Bhaisahab Ki Dukaan

Why They Don't Make 'em like Richards No More

2009-10-28T02:09:00.006+05:30

In a West Indies vs Australia match, Aussie bowler Greg Thomas beat the bat of Sir Viv Richards a couple of times.

Greg Thomas: "You seem to have trouble locating the ball. Let me help you - it's red and looks like this." (Holds up the ball)

Richards (After hitting the ball for six on the next delivery) : "You know what it looks like maan - now go and fetch it!"

Fetch!

Bhaisahab ke photos: Under My Umbrella

2009-09-21T20:24:00.001+05:30

[Click pic for best view]

UNDER MY UMBRELLA
Versova beach, Monsoon 2009

How To Do A Love Song

2009-09-12T13:58:00.005+05:30

Pete Yorn's Lose You. A four and a half minute masterclass on how to write, compose, render and visually represent a love song.

Or watch @ YouTube

WWW Crazies Vol 1: Nut Aboard

2009-09-11T23:04:00.006+05:30

Who doesn't like glancing at the 'Comments' section on web pages? Often, on torrent sites, comments by other users can save your computer's ass by warning you about dubious torrents. In news and information sites (Cricinfo, YouTube), comments help quickly gauge public opinion, and posters also add more information about the video/news, apart from carrying on lively debates.

Yet sometimes, one finds a comment so bizarre and ludicrous, it could only have been posted by a lunatic. Some of them are so uniquely unintelligible, they deserve recognition. This brand new label is Bhaisahab's effort to preserve instances of internet lunacy as encountered on the 'Comments' section of websites he visits.

The loony who gets the honour of being the first to be thus felicitated is the ironically named 'professorfuntime.' On the 'Comments' section on Pirate Bay for the Roger Corman film 'The Raven' (soon to be reviewed here), the sour professor had this entirely unrelated comment to make:

"^ Fuck off loser! Crawl back under the rock from whence you slithered. Don't you find yourself thinking what the fuck am I doing writing shit like this. "

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out who the prof was admonishing. If you can, pray do enlighten me.

Click here to read the comment in context

Bhaisahab ki poetry: 30 minutes on a borrowed laptop

2009-09-09T11:34:00.004+05:30

So this Monday, Bhaisahab found himself in Mumbai's NCPA, to catch his good friends perform their unique and pioneering art.

Arriving as early as possible, as is his wont, he killed time thus:

@ncpa
silent hall
empty seats
fingers twitch
one hour to go

cap
a boat inverted
a head tonsoured
no vacancy for lice
cotton keeps scalp cool

jug
leaning to the right
reading classical texts
of -isms and -ologies
silver shines bright

row Q
some are driven
others drive
but all arrive
to sit in row Q

Zamyatin on Happiness

2009-09-05T10:08:00.005+05:30

In 1921, Yevgeny Zamyatin published a novel in Russian called We. Set in the distant future, the book describes a dystopian One State in which everything is reduced to mathematically precise equations. (Predictably, Soviet authorities banned the book)

For instance, here's how the narrator, D-503, describes happiness:

"...bliss and envy -
they are the numerator and denominator
of the fraction known as happiness."

Bhaisahab says

Read more about We and Zamyatin.

Bhaisahab ke horror film reviews: Bumper edition

2009-09-03T21:00:00.008+05:30

In which we review Hollywood classic The Changeling, J-horror cult Noroi, and Belgian survival horror Calvaire.

THE CHANGELING (1980)
Directed by Peter Medak
Written by Russell Hunter, William Gray, Diana Maddox

3.5/5

Plot: John Russell, a professor of music, loses his wife and kid in a tragic incident. Six months on, he moves to Seattle to get on with his life, taking a teaching job at the university. He moves into an old mansion, where bizarre noises and sights point to the presence of a spirit. A séance is conducted, and the spirit turns out to be that of a boy called Joseph. Why does Joseph haunt the house? Why does he repeatedly ask Russell for help? John Russell finds the answers in the shady past of the powerful local politician.

Good things: The séance sequence is k.i.c.k. a.s.s. It’s very realistic, extraordinarily spooky, and Helen Burns gives a virtuoso performance as the medium. This is a film not about jolts and shocks but more about atmospherics. Much like The Shining, The Changeling creates a dark foreboding atmosphere inside the Victorian-era mansion, in which the slightest sound, the tiniest of dark spaces, throbs with the promise of terror within it.

Not so good things: Plot wise, it would have helped if John Russell had more at stake to solve the mystery behind Joseph’s death. The way his character has been written, he seems to be driven purely by altruism in his quest for answers. The film would have been edgier if Russell’s own life depended on salvation for Joseph’s unquiet spirit.

Trivia: Apparently, the story is loosely based on events experienced by co-writer Russell Hunter.

NOROI aka The Curse (2005)

Directed by Kôji Shiraishi
Written by Kôji Shiraishi & Naoyuki Yokota

4.5/5

Plot: Masafumi Kobayashi, investigator of the paranormal, has disappeared while filming a documentary on an ancient curse. We are then treated to this documentary, which shows Kobayashi and his intrepid cameraman Kana Yano descend into a series of events that gradually turn from plain weird to ‘holy shit what the fuck was that’ scary. The documentary project leads Kobayashi to a village washed away by a dam, where rituals to a demon called Kagutaba were performed before the village went under water. By the end of the film, Kobayashi’s family is destroyed, his house burnt down, and he himself vanishes.

Good things: Bull’s eye by the Japanese yet again. Shot entirely in DV as a mockumentary (a la Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield), Noroi is scarier than both films put together. At times haunting, at times downright terrifying, and always creepy, Noroi breaks new ground in horror by it’s minute attention to detail and superb pacing. Some of the scenes have to be seen to be believed. Jin Muraki as the fearless explorer Kobayashi is utterly believable, with his rotund frame and polite ways as he inquires his way into the very center of hell. At just over two hours, the film may seem long to many, but trust me – it has enough meat in it to keep you chilled from the first frame to the last.

Not so good things: Are you kidding?

Trivia: The movie’s tagline: Everybody dies. Nice, eh?

CALVAIRE aka The Ordeal (2004)

Directed by Fabrice Du Welz
Written by Fabrice Du Welz & Romain Protat

2/5

Plot: Marc Stevens is a small time singer, who makes a living singing songs in retirement homes and schools. Returning from one such gig, he gets lost in the forest and what’s worse, his van breaks down. He gets help from a gentlemanly inn keeper Monsieur Bartel. At first Bartel and the local village idiot Boris seem forthcoming and eager to call rescue services and get his van towed. But Marc soon realizes, to his utter horror, that Bartel believes in that old Eagles credo – You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. See, Bartel is batshit insane. He thinks Marc is his wife Gloria, who apparently was a ‘slut’ sleeping with all the men in the village. Bartel proceeds to imprison Marc, brutalize him, make him wear Gloria’s frock, and rape him. But Marc’s horror multiplies when the villagers come to know Gloria is back. Turns out, the whole village is batshit insane.

Good things: Not too many. There were a couple of creepy moments, sure. The stand out scene is the disturbing dance by the villagers in the pub, a dance so weird it’s spine chilling.

Not so good things: The film is a little too dense for my simple tastes. Much of the story has to be deduced by reading between the lines. Pretty hard to do when you don’t understand the language. The horror of Calvaire isn't supernatural, nor does it, like traditional survival horror, rely excessively on shock moments. That is to say, there's no chainsaw wielding Leatherface creeping up on you. The horror here has a gritty, queasy, what-if-this-happens-to-me texture. Unfortunately, it isn't forceful enough.

Trivia: "With the exception of the subtle violin tune heard during the final shots and closing credits and the creepy piano play in the bar, the film has no music score." (IMDB)

Rust In Peace Sucker

2009-09-02T13:13:00.004+05:30

In a remarkably hard hitting interview to Outlook, Jaswant Singh cuts Mr. Iron Man down to his right size - just another mediocre Indian polishitian who cannot ever think big, forget thinking out of the box. Sample this:

"To me, it’s a matter of great sadness that Advaniji has singularly failed in his function as a leader to lead. A leader will have to lead by example. Not through diktats, not through vague and unspecified insinuations and fears. And in the army, the leader takes the flak. If you transfer responsibility, and if you do not stand up for those who are colleagues, then you are not a leader. There are numerous examples of how Advaniji, on the occasions that trouble him and where he is likely to come under fire, either keeps quiet or immediately transfers responsibility to somebody else. This is not the trait of a leader."

Or this:

"I’m very distressed and this I do want to say that Advaniji is using the party to which he belongs for his various book launches. Every book launch he goes to in whichever part of India (for language editions of his autobiography, My Country, My Life) is actually organised by the party. Please, this should be asked of the party. The party congregates for his launches. This is a demonstration of sycophancy. Misuse of the party. It’s sickening."

Or this:

"I used to say that other than the Communists and the BJP, all political parties are really private limited companies built around a family or a leader. That no longer applies to the BJP. It has been reduced to the proprietary partnership of a few. This has come about under the leadership of Advani. If you allow this to happen, I say you are then not a fit instrument to serve the interests of the country."

Vinod Mehta must have had multiple orgasms when he got his pseudo-secular hands on the juicy interview, especially following Arun Shourie's hilariously funny (to everyone but the BJP, and even that is not certain) remarks on the idiot Rajnath Singh.

Poor old BJP. I guess if you don't play by god's rules, god finds a way to fuck your trip.

Jaswant Singh's interview at the Outlook website.

Them Yankees

2009-08-22T18:21:00.002+05:30

One more relic from the height of the Bush Years, when America turned from dumb to dumber, as personified by their Decider-In-Chief.

(Click image for full size)

Bhaisahab ke horror film reviews: Creepshow

2009-08-21T16:47:00.007+05:30

CREEPSHOW (1982)

3.5/5

Directed by George Romero
Written by Stephen King

Goddamn! Who would’ve thought Big Stevie King could act, and how!
More on that later – I just had to say it up front.

When you put George Romero and King together, chances of the film going wrong are pretty slim. With Creepshow, Romero – king of the zombie film – demonstrates his oeuvre extends much beyond the undead. And Big Stevie is Big Stevie – on the ball, pulling no punches, ridiculing those who ridicule horror stories while serving up five delectable nasties in this anthology.

The five campy tales that make up Creepshow, bookended by a little story about a rebellious little kid (played by King’s own son Joe) whose dad won’t let him read horror comics, are by and large true to the goal of the film, which I believe was to bring to life 1950s era horror comic books. The plots are pulpy, the boo moments suitably cheesy, and the music is top notch.

The special effects are great, especially in the truly horrifying “They’re Creeping Up On You,” which poses a question few would find easy to answer –How many cans of bug spray would you need if trapped in an apartment with billions of cockroaches? The make up effects for the ghouls, on the other hand, are disappointing. Yeah, I get the thing about paying tributes to the 50s, but come on – let’s at least try to hide the seams on the rubber suits guys!

One stand out thing about Creepshow is the seamless transitions of comic book slides and film. While technologically inferior to similar transitions in 2003’s Sin City, which is to be expected, the transitions in Creepshow make up for it with smooth aesthetic choices.

The story I liked most was “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill.” Verrill, played by Stephen King himself, discovers a strange liquid in a meteor that crashes near his shack. He decides to sell the meteor to the university, and takes it home. But gradually, as the night passes, the alien liquid seeds thick otherworldly fungus on whatever it comes into contact with. The floor is not safe, the TV is not safe, the bathroom mirror isn’t safe, the couch is not safe, and Jordy Verrill’s own body is not safe from the frighteningly fast growing fungus.

That's right Mr. Verrill. Go right ahead and touch that meteor.

Stephen King as Jordy Verrill

It’s a wacky story, and King has written many such surreal tragic-comedies – “Trucks,” where a group of travelers are held hostage by monster trucks with minds of their own, “The Moving Finger,” where a man battles an unearthly finger poking out of his sink, are a couple written in the same vein. What took me completely by surprise was this entire side to Stephen King that I was not aware of. The man is an actor! He plays the rustic fool Jordy Verrill in a no holds barred, over the top performance that will warm the cockles of longtime fans.

A toast to Big Stevie! He’s good at whatever he does.

Bhaisahab ka art: Dhishum

2009-08-07T23:02:00.002+05:30

DHISHUM

The Mother of all Poems

2009-08-04T15:02:00.003+05:30

If, as Robert Frost claimed, a poem "begins in delight and ends in wisdom," then surely this is the world's greatest poem.

In The Desert
by Stephen Crane

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

I said: “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”

Who is Stephen Crane?

Cricinfo: Where it's at

2009-08-01T18:59:00.005+05:30

Cricket fans rejoice. We don't have to suffer the bad grammar, ugly analogies, and embarrasing foot-in-the-mouth moments that Gavaskar, Shastri, Akram et al inflict from the commentary box. All you need to do is head over to Cricinfo. Over the years, the quality of their text commentary has improved by leaps and bounds. What makes following a match at Cricinfo even more pleasing are the interactive features unavailable to television viewers - stats on demand, 3D animation of wickets and boundaries, a newly introduced Hawk Eye, and the ever pleasing feedback from readers across the world bantering with the commentators. Sample this from the 3rd test of the 2009 Ashes:

10.45am: As the umbrellas remain in place in Birmingham, Pete from Australia makes his point: "Merv Hughes has just shown why he should not be selecting teams. They rate Watson as one of 5 openers in the squad because he opens in one-dayers - that is laughable. If that's the case, why didn't Adam Gilchrist ever open in Test matches?"

And Graham asks a question which, frankly, I don't know the answer to: "Didn't Edgbaston used to have a motorised cover for the entire playing area, including the outfield? The 'Brumbrella' wasn't it? What happened to that?"

Gav from Scotland has an answer about the Brumbrella: "It was removed as it was 'too heavy to move once it had rain on it'! - only in England could an umbrella be too heavy to move after a shower."

Good fun isn't it? And rain delays on Cricinfo also lead to interesting off-the-cuff contests. This one, a limerick contest beginning with the promising line - "There once was a man named Flintoff." Apparently there were hundreds of responses. The winner:

There once was a man named Flintoff,
'Oft injured, he rarely had the splint off,
But ten overs at Lord's,
Went through 'Stralia like swords.
And with five wickets in hand he did sprint off
Steve Fox, UK

Bhaisahab's favourite:

There once was a man called Flintoff
Whose bouncers damn near took your head off
But with his bad knee
We'll just have to see
If his dancing is better than that Gough
John King, UK

Read more hilarious Flintoff limericks here.

As for Bhaisahab, he's going to mute the TV and rely on commentary from Cricinfo.

Bhaisahab ki beti: Leela

2009-07-27T16:42:00.004+05:30

LEELA
b. 24 July, 2009
(Click pic for bigger size)

Bhaisahab's 100th post had to be special. And so it is.

Some day soon, I'll recount how we got scammed by the private medical establishment. But not today. Today let's just admire the heir to Bhaisahab Ki Dukaan.

Kabir: On Transience

2009-07-21T10:48:00.004+05:30

जो उग्या सो आंथीबै, फूल्या सो कुमिलाई |
जो चिरिणया सो दहि पड़े, जो आया सो जाई ||

What rises shall set some day, all that blooms must rot,
What has been built shall some day crumble, all who come must leave.

Bhaisahab ke horror film reviews: The Descent

2009-07-20T18:45:00.020+05:30

THE DESCENT (2005)

Written & Directed by Neil Marshall

2.5/5

Oh no. Another much talked about film that Bhaisahab was eagerly waiting to see, and another disappointment. Brit director Neil Marshall's second film, after the highly acclaimed (by others, so I'll take that with a pinch of salt after my experience with The Descent) Dog Soldiers, The Descent flatters to deceive. Big, big time.

The story of a bunch of women who love extreme sports, The Descent begins with a tragedy for the lead - Sarah (Shauna Macdonald). A year later, during which time one assumes Sarah has been too preoccupied overcoming her grief to give enough time to extreme sports, she arrives in the American Appalachian Mountains at the invite of her best friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza, who kicks ass) to explore some of the cave systems in the area. Joining them are four other women, each tough as nails and sexy when they want to be (the kind of babes who'd kick you in the balls without batting a pretty eyelid should you try something stupid, but also seduce you nice and slow till you holler uncle if they like what they see). However, Juno hasn't exactly been honest with them regarding the cave they are about to step into. But by the time she's forced to be honest, the group is trapped deep underground, with primeval eyeless cavemen for company. Cavemen who like the taste of meat.

That's where I lost interest in the film. Up until then, the film does an exceptional job of building a rising sense of claustrophobia as the primary engine of horror. You think getting stuck in an elevator is terrifying? How about being trapped in an unexplored cave where the only way forward is deeper into the darkness? But Marshall ruins it with the cavemen - boring, uninspiring, unscary shriek freaks who make the claustrophobia evaporate like so much ditch water.

The film made it to screens the same year another horror film set in a cave system - The Cave - was released. Comparisons, therefore, are inevitable. In The Cave too, carnivorous creatures replaced claustrophobia as the main agents of horror, but they worked because they were not humanoid - they were a delicious combo - part-human, part-dragon, part-eel, part-Archaeopteryx. Something that reminded me of the supreme monster of all - Ridley Scott's alien bitch. Besides, The Cave had the added chill of underwater terror, which (refer to the review of Rogue) can really max the terror.

Plot wise, The Descent scores over The Cave, with strong characters driving a story that is complicated and many-layered, with themes of maternal inadequacy, female bonding, and friendship under duress propelling the first one hour of the film quite nicely.

As far as climaxes go, The Descent again scores over The Cave. It's an ending that, although not original, represents an independent vision rather than a studio-dictated one, but you wouldn't want me to go into detail about that here would you?

All in all, The Descent was well begun but half done.

Post Script [Spoiler alert]: One notable thing about the film: The Descent is the only horror film I've seen which has an exclusively female cast. Sarah's husband has a 2 minute appearance in the beginning, and the cavemen - well, they're not human are they?

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Are they?

Profano Intus Decor (Being an account of a visit to Nainital)

2009-07-19T11:54:00.007+05:30

Nainital, 2004. A withering rhododendron floating in the gutter on a hot, muggy day.

If you want to know what tourism is doing to the Himalayas, come on up to Nainital. Row to the centre of the deep green lake and take a look around. The hills - as they were and as they always will be - are beautiful, but only if you ignore the hideous, haphazard, tin and wood buildings that pockmark them like small pox boils.

It makes one glum to witness once beautiful hills sheltering a romantic lake metamorphose into a chaotic, unplanned, obscene and unsightly urban slum, greedily sucking in the piles of currency flung at it by the Shahi Paneer crowd.

Only tourists go to Nainital these days. Travelers go elsewhere.

It was our misfortune to arrive at the height of the tourist season - when a wave of well-fed men and women from Delhi and its lesser cousins were roaming Nainital’s Mall Road – the epicentre of the disease, accompanied by thousands upon thousands of ill-behaved children. The kind whose parents never told them an essential truth about life – you don’t seek video games on mountain tops.

They walked up and down Mall Road, parents and kids, shrieking at each other and slobbering over ice creams, all day and all evening. The younger men shamelessly leered at fashionable newly-wed women, who accompanied their pushy husbands as they scoured the crowded roads for a place to eat. Mall Road has hundreds of options for this activity, all of them doing their best to cater to the tourists’ tastes, which evidently boiled down to two – Shahi Paneer or Butter Chicken. The rare exceptions which deviated served food so bad it would have given maggots a bout of queasiness. For instance, I had ordered roast chicken from the continental menu of a restaurant called Flatis (yes, we should have been warned by that, I know), and it looked and tasted like boiled chicken coated with tamarind sauce. The worst part – I paid 100 bucks for that shit.

The crowd was bad, but what was worse was the constant sound of car honking. Perhaps forty, fifty years back, the hills of Nainital knew no other sound but the chattering of crickets and the chirruping of birds. Now, I fear the hills would not be able to take the vehicular noise much longer. One of these days, they are just going to sigh and collapse into the welcoming embrace of the lake. The infernal sound of horns is enough to make one go insane, for the ears keep negating what the eyes see in the distance – that this place is as far away from those mountains as Mumbai is to Shanghai.

As a result of the invasion of the Shahi Paneer crowd, people in the tourism business in Nainital have never had it so good. They’ll charge your shirt off for a walk through a pinhead, if you know what I mean. This is especially the case with accommodation. We walked into a hovel to inquire about rooms, and encountered a faux Anglo Indian (complete with a scarf), the manager and perhaps owner of the hotel. He encouraged us to check out his room before fixing the tariff. We were led to a room which was uglier than a crow’s asshole and stank twice as bad. Its walls were painted a peculiar combination of sky blue and dark green, or I think that is what the combo was because a 40 W bulb was all the light the dank room was equipped with. Its mustiness irritated the nose, and the toilet brought bile to the throat. We walked back to the sahib and asked, more out of politeness, what the charges for that box was. “Thou.” He said. I did not get it in the beginning. Was he going to recite the ten commandments? Then he lifted one finger. “Thou,” he said again, and calmly lit his cigarette. 1000 bucks? For that pile of shit? Mrs Bhaisahab’s outrage was visible, as it always is under such circumstances, while I considered awhile his smug face, hair jelled back and moustache trimmed to the last errant hair. Then we walked out.

Eventually, we had to settle for a room just slightly better than Thou Uncle’s but at a considerably cheaper tariff. Whatever rooms we liked, were priced upwards of 1.5K. And its not like we are the 100-channel TV and personal bar types.

This particular room was in a hotel named Paryatak, a name that looked like a fish on a bicycle amidst the Pine Views and the Lake Views. Its distinctive feature was the Indian style toilet, which was perched on a platform nearly two feet above the bathroom floor. The missus’ take on it was that it was like climbing the Qutub Minar to take a shit. It may not be a good take, but it made us laugh.

Later, I asked the manager of Paryatak Hotel why Nainital was so expensive. His view was that the population of Nainital depends on the Shahi Paneer crowd for economic sustenance. And the latter arrive only in the summer months, peaking in June. The rest of year, he assured us, Nainital resembles a ghost town. Thus, summer is when Nainital sucks up as much money as is possible from the plains - sucks up enough to sustain it through the harsh winter months, exactly like rodents preparing to hibernate. “You come in winter. You’ll get the same room for 100 bucks,” he grinned.

Coming to the good things now. There were two. One was a horse ride in the hills, and the second was the boat ride in the lake, or tal. You might say a guided trip around the hills of Nainital by a horse – leash tightly in the hands of the handler – is such a Shahi Paneer thing to do. But I had never ridden a horse man!

Thus, we were taken to a point above Nainital by cab to where the horsemen of Nainital lived. These guys were all Muslim, and the owners of some fine looking horses. We were to be taken by Kamran and his father on two horses to five places of visual interest – Dorothy’s Seat (or Dorothi Sheat), Land’s End, Tiffin Top, some wondrous place where Koi Mil Gaya was filmed, and finally to a mandatory Lover’s Point, where - you guessed it - defeated lovers jumped off and crushed the hateful world below with their broken bodies.

Dara, Kamran, Rustam

The horses were beauties – mine was Rustom and Mrs Bhaisahab’s was Dara – and it was cool to be on the saddle. The bigger thrill was when Kamran left the leash with me and pushed off, leaving me in control of a horse clippity-clopping down narrow mountain paths. I was apprehensive as to what the fuck was I supposed to do if the horse suddenly reared, or fell off the steep hill. I mean, sure I loved animals and all, but I was no Alexander. But Rustom had a mind calmer and more able than most MBAs I have met. He just snorted at me to relax and take in the view. All I had to do was pull the leash a little if I felt he was going too fast, twist it to the right if I felt he was going too close to the edge of the mountain for my comfort. That’s all there is to horse riding. Once I got the hang of it, I pretended to be a Louis L’amour cowboy, heading into the Colorado mountains to seek my own piece of ranch land.

The places we saw were pretty ho-hummy, except for Dorothi Sheat. Here, a guy had set up shop (a table and a cupboard) advertising photographs in fancy clothes – whatever you fancy - and the Shahi Paneer crowd was loving it as much they dig their McVeggie burgers. What’s more, it was the same price – twenty bucks for a dress. “Goddamm!” they exclaimed.

They got their kids to dress up in some crazy outfits. There was a plump little boy of no more than 5, who was wearing a yellow superhero suit with black Phantom goggles. Another kid, slightly older, was dressed as a daaku, complete with a fake air-gun and a turban. He was accompanied by a girl robed in a pink ghagra choli. The photographer took them on a rock, made them pose, and clicked – the daaku and his captive damsel in front of ageless green mountains, who surely must be getting some super entertainment at Dorothi Sheat. But at least it was kids who did the tomfoolery there. According to the missus, in Mussorie full-grown adults do the same – dress as fat Basantis and butt ugly Veerus or as Romeos and Juliets and pose for creative businessmen to click their photos.

Our boat in Naini Lake
(Don't miss the ugly buildings in the BG)

The boat ride around the tal was good too. It’s a big lake, is Naini, and the boatman told us it is 120 feet deep at its centre. We had a chat with the boatman on the basics of the boat economy in Nainital, and this is what we found out – most of the boatmen are Hindus, unlike the horse keepers, and none of them owned the boats they rowed. These boats, costing 35-45 grand, were owned by folks in the government machine. The owners would then rent the boats to the pros and charge them 60 bucks per boat ride for the favour. The boatmen in turn would charge tourists 120 bucks for a ride around the lake. We wondered, however, how the owners kept track of the number of rides their boat has done on the lake. They probably install minders on the lake front who keep score. We told the boatman to take us around twice. This way, perhaps the minders would not notice the second round and the boatman could earn an extra 120 bucks. Besides, Shahi Paneer season was when they could make a living with boats. The rest of the year, they had nothing to do but grow potatoes on small plots of terraced land. Hopefully, we gave the dude a leg up.

While cruising along on the green waters of the lake, we passed a boat with a Shahi Paneer family in it. It was a pedal boat, and the family was engaged in pedalling in unison. At the centre of the boat, this family had placed a Made In China two-in-one, which was squeaking out a film tune. We looked at each other with wide grins as a shrill, tinny version of “Mera jeevan kora kagaz” (not a very summer-y song anyway) floated out of the two-in-one, on a boat in the middle of a beautiful green lake. It was something Dali would have approved. Someone in that happy family actually had a brain stupid enough to cook up this plan - canned music on a boat ride in Naini tal. They slowly disappeared from view in the thin mist that had enveloped the lake, pushing pedals with fat, well-fed legs, as Kishore Kumar sang self-piteously about those who are truly happy in life – the ones who can bear pain cheerfully.

Early next day, we checked out of Paryatak Hotel and got the hell out of Nainital, erstwhile queen of the hills.

The water's cold no more

2009-07-18T09:11:00.005+05:30

Way back in 1993, a dude called Baba Sehgal stormed the fledgling Indipop charts with a curious song called 'Thanda Thanda Pani' (lit. cold, cold water). Featuring nonsensical lyrics and a baseline faithfully true to Queen's 'Under Pressure,' TTP was annointed India's first rap song - a full 3 years after rap as a musical genre became known to us thanks to MC Hammer's Grammy winning yet equally curious ditty 'U Can't Touch This.'

Flash forward to 2007, and this is what you get:

Evolution? Oh golly gee yes. Sublime evolution.

Bhaisahab ke photos: Louisa

2009-07-11T16:50:00.004+05:30

LOUISA
Bangalore, 2004
[Click picture for full size]

RIP King of Pop

2009-07-07T13:45:00.003+05:30

"If you enter this world knowing you are loved
and you leave this world knowing the same,
then everything that happens in between can be dealt with."

- Michael Jackson

Jackson fans set for 'King of Pop' final curtain

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Hundreds of millions of fans were preparing to bid a poignant farewell to Michael Jackson, as Los Angeles went into lockdown ahead of a star-studded memorial service.

Nearly two weeks after the death of the tragic "King of Pop," America is expected to grind to a standstill as the tortured music superstar is finally laid to rest.

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Adios dude. You got a bum deal, even though you had everything.

What am I going to miss most about The Gloved One? The signature high pitched 'aaao!' in the middle of songs. Which is also the reason I rarely liked his music. But MJ was so much a part of Bhaisahab's boarding school cultural milieu, he deserves a fond goodbye.

Here's my favorite MJ song:

Give In To Me - Michael Jackson featuring Slash

Bhaisahab ke horror film reviews: Rogue

2009-07-01T14:04:00.015+05:30

ROGUE (2007)

Written & Directed by Greg McLean

4/5

Opinion is divided on which is the meanest killing machine in the waters of the world - the Great White Shark, or the Salt Water Crocodile. Both are ancient hunters, perfecting their skills since the age of the dinosaurs, and both possess huge rows of serrated teeth set in a powerful jaw that can snap a man's head off just as easily as a man snaps a chicken leg into two.

Jaws introduced the Great White way back in the 70s, and what an introduction it was! It set such a high benchmark for the killer shark film, that few filmmakers have attempted further explorations of shark terror, and fewer still have expanded on the concept (Deep Blue Sea comes to mind because of it's innovative idea of genetically modified hyper-intelligent sharks).

Crocodiles and alligators, in contrast, have never really gotten their due. Even though title for title, I’m certain there are more alligator/croc films than shark films. Many a filmmaker has attempted to showcase the brute force of an alligator attack. Yet by and large, most of them have been B movies - shoddy animatronics, poor scripting, and an over reliance on gore to induce horror. (Lake Placid being a notable exception).

But Rogue, an Aussie film about a fiercely territorial 25 feet salt water crocodile hunting a group of tourists in Australia's verdant Northern Territory, could well be the benchmark for the croc film. The tourists are in the hands of Kate Ryan (Radha Mitchell), captain of the boat Suzanne and a backwoods expert on salt water crocodiles. Among the tourists are a travel writer, a man with a mission to immerse his wife's ashes in the river, and a plumpy Irish chick (Celia Ireland, who absolutely rocks in the limited screen time she is given). Their day is going fine - with some great sightings of crocodiles - until they see distress flares coming from the direction of sacred tribal land. Kate, following protocol, plunges the boat into a forbidden gorge. And leads her tourists into a one ton nightmare.

Rogue’s signature, just as it was in Jaws, is tension. That’s the ticket in an underwater monster flick isn’t it? As long as you are in the boat, no matter how flimsy, you are safe. If you fall into the water, all bets are off. Every ripple is a threat. That’s tension.

You're stuck neck deep in a bottomless river, not knowing what is swimming beneath you, inching closer to your thrashing legs. Tension.

You’re caught in a small island in a tidal river, night is creeping up, and so is the tide. Soon the island will be under water, where lurks a huge crocodile, equipped by nature to hunt best at night. That’s tension and you better believe it.

McLean plays out the heart pounding tension so well, building it up so lovingly, it’s hard even for hardened monster flick buffs like Bhaisahab to stop from squirming. Full marks on that score. The film also scores high on death sequences, and its moody music that is able to create an ocular interpretation of the monster croc much before we see it, filling us with dread.

The croc itself has also been wonderfully rendered to life by an efficient crew of animatronics experts, sculptors, and FX supervisors. Compared to Jaws' Great White, Rogue's croc is scarier because crocs are easily the most terrifying of all predators. Their dragon like appearance, coldly calculating reptilian eyes, sinewy jagged tails, and muscular jaws disturbingly similar to a T-Rex’s all add to make them bad news for whoever is unlucky enough to encounter one. And when it’s also a 25-foot chewing machine as in Rogue, oh bother – it’s time to take a piss in your pants and say hasta la vista to the world.

The characters in the film are nicely etched, with a healthy dose of that peculiarly charming redneck Aussie humor. But McLean doesn’t go overboard with his characters. Just when you think there’s going to be a longish character exposition, McLean reintroduces the croc – the star of the film. Nice.

Finally, don’t miss the lush cinematography. The shots of the wild, unexplored Northern Territory, access to large parts of which is judiciously guarded by aboriginal tribes, are spectacular, to say the least. There's breathtaking canyons, deep green waters, miles upon miles of grassland, red, weathered rocky cliffs, and much more.

Scenery to die for. Just ask the folks in the Suzanne.

India's Most Stupid

2009-06-26T21:17:00.006+05:30

The VHP. Now that's a fucking lunatic asylum if there ever was one.

And in the deepest bowels of the asylum lies the dungeon for the criminally insane - currenly occupied by the Bajrang Dal.

Tehelka journalist Tusha Mittal (note to self: not all Mittals are greedy soulless money making machines) went visiting a "camp" for kids organized by the dungeon loonies. Here's a longish extract from her astonished report.

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At first glance, one could mistake this for a boys’ summer camp. But a closer look, and something else emerges. There are lathi pyramids, hoops of fire, gunshots and lessons about the different stages of war. The boys must learn to jump through flames if their houses are set on fire by “terrorists, Muslims, illegal immigrants,” must know a gun intimately to use it for maximum impact. On their arms and foreheads are bright orange bands with red imprints. For Sandeep Yadav, 15, the son of a garment shop owner in Sarojni Nagar, the orange brings motivation and a sense of belonging. “It charges me up to fight,” he says.

For what? “To protect Bharat Mata.” From what? “Akraman” (Attack). By whom? He stammers. The English. The Australians. The Christians. The Muslims. Probe his newly acquired worldview further and this surfaces: “Hindu girls should not wear sleeveless clothes. That is what Bharatya sanskriti (Indian culture) teaches us. And if a Hindu girl marries a Muslim, her head should be chopped off and the Muslim man’s too.”

Welcome to the training camp of the Bajrang Dal, the youth sect of the rightwing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). It is a weeklong camp held annually to “instill courage within the Hindu youth and awaken them to their patriotic duties,” says Ashok Kapoor, Bajrang Dal Delhi convenor.

[SNIP]

Ask Vineet Kumar, 14, barely four feet tall, the son of a sports garments factory worker, what is the Bajrang Dal? With a voice not yet cracked, he answers in phrases – “Ram Setu, Ram Janambhoomi, Amarnath yatra, hartal, and chakka jam.” According to him, “Pakistani terrorists” were trying to shut down the Amarnath Yatra but the Bajrang Dal rallied every child in Jammu and Kashmir on the streets to protest. At the camp, Vineet learnt a new word he likes to thrust at every opportunity: Virodh (resist) — that is what he wants to do when he grows up. Ask what he will virodh against and his eyes wander, trying to distill the stew of textbook answers fed to him.

THERE WERE speeches: “Be weary of six M’s,” the boys were told from a booming microphone. “Muslims, Missionaries, Marxists, Lord Macaulay, foreign Media and Maino [UPA President Sonia Gandhi’s middle name].”

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Did I mention these guys are shit-for-brains morons, besides being pathologically insane? Yes sir. They're weary weary dumb.

Well, that's what you get when your party boss is a dude who looks like Spot Nana.

For Tusha Mittal's article and some interesting pictures of the "camp", click here.

Kabir: Morbid, True.

2009-06-26T10:48:00.008+05:30

माटी कहे कुम्हार से, तू क्या रोंधे मोहे
इक दिन ऐसा आयेगा, मैं रोंधुंगी तोहे

Says the earth to the potter - you think you're crushing me?
Such a day shall come to pass, when I'll be crushing you.

An epiphany

2009-06-20T19:54:00.013+05:30

That's Frances Bean Cobain, old Kurt's daughter. The last time I saw a picture of her, she was a chubby little baby, blissfully unaware that her dad had just blasted his brains out with a shotgun in the garage.

She's 17 years old now.

She's how old I was when I first heard her father's music.

.

.

.

.

As Martin Amiss wrote in Money:

"Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by....
It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving."

Bhaisahab says:

Bhaisahab ke horror film reviews: Zibahkhana

2009-06-16T11:25:00.006+05:30

ZIBAHKHANA

2/5

Written by Omar Khan and Peter Toombs
Directed by Omar Khan

When Bhaisahab was little, he went to visit Delhi with his family. He was thrilled because he could finally see those sights he kept reading about in books - Red Fort, Appu Ghar, Purana Qila, Qutub Minar, Alai Minar.

Whoa! Alai Minar? Yeah. Alai Minar - The great Khilji Alauddin's attempt to build a minar taller than the Qutub, and true to the man's character, he ordered it constructed right in front of Qutub Minar.

Unfortunately, the emperor popped it before the cement had dried on the 24 metre first storey, pitifully short of the Qutub's 72 odd metres. But for some unexplained reason, Bhaisahab was more excited about checking out Alai Minar rather than the Qutub.

When the tour bus got there, it was a rude shock to find Alai Minar looking woefully inadequate in front of the stately, majestic, clean Qutub. It sulked in one corner of the Qutub complex, bird poop lining it's floor in a thick carpet, a stale bird smell suffocating the senses, lover’s declarations scratched on the walls, beer bottles and chips packets piled in the corners. A historic garbage dump.

It was, to put it gently, a huge fucking disappointment.

Zibahkhana arouses the same feeling of disappointment. Created by our friends across the border to the west, Zibahkhana had made waves internationally, marketing itself as Pakistan's first zombie horror film. A bloody B-Grade attack on the genteel idiosyncratic sensibility of Urdu aesthetics. So when I finally got my hands on the film, I could not wait to watch it. But it was all for nothing. The film's noble intentions have been stymied by a paper thin plot, a confused screenplay, cheesy dialogues, and terrible, terrible actors (even by horror film standards).

Writers Omar Khan and Peter Toombs (sepulchral name, that) packed in all the clichés - flesh eating, slow moving undead, vague insinuations of water pollution spreading the zombie virus, doltish, good looking, dope smoking teens on their way to a rock concert, a bizarre sideways shift to a burkha-clad psycho killer, and buckets and buckets of blood.

But as the pioneer of the zombie horror flick George Romero himself will testify, gore alone doth not a zombie flick make. In the end, like in any another genre, story matters, depth of character matters, originality of vision matters.

However, let's not withhold credit where it's due. Bad execution should not overwhelm good intentions. Omar Khan is obviously a huge fan of the horror genre. In the room of one of the characters, he's put up the chilling poster of Maniac, one of the scariest movie posters ever. I think I have it here somewhere....

Ah here it is.

To get back to Omar Khan, he's done a great job with the zombie scenes. The communal flesh eating scene is raw, ferocious, and brutal. Great stuff. The spiked ball on a chain used by the psycho (see poster) is another great spark, a truly innovative idea. Finally, the title track - an instrumental ditty - kicks ass. Ataullah Khan meets RD Burman. A most apt track for the cheesy, campy feel of the film.

When little Bhaisahab's Delhi trip was over, he'd returned home feeling kind of sad for poor Alauddin Khilji and his unfinished dream. Alai Minar has since then held a fond place in his heart. Zibahkhana likewise is floating down into that deep dark part of his heart where such things as imperfect ugliness and unfinished dreams are stored.

In fact, I'm already quite fond of the film.