the exquisite manhua (still in progress), watched the 30-episode drama version and sought out an English translation of the novel (A Slight Smile is Very Alluring) that all these are based on.

University Days: A frame from the manhua

Love O2O: The drama version

The movie version

[HERE BE SPOILERS – because I’m going to rave about it and don’t know when to stop]

Bei Wei Wei is a computer science student at Qing University, Beijing, who is addicted to an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) called Dreams of Jianghu – she’s an ace player and ranked among the top ten gamers in the server. One day, she gets proposed to by the No 1 ranking Yi Xiao Nai He – in the game, of course. They should ‘marry’, he says, to win an upcoming couples’ tournament. She agrees. What follows is an immensely sweet (and yet not cloying) courtship. They battle monsters together in beautiful synchronisation, take down enemies, Yi Xiao Nai He fights some badass duels to protect her honour, they fly across the game landscape on a giant phoenix... and the two find themselves spending a lot of time at the game’s Sunset Point – a beautiful cliff edge overlooking a low sun that never sets, and where players hardly come because there are no monsters here to kill, no experience points to be gained, no missions to accomplish.

Normally not interested in meeting her online friends in person or in outing her gaming identity, Wei Wei is still all a’flutter when he finally suggests they meet. Yi Xiao Nai He turns out to be Xaio Nai – computer geek, hacker, programmer, super achiever and all round University star. They take their online love offline (which explains O2O) and then from a university romance, the story of this Alpha Pair becomes immersed in the mechanics of a new game that Xiao Nai and his team are developing.

Running contrary to every screenwriting formula, the love story has no hiccups, no misunderstandings... just development, development, development. To the last, Wei Wei is Xiao Nai’s most devoted fangirl and while he’s cool, impassive, unruffled in all his dealings, his eyes soften for Wei Wei every time he looks at her. The characters are wonderfully drawn. The leads are very alike: strong, passionate, decent and kind. The support characters, particularly Xiao Nai’s band of boys, are delightful.

Had I come across this seven or eight years ago, I’d have had no time for this post. I’d have been hooked to the nearest MMORPG I could lay my hands on and hacking at monsters. But older, wiser and altogether much more wary of my obsessive nature, I have not done so. (Yet.)

The graphics in the movie are better of course, but the drama is beautifully detailed and benefits from the build-up that 45 minutes x 30 can offer. The lead actress Zheng Shuang is fine but you’ll forgive me for throwing the better part of my love at the feet of the scrumptious Yang Yang.

I’m still caught in the tail-spin of this binge. What shall I do next? There are two more dramas based on novels by the same writer, Gu Man. Or if I’m willing to wait and keep pace with it as it airs now in Korea, there is the very tempting ‘The Great Seducer’ which is loosely based, I hear, on Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Taking it slow

My life tends to alternate between intense activity and luxurious nothingness. I enjoy both immensely.

After a whirlwind three months during which I went on the Rally for Rivers, went off on a birding trip to Africa, came back to get the house painted and overhauled, we are now in the easy phase. And I’m taking the time to catch up on a K-drama I’ve put away to savour at just such a time as this.

The Descendants of the Sun is everything they said it would be. Of course, with a mere 16 episodes, it will be consumed in one satisfying three-day binge. Bingewatchers believe that sleep is for the weak, and so it seems – the next episode at 3.00 in the morning, or a few hours of shuteye... it is so easy to hit ‘play’. However, this time, I’m determined to stretch it out. So an epi at a time... breaks in between, and I haven’t subsisted on sandwiches and bananas, or left my father to procure his meals from the local curry point. But still seven episodes have zoomed by and I would be there right now, avidly drinking in the eighth but there’s a power cut and this blog gets an emergency update.

Drenched by Hallyu

So, I’m engulfed by Hallyu. This is the Korean Wave that has taken grip of so many parts of the world, and why not? Why ever not? 

I had read about K-dramas a few months ago and the incredible following they were beginning to have in India. Even K-pop, although that’s not quite my thing, has a cult following. I was intrigued but I hadn’t looked further.

Earlier this month, I had some time and a binge watch was due. Was it to be the next season of Suits? Or the Pakistani drama Besharam that I’ve been saving up? Netflix suggested a few Asian dramas and after a little research, I settled for Playful Kiss. So charming! I loved the experience, and have lost my heart to the hero Baek Seung Jo.

There is a rich world out there. I’ve since watched a Taiwanese drama, there seem to be quite a few Japanese offerings and I’m eager to sink my teeth into the iconic Boys over Flowers and later perhaps, Descendents of the Sun.

As it happens, I’m a prime candidate for this sort of addiction. I’m obsessive, I love television, I’m a sucker for romance and I like to sample different cultures. There’s next to nothing on the Saas-Bahu scene and this is just perfect.

Making Hay

Whatever you do, do it in style. But not necessarily in one particular style.
–Sadhguru

It’s been a happening kind of a summer. My sister came home and, in a first since she left to live in an ashram at the foothills of the Velliangiri, she stayed two whole months. So many things we did... some more of the same, some new, some necessary, some just for the heck of it – and all of it was fun.

We went to the Simhastha Kumbh. We met friends, welcomed back old neighbours. We bought a TV. We watched a few movies, ate a lot of mangoes. Stock-taking of many kinds. A learning and an unlearning experience. A conscious sampling of life... so that we can let go.

She’s gone off now and the house seems a bit too quiet. It’s time for this evocative haiku by Carolyn Coit Dancy that describes the fun and purpose of this summer that went by:

creek-side rope swing
learning the art
of letting go

Reporters: First Impressions

Cross-posted from Critical Mass

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We – a group of childhood friends I grew up with, my mother, my sister and I – have been huge fans of Pakistani serials ever since we came across them. They seized our imagination and we sighed over how subtle they were, how same-same and yet how different! Naturally, Dhoop Kinarey held pride of place in our hearts. We binge-watched the whole series – a thing, let me tell you, that is very difficult to do with a large group belonging to three different households. Ours was the drawing room that hosted this orgy, and we would break reluctantly for meals and other necessities, enduring some rather uncomplimentary comments from everyone who wasn’t involved.

This was to show our history, and the extent of our nostalgia with Pakistani serials, particularly this one. So a few years ago, when production house Director’s Kut announced that they were going to remake it (with permission and blessings of the original makers) as an Indian soap, we were both fascinated and aghast. As we feared, Kuch toh log kahenge didn’t work too well; it couldn’t have. Kritika Kamra was perfectly cast, but Shweta and I were particularly unhappy with the choice of hero. Mohnish Bahl as an Indian Dr Ahmer Ansari… no! We were casting about mentally for someone else who could have done something approaching justice. It should have been Rajeev Khandelwal, I said. Shweta (passionate and intense about almost all matters) all but doubled up in agony at the hallucinatory nature of the prospect. Oh, why didn’t they think about it, she groaned, and declared the pairing looked so right in her mind, she couldn’t watch the soap after all!

That dream comes somewhat true now. Sony TV’s new series Reporters is just about 20 episodes old, it packs a punch and ta da! it has as its lead pair the evergreen Rajeev Khandelwal and effervescent Kritika Kamra. And the chemistry is everything we hoped and knew it would be.



Of course, Reporters has nothing to do with Dhoop Kinarey, but there are parallels. Like Dr Ansari, Kabir Sharma is her superior, and considerably older. And Kritika Kamra, even more in Reporters than she did in Kuch toh log kahenge channels that free spirit, that foolhardy courage that epitomised Zoya Ali Khan.

Reporters is exciting for many reasons. It sets itself backstage of television news as it is today – amidst a horribly-gone-wrong recipe of hysterical melodrama, screechy sensationalism and narcissistic anchors. The series is able to borrow so many aspects from real life that it strikes a chord at once.

As the series begins, star journalist Kabir Sharma makes the transition from print to television. He is ambitious, thirsty actually, for fame and success. We get a hint that he has a point to prove to someone. Ananya Kashyap, cub reporter at KKN, has long hero-worshipped Kabir – she is young, a touch naïve, very idealistic and starry eyed.

It is my reading that she intersects Kabir’s career at precisely the right moment – he is hell bent upon doing anything he can to achieve professional glory. Without Ananya’s questions, without her innocence to check him… he would have gone over to the dark side, and yet retained enough humanity for self loathing. But she is here and here we are… to sit on the sidelines and see the battles between pragmatism and idealism, professionalism and conscience, between experience and naiveté. To see each temper the other. And to wonder if they can come together to become something better.

It may be too early to speak but so far, it has been fascinating. The star power of the leads is compelling, the support cast varied and charismatic, the writing is detailed and nuanced, and the plotlines are engrossing.

Every episode ends with a small, direct comment from Kabir Sharma – sometimes he argues for sensitivity, sometimes for toughness, sometimes he remarks on the integrity we’re losing in every sphere of our lives. In that very style then: jaane se pehle, Reporters seems to have its heart in the right place.

So far, so good

I feel like posting today, only I don't know what.

Let's see...

• Instead of kriyas, I went for Hatha Yoga this morning with an energetic round of Angamardana. I should have kept it up but somehow I prioritised the more spiritually punchy Surya Kriya and Yogasanas. Upayoga is dashed useful, so I kept that up. Angamardana is very physical and frankly requires quite a bit of fortitude from lazy people like me - and it sort of became the rarest practice. But it was lovely today - I'm bouncing off the walls.
• I didn't care for the pongal Dad had made (too tamsic and sleep inducing), so dumped some shredded cabbage into dosa batter and made some uttapams.
• I caught a bit of the song from Aashiqui 2: Aashiqui baazi hai taash ki and it left me feeling so sad all over again. Poignant despair. It did good, that movie, to leave such an enduring mood-cloud almost intact after so many months of watching it. That's success, isn't it?
• I do like Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor. They make a nice pair and seemed so sweetly in love on Koffee with Karan last year. So romantic! *moony-eyed*
• It's been weeks since I saw a movie - the last was a marathon that included Birdman, Rahasya and Dolly ki Doli. I'm going to book as soon as it opens for Dum Lagake Haisha. Yay! 
• I was impressed with but didn't exactly like Birdman - pretentious, I felt, and without an emotional connect. I'm afraid technical wizardry goes only so far without a story. It seemed to have swept the Oscars though. I much preferred Boyhood. Not only for its amazing concept and 12-year span but also its content, its genuine interest in growth.
• Did not watch the Oscars yesterday but keen to catch Lady Gaga's act if I can. 

That's it. Those are the things on my mind. Plus the fact that I need to watch the clock to do the kriyas I didn't do in the morning. 

Pointing...

... to posts on my other blog:

On the return of the Muslim Social and an update on that trend. And while on the subject, a link to this old post: Kise pesh karun.

The unkindest cut

We feel that the local man in charge of our regular power cuts has given over to megalomania. We used to have them initially in two-hour slots spaced out considerately for households needing to use kitchen gadgets for the day's meals and such, for harried people leaving for school and work as well as others doing their morning kriyas. (Electricity is strictly not a requirement for this activity but it helps, of course – the buzz of household gadgets keeps other intruding sounds away, and there is always the menace of mosquitoes that can be held at bay with a breeze propelled by electric power.) Of course this also served for everyone requiring to charge their tech paraphernalia.

The first cut used to occur promptly at 10.30am and was restored at 12.30. As humans, whose thing in life is adaptability we, accordingly, adapted. Early in the morning, we fought over power plug points, made our chutneys, sent off last minute mails at 10.25 and sat back in somewhat of a smug attitude. In the break, we puttered around the garden, caught up on the bird scene in the neighbourhood, read the newspapers, and some even going so far as to read a book! It was idyllic.

At 4.30 in the afternoon was our second cut of the day. Walkers would reach promptly for their shoes, others for grocery bags, the colony uncles chose to huddle for leisurely powwows. Dusk would gently fall, leading some to make quite a to-do about their sunset pictures. With normal life restored at 6.30, the populace would withdraw indoors to prayers, television and dinner.

Now this is a thing of the past. The man at the switchboard has lost his rhythm. Sometimes, at 6.30am, when most of God’s creatures and snuggling in their razais, dreaming their last dreams of the night, they are awakened most rudely by a cessation of fan-blades. Now having thus dragged oneself out of bed, there is no easy method for obtaining hot water for one’s ablutions, the overhead tanks have not been filled and plans for breakfast must be altered very quickly to include Spencer’s wheat bread. You will note that I said ‘sometimes’. For, at other times, it is another time. Sometimes, 7am, sometimes 7.15, once 8am, occasionally 11am and now he has passed over the morning slot altogether. For two days now it has been 12-2pm and 4.30-6.30pm, which gives us barely two and half hours in between to get the fridge cold again. Food is spoiling and for persons who worry about laptop batteries forming the wrong kinds of memory, this is bad indeed.

Although I have described vividly the torments of unexpected cuts, I have not yet touched on the other kind – the torment of uncertainty and hope! What happens when the citizenry is expecting a power cut and it doesn’t occur? As a sample, I studied my father. At 10.40, it becomes clear that the schedule isn’t being adhered to. Having put off eating so that he can maximise on the router being available, he is famished. Should he have breakfast anyway? Or perhaps he should fit in one more response to an email in the next five minutes before it might be shut down? He teeters, Dear Reader, between work station and kitchen in the most piteous manner. But worse, when we have braced ourselves comprehensively and nothing at all happens. “Is it a festival today? Or some holiday?” Why, we wonder in private, aloud and during every interaction, has there not been a power cut. Having no faith in free lunches, we wonder what retribution will be like.

The maid discusses the cuts as much as she discusses the weather: “Ee rozu teesinadaa, akka?” and then tells me how it was in her locality these past 24 hours. We have concluded that we have a control freak on our hands. Our lives will run, he imagines, on his say-so (as indeed they do). Do you think he breaks out into maniacal laughter every time he pulls the plug? Or that his eyes gleam when his hand hovers on the button and then withdraws, knowing well the consternation he is spreading?

As I write this, my father has been wandering around the house muttering to himself. Tufts of hair stand upright on his head, and he wears a pinched look. There has been no cut today.

Bah

I'm beginning to really dislike feminists. Super aggro, man-hating, society-reviling feminists who're on the case ALL the time. For heaven's sake, let up sometimes and just be a PERSON, yes?

Edited to add:
That came as a reaction to some very silly and extreme views I encountered here and there. I swear I didn't know this movement was rising:

Haath, Kangan aur Farsi

Sometimes I find English too unemotional a language for my needs; it is too easily embarrassed. I was thinking the other day about people who use language well and how I tend to become ‘nisar’ over them. I cannot of course translate this: ‘I am squandered... I am strewn over articulate, vivid speakers of native tongues...’ As you see, it sounds ridiculous.

+++

Truth is I have a crush on languages. Punjabi, Farsi, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Telugu... they fascinate me all. My own ability to pick up a new tongue or dialect or accent is good but nowhere near where I would like it to be. I remember my sister saying once that if she could pick a superpower it would be the ability to understand every language in the world. I agree wholeheartedly. But alas, to acquire a true and imaginative mastery of a language needs exposure, it needs you to steep yourself in a culture – and for that you would need: a) an unadulterated petri dish of said culture and b) the time, space and adequate excuse to do the steeping. Situated as I am, it cannot be done on a whim.

So I pick up things – savour a phrase, wonder at the context of a particular way of expressing. It is unsatisfactory – I am ever aware that I am feeling a small wrinkle in the elephant’s skin – but there is nothing else.

In the latest season of Coke Studio, Sanam Marvi sings a mysterious snatch without giving us the backstory. The beloved has come across the river to meet but doesn’t spend too much time with the poet: “nah main majlis keeti, na mai raat rahaaya”. ‘I didn’t get the chance to sit together awhile, or spend with him a single night’, she laments. In fact: “onṭhi uṭh nah jhukaaya.” So fleeting a visit, he didn’t even lower the camel to the ground. How delicious is that phrasing – a mere half-sentence gives us glimpse of an entire way of living.

+++

While on this subject, I have a fond ambition: to speak in fluid ‘ba-muhavra’ Hindustani. You know, have a ready proverb or a saying for every situation. This now is doable. I trying to learn them up from here and there – in spite of the apparent homogeneity that has set in to our national media, you can still sift some nuggets, I find. So, I found occasion to exclaim ‘Bheda garak!’ several times this week, and when a friend told me they had to let their (very inept) administrative man go, I was happy to be able to assuage his conscience with ‘Khus kam jahaan paak.’

I am looking for a reason to say ‘Oonth ke pair toh paalne mein hi dikh jaate hain’ and but quite despair of being able to tell anyone: ‘Arre, aam khaona, guTliyan kyon ginte ho?’

Incidentally, I’m collecting these, so you if know any, do pass them on? After all, akela chana bhaad nahin phod sakta.

Doggerel

I said this day on my facebook home page,
in reverential homage to Another:
Season 9, Ep 11: How I Met Your Mother.
Whosoever wrote it: you simply ROCK, birather!

A whole episode in rhyme, they said, and bedtime stories three
With a bus journey thrown in, why, simply, just like that, for free!

The baby Marvin will not sleep unless he is crooned to in rhyme
So we chuckled, we heard Marshall spin it out, and yes, we kept time.

It has inspired me, so it has; I find doggerel infinitely amusing.
So I’ll go on a bit, don’t mind me, tho’ you find it bemusing.

How long we’ll go on we cannot say, difficult to predict
As far as the mood lasts, or the habit is kick’t.

But I go off right now, off to do my kriya
I have to time it right, you see, or it’ll cost me dear.

What's on your mind?

Feeling sick. A not-so-great curry puff from three days ago is still messing up my stomach - I just wished I'd earned this with a nice pav bhaji at least.

***

I saw The Lunch Box yesterday and it was everything they were raving about. Excellent performances by everyone. (I remember Irrfan Khan from all those years ago in a serial called Banegi Apni Baat and feel a little particular pride at the long way he's come.) I loved the life they depicted for Ila. The upstairs 'Aunty' whom we never see (fabulous little part by Bharti Achrekar), their shared lives... Ila asking Mrs Deshpande to switch off the music because her husband has come home, the basket that ferries domestic essentials, the complete sympathy between their desperately lonely existences.

The credits included an astonishing number of production houses and organisations -- what on earth was there for so many people to do in such a small film?

***

Still feeling sick. What shall I do? Gruel and bananas till I get better or just gobble what comes my way - how long can this tum-tantrum last anyway?

Mixed Feelings

For the first time since I started this blog, a whole month has gone by without my posting a single time. So April 2011 has no entries under it - strange, because it was a highly significant time. But रहिमन बात अघम की, कहन सुनन की नाही... it doesn't matter.

Exciting times for lovers of music. Coke Studio is coming to India and I'm all a' tremble with anticipation and anxiety. I blogged about Coke Studio when I first discovered it, here and here. I said then that I couldn't think of an Indian musician/producer who could produce the series or a channel that would be willing to do that. When I racked my brains about it, I came up with AR Rahman, who of all musicians, has the musical maturity to straddle all of India's versatility. But what of people management, and the ability to compose, work in constrained studio circumstances?

But here they are after all - in no small part due to the raging success Coke Studio Pakistan has been. Leslie Lewis is the man they've appointed to do what the wonderful Rohail Hyatt did for CS-P, and MTV is the channel that's seeking to break this new ground (and resurrect itself, while it is at it). A unofficial list of artists is out and it looks very interesting.

I am nervous about the task in front of them. CS-P began in relative anonymity and they had nothing to guide them but their own immense enthusiasm and inherent high standards. They also had the luxury of a sense of play. Coke Studio is now a huge brand - even the makers, I imagine, are struggling with how serious and earnest it has become.

How will they deal with that here? This is not Pakistan where tasawwuf and a certain kind of spiritual purity still holds sway; this is India - television in India - where the gods of success are placed higher than the ideals of integrity or good work. Where the audience becomes VERY important, more important than it should. I am afraid that Coke Studio at MTV wants to succeed more than it wants to create good music.

Evidently, I am not alone in my fears. The programme's facebook page is full of entreaties not to dilute the essence of the original show. They're promising not to but do they realise the essence isn't in the details, but in the approach?

I will be ecstatic if these concerns prove foolish. Just think of the potential in India - classical ragas, Carnatic voices, Vedic chants, the possibilities of folk, the revival of 'samuha gaan', choirs perhaps, desert voices, hill voices... good luck, Leslie Lewis. 

======

Edited to add:
While on CS, read this by Rashmi Vasudeva, who is also addicted.

Kise pesh karun

These past couple of days have gone in a nostalgic haze – revisiting songs we loved when we were younger. What a wonderful thing youtube is. I took one trip down today to enjoy songs from this 1964 film called Gazal. Before my time, but I saw it on trusty old Doordarshan. Given my affinity for Sunil Dutt, old film music, the ghazal, Sahir Ludhianvi and black and white cinema, what was not to love?

So many things to say about these songs that I don’t know where to begin. The music is by the melodious Madan Mohan, the poetry by Sahir and the movie features the wonderfully emotive Meena Kumari and an earnest Sunil Dutt. A love story, mostly.

The protagonists meet, banter and woo in poetry and song. When I heard it again, I yearned for the song to be an integrated part of the film again – not a disconnected ‘item’ number, not an elaboration on happiness or grief or drama that is already happening, not entertainment but song as conversation, song as advancement of the story. And when it takes the form of ghazal, subhan allah!

Ejaz – our hero, the atheist revolutionary poet – is taking a leisurely stroll on the banks of the Yamuna in Agra when he hears a voice longing for love. Kise pesh karun, she is singing, to whom shall I present these gifts of verse, these brimming feelings? These warm breaths, the secrets my lips hold, the inky darkness of my tresses?

Koi humraaz to paaun, koi hamdam to mile,
Dil ke dhadkan ke ishaarat kise pesh karun
To whom, the promptings of this beating heart?


 

Ejaz is delighted. Later, at a mehfil that Naaz Ara is also attending, he uses her radif and qafiya to put his own spin on it. See how Sahir converts everything that was soft and feminine in the first version into something robust and very masculine. To whom shall I present the heat of my feelings, these searing nights and days?

And see how Meena Kumari listens to the poetry being recited… multi-layered responses flitting across her expressive countenance. Her outrage at being plagiarised, then her indignation at being countered by this audacious young man, then being moved by the tributes he’s paying her and finally agitation that he is repeating her very own couplet back to her – by now she has figured that he’s too talented to want to rip her off, what he’s doing is appropriating it, syncing his own explosive feelings with hers. This was the stuff of the old Muslim socials – to fall in love with a beloved you haven’t laid eyes on yet.


 

Things go wrong as they are apt to do in love stories and Naaz Ara is marrying Akhtar Nawab (the suave Rahman who, poor man, always seems to be put in the position of hankering after someone else’s woman). Ejaz is singing at her wedding. The same radif and qafiya; something like their song. Ye mere sher mere aakhri nazrane hai… it is one final gift of poetry.

Madan Mohan alters the mood dramatically. And Sahir alters the form – this is not a ghazal but a variation that filmi shayars (for instance, also Shakeel Badayuni) achieved. The first lines form a couplet but the following ones have three lines, of which the first two rhyme and the third takes on the radif and qafiya of the first matla.
Like so:

rang aur noor ki baraat kise pesh karun
ye muradon ki haseen raat kise pesh karun

kaun kahata hai ki chahat pe sabhi ka haq hai
tu jise chahe tera pyar usi ka haq hai
mujh se kahde main tera haath kise pesh karun



There are other ghazals in this movie but that’s for another time.  However, I must say how much I miss the Muslim Social. The delicacy involved in all social transactions, the shayari, the use of hijab and purdah as delicious plot devices… it makes me sigh. Koi lautade mere beete hue din…

Ae ve mere peer di jugni ji

I realise I’m beginning to make a symbol of fireflies. The other day, I relished the idea of a firefly-guide, dancing ahead of me as it illuminates the path. The words for it sound so nice – jugnu, minmini, minugupurugu...
Shweta and I were trekking once in Coorg. It was a simply wonderful; each campsite during the six-day trek was special. We ploughed through spice and coffee plantations one afternoon and arrived at a flattish sort of a valley where we set up camp. It had rained earlier but the mud and fibrous grass had caked into fairly hard ground. As we sat about, we puzzled over crater-like depressions that riddled the field. Largeish depressions; in fact, I sat comfortably in one. Then we remembered we were in elephant country. These pockmarked fields had, perhaps only last night, had a wild herd cross it, and what I was sitting in was a footprint.

We had dinner around the fire and by the time we wound down to snug sleepiness, the looming hills around us came alive with fireflies. They blinked and messaged – their codes complex, secret and very beautiful.

All this to point to a new header:

tough as we sound
our eyes
on the fireflies
-Paul Pfleuger, Jr.

We have tried to be brave this year. Disbelief comes even now, especially every morning at the point before complete wakefulness. Reminders come in bald statements: Mum’s dead. Of course. It’s silly to be sissy about death. It comes to everyone and when it’s such a good one, it’s cause for rejoicing. Also the alternative to this bracing attitude is a very crumbly mess. Not a good idea. It would be unworthy, unfair to the woman who put in so much to strengthening us, and quite wrong.

It is enough to be given the occasional firefly.



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The title is from this Coke Studio lyric:
Ae ve mere peer di jugni ji (oh, the light/spirit of my sainted master)

The song by Arif Lohar and Meesha Shafi is here:

Still high

You'll be surprised at these frequent posts. But the thing is I'm having an keep-off-facebook week, maybe two weeks if I can keep at it.
I can't knock the service, of course - I'm too social a being not to enjoy it rather too thoroughly, too much of a geek not to relish how easy technology makes so many things. But it drains your time and what would once have been a mail or a post, however short, becomes a status update or a poke. And then there's this privacy thing! bah.

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Still captivated by Pakistan's Coke Studio. I'm obsessing over one song a day and here is song du jour, Ali Zafar's Dastaan-e-ishq.

की दसां, की बात सुनावां इश्क दियां
ki dasaan, ki baat sunawan ishq diyaan…

What shall I tell you? How to narrate this story of love?

राँझा राँझा करदी नि मैं, आपे राँझा होई
राँझा कहो सहेलियों… मैनू हीर ना आखो कोई

ranjha ranjha kardi ni mein, aapay ranjha hoyee
ranjha kaho saheliyon…mainu heer na aakho koyee

Ranjha, Ranjha I cry... and have myself become Ranjha
Call me Ranjha, my friends, let no one call me Heer

The love story of Heer and Ranjha so permeates the Punjab that even sufis then must borrow their names, use them and own them till Heer becomes the lover, Ranjha the beloved.

This video is only a rehearsal and the final take, for some reason, was never done. But see the quality of their discards! I want a waistcoat/robe like the one Zafar is wearing here - how nice to stride about with that streaming behind you.



And oh, Coke Studio's Season Three starts June 4. Five episodes only and they air at 10.30pm IST every other Sunday. I have not managed to persuade my cable service provider to supply even one channel (CS airs on all of them) but there is apparently a ban on Pakistani channels in India and they're jibbing. There is the internet of course but nothing like catching it on TV.

Yeh khazanein

Still stuck on Mae ni mai kinnu aakhan. I blogged about it last week, and spent a goodish time listening to various versions on the glorious youtube, the ever-expanding internet. And look what I found! Atif Aslam again with an 8½-min version - a soulful, innovative, just-right fusion version - of the song:



But the find was a small tell-tale string that drew up a treasure. As you'll see, it's a studio recording, and fabulously produced. The recording is superb, the lighting is wonderful, the shots are delicious and if the camera is obsessed with Atif Aslam's slender hands, who can blame it? It didn't seem random. Who had produced this? Was this a music label with a repertoire of sufi fusion? Was this clip made for a music video?

The productions are from Pakistan, from a series of live music recordings from a house called Coke Studio. Produced by Coca Cola and musician Rohail Hyatt, these are not music videos but in fact made for television. I have, of late, been so traumatised by what passes for music on mainstream Indian television, it took me a while to understand that that such music was produced and aired for consumption by mass audiences. Also, immensely gratifying to know it's all up there on youtube in high quality and there is PLENTY of it.
Here's the wiki page for Coke Studio, here is their website and here is the wiki entry for Rohail Hyatt.

Now, I'm not asking for an Indian version - I can't think of an Indian producer who could combine these production values with such a sense of music; I can't think of an Indian channel that would consider such a project worth their effort, or not cheapen pure music with cheerleaders, hooting audiences, large stadium-stages and festoons of pompoms.
But can't the Coke Studio performances be aired here? I was embarassed to discover this late a project that aired first in 2008. Anyway, yay for this world without borders and thanks to Coke Studio for allowing the recordings to stay in the public domain, letting them be accessed.

Before I go, another sampler. Ali Zafar and Tufail Ahmed sing Allah Hu:

Saas, bahu aur asar

Media analyst Sevanti Ninan writes a significant piece in The Hindu (4 April 2010) this Sunday. A very interesting article in which she discusses Indian television serials, what comes across as regressive content and the unexpected, unforeseen effect it seems to have had on women exposed to them.

TV soaps with bizarre, regressive storylines pay scant respect to notions of women's empowerment. Yet, they seem wildly popular and, according to some studies, empowering too. Are these script writers more in touch with reality than literal-minded activists and journalists?

she asks.

Ninan quotes Prime Time Soap Operas on Indian Television by Shoma Munshi, which in turn partly bases its conclusions on research by Robert Jensen and Emily Oster on the effects of cable television in rural areas of India. Taken together, the argument is that Indian soaps are actually empowering women, that "regression" depends on the point of view. In her piece Ninan wonders at the results and the very convoluted route to empowerment.

The whole story is up here at The Hindu and here on The Hoot.

I responded to the article and the link is here at The Hoot.
And here, for my record, is all of it.

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A response to 'Is this empowerment?'

I found myself laughing a little over Sevanti Ninan's bewilderment in the piece (Is this empowerment?) reprinted from The Hindu. As someone who bestrides what seems to be a chasm, I am tempted to respond. I am a modern woman - I am intelligent, I have a media degree, I'm a mediaperson (of sorts), I'm feminist (I like to paint in my own shades but the broad umbrella will do). Also I watch serials avidly - it started because I like the TV on and I prefer glittery clothes to the news. But lately, because it fascinates me.

As the writer says, there is a world of difference in perception. The casual disinterested viewer -­ or more particularly, the casual, contemptuous journalist/activist - is appalled at the goings-on in serials; the regular viewer cannot be persuaded to move her eyes from the screen enough to feed her squalling children. For a very long time now, media-watchers and analysts have berated the average viewer for her tastes, shuddered and averted their eyes from the gaudy colours, the campy vamps and the bizarre plotlines, and tried rather desperately to uplift everyone's frame of mind.

They have not succeeded. The serials have gone on being made and, more importantly, they have gone on been consumed. If Balaji Telefilms is no longer the market leader, it doesn't matter any more. They have handed on the torch of that particular stamp of television - it has grown many more heads.

Why these serials thrive is an interesting question. The easy, lazy answer is that these hordes of nameless women across the country (and in neighbouring Pakistan) are fools. That they don't know any better. That they could be watching... oh, I don't know what but certainly something more educative.

However, I don't think that is true. I think our middle class is peopled with sensitive, intelligent, attentive women capable of nuanced thinking - I have several TV fanatics myself among my family and friends; I even adore a large number of them. In which case, we must go by Holmes: when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. We must consider that women are gaining something from this; that they are not merely swallowing whole every broad stroke of apparent regressiveness; that they are entertained; that they are sifting, sorting and picking nuggets that fit in with their current social constructs - and even moving ahead in desirable directions with whatever subtle manoeuvres are available to them. That in spite of the disastrous-seeming package it comes in, Indian TV serials MUST be doing something right.

I was delighted to learn from this article that even so far back as 2001-2003 - the very initial years of the saas-bahu sub-genre - the serials had such a positive impact. It also bears out my own persistent feeling that there is a great deal of difference between what appears to be the message and what is actually absorbed - because there is no other way to explain why they fascinate this huge mass of audience, why they have continually done so this entire decade.

Is it merely that these serials engage in women's concerns? Kitchen politics, in the broad scheme of things, may be insignificant. But perhaps to the woman trapped in it, it helps to have someone examine her situation? TV serials, after all, are not primarily for the outgoing modern woman with various exciting options for her evening's entertainment. They are watched (we assume) by women who have just finished their household chores; the woman who comes, at the end of the day, to her place in front of the television, where the rest of family resignedly relinquishes the remote. Even that, to my mind, is no small victory. It is understood across Indian households now that primetime television is the woman's right - in spite of scoffing malefolk in the background, she is entitled to watch her serials; moreover it is understood, by and large, that she is not to be disturbed as she does it.

Coming now in particular to Pratigya, which Ninan quotes. I'm not arguing for a minute that the plotline isn't utterly shocking, or that there is something right about marrying a harasser. But to see the “power of women”, or the charm of “Pratigya character”, the devil is in the details.

It is a piquant situation. There are two families that are contrasted here: Pratigya's refined, educated family with its genteel manners, and Krishna's rowdy, coarse, wealthy but unlettered folk, as ready with their fists as they are with abuses. Pratigya, for Krishna, is the aspiratonal goal. He wants her, he has got her. Now he needs her approval, he needs to measure up to her and is doing everything possible to please her, to be worthy of her. Through her eyes he now sees his family. A household in which his mother is kicked and punched the minute she steps out of line, where the older bahu is slapped down fairly regularly. I imagine it would curl quite a few stomachs (it did mine) to hear the maid servant inform her mistress with coy triumph that the bahu has already been ‘worshipped' for the day - she means the daily beating, of course. It is appalling. But as a study of how women buy into and participate in the suppression of their own kind, it shows a mirror.

I understand the writer's horror at Krishna's popularity. The context, however, is that he comes of such stock. He has a brother against whom he is measured - the brother (Shakti) is completely a product of his background, while Krishna questions it. Shakti buys into the male hegemony; Krishna is willing to see other sources of power. Krishna is ordered, pressured, mocked into abandoning his support of his wife on the grounds that such devotion makes him very unmanly - he has (so far) resisted attempts with commendable firmness.

Krishna's own (very crude) sister is now married into Pratigya's mild family - their unkindness is of a rather different kind. They sniff at her, they ignore her, they will have no truck with her - curiously, for someone used to being hurled abuses at and pushed around, she still finds their reception of her unbearably hostile. Her abrasive manner only thinly masks her hurt at the rejection. The families are deadlocked in a rather interesting situation, for each has a daughter hostage in the enemy camp.

The social milieu in Pratigya and recent developments in the show throw up a few note-worthy points:

• Neither family wants to continue to stay in the situation it finds itself in. Most of the characters would rather retrieve their girl and break relations (the situation is being held in place by Krishna, who still desperately wants a good marriage with Pratigya and hopes to bring her around.) Marriage, apparently, is no longer a lifelong commitment. Interestingly, neither family makes any concerned noises at all about their daughter's future, should such a break happen. It makes a contrast from even a decade ago when we were told repeatedly that once a woman's ‘doli' had entered a portal, only her ‘arthi' could leave it.
• The Thakur family, in spite of its violent habits, does not actually have the stereotyped silent, suppressed women. They talk back, they argue, they fight. When they are abused, they exhibit no very great weakness - if it is an indignity, they do not permit it to touch them deeply. They brush it off, get up again and contrive to have their voices heard.
• Only last week, Pratigya refused to have her name changed in her sasural; refused to have her identity taken away and be demeaned by having another name foisted on her.
• Krishna's mother hates her daughter in law Pratigya because her son backs her to the hilt. It is a hate born of deep envy. It brings home to her the inadequacies of her own life, a glimpse what she might have had, viz., a husband who respects her.
• Pratigya's father has now managed to negotiate for his daughter an environment that contains books. The Thakur family is feeling backfooted because they cannot read, while their bahu can.

Incidentally I have bad news for some viewers - in the week to come, Pratigya is about to be raped by her hitherto forbearing husband. Doubtless the twist is led by the TRP race but there is also no doubt that it will trigger a rather invisible, subterranean debate on marital rape.

I've been rather long winded about this - but the point, I suppose, is that these serials do occasionally shine the light on what exists; and that depiction doesn't always amount to ratification. Unfortunately, there has been a rather dismissive attitude to popular culture - as if low-brow material must necessarily lack sensibility. To draw a small lesson from Bollywood, not all the cinema and literary work before it managed to make homosexuality as acceptable to middle-class India as Dostana (2008) did. The movie took the idea, wrapped it up affectionately and placed it before the masses, who, to their credit, considered it and accepted it. It was a gentle transaction.

The stories streaming into our drawing rooms may not preach in an ‘acceptable' way. It is possible that they just show, allowing for people see themselves, recognise themselves and wherever possible, identify with this or the other character? They do this to the accompaniment of high melodrama. The saas-bahu genre is now heavily stylised, with its own vocabulary, make-up (what are the bindis and hair-dos but equivalents of the white hat/black hat or Kathakali costumes for positive and negative stereotypes), and a distinct style of editing involving many white flashes.

In spite of the presentation, merely the fact that television serials deal with a long line of female protagonists is encouraging. The female life is being rather thoroughly examined - the child bride, the new bride, the wife, the mistress, the mother, the businesswoman, the ruler, the matriarch. Not even Bollywood has paid us that compliment.

Something fresh

Television is a great source of comfort to me. When I have time for TV, it means that I’m at my base state, with enough mindspace to spare from my life, from whatever is occupying my days. Luckily there have been many such days, many such periods where I’ve followed series with great relish, bemoaning the trends in themes and programming, or merely sighing over whatever current ship I’ve been floating on.

Ekta Kapoor, of course, reworked the television landscape to an unrecognisable extent. Balaji Telefilms may have passed its prime but the effects still linger – when the Indian TV industry is in doubt, it still falls back on Kektaisms. She brought in the saas-bahus, she brought in the daily soaps, she turned everything on its head so comprehensively we could see no other way to do it.

What has me excited now is Sony TV and its new batch of programming, because we may be seeing the return (fanfare...) of the weekly show. When was the last time we saw one? I can’t remember watching any after Hotel Kingston on Star One. Many reasons to welcome the trend, of course – once a week means there is a possibility for diverse genres; that the story is treated differently as far as pacing, editing and cliffhangers go; the series is bound to enjoy higher production standards, cater to different audiences and simply BE better because the creative team has more time over the episode they’re presenting. Even in the case of your standard romance or soap-like plotline, hopefully it is possible to create story arcs that can be treated more naturally than they are in daily soaps, and to actually end plots that are wanting to end.

After Indian Idol and the highs of Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi, Sony TV fell into the most depressing slump. I have of late been appalled by their schedules - back-to-back episodes of their one truly enduring series, CID. The investigative drama is fun but how much of it?! But new things now. Yash Raj Films now has a subsidiary wing creating content for Sony TV to be aired on weekends. Karan Johar starts a new talk show, Lift kara de with (who else but) Shah Rukh Khan and there is a thriller about cops on the drug trail called Powder. Now these two don’t interest me at all. Karan Johar I can leave with pleasure, and although I watched Doordarshan’s Subah with wide-eyed fascination, gritty dark dramas of this sort are not really my thing. However there are two rom-coms, Mahi Way and Rishta.com and, finally, a homegrown fantasy thriller called Seven, a superhero series apparently on the lines of Heroes, which I desperately hope is a hit, if only to inspire more of the sort.

I’m slightly disappointed that Sony, having decided to buck the trend, went with only one content provider to produce all these shows – another monopoly when we need diversity. Also Yash Raj, I have been feeling, has become rather too cynical, too formulaic a player under Aditya Chopra. In spite of the reservations, though, I’m happy with the beginning. If it takes (and it should seeing there’s such a hole in programming over weekends) every channel will follow suit and that means a sea-change all over again. Very exciting.

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Oh, I found this title song for DD’s Subah, in case anyone’s feeling nostalgic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6g0egugUNI