"....write the book you want to read."

Friday, May 18, 2012

Abujmarh - Tribals Vs Maoists Vs The Indian State

Came across two articles in Tehelka

This piece talks about courageous journey of 2 journalists into the depths of Chhatisgadh. An area called "Abujmarh". This is an area which is remained hidden from the Google Maps and the Government for decade. Read the findings.

This second piece talks about the aftermath of the journey. What laid in the store for the journalists.

What is amusing is the fact that this wasn't covered by any leading newspapers except a small coverage in The Indian Express and The Hindu. But they too only explored the Security Forces side of the story.

And why should anyone care for the tribal in India ? Anyways they're out of fashion.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Real Swades - Ravi Kuchimanchi & bilgaon

Most of us have seen and adored Swades and returned home with the feel good factor of inspiration.
But this is not about us, this is about the people who inspired making of Swades.

Meet Ravi Kuchimanchi and listen to his thoughts about tapping NRI potential to help the real India.

I met Ravi in One of the AID chapters in Seattle where he gave a small presentation about AID and all of the work. Do check out their website here.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Black holes of Cinema : Harinam Singh

: Knock knock
: Who's there?
: Harinam
: Harinam who?
: Harinam hoon.
: Harinam WHO?
:Main harinam hoon.

I thought I'd cheer up things a bit by adding a little joke in the beginning. Because here on, you're about get sucked into an enigma which has no boundaries. A personality so obscure and absurd, that its mere name creates pangs of unspeakable emotions in cinema viewers.

Ladies and Gentlemen and people who love Harinam Singh, let me present the man himself : Harinam Singh.

An elusive film maker whose projects even elude IMDB. Here's the complete list of the his film career

But that doesn't tell us much, does it? So here' his introduction from my side:

"A totally Zonked Filmmaker. Ed wood of Indian Cinema. Either a Nadir of cinematic creativity or a genius who's well ahead of time. A mind numbing assault on viewers. An anomaly of gigantic proportions which has tiptoed its way in form of legendary movies such as "Gumnaam Qatil" and "Shaitani Dracula". Founding and perhaps the only member of Z grade movie genre. Randomness personified and filmed at 24 fps."

Given a choice between watching Harinam's next movie and getting stomped by a rhinoceros, I'd gladly opt for the latter option. I'd personally like the rhinoceros to stomp Sir Harinam and his fellow conspirators before he comes up with his next ~~hellhole~~ movie.

Nevertheless, I attempted to watch one of his movies on Youtube. It is divided into 8 parts (God bless the soul who thought of dividing it). As the movie started, I had a severe doubt on the editor's capability. When I finished watching the 3th part, I was doubting director's sanity. By the time I reached 6th part I was doubting my own sanity. When I finished the 8th part, I had no more doubts. I cleared the browser cache, took a cold shower and hit the bed resulting in a dreamless sleep for next 2 hours.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about the generous nudity and vulgarity in the movies. Nor am I complaining about the cheap production value and cardboard acting by most of the crew, including Sir Harinam himself.

I'm talking about film making abilities, basic sense of story, direction and editing. Probably these words don't exist in Sir Harinam's vocabulary. If they do, how can you explain the following?

Together, he and his editor Pappu Sharma create a dazzling web of utmost stupidity which questions our purpose of being in front of the screen.The duo keeps piling nauseating cinematic blunders frame after frame. It would be virtually impossible to watch any of his movies completely- and I doubt if there's a definite end and beginning to his movies. The characters move in front of camera, they say a few words and disappear only to reappear in a completely unrelated scene. To borrow a geeky term, there's almost 0 correlation in successive scenes. Most of the scenes and characters are so weird, they even fail to fail properly. Be it the plastic-masked ghoul, the lady ghost who sings the same lines repeatedly in entire movie, the models who're practicing for their fashion show in a 20x10 room or the petty thieves trying to steal money. Sir Harinam always acts like peripatetic individual who randomly starts to sing, kill or talk - not always in that order though.

Here are few of the choicest attacks of Harinam Singh:

The opening scene of Shaitani Drakula - Watch (0:00 to 1:22) how majestically the opening scene unfolds. If you appreciate dialogues then thou shalt be rewarded. And of course, you can't miss the unmatched maestro that is Sir Harinam, in and as Shaitani Dracula.

If you can't get enough of Harinam's dialogue delivery, I strongly suggest watching following ~~flash~~ flush of brilliance. Harinam as a Dracula is telling you his future plans -

Shatani Dracula's brilliant plans
Harinam's anguish in Khooni Dracula - note the classic slap at 1:32

To explain editing in Harinam's movies, any scene from Gumnaam Qatil would do. Here's a clip containing most of Sir Harinam. He just wanders on the screen with zombi expressions. My favorite bits are closeups of Harinam's face. He even sings a sad song (2:30 must see)though it is hard to determine his cause of anguish. None of the actors try to justify their presence what so ever. There is a random scene of models doing cat walk on the background score of famous Nagin song (5:25).

Repeat these things for 90 minutes and you get
entire movie.

After an extensive research we have an affirmative mathematical representation of Harinam Singh's viewership data. As on today, the only known people in Harinam's Fan club were the 6 suicide bombers who wanted to watch a movie before their mission. And they had a blast.

~graph courtesy Crappy Graphs!

But I'd certainly like to congratulate Sir Harinam on his most unique achievement - He makes me believe that I can make a better movie. Any Raju, Munna and Champak can make a Movie. Perhaps Sajid Khan is the 1st qualified student from Harinam Film Institute. This is Harinam's legacy and our curse.

It took me 2 hours to complete this blog. I'm so overwhelmed by the strange and unknown emotions , that I find it impossible to continue writing more. Pray to your dearest deity and take a plunge into the cinematic black hole that is -Harinam Singh.

Detailed Review of Shaitani Dracula
Detailed Review of Khooni Dracula

Detailed Review of Gumnaam Qatil

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Unnoticed names in Bollywood - 3

Here we dig one layer deep into the world of Bollywood Character actors. This is a universe in itself. The more you explore it, the deeper it goes.

This is the world of uncredited characters and performances - police commissioner, constable, judge, a college principal, scientist in a tacky lab, goons and bandits, villains and secondary sidekicks.
It's a strange place for these guys- Usually people work in Cinema to earn name and fame. And here are these guys- who've worked in loads of movies - only to appear uncredited.

Since there's nothing much to mention, I'll try to put them in different categories and note their

specialties. This list is just the beginning. I'm sure you'll remember more faces as you scroll down.

Character Actors -