Spicy Food - A Past tense

Some truth dawns on you ever so slowly, like Jimmy Adams playing on the 2nd day of an infernally boring test match. This truth is ever present without making a conspicuous appearance - almost like Hashan Tilakratne on the ground.  But when the realization comes, you're no longer a stranger to it.

In the month of August 2012, a strange truth dawned on me during a well dim lit dinner- I'd lost my spice. Probably forever.
Before jumping to any conclusions and letting the horses fly, we must understand that the term "spice" literally means spice. Every Indian, depending on his locality, has an inbuilt relationship with spice. I too had one. Now it is broken, and may be well beyond repair.

During my 28 years of stay on this earth, I've had my share of spicy food and loved it. I've eaten fish with a fiery taste of gingery hot gravy- so hot and spicy that my nose would run for an hour after lunch. I've had a fried fish whose mere memory burns the tip of my tongue. I've tasted the truly masaledaar (full of masala) subjee and reached nirvana without any spiritual notions. Yours truly has had an abominably charming habit of eating raw chillies with Sol Kadhi ( Western Indian soup!) and rice. I never made any complaints for the amount of spice in my food. The more the merrier.

To quote an anecdote, One of my friend who has had an equal appetite for spice, Once stayed in Pune as a paying guest. His house owner was rather mild on spice. My friend had to remind the owner more than once about the amount of spice in the curry. My friend made passing comments about the non-existence of spiciness in the food prepared by Mrs. Owner.
That didn't go well of course. During next few days, he could observe the amount of spice raised exponentially in his beloved curry. For a couple of days, He was so delighted that he drank the curry instead of water and burped so loud that the nearby speakers felt load of inferiority complex.
Mrs. Owner inquired after each meal - " is that spicy ??"
to which my friend replied, "I could do more, Ma'm". and retired to his room with starry eyes.
To his utter surprise, On the fifth day his dinner plate arrived with rice and red layer in a bowl.
With a careless gesture he poured the liquid on the rice and took a mouthful.

Rest of the story was narrated to me from a hospital bed after 3 days of liquid diet.
Mrs. Owner had accepted his challenge and stuffed the entire chilly generation in her kitchen in my friend's curry.
To correlate the facts, I've had a similar in the past (read one of my previous blogs. Or better, just believe me.) I've had some harrowing experiences with spice in the past, but I've always enjoyed them. Albeit with running nose and watery eyes; still my senses loved the feeling. not anymore.

Coming back to my story, I realized that I've lost it. During a recent dinner, I took 3 spoonfuls (notice the change) of a certain "Pepper chicken", and hell broke loose. The spiciness of above dish was 4/6.
I couldn't take more than that. It saddened me. I felt like I've lost a childhood friend.
I have no way of knowing whether the food I had was really spicy or I underestimated the capacity of the Indian restaurant in US of A. Only time will tell.
A spoonful of Dutt Snacks Misal on a Sunday morning would be the acid test.
I'm hoping for a positive result.


* Dutt Snacks - an eatery in Goregaon (E) where yours truly wasted a considerable amount of my parents' money on Misal Pav and Kokam Sarbat.

Unnoticed names in Bollywood - Part 1

Note - I'm not making fun of them. I genuinely appreciate their work (however limited in scope). They've been the pillars of so many hit movies that we tend to forget their contributions.
Also this list is not complete by any means. If I can predict the future, I see this list extending in at least 3 parts.

Satyen Kappu (Satyendra kapoor) ( Career span 1961-2007)

Lets start from a  relatively famous personality - Ramlal in Sholay. His IMDB list shows a whopping 319 movies. In larger productions he was the ramukaka or servant. In mid sized productions he would play a bechara baap or a police inspector or any other character.
His marathon film innings can be found here


Dinesh Hingoo ( Career span 1967-)
 

The "Hehehehehhehe" guy. 
The parsi bawaji with a rather  wide smile on his face. If you were making a comedy in 90's, you'd find him in any of the comedy scenes with that iconic laughter. Remember the Baazigar scene?
Well, he's acted in 305 movies so far. Here's a complete list of his films

Ram Mohan ( Career span 1958-2010)

Masterji, postman, Judge, A beggar, drunkard, poor farmer, rocket scientist in a shoddy movie, a veteran with medals hanging on  his walls - This guy's been all of them. In a long running movie career, he has the distinction of singing a song in one of his movies! A long career spanning across 5 decades,he's seen all rising and falling stars. Here's his filmography

Anjana Mumtaaz ( Career span 1968- )

In cricket, When Sunil Gavaskar retired, we got another legendary batsman in Sachin Tendulkar. When the original Maa of Bollywood - Nirupa Roy retired, Anjana mumtaaz took her place. Though she was a stronger, happier and non-blind maa, she continued the glorious tradition of wailing, weeping and making an impact by getting caught by bad guys. She provided her acting in maternal capacity for almost 2 decades, before the post 2000 era of more glamorous and in vogue moms took over.


Sudhir (Career span 1962-)

The eternal sidekick of any villain in 1970's Bollywood. He wasn't as iconic as his elder baddy friend Macmohan, but he was there. Be it any smuggling operation, a bank robbery or the proverbial rape scene in a village shanty- he was always present. As Bollywood moved from action movies to romantic and family entertainers, Sudhir found himself stereotyped as a comic character acting in a few important scenes. Remember the Police Commissioner in DulheRaja?

Yunus Parvez (Career span 1963-2007)

You probably won't remember him as an actor who starred in "Zanjeer", "Deewar", "Golmaal", "Angoor". But you may remember him in "Mr. India", "Tridev"! You can often see him doing an Usmaan Chacha or bade miyaa type role in N number of movies. He often came across as either a Samaritan with good nature  or a 70's landlord with menacing intentions. Whatever he did, it came with the comic character that he was always associated with.


Javed Khan (Career span 1973-)

We'll always remember him as "Anand Akela" in AAA or the servant in "Lagaan". He appeared in nukkad too. A wasted youth, a petty thief or a regular bloke on the street would be his identity in any of his movies. I'd rather like to see him being used in the new wave Hindi cinema, He has a lot of opportunity now!


There are many more such faces whom we take for granted.
Lets dig a little deep next time. We'll take a look at some faces who are regularly seen but absolutely unknown when it comes to their actual identities.

Shanghai - Boldest movie in Indian cinema!

***[Contains SPOLERS]***

This is not a Fan post. Nor is this an attempt to make people watch the movie. I'll be glad if someone watches the movie because of this post, but that would be a side effect.
The main reason for writing this post is simple - I just couldn't keep it to myself! Such a powerful movie and so many things it had. Phew, Dibakar has taken us to a new place, again.

By the way 4/4 is a good score for a director. And each of the points he has scored, is a different than his previous one. He has experimented with the stories and the direction style- keeping his eye for the details and characters.

Lets take it in a different manner- I'll list a few bullet points which I loved about the movie-

Bold Movie
When I call this as the boldest movie - please don't associate the word with its popular Bollywood meaning. Bold in Bollywood means shedding of clothes and creating a body shop out of a woman.
I mean the word in its literal sense- Bold, a gutsy performance which requires a lot of courage.
First of all, this is an outright political movie. Not the political movie about politicians and their families - those are easy to hatch. This is a movie about clash of ideals (or lack of it) and how that takes place in our society.
IBP, their point of development, Prof. Ahmadi and his opposition to the betterment of a few, IAS officers and their positions on these issues, common man and his inability to grasp the greater picture, riots and fights happening for no apparent reasons, local politicians and their sidekicks - its all there.



Story of today's India 
Dibakar has taken a character from each strata of Indian Society and placed it in his canvas. there's a politician who's all to powerful, there's a bureaucrat who likes to think himself as a middle class person but who's a rich minority class, there are people who do all sorts of things to make two ends meet and there are hooligans and rest.All of these people are important even if some of them have little control over their own life. All of them are entangled in this complex SEZ issue in their own ways.
The locations and events are more fact than fiction and sometimes they border really close to our present day reality. This makes me cringe, the movie induces this "horror" element which sits back of my mind and makes me shiver every time   I see evidence of today's India in Dibakar's camera.

Characters, Characters, Character
 A huge strong hold of Dibakar. We see more characters than any of his movies and yet each one has a strong base. You of course remember the leading duo, The IAS officers and the idealistic Student and her professor. But you also remember the house maid, the politician sidekick and few anonymous faces lurking in the background- they form the collective character of "hysterical masses". This is the scariest and most complex character I've seen in any hindi movie.

Shades of Gray
Who is right? who is wrong? When dibakar presents a single Scene- it is easy to point out who's right. But immidietly in the next scene we see a different context and the whole meaning changes.
Jaggu kills the professor and we can label him a villain. But jaggu is merely a pawn in hands of bigger powers and at that level, jaggu becomes a victim. Similarly Professor is a hero when you look at him from a neutral point of view, but his inability to achieve a single rehabilitation makes him a misfit idealistic. There's no one who's side you can take and empathize comfortably. The director has made us watch each of his protagonists and their good/bad sides so it becomes a harrowing experience for the viewer- whose side am I on? What is really going on here? Is this how things stand today?

And what I really liked ...

 I loved Pitobash (Bhaggu) and Anant Jog (jaggu mama). I adored Pitobash's character - a typical youth who has nothing to do but who aims big without really knowing how he's going to do it. The lost eyes of Jaggu mama and his soulless presence once the inevitable has happened.

I loved the school turned into headquarter of Inquiry commission and a ball rolling in from the playground- amidst of a tense argument.

I was really horrified to see Damle (politician's chamcha) telling Imraan hashmi "not to worry".
His was the really menacing character.

I liked the subtle south Indian accent of Krishnan, not your typical Bollywood Tamilian.

I totally enjoyed the scene when Shalini meets Jaggu under unexpected circumstances- the change of emotions in those 2 scenes is awesome.

And I loved Dibakar's Camera (Ramu- Please take a note if you're still not turned into an alien)

Enough said, I'm going to watch it again.