A Year Later - Something About a 100 Years of Indian Cinema

Okay, so with all the Reverb hype that's going around our beloved college, it's time for some reflection. Goin' down deep into the vagarious layers of the shifty chestnut, a wave of Reverb-themed nostalgia sweeps over me. Except, not really. However, I have been going over online remembrances of Reverb-2013, and marathon-ing those amusing promo videos. Rivaling CID in its black humour, those videos sure are a treat for the dead-eyed-ness of SIT.

In this maelstrom, I've also chanced upon an article that I'd written for last year's "Reverb newspaper". I use article liberally, so pardon, monsieur. However, what actually went down was that me and my bud RV signed up for the misleading "journalism" committee of Reverb last year. We were charged with producing a tabloid-toerag-styled pulp piece that would headline the one page newspaper. Of course, since the theme of the fest was "one hundred years of Indian cinema", our piece had to be based on that.

And it was. We both scribbled in our entries within a fairly tight deadline. I remember returning from some schmucky Transcend DJ night, and working into the wee hours to get it going. And that was that. To what can only be attributed to as politics / skulduggery / forgetfulness / classic SIT mismanagement, our articles never ended up seeing the light of day. There was a newspaper by the end, and it did have some toerag-esque gibberish in it. Very proper and patriotic, it was.

But in return, my scoop was lost to the abyssal void forevermore. Small mercies. And I thought to meself - "Isn't it a pity that I wasn't published?" And then I thought again - "Not really, it wasn't much good." And then I counterstroked - "Might as well put it here. The light of day still eludes ye, but it's something."

So here it is, in all its delusions of grandeur!

It is come!

So they say it’s been a 100 years of Bollywood. Now, if ever there was news to evoke a variety of reactions, this is it. You’ve got the folks with the mildly raised eyebrows, the codgers actually giving it thought, a snarky retort or two, maybe a nostalgic old-timer. And the straggling patriots carrying on about national pride and whatnot. 

But let’s face it, you can’t deny the influence of the stuff. One way or the other, we’ve grown up with these movies and one’s favourites can bring on a rush of memories, or link us to a bygone era. Not to mention the hilariously bad ones. Those so-bad-it’s-good Sunny Deol action flicks from the nineties? My god.

And thus, Reverb, too, can’t escape the proverbial bug. With the amount of Bollywood culture already ingrained into our psyche, Reverb is set to blaze with Bollywood’s flair this year. 

But everything has humble beginnings. For Indian cinema, it all began in the black-and-white silent film era, with the pioneering likes of Dadasaheb Phalke’s 3700-feet-long, 40-minuted, mythological tale of Raja Harishchandra, and it’s come a fair distance to reach the era of 3D, high production values, and whatever else it is that the cool cats are into. And even with the atrocious habit of trading CAMRips, which plagues hostels the country over, there’s truly something else in going to a theatre to watch a movie. The magic of the 35 mm, if you will, though folks won’t admit to it.

Then in 1931, movies with sound started streaming in, rather quaintly referred to as ‘talkies’. And thus, the most polarised legend of Hindi movies was born – the songs. Cheered and derided in equal measure, ‘filmi music’ has defined the cinema since then. When the forties came along, they were an interesting time for cinema since the world was pretty messed up back then. Hotshots like Ashok Kumar and Raj Kapoor ruled the roosts and made those distinctive old-timey movies which air on Sunday afternoons.

The next couple of decades were the golden age of Bollywood. That’s what the conventional shmucks say anyway. But even critics who held that the movies were fluff had to admit to the grittiness of Guru Dutt’s classics. And Manmohan Desai’s ‘masala’ stuff had mass appeal. Genres were expanded and dope like Pyaasa, Mother India and Mughal-e-Azam live on to this day.

And then the seventies came on like an edgy teen, with fiery hits about angry young men and suchlike. Amitabh “The Man” Bachchan attained his ultimate form and pleasant coves like Rajesh Khanna and Dev Anand were dawdling about. Epics like Sholay were made, which was as western as a showdown at goddamn high noon and so pulp as to wring the nourishment outta you. Gave people a blissful escape and all that jazz.

After that, the eighties and nineties were kind of a step down. While technology flourished and immortal heroes like Shah Rukh Khan, Rajnikanth, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan and other what’s-their-names rose up, the camp style, hammy acting, overblown dancing and general inanity had some detractors. But well, Bollywood doesn’t have to make sense. It’s all in the wrist.

And it never lost that joie de vivre. And camp or not, these movies defined moments from our childhood. After all, no one can forget the monthly reruns of the intergalactic masterpiece that is Border, when one simply dropped everything.

The last decade or so of movies have been defined by their variety and quality. 3 Idiots resonates with students all over India and Kahaani is a well-written thriller. And of course, you have stuff like Dabangg which harkens back to the shady halls of the eighties. Well, being true to one’s roots isn’t a bad thing. It transforms little college fests into extravaganzas.

Anyhow, here’s to another decade of decades of Hindi movies entertaining the generations. And here’s to a bright future for Reverb, while we’re at it. Innumerable cheesy quotes are worthy of this occasion. Maybe one involving pictures which are yet baki.

But I guess we’ll see. 

[The End]

 

By the way, shar, might I also take this moment to plug the very entity that this post is devoted to? What I mean is, remain ignorant of the ways of the Reverb-2013 and come one, come all to Reverb-2014! It's gonna be a blast this year (you wish!). But what I'm actually saying is that this is a roundabout way of saying that I'm on the website team this year. And we're actually making a site! Huh.

You can be one of the privileged few who can access the site, just by clicking here!

Please overload the servers. And also the college, come 7th March. We need the money!

Airegin

Airegin.

You think it’s a word. Like airgun or something. Or a sort of gin. Thinking this while listening to the Wes Montgomery song – you guessed it. Google and find out it’s a jazz standard. Huh, shouldn’t have been surprised. But what is the deeper meaning?! We must venture further into the rabbit hole (Aside:  rabbits have something to do with fertility, or eating them anyway – just a tidbit I picked up from Ulysses). 

Okay, so venture deeper into the capricious mirkwoods of Google. And…apparently it’s a jazz standard and nothing but. Not a word. Hokay, then.

By the way, it’s not like I have anything to compare it to, but the Wes Montgomery version is really good. From “The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery / 1960” if anyone’s keeping tabs. Ah, oldfashioned-album-naming, I’ve not really missed thee.

Holy hell, just saw this on Wikipedia – it’s actually Nigeria spelled backwards. Mind not blown, kinda disappointing, 4/10.

So, airegins aside, airguns are apparently banned in India. That is to say, the toy ones with the yellow-ochre bullets. After traipsing over half the country looking for the very thing, a kind shopkeeper in Port Blair informed me that the “Guvmint” has done away with them for the sake of the poor kiddies. Black day, indeed. Black as night, black as day, ladida. Back in my day, kids had the sense to not injure folks (remove the odd eye, etc) with them. And I’m pretty sure they still do, so hm, it’s the good ol’ 20^th century construct of the Guvmint that’s got it going wrong. Hm. Okay, not 20^th century, but primitive as fuck. Jeez, should not digress.

Of course, mentioning this to my anonymous roommate, R.V., who shall remain anonymous, (except for the fact that he has a goddamn mountain named after him!) I gathered that it was standard practice in Ahmedabad for kids to mortally wound each other. The cherub that I was, I only shot at tyres on the highway. Point being, the characteristic lawlessness of Lavale has deep culturally-embedded roots and I’m setting up a special committee to look into the matter. Maybe the Guvmint was onto something after all.

See, RV, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Oh yeah, and the current is out in certain sections of G-Block (The One and Only), Lavale, the wastelands, the universe. Black as night, black as day. And while people are stripped of their reason and I await impending, retributive doom at the end of this darkling misery, my album grows cold, and I raise my hat to thee. Good evening, and till the next time.

The Window on the West: Part 5 - At the End of the Fray

At the End of the Fray

The enemy cannot lose. And neither can I. Who will be the shadow on the wall. Or is this the end of eternity. The closing of the curtain. Gentle smile curled up.

Do you fight for salvation?

The Sword of Dreams, the Blade of Smiles! Lend me truth beyond illusion! Slay the veiled villain!

For glory!

Oh, all the people! All those I’ve known on this beautiful sojourn. All those I’ve glimpsed into for a momentary fraction of eternity. All those I’ve passed by on the road, a nudge, perhaps a careless glance, like a bloom on the breeze. 

Or the highest of ideals? But you’ll never truly see, will you? Just like the rest of them, you fear the Nameless, you are blind to the Faceless, and the truth of it all eludes you. Ah, what sweet illusion! Now!

No…not Fate! Never the nightmare. Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

Oh, Humanity! The searing pain. It is your eyes I look into as I kill. My mind is no more. Not mine. Split, gone, vanquished. As I break, stab and end. To die like a dog. To die, die, die, die, die, death, death, DEATH! No more. Why, O nameless adversary! Wherefore is this your face? I will not kill thee. No! Yes! In the greying river will I submit. To always yield. 

Yes. Feel the power of the Faceless. Feel it now. Feel it ripple through. Feel it cast aside the unworthy. Feel it purge. Feel it now!

Oh, ere I go, for the Window on the West! Ah, momentous sorrow of lost friendship!

The Veiled Adversary fears you not! All that you have so pitifully wrought, I am here to unmake.

Dark star, take me. I fain would lie down. Now. Fain would lie down…drift away.

The hum almost takes me…

And softly spoke the hero.

There is neither good nor bad, only the Zeitgeist.

Light beyond compare! Flash of it all!

Such radiance! Ohohoho, such radiance! Laugh, can’t help it. Oh, laugh like I’ve never laughed before! Can’t see anything, the blinding light. The binding light. It blinds me. Binder of destiny. Turner of it all. Keeps getting brighter. Dazzling, dazing, reviving, illusory, now and forever. To see this day! The Whiteness! The beginning has come, or is it the end. Hahaha! I don’t need to see anymore.

Oh…! I feel it! Though my eyes be unseeing and my heart all a-flutter, I know that welcoming warmth. In this world and the next.

The Window on the West!

You will never prevail! You cannot. All that has been wrought since the spread of Time has decided this. It is written onto the Rock of Eternity.

And…gone! 

Like the drifting scent of water on a sunny afternoon. 

Life-giving Window, I shall question thee not.

And this? What…what is this? Is this freedom? Oh my friend, oh my love! Oh…! That face comes to me now, passing through the ironworks of Time. The first face. Freedom! Truth or illusion, freedom under the windswept plains, I bow to thee!

Freedom! Peace!  Life!

A rumbling laugh that echoes through the seas of Time, through bounds unknown. Through the greying fray.

I am Randomosity! The everlasting, undying hearse! The controller of it all, unyielding all the way down! Master of the consciousness, now and forever! To have cast the waterfalls of infinity before Time itself. To know truth from illusion! To rend, to annihilate – to the last shall I find my peace. For it is only I who am real!

Come! Face the darkness of eternal despair, it awaits thee! Here do I show thee the Spear of Spears, the Ender of Time, the Bringer of Infinity! Let us together end it for the last time!

And so turned the hero.

To face him one last time. Or was it merely the second. Or perhaps he faces him yet. Looming figure, unseeing and unbidden in the darkness. To look upon the face of the nemesis, squarely, till the last.

 

“There is no truth. Only the zeitgeist.”

I smiled.

And raised my hands leisurely. Time was a friend from before the beyond now. I could feel it in me! The fray, the Window! All that I have wrought.

The universal consciousness stirs. The Beast of Ages. How long has it waited for the Hero’s return.

Darkness and Light alike fill me, pass by me, as I pass by them. Instants rush by, photographed by the all-consuming. To seek!

Ah, the ties that bind! The chains of the universe! 

I am everything.

And I am free!

Ere the end have I become the master of this universe! The Zeitgeist. The blade that forms itself. The momentary master of eternity. Ah!

I raise the Zeitgeist. Harness it all. Unbridled power. Consciousness beyond compare! 

Dash of crimson, flight of soul. It cannot be…

The Window! The Window! My friend! The Window on the West! At last I have found thee.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

To live.

And then all was blue oblivion.

[End transmission.]

The Window on the West - Part 4: Battle in the Shadow of the Leery One

[Part four. The mountains at last. Should I terstay or should I tergo.]

Battle in the Shadow of the Leery One

The wasteland rises and falls on either side of me. No more can I bear the torments of the good folk. The pleas and the memories. Perhaps I have lost myself in this labyrinth, but I shall never know. It would be tragic to never have known myself. Or would it. The fate worse than them all though…no! Not ere the end.

Days pass as I scale the unforeseen. And finally at the rich deepening of twilight, I arrive at the last mountain. The ranges of madness, where the Leery One casts his shadows the darkest. There’s no escaping him now, he watches over us – always whirring, always vigilant. The unscalable mountains shrink as the shadows of the One force them down. A grotesque vision. Twist of mind. Home.

Albatross of gold. Catharsis! All I desire is catharsis at the end of the fray.

“Come,” cried the hero. “Let us match our blades. Let us pit our spirits. The draw of the Game nears.”

A rolling rumble from beyond the clouds over Tardeo, from beyond the Aegean. And then I was one! At last! Raaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The world vanishes in bloodshot hues as night time turns to day. It is a strange world where we find ourselves in, ever shifting, ever pressing on. The pulsing hum of everything wafted about as the May breeze.

Neither good nor bad.

And the enemy looked upon the hero. Oversensory cataclysm! Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The enemy thrust the Spear of Fate, the Lance of Worlds, the weapon of Them, the veiled adversary, thrust it with freeing finality. But it passes by me as the idle wind, arms outspread, idyllic siesta, song for the road, searching for only what I seek.

Who are you? And wherefore have you wrought the War to End All Wars? 

It was my reflection again, the unyielding other-self, but his words brushed by me too. With the electric jangling of the only life I’ve ever known, I flew. Like the west wind at the edge of the sea! To fight, to strike, to answer the call! The Hero of Ages. Flash of blade and silver of moonshine. I struck the Faceless with my mind, parrying and reeling all the way down. We were joined, two selves in a farcical Romance, embroiled in travail and joy alike. The battled raged on, through time, darkness and the edges of the universe. Through memories of a child and the death of consciousness. Through worlds where I am still alive and worlds where I will live ere the end. The Leery One smiled benignly on us, the pieces of his eternal arena.

 

The Window on the West - Part 3: Ode to the Window

[The third part of it all, I am forever beholden to thee.]

Ode to the Window

Ah, the sea of dreams. 

A young boy stood on the edge of Time, and gazed out wonderingly.

It’s been so long since I’ve these silent breakers roar. Gazed into the multifarious undulations of mystery that roll along this colourless hearse.

Pink and blue, with leaf green whiskers and snatches of despondent grey, danced where there should have been waves. The boy tried to find the sky, but it was all too beautiful. Too fleeting to try. He felt himself forgetting.

Is this it. Or has every journey been doomed since the Beginning.

A beast of a whale broke through in the distance, the gulls scattered, and the golden albatross shrieked, flying higher. Away, and away, and away.

Such sweet music.

The skylight open above me

The ship ready for its captain

I mourn the death of beauty, of Art and illusion

And miss the last train home.

Feels neither long nor short at the end

The fray’s the thing

Misunderstood Art, from now to eternity’s draw

The fray! The fray! All that I desire is with thee.

Can you give life where there is none. Can ya, punk? Plod through autumnal woods like nobody’s business. The quicksilver flight of the heart when my fickle fancies be met. People. People all around, and just them. To seek, and never to yield. The fray, how can you seek me?! I am a child of the Window. Yet, there is no life without Death, no art without Death, and nothing without the Window.

Yet you beckon me, you all-encompassing fray. To your open fields and sunburnt earth and placid grey and dearth of memory and windowless sky will I go. Ere the end, you will have me yet.

Thou Window, thou beauteous Window

How long have I gazed upon thee

Waited for the sun to light up behind your wispy veils

Waited for the next when there was no now

Waited for the truth to strike me

For revelation, salvation and being

Yet waited in vain.

From the long limbs of fatigue to days of unbridled youth

I have waited, and sought thee

From ages my simple mind could never have imagined

To people who linger not forevermore.

From fields that cried for me when Ague’s ghastly grasp had me in her stride

To the turning of the Zeitgeist, as I gazed and left well alone

To sights and sounds that my mind will know later in the day

And to the West, where I must go!

The boy wanted to go on. But there was fear meddling up the wonder. Was he not master of his own heart? His own mind? To seek?

The gentle winds of time have rubbed me a-right

Through even the tears have I persevered,

Through red foliage of autumn and days of the winter moth,

Through the rain that gently smiles,

And the stark cold that show no mercy.

Through the drabness of summer,

And the innocence of storm,

Through times I have been one with the Consciousness and more!

From now to way back when,

Ah, for the Window on the West! How long have I yearned for thee!

How long have I waited to cast mine eyes on thee!

Thou accursed, lovely window, I’ll look through thee yet!

The boy turned as I turn now. To pursue the basest and noblest of desires, if there be such things. Maybe tomorrow, said the boy, and ere today, say I!